Immortal Suicide: A Fight Across Time And Space

by Simon Bown

  Lucy found herself pinned to the ground underneath Weedon’s oppressive bulk. She became aware of the fact that Barton and Teafu were not fighting but talking. It was then she saw the striking similarity between them. A shocking realisation came to her. Barton is Teafu! He has come to stop his younger self from this terrible crusade.

  Weedon followed his gaze and was equally startled by the stop in the hostility.

  Barton looked at Teafu with a sorry stare. “What you are doing is wrong. You must trust me in what I say. I have had many, many years to come to terms with this evil campaign. I had to finally make a decision. So here I am. Determined to stop you.” He moved slowly forward putting Teafu between himself and the vortex.

  Weedon shouted to Teafu desperate and confused. “What are you doing? Kill him.”

  Barton looked at Weedon and smiled. “You know Weedon I had forgotten how bitter and just plain wicked you are.” He turned and faced Teafu.

  A subsonic pulse boomed over the summit platform. A tiny light appeared three feet above the dust and expanded into a gravity rift.

  Teafu looked over at it. “It’s not possible to open a rift up here.”

  Jenson Sollers emerged from the rift with six officers of the Amalgam security force. They spread themselves out in a semicircle.

  Barton took the initiative while Teafu was distracted and ran forward. He bent down and seized Teafu by the waist. The momentum carried them both toward the boundary of the massive energy source. Teafu twisted and threw Barton into the cascading cosmic fountain. He disappeared instantly, caught up in the ferocious power of the rising force.

  Lucy and Weedon were seized by four of the security men and taken into the rift.

  Several more personnel appeared and moved to aid Jenson.

  The warhead lay just a few feet from the men, fully loaded and ready to be primed. Teafu glanced down and took a step toward it. “Jenson Sollers. I thought we would not meet again. It’s oddly nice to see you. Are you taking me back through your rift?”

  “No. You would regain your telepathy. We are going to keep you here until we can work out what to do with you.” Jenson looked at the warhead and back at Teafu. “Your time of killing is finished.” He felt no sense of victory or happiness. Teafu was standing before him stripped of power and most certainly captured. He indicated for the security men to move and they surrounded Teafu, a pair of bonding bracelets was locked onto his wrists.

  EPILOGUE

  Lucy opened the door to her basement and paused to look down on her lab. He was struck with a sense of nostalgia. So many hours of her adult life had been spent here absorbed in study and experimentation and in a curious way it had led her in a circle back on herself. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at Jenson Sollers. “It all happened in here. The first rift, the first time I put myself through into another time and place. I wonder if Barton knew I was the one who emptied this basement or if he was just grabbing this piece of luck.” He made his way down the stairs to the floor and picked an empty mug from the table. He smiled, “It’s still warm.”

  A team of Amalgam engineers assembled on the stairs and waited for Jenson give them the go ahead to strip the room. “Everything will be taken to your apartment,” he said to Lucy.

  “Well I suppose you had better get on with it.” Lucy replied. She stepped back and watched the engineers begin to package her books. “What has become of Teafu? Is he still on Haras?”

  “Yes. We can’t risk bringing him back to the Amalgam. A permanent prison of sorts has been built at the foot of the dimensional volcano. He will be kept there until he realises his dreadful mistake or when the Mezzyima leave. He is immortal so perhaps he will be there for a very long time.”

  Two engineers looked at the reactor and gravity generator, one of them reached forward to unclip a power cable. Lucy rushed over to them. “I think that perhaps I should deal with this.” The two men returned to help their colleagues.

  Jenson joined her. “You know the Amalgam is very sorry to have to impose this on you. They and the Mezzyima feel that it is too dangerous to have a time machine lying around here on old Earth.”

  “Yes and a bit too dangerous to have a time traveller with the freedom to do what she likes.” Lucy patted Jenson on his back. “You know for the first time in my life I feel I’ve found a home and it’s in the Amalgam. Several thousand years in the future and on the other side of the galaxy.”

  Jenson stepped out of the way of two laden down engineers. “When does the Temporal Institute begin its work?”

  “We start next month after this gravity generator has been duplicated with Amalgam technology. As far as I know the Mezzyima have been unable to recreate the gravity rifts without your friend Gea. So that will leave just myself to operate the only time space generator.”

  The last of the books were carried up the stairs and through the rift to the Amalgam. The engineers began the task of breaking down the bookcases.

  Lucy looked down at her reactor. “Well I suppose I should start to dismantle this machine. After all, we haven’t got all the time in the world.”