Remember Me

by Kyle Robertson

  Lord Kirkland’s major downfall was he sent Arakilmn to the incorrect time-period. The Rayless One is his descendant. I know of his powers and Araklimn will be his deadly assassin. Kirkland has sent his bloodline’s future executioner.

  His lineage’s reign of control will become nonexistent forthwith.”

  Arakilmn was cleansed of his confusion. His memory came crashing down upon him hard. Lord Sagen had finally punched a gaping hole into the dam of his subconscious. He almost drowned with the massive amount of subdued information suffocatingly engulfing him.

  “Is Princess Gwenlyn safe?” he asked Sagen.

  “Your chronology has tinkered with your being. The princess died many centuries ago. Your manifestation has sent you to the now. Then has long since past.”

  “My time thrust has not colluded my thinking,” Araklimn said. “I am referring to the time from wince I was evicted. Was she safe without my protection?”

  “You are entirely missing the point of why Kirkland sent you away, my dear boy. The princess was unprotected and immediately slain by his hands thereafter. That one causality engineered the dystopian squalor you are witnessing at this point of the current time fluidity.”

  Araklimn was upset with being forcefully cut off from his duty. He was the head royal guard who swore an oath to protect. He desperately wanted to correct this circumstance.

  “Then, with your wonderous spellbinding power, we will return to our time to destroy Lord Kirkland’s evil ways! Incant me with a potion, so his black magic cannot send me away once more!”

  Sagen felt terrible he had to give Araklimn the harsh deleterious news.

  “That was the past, Araklimn. Your native time doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Araklimn knew of Sagen’s mastery of all things mystical and came to a devastating realization.

  “We cannot return then.”

  “Time is like a fuse to an explosive,” Sagen explained. “Once the fuse is lit, it keeps moving forward. As it keeps relentlessly advancing, the remanence of the fuse is burned away. Once it has served its purpose, nothing exists to relight. Our time is akin to the fuse; used burned dust. Your memory is its last visual vestige.”

  Araklimn was becoming very frustrated he couldn’t cease this future calamity retroactively. He could have stopped this from happening. No Gorgon guards, no Renegades, or clans. Chloe could have been a psychologist instead of a covert spy risking her life and limbs for a cause that was dealt her. With this atrociously bad hand, she should’ve folded a long time ago.

  “All of this is very revealing, Krucks, but it won’t help us beat The Rayless One,” Fischer broke the dooming silence.

  “I am conditioning the warrior made to defeat him. I have been searching for years to locate your land’s only champion qualified enough to accomplish this impossible task. You knew not of the ancient Latin oath, so it wasn’t you. You will be of no consequence now. You just do not see your answer to his defeat is right before your eyes.” Sagen gestured to Araklimn.

  “It doth not matter now,” Araklimn said. “The stallions have escaped into the wood. I am but the tardy barn door to be closed with my ineffective containment.”

  “You believe you are correct. You still must assassinate The Rayless One. I speculate this just the dawn of his obliteration. You must halt his dreaded actions before this world plunges deep enough into the purgatory to where it would never have any chance of escaping.”

  “You do not realize how steep that mountain is, Lord Sagen,” Araklimn said. “It will be impossible to plant my flag at the peak without the proper equipment.”

  Fischer knew how difficult Araklimn’s task would be to defeat this unknown nemesis without any advantage. He had seen how dilapidated this planet had become within a mere decade. He had to try to correct this negative finality.

  “Raziel, are you still trying to create your temporal placement containment field?”

  “I don’t have the power source to engineer the containment field safely or at the elongated constant. It would require plutonium for it to even work. That amount of plutonium is only been rumored to be housed in renegade nuclear missiles in a mountain in Nevada. I gave up on that years ago.”

  “But if you had the proper amount of plutonium, could it work?”

  “Why does any of this matter?” Chloe asked. “We’re in Boston. That plutonium, rumored conspiracy theory plutonium I might add, is in Nevada. Even if we could transport it without dying of radiation poisoning, we'll never make it there. This country's not really in the best of shape health-wise.”

  “You all are thinking inside the box,” Fischer returned. “The reason I’m the leader is I’m crazy enough to think outside. Brakken, are your HD bots infiltration units?”

  Benny looked at his brother and began to understand what he was trying to concoct.

  “I only have enough bots to house ten people with an empty one for the nuclear transporting, but they would have to scavenge to make it that far.”

  “Hold up,” Rembrand interrupted. “You’re not thinking about traveling to Nevada from here to find a stupid rumor. That’s not thinking outside the box, that’s thinking in Make-Believe Land. A leader doesn't get his people killed over a crazy conspiracy theory.”

  “Ask King Leonidas or Emporer Ceasar if a leader doesn’t do anything crazy for victory,” Chloe said. “They didn’t call Alexander ‘The Great’ for nothing.”

  “Those people are dead, Klannis.”

  “Yes, they all are,” she confirmed. “Linear time does that to everyone. According to this planet’s timeline. You’re on a countdown to death the instant you were conceived. Stop the philosophy crap and find your bravery to try to succeed. That’s why Fischer’s our leader.”

  Rembrandt was appalled at Klannis. She didn’t understand why Fischer was their trusted leader. Why every decision he made was so calculated, and why the majority of them were still alive now.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Klannis. I’m his second, and I’m usually the reason he keeps us still going is by me curbing his crazy ideas.”

  “Yeah, just like my crazy stupid rescue attempt where all of my intelligence division were tied-up on their knees. No wait, that wasn’t Fischer’s crazy idea. That was his second’s crazy idea.” She hit home with her counter. “Rembrandt, nobody’s always right every time in this dead city. I believe Fischer has the right idea. You’re thinking about sending some BoltLayers to bring back that plutonium, right?”

  “Raziel needs to answer my question first.” Fischer turned to Raziel. “If you had the proper amount of plutonium, could you make your temporal displacement field operational?”

  “In theory that’s all I’ll need to fire it up,” he answered.

  “Then you have my number, Chloe, argue away.”

  Chloe smiled at Rembrandt.

  “Then, all we need is volunteers to enact this crazy idea, count me in as the first one.”

  They believed in their leader, so 9 of the combat squad including Raziel followed Chloe.

  Raziel was excited to get back to work with his inventing but had to calculate the mission parameters.

  “Your brother said he could transport ten of us, but we need a transporter to move the plutonium. Unless one of you wants to ride with the radiation to get a terminal suntan, one of you has to stay behind.”

  Fischer looked at Chloe.

  “I know you can hold your own on this journey, and you were the first to stick up for me, but these guys eat nails for breakfast and wash it down with motor oil on the broken glass rocks. You’re built for speed, not off-roading. Sorry, but you’ll have to stay back.”

  Chloe got upset. She could do whatever those guys could do.

  “That’s misogynistic. Fischer. A woman could do this as well. We have as much will and drive as the guys,” she said.

  “That’s not misogynistic,” a voice came from the group and Keisha stepped forward. “You’re right on one thing, Klannis, I coul
d kick all their asses. You’re a spy. I break things. Fischer’s delegating through skill, not gender.”

  Chloe was corrected immediately. She had to realize her gender wasn’t the primary decision factor for Fischer’s missions.

  “Okay, I’ll stay here. What should I do while the ‘Hardcore’ commandos are tanning in Nevada?”

  “Most of us aren’t as Lilly as you, Klannis,” Keisha told her. “This is strictly business. Us catching radiation burns would be way easier than catching a sunburn. Melanin can only beat one of those things. You do you. Stop trying to swing for the fences when you don’t know how to hit a radio-ball.”

  “Stop it, Keisha. You know Klannis is too young to know what baseball is let alone know the slang,” Fischer halted the tiff. “I need my best infiltration insurgent with me. You know Collin… well, Araklimn the best. He just lost his opportunity to get back home for now, and you are an expert at easing tensions.”

  “What do you think I can do? Araklimn’s a protector, he swore an oath, That ‘easing’ is aberrant at best. I can’t treat him until they come back.”

  “What be this quest and what conclusion does the journey entail?” Araklimn was miffed.

  “Were trying to get you back home, buddy,” Raziel interjected.

  “Balderdash! You heard Lord Sagen, my time is no more,” Araklimn said coldly.

  “I heard Krucks. He was considered a great master in his time. Unfortunately, this is my time. He can't know anything about hypercube fourth dimensional tesseract time jumping.”

  Sagen was the confused one this time.

  “We have discovered something, Krucks, time isn’t linear. I’ll use your fuse analogy, just slightly different.

  Say you lit that fuse for your bomb, but it only goes in one line. Instead of just using the straight fuse line, it gets tangled in on itself, but won’t burn until it’s supposed to. Time lasts way longer than the beginning of your period. We’re about to tangle that fuse and jump to an earlier unburned part, your part. We call it fourth-dimensional tesseract time-cube jumping via quantum entanglement,” Raziel explained.

  “What sorcery is this dark magic?!” Sagen asked upset.

  “It’s not any form of magic. I’m using my form of sorcery that beats all magic, I’m using science,” Raziel told Sagen.

  “Why are you trying to explain this to them using those words?” Rembrandt asked. “If you would have said you were using boiling ice cubes to pickle your frog legs, it would have made about as much sense to them.”

  “Do not heed the sagacious knight’s companion's words,” Araklimn told Sagen. “He has been enchanted by his god, science. He will speak as a loon in certain crucial times. We have to locate The Rayless One to destroy Lord Kirkland’s lineage.”

  “You’re not getting any of this,” Fischer intervened. “When you attack an adversary, you need the advantage. We don’t know enough about The Rayless One to plan a strategy. If you just go into his fortress without a plan, you will get decimated. With our plan, you won’t even have to see this guy. Kill the ancestor, and the descendant would never exist. It falls under the kill your grandfather before he has your mother then you’d never exist. It always fell under a temporal paradox, but this time, it’ll work. You’re not killing your ancestor, you’re killing his.”

  “Enough with your confusing words,” Sagen said. “We know our quest. We will defeat this Rayless One. It is Araklimn’s fate.”

  Fischer realized their eras were too temporally apart. He could never convince them his way was the correct one.

  “Okay, I’ve come to realize you have your own supernatural dogma you live by, and I think critically. You can go on your quest, but not alone. You need a rough smart Boston tour guide. Klannis, go with them.”

  Chloe knew what he wanted. Her job was to ‘wild goose chase’ them until the other crew had returned with the plutonium. She did have her own special usefulness.

  “What doth we need with your Valkyrie?” Araklimn asked.

  “She knows every crevice of this slimy dirt-hole. Where the Renegades, Gorgon Guards, and the wild dogs dwell. Sagen, you might be a great wizard, but I don’t think you want to tussle with a Xazen wolf with a pack of ravenous mutts if you could avoid them.”

  Sagen knew how psychotic those packs were, and didn’t want to waste his magic on them. He needed all his power for other discrepancies.

  “The knight is correct, Araklimn. We must avoid any calamitous excursions on our journey to The Rayless One. We would be graced to deal him a defeat at full capacity. A pack of wild dogs would hinder our quest severely. Bring the Valkyrie. She will aid us in this foreign land.”

  Chloe looked knowingly at Fischer. Their synergy was seamless and without words. They truly knew each other, and their plan was set without a tell-tale utterance.

  Raziel got his crew prepared to travel to Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

  Brakken, could you send for your HDs. I have to program our destination to their CPUs. They’re like Dresden tanks in their firepower loadout, right?”

  “Rail cannons, plasma missiles, and Hadron grenades. They’re my Hunter-Destroyers. I don’t skimp on useless overpowering. In this city, you go high or you go home. I want my boys to dance well on stage.”

  Fischer smiled.

  “I truly miss your quirkiness. Benny.”

  “It’s Brakken from now on Fischer, and I call your quirkiness my sassy attitude.” Fischer had to shift his brother’s title. By all intents and purposes, he did metaphorically kill Benny at the beginning of the Drop.

  “Borlund, you control them. Bring them all here joined together and assembled as transports.”

  Borlund took out his transmitter, programmed them all to assemble as APC transports, and directed them to the warehouse.

  “They’ll be here in twenty. Get your people ready. Nevada’s a little more than just a couple of miles away.”

  “We also have a quest to accomplish,” Sagen told Araklimn. “Bring the valkyrie and we shall sally forth.”

  “I’ll explain to them they’re not in the Navy, and The Rayless One’s mansion isn’t a floating Sallyport. See you again when we get back,” Chloe told Fischer. They executed a warrior’s grasp.

  “Can I see you outside, Sneak?” Borlund asked Chloe.

  “My name is not Sneak, it’s Klannis. What do you want?”

  “It’s important for travel… Klannis.” He pointed outside the warehouse for privacy.

  “Fine,” Chloe said with exasperation and followed him outside.

  Borlund closed the door and reached into his cargo pocket.

  “What?”

  “We’ll be back in four days; take these. You just throw them at the enemy to fry them.” He gave her a handful of shock weevils.

  “You almost made me pee myself with these things.”

  “That means they work. Just keep them concealed.”

  “I’m a spy. Borlund. I can hide items anywhere.”

  “We’re partners now. You creep and I equip. We have to start a good work environment.”

  “I know what they can do, so thanks for the assistance.”

  They walked back inside and she turned to Araklimn and Sagen.

  “If you guys aren’t ready to catch some rays, let’s get to it.”

  As they left out the door, Raziel. walked to Fischer.

  “Two things; first, if Klannis guides them into the belly, they’ll get killed as a prerequisite, and two, my fourth-dimensional tesseract matter placement transporter is still in the trial phase. Who even says this will work anyway?”

  “Answer one, Klannis will guide them everywhere else but the belly, and answer two, the only reason you’re still in the trial phase is that you don’t have your plutonium yet. You have one of the scariest street-machines in Boston, but without a high octane gas element, you’re just sittin’ on blocks in the front yard. When you can fill her up, you’ll get her to purr.”

  “All I can say about your painfully
simple analogies is… let’s hope you’re right on these two.”

  As much as Fischer displayed assured confidence, he hoped he was correct as well.

  Chapter Six: A Splitting of the Parties

  As Chloe and her 2 medieval vindicators were walking in the exact opposite direction of The Rayless One’s layer, Sagen asked her a question.

  “Valkyrie, why do we venture north when his evil layer is south from this location?”

  “Call me Klannis, Krucks. We have to get to the Wonderland sector to acquire a dog-pack monitor to avoid those mangy mutts and that Xazen wolf. If you want to try to go straight to Forest Hills, that’s entirely up to you, Magic Man. I just hope you have enough hocus pocus in your tank to take every random pack down because we don’t have potion gas stations for an enchantment fill-up in Boston.”

  “The Valkyrie is correct, Lord Sagen,” Araklimn said.

  “Call me Klannis, Collin!” Chloe was getting irritatingly insistent.

  “I go by my true title of Araklimn now,” he said.

  “Oh, so now you know how irritating it is to be called by a made-up name when a person knows your real name then,” she said beratingly.

  “But alas, you are the Valkyrie.”

  “I’m the Klannis who knows this grungy dump of a city. A Valkyrie leads the battle to the conclusion. I’m the one who steers the battle in my way to my conclusion. I don’t fight, I manipulate.”

  “I have witnessed you flog Brakken. You fight like a valkyrie,” Araklimn said.

  “I never said I couldn’t fight. My specialty is to use my skills to avoid a fight,” she said. “Why battle a Xazen wolf and her psychotic dog pack on the city streets when you can sneak past them by going down an alley? We’re about to get that alley map.”

  “Stay as rigid as the steel, Araklimn. With Klannis, we will defeat The Rayless One,” Sagen told him.

  My job is to run you mindless boy scouts around in circles. Your trust will make my job much easier. Chloe thought and became their leader. The other 2 would follow her anywhere.

  llll