Jericho Johnson: The Gauntlet of Time

by J. A. Stowell

  Me: What’s eating her?

  Evonne: Not sure. Perhaps the notion that her father didn’t tell her everything she needed to know to successfully pull off this mission and now she’s about as distraught as she can be with worry that he might actually die and it would be her fault. Not to mention the fact that your devilishly good looks might have her a bit shaken as well.

  What? You think I made that all up? And here I thought I’d already weeded out all the non-believers…

  “Look, Chloe, I know this isn’t exactly going according to plan for you but can I at least tell you my idea?”

  Without turning around she lifted a Russian shoulder. I stood and walked over to the balcony and stood beside her with my hands in the pockets of my suit pants. I’m a bit of freak when it comes to clothes. I figured since I actually was a billionaire I might as well dress like one. The suit I happened to be sporting that day was an Alexander Amosu and cost me a little over one-hundred grand. Just FYI.

  “Alright, here’s the deal,” I started, “Since the glove isn’t working for you, Evonne and I will take you back home. Once we’re there switching gloves will be a cinch, and my butler and I can be on our merry way.”

  Chloe had started shaking her head halfway through my verbal bout of brilliance but at least let me finish before speaking, “I told you, the second glove can’t transport other people.”

  Oh. I’d forgotten that little piece of info. And if you’re thinking I’d forgotten because I don’t listen to other people when they speak because of my extremely self-centered lifestyle…

  You’re actually right. So kudos, whoever-you-are. You’re catching on fast.

  Since Evonne had only accompanied me twice at that time, it wasn’t hard for me to alter my plan and tell Chloe that of course we kids would be fine if the old man stayed home just this once.

  I got to say, though, that not having my awesome bodyguard/butler with me turned out to suck really, really bad.

  Man, I am just full of awesome ideas. But, you know what they say about awesome ideas, right?

  Yeah, me neither. Let’s just get on with this thing, shall we

  Chapter 11

  I suppose this would be the best time to inform you that I absolutely hate being rushed into things.

  Nay, for such mere words cannot describe the abominable severity of my hatred for being rushed. ‘Tis an unholy passion that burns within my very soul, wreathing my inner being in the flames of animosity.

  You know, just saying.

  And as much as I hated and hate being rushed, that’s exactly what happened after I spilled my plan to Chloe. I guess you can say that she was the one doing all the rushing- which would make more sense considering how much I hate it and the fact that her father’s life hung in the balance.

  But to be honest, I was rushing, too. I mean, the thought of seeing what the world will be like in a little over three-hundred years had me buzzing.

  The plan wasn’t hard, really, and only had one setback, which was that even though Chloe was going to piggyback with me on the jump, her glove would still need the twelve hour recharge once we reached the other side. She gave me a quick spill about how the process of going through time would render the glove’s conductor to be blah blah blah… science science science… Russian Russian Russian… you get the idea. Geez, even in the future stuff locks up.

  I’m going to skip telling you about the rest of the day, which consisted of Chloe and I preparing for our jump. Now that I think back on it, I really don’t see what the big deal was. After taking away the fact that I was traveling into the future with a Russian chic to save her father’s life, it was really just me giving someone a ride home from work, know what I mean?

  “Where are the guns?” Chloe asked after she’d finished examining my weapon collection for like the ba-jillionth time.

  Let me interject here that I’m not a big fan of guns. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they have their place but I’ve always found them horribly barbaric.

  Give me the good ol’ days when men killed each other with sharpened pieces of metal and their bare hands and I’ll leave the gun powder to the real barbarians.

  The spill about guns you just heard is exactly what I told Chloe, who snorted, crossed her arms, and said, “So, no guns?”

  To which I curtly replied, “Well, I didn’t say that. Mitch?”

  Acknowledging my nod to him, Evonne crossed the room to the far wall, which wasn’t boasting a touch-screen monitor, and hit a button. The seemingly bare wall then rotated, exposing guns on top of guns lining the reverse side of the it.

  I know what you’re thinking. “Wow, Jericho. Aren’t you just awesome because you installed something that has been seen in countless movies for the last fifty years.”

  The truth is, that’s exactly why I had it installed. I’m a sucker for the classics. Sue me. But be warned that you’re going to be suing a billionaire with a basement full of state-of-the-art firearms. Just saying.

  And I suppose my lawyer would want me to also say something like having a permit for every single gun in my basement. So, uh, yeah, I did.

  Chloe was like a kid in a candy store as she ran up and down the gun-lined wall while giggling, yes, you heard me right, giggling, like a schoolgirl and it was kind of a funny sight. Then the funny sight became odd/horrifying as I realized that normal girls don’t go all crazy over guns. And why did she think I’d need a gun in my twelve hour visit, again?

  “Uh, Chloe?” I asked the smiling girl.

  “Yes?” She asked, selecting a sniper rifle and peering through the scope once while aiming at the ground before realizing that she needed something better and started sweeping the room with the extremely dangerous weapon.

  Calmly, I placed a hand on the rifle, lowering it. “Do you even know what you’re twirling around like an idiot?”

  Lost in her own gun-filled paradise, Chloe didn’t hear the coldness in my voice and said, “It’s an Accuracy International AW50 anti-material sniper rifle. Why?”

  Wow. The notion that someone other than me having such knowledge was intriguing. And actually kind of hot.

  “Range?” I asked.

  “1.5 miles.”

  “Year it was engineered?”

  “1999.”

  “Engineered by whom?”

  “Britain.”

  Man, this chic was good. “How about some of the earlier problems with the AW50?”

  Chloe threw the bolt before explaining, “Considering it was basically a mega-version of the L96A1 sniper rifle, which had severe recoil issues, I’m going to go with it being basically dangerous to fire.”

  I nodded but Chloe wasn’t finished, “Bolt-action and fires a standard 12.7x99mm NATO round and the cartridge holds five shells. It can also fire armor piercing, explosive-tipped and incendiary rounds. The full length is 53.3 inches, 27 of which are the barrel and it weighs thirty pounds total. Not at all suited for a battlefield.”

  I just stared at her, transfixed. Where had this chic been my whole life? “If I kissed you right now would you kill me or just hurt me really bad?” I asked.

  Chloe’s smile vanished. “I would kill you.”

  Nodding, I walked to the left side of the wall, “Fair enough.” I selected an older rifle and turned around, “Here.” I said, offering it to her, “I think you’ll get a charge out of this.”

  Chloe returned the AW50 to the wall, taking the rifle from me, glancing at it, then gasping and almost dropping it. She was silent a long time, just peering at it.

  “I’m guessing you know this one, too?” I asked.

  “It’s a Dragunov SVD, 1963. Standard automatic sniper rifle issued to the Soviet Union and a few Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War. The design is based on the Kalashnikov series yet does not have near the harsh recoil of its predecessor. It fires a potent 7.62mm round, has a PSO-1 sight and is 50 inches long including the fixed stock.”

  Chloe didn’t seem as excited about the Dragunov as I was ho
ping she’d be. What with her being Russian and all.

  “I was, uh, going to let you have it,” I said, feeling sheepish. Not at all the feeling I was going for.

  “No thanks,” She said, handing it back to me, “Already have one.”

  Then she turned back to start selecting a few weapons to take on our journey.

  What the heck just happened? One minute she’s all joyous and gun-loving then the next she’s depressed acting? A female upset in my presence?

  Not on my watch.

  “Alright, spill it, Chloe. How do you know so much about weapons when you’re, like, the daughter of some renowned physicist?”

  Okay, I admit it, I’m not exactly Dr. Phil most of the time but I do have a way of getting my point across.

  “It’s a long story,” Chloe muttered, her back to me.

  “My favorite,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Evonne, have us some sushi tacos flown in from LA, please. We’ll be a while.”

  Chloe slammed a gun she’d been holding back into its rack and whirled around, “We won’t be a while. Do you not realize that there might actually be some things that you do not have to know?”

  I held up my hands and was about to tell her to chill and that I didn’t have to know but she wasn’t finished.

  “Everyone fights where I’m from, Jericho. I’m twenty-two years old and there has never been one year of peace, plenty or relaxation. Flagstaff isn’t a pretty city filled with malls or restaurants anymore- it’s a warzone. It’s one of the only surviving cities left on the planet and everyone wants a piece. The streets are crawling with Фашисты by day and the играющие на понижение by night.”

  “I don’t speak Russian.” I said for the ba-jillionth time.

  “The Fascists by day and the Bears by night,” she corrected herself before frowning and looking at me like I’d just appeared. “Since you won’t be staying long I don’t suppose it’s necessary to have your brain imprinted.”

  Wait- what?

  “So let’s go, then.” Chloe said, strapping on the holsters of a few handguns she thought worthy enough to bring with us. “You do know how to use one of these things if the situation arises, right?”

  “Of course I do. It’s just that--“

  “Just what? That you thought this would be another field trip and learning experience?” She shot at me.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I confessed, grabbing a Berretta, a sub-machine gun and some ammo. “I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve used a gun but I think my rusty skills coupled with a little adrenaline and a dash of not-really-wanting-to-die will be enough to last me twelve hours.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Chloe said, crossing to the center of the lab. I finished strapping on my guns before following her. She'd by this time changed back into her now clean black jumpsuit and I foolishly was about to go to the future in my favorite expensive suit and black Chuck Taylor's.

  “Evonne, it’s seven-thirty. I’ll be back at eight expecting my sushi tacos.”

  “It will be done, Master Johnson,” my awesome butler replied. “Be careful, sir.”

  I could tell Evonne wasn’t really digging the whole Russian occupied America future jump thingy, but I could also tell he knew I’d be back at 8:00 one way or another.

  I, too, thought that I’d be munching on sushi tacos at exactly 8:03, telling my relieved butler of my many futuristic adventures while sporting my downgraded gauntlet of time.

  But, as I’ve been telling you, whoever-you-are, making plans as far as time travel is concerned, is just about as mental as you can get. If you don’t understand, please listen to the next two minutes.

  Chloe gave me the coordinates and the exact date while grabbing my shoulder. I punched in the numbers she was feeding me then took a deep breath, “Ready?”

  “I was about to ask you that.” Chloe said, her hand tightening on my shoulder, “This will land us well outside the city near a safe house I know of. We’ll exchange gloves and you’ll wait your twelve hours inside of the safe house while I sneak back into Flagstaff.”

  Well, it seemed I wouldn’t be experiencing the battle-riddled streets of 2340 Flagstaff, AZ after all. Shrugging, I hit enter. “It’s your future, Chloe. I’m just along for the ride.”

  Then we started fading out of 2012 and into 2340. Oh well. I guess it was for the best that I wasn’t going to come in contact with any locals. I mean, sure I wanted to check out some sights, but I suppose my whole role here was to help Chloe and not satisfy my desire for knowledge.

  Then we were standing in the whitest sand you’ve ever seen. Wait… not sand.

  “Freakin’ snow?” I growled, wrapping my arms around myself as the white flurries whirled around us, “Are you kidding me, Chloe? You could’ve suggested a, oh, I don’t know, coat, maybe? Or a thermos of hot chocolate-“

  I never finished my sarcastic rant then because something smallish, roundish and grenadeish landed at my feet.

  Seriously? I had been there for a grand total of ten seconds and already had a freaking grenade blinking up at me from my feet?

  We interrupt Jericho Johnson’s inevitable demise to bring you this public service announcement:

  To all my single bros out there: Bad things happen to guys that are too nice. I mean, it’s true. We try and help people, okay, mostly female people, because we’re just naturally nice guys. But then there comes a time when your niceness is abused by crazy psycho chic from the future and you’re dragged three-hundred years into the future, where it’s freezing, might I add, and what do you get out of all the nice and helpful things you’ve been doing? A trophy? Nope. A medal? Wrong. A lollipop? Not even close.

  You get a grenade at your feet.

  Whew. Glad that’s off my chest. I feel tons better after letting you guys all know that, seriously. You’re a great listener, whoever-you-are.

  Now, where the helheim was I before the public service announcement…? Oh, right, the grenade at my feet.

  Hmm. Not much to tell, really, because it seemed that the grenades in 2340 stared at by an idiot not two feet away did the exact same thing that the old fashioned 2012 grenades did when stared at by an idiot not two feet away.

  They go boom. Yep, just like the old ones.

  And the same thing happens to the said idiot not two feet away, also. Just FYI. And guess who happened to be the idiot at that moment?

  Dude. You are really catching on fast

  Chapter 12

  The explosion was accompanied by a bright blue flash and then I was flying through the air. And not in a cool, Superman fashion, either. It was more of a pinwheel/barrel-roll/oh-my-gosh-that-hurt-so-bad kind of flying through the air.

  I landed on my back and skidded a ways before hitting something hard. Groaning, I felt it with my hand. Concrete. I’d hit concrete. Wait- didn’t Chloe say the safe house was made of concrete?

  All thoughts of the flash grenade forgotten, no it wasn’t a blow-your-legs-off kind of grenade, I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get to my feet, which was accomplished with the aid of the wall in front of me.

  “Chloe?” I called.

  Then a red dot appeared on the back of my left hand, which was resting on the wall. Someone, a man somewhere in the whiteness of snow, shouted in Russian and in seconds more and more red dots appeared, only these were crawling all over my body like insects.

  The next belt of Russian I heard sounded harsh and like it was addressing me. Not knowing what else to do, I held up both my hands, placing them behind my head. When my fingers laced together, I felt the cold of my glove and remembered why I was there in the first place.

  Where the snarkys was Chloe, anyway? Had I alone survived the flash grenade and her corpse was freezing in the snow somewhere I couldn’t see?

  I didn’t have time to dwell on this long because my attackers materialized from the white blusters of wind in front of me. Man, the visibility was literally about twenty feet. Also something that Chloe could’ve mentioned befor
e she had me out here freezing away in my awesome $186,000 suit but since she also could have been dead at the time I shook the thought from my mind.

  There were seven of them total and, dude, but were they awesome looking. I’m going to attempt to describe a few of these hellions for you.

  The first thing that jumped out at me were the helmets, wicked looking things with smoky eyes that glowed florescent red with a hose coming from each side of the mouthpiece and running behind their shoulders, attaching to something I couldn’t see. They all wore body armor which- get this- also had sections of it that glowed the same florescent red of the eyes. Veins of the light pulsed up and down the muscular looking arms and legs and all met at the center of the chest piece, which illuminated a symbol in yellow instead of red.

  Uh oh. I recognized the symbol instantly.

  It was a hammer and a sickle crossing.

  I gulped. This day was turning out to be a bad one. The seven demonic looking men were now standing in front of me which gave me a chance to get a good look at their hardware. The guns they were all sporting were like nothing I’d ever seen before and, just as I had hoped deep down inside, they looked freakishly from the future.

  “Государство ваше название, гражданское лицо.” One of them told me, his voice laden with static from the mask.

  “I don’t speak Russian,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders while keeping my fingers laced behind my head.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to speak with a Russian Darth Vader, so let me tell you, they’re hard to read. Not seeing the face was one reason behind it and the language barrier wasn’t helping matters.

  “Английский язык?” I heard another ask.

  The man who’d addressed me first was the only one of the soldiers who never took his glowing red eyes off me while the other six glanced at each other and exchanged Russian questions and answers to one another. I could tell they were puzzled by something. Well, at least the six jabber-mouths were, to be sure. The man who’d decided that a staring match was in order wasn’t partaking of the confused talk and I was starting to feel more nervous about my little shenanigan.