by T. A. Uner
The Hollow Man continued spewing energy from its eyes, but Seamus’ shield held it in check. Robert trained his new weapon on the Hollow Man and vaporized it. “Let’s get on the train,” Seamus said. They ran toward Blood, as they did they watched the cranes finish their tasks and seal the boxcar doors.
Jack hoped Flick was waiting for them inside Blood, ready to help. But he snapped out of his thoughts when more Hollow Men — these wearing white shirts instead of red — appeared around them, materializing out of nowhere and firing strange-looking rifles at them. Jack deflected two rifle blasts with the silver saber blades and decapitated one Hollow Man before he noticed Blood slowly pulling out of the station. The smokestack began expelling billowy smoke before a shrill whistle sounded its message that Blood was on its way to its next destination, wherever that was. Another rank of Hollow Men flooded the platform, and Jack worried that they wouldn’t be able to board Blood; the thought of losing Mercedes tortured his conscience. Seamus and Robert fired indiscriminately, vaporizing their opponents, while Seamus’ shield took a pounding from enemy ordnance.
More and more Hollow Men appeared and for a moment Jack thought they would overrun them. Instead they began withdrawing, leaving an open corridor for the three men to approach the departing Blood.
“Seamus, this doesn’t make sense,” Jack said, as Robert kept up with them.
“Doesn’t matter, Jack, we’ll have to play along with whatever Vampiress has planned…and hope for the best, mate.”
One of the boxcar doors opened, almost too conveniently for Jack’s taste. “That’s Flick,” Seamus said, “he’s unsealed one of the doors, giving us our chance to board.”
The three men took turns leaping toward the boxcar’s rail ladder before hauling themselves into the boxcar. As soon as the last of them were safely inside, the door automatically closed behind them, sealing them inside.
{2}
Inside the boxcar it was cold. Despite having Seamus and Robert with him, Jack felt alone.
“Won’t Flick’s actions be monitored by Sect security?” Robert asked Seamus. “He’s risking a lot by helping us.”
“He’s got help, the Master Conductor, a vamp called Lok, is monitoring Sect activity onboard so Flick can aid us.”
“Seamus, you’re one resourceful bloke.”
Seamus illuminated a small light that chased away the darkness surrounding them. “Where’s Mercedes?” Jack asked.
“Three cars over, I’m also detecting null life signs again; more Hollow Men. and this time they’re not even bothering to cloak themselves.”
“Why should they?” Robert looked resolute. “They know we have to come to them.”
“Then let’s not keep the bastards waiting.”
Seamus put a restraining hand on Jack’s arm. “We can’t just go blasting into the next car, it would be suicide.”
“If you have a better idea Seamus, now’s the time to hear it.”
Seamus pulled out another small device. “As a matter of fact gents, I do.”
• • •
Inside the supply car Vampiress waited for the enemy to come to her. She had kept Jack’s fiancée, the Spanish woman, on a tight leash, literally. She figured seeing his wife with a collar would dishearten him. Good. She wanted it that way, she would use any advantage she could muster. After she had rid this reality of Jack and the Irishman Seamus McCoy, she would have dealt the Gran Militia a crippling defeat, something they had yet to taste during their struggle with her people. Good, Vampiress thought, the first defeat is always the most painful. Maybe it will even tip the war’s momentum in our favor.
She slung her bow over her armored corset, the one with The Sect’s bat crest inscribed on her bosom. “Come, my pretty,” she told Mercedes, “we’re off to see your beloved husband, soon, you two will be reunited.”
The Spanish woman looked at her disconsolately. She had been forced to wear a prisoner’s smock. Vampiress jerked the cord that was attached to Mercedes’ collar and giggled. “What’s wrong, my beauty? You should be happy, Jack is coming for you.”
Mercedes cocked her head and spat in Vampiress’ face. Volz and the other Hollow Men observed the exchange indifferently. Vampiress wiped the saliva from her face and jerked Mercedes’ so hard that the Spanish woman lost her balance and landed on the floor. “There, I think I like you better down on the floor.”
“Vampiress,” Volz said. “Intruders.”
Vampiress donned her battle helm, its comb decorated with The Sect’s Bat crest. She drew her disruptor and awaited combat, gripping Mercedes’ leash in her other hand.
The door at the end of the car blew open and smoke poured into the room. The car shook around her. Volz and his three Hollow Men searched for opponents to target but there were none. Then two humans appeared. Vampiress recognized them as McCoy and Robert, Jack’s brother. But Jack was not with them. They fired their weapons at the Hollow Men who reciprocated with salvos from their black cubes.
Seconds later the two men made a suicidal charge at the Hollow Men.
“Kill them,” Vampiress screamed. Seconds later the two humans lay dead at her feet. Mercedes hobbled over toward where Robert’s body lay and broke into tears.
“Wait.” Vampiress fired her disruptor at Seamus’ body and the beam passed through it and tore a hole in the floor of the car. She gritted her teeth and hissed. “These aren’t real…they’re holograms!”
• • •
One of the reasons Jack liked Seamus was the Irishman had a penchant for ingenuity. Despite her vast resources and firepower, Vampiress’ arrogance had been her undoing, and Seamus had ruthlessly exposed it when he sent the two holograms storming into the car.
By the time Vampiress and the Hollow Men figured out they’d been shammed, Robert and Seamus had shifted into the car and vaporized all Hollow Men, except for their leader, Volz: realizing he’d been defeated he dropped his black cube and surrendered. “That shifting trick was impressive,” Robert said.
Jack charged Vampiress and sliced the disruptor’s muzzle off with his reinforced silver-bladed saber, before spinning around and kicking the weapon out of her hand. She grabbed the leash, and jerked Mercedes toward her. Jack, seeing his wife restrained like a common house pet, prepared to slash another cut at Vampiress before she drew a knife and pressed it against Mercedes throat.
“Now, now Jack,” she said haughtily, “you wouldn’t want me to slice up this pretty face, would you?”
Mercedes struggled but Vampiress’ superior vampire grip was too strong to break. “Kill her Jack! Save yourself,” Mercedes cried.
“How romantic.” Vampiress muttered a command in her native language and disappeared, taking Mercedes with her.
{3}
“Bloody hell,” Jack said. Had he and the others come so close to victory, only to let that vampire bitch get the best of them at the end?
“I’m tracking her,” Seamus said, eying his handheld device. “Found her! Let’s go.” Robert stayed behind to secure the Hollow Men’s leader, whose name was Volz.
“Good, Let’s end this, now.”
• • •
Vampiress dragged Mercedes behind her as she made her way toward the cab. She hadn’t lost yet, not if she could get to the Conductor first.
“Stop!”
Vampiress turned around. One of her own people had a disruptor trained on her. “You’ve lost Vampiress; release the girl and stand down.”
“You!” She recognized the bartender, Flick. “Traitorous scum, collaborating with humans. I’ll execute you myself.”
“Going to be hard to do with me pointing this weapon at you…isn’t it?”
Vampiress was fast, and before Flick could fire his disruptor at her she grabbed Mercedes and pushed her into him. Flick, not wanting to risk hitting Mercedes with weapon fire caught her, dropping his weapon, but he lost his footing and she fell on top of him.
When Flick got to his feet he had Mercedes in his hands. But Vampires
s was gone. So was his disruptor.
• • •
Lok’s eyes widened when Vampiress entered the cab pointing a weapon at him.
“Mistress? What is the meaning of this?”
“Are we approaching the anomaly portal?”
Lok nodded.
“Good. Rig the engine to detonate.”
“What? Have you gone mad, woman?”
She felt like vaporizing him on the spot, but she did not wish to set off the alarm. Ordnance fire in the cab could alert the train’s computer to shut down. It was a security precaution to prevent hijackings.
She smashed the hilt of the disruptor into Lok’s forehead. The Conductor’s skull was thick so she repeated the action until he lost consciousness and slumped to the ground before he rolled down the stairwell.
Smiling, she began programming the reactor to implode.
• • •
Jack’s reunion with Mercedes was short-lived. They kissed and embraced like two lovebirds kept apart in separate cages.
“Are you all right, Flick?” Seamus asked.
“Yes,” Flick said. He looked ashamed he couldn’t stop Vampiress. “But she got my weapon.”
“Where is she now?”
Flick pointed toward the front of the car. “She looked like she was headed to the main cab before she teleported out. I alerted Lok, but he isn’t responding to my message.”
“Shit.” Seamus turned to Jack. “C’mon mate, we’ve got to get to her.”
Jack kissed Mercedes again. “I’ll come back to you, love. I promise.” Mercedes tried to look hopeful, but when Seamus and Jack shifted out of the car she burst into tears.
• • •
Almost done, Vampiress thought. A few more adjustments and I’ll be done. If I can’t win I’ll destroy my enemies.
“That’s enough!”
Vampiress whirled around with her disruptor but Seamus was quick and stunned her with his pistol. She lost her balance and slithered toward the floor, but not before grasping the console and pressing one last command control. “You’ve failed, Irishman, you and your English lapdog will rue the day you crossed my path.”
“What’s she done, Seamus?” Jack asked.
The Irishman’s eyes darted over the console before his facial features assumed a glum expression. “Not good. She’s programmed the train’s reactor to explode once it comes in contact with the anomaly.”
“But it can be stopped, right?” Seamus handed the disruptor to Jack who kept it trained on the stunned Vampiress.
“I can, but not in time.”
“I can help you.”
Jack saw another Vampire appear, wearing overalls, he stepped out of the stairwell adjacent to the main reactor and ambled over toward the main command console. He was rubbing his head and looked slightly tousled. “I take it you’re the Conductor?” Seamus said.
“Yes, Master Conductor Lok.” He rubbed his temples before opening the outer door to the reactor. “I can deactivate the implosion sequence, but keep that cursed woman away from me while I work.” He pointed at Vampiress, who looked like a rabid dog ready to bite someone. Lok uttered a few verbal codes into a command console inside the outer reactor door. The implosion countdown sequence stopped. Vampiress felt her muscles slowly returning to full strength. Even though she was hit with stun at point blank range her armor had absorbed the blast; she wasn’t finished yet, no, she would wait for an opportune time to strike back at her enemies.
• • •
“There,” Lok said, relieved. “It’s done.”
Jack was glad things had ended without catastrophe. Unfortunately his optimism was premature.
Vampiress charged Lok. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” She pushed Lok into the wall of the outer reactor door, causing it to open and knocking the conductor to the floor. A glowing red light flooded the compartment before Jack picked up the disruptor and trained it on Vampiress, who was trying to reprogram the train to explode.
Lok looked at Jack like he’d gone mad. “Don’t fire that weapon! The reactor door is still open, and we’re too close to the anomaly!” But his words came too late. Jack fired at Vampiress and she and Lok disappeared as a flash of light absorbed their bodies. Jack felt Blood shake around him and he lost his balance, he found himself inside the threshold between the outer reactor door and the main reactor, seconds later he saw a flash of red light around him and felt his body dissolving around him. He saw Vampiress and Lok, spinning around him in an alien dimension comprised of red and white light. Lok had his hands around Vampiress’ wrists, and her hands were around his throat.
Jack’s head was spinning. The dimension began contracting around him until he became enshrouded. He lost consciousness.
{4}
With Flick’s help Seamus was able to stop Blood before it passed through the anomaly. But what of Jack? Where had he gone? It seemed unfair that the Englishman had fought so hard against a determined enemy, only to be killed during the final struggle. But Flick was able to shed light on the dilemma, even if it was only a theory. “I’m no trans-dimensional physicist, but I once watched a broadcast via news feed that accidents like this used to happen during the early days of plasma reactors: any type of unstable elements that came into contact with unsecured reactor rooms sometimes caused time-displacements. Being so close to a controlled anomaly probably didn’t help either. But in a way it’s good that the accident happened on a planetary controlled anomaly and not on a space vessel near a The Sect-controlled inter-planetary portal. Then, tracking them would take forever since it was in outer space.”
“So you mean to tell me Jack’s still alive?” Robert asked.
“It’s possible, in Earth’s past, or future. The same goes for poor Lok and that nasty Vampiress.” Seamus noticed that this possibility did not console Mercedes, who looked even more dejected than before. “After we’ve impounded Blood on Atlas, we’ll go searching for Jack, my lady.” He placed a reassuring hand on Mercedes’ arm.
“I would like to come too,” Robert added. “He is after all my blood.”
Seamus shook his head.“I need you here, Robert, remember? To convince Swanson to arrest the corrupt human collaborators that were on Sect payroll. I’ll give you access to evidence I’ve compiled over the past few months, that should help convince your pig-headed boss.”
Robert nodded. “And clear my brother’s name as well.” Seamus looked out of the cab’s window into the dark field of space where an infinite number of stars blinked back at him. “I wonder where Jack is, and how he’s faring?”
Epilogue
When he awoke he was lying in a meadow under a blue sky filled with a caravan of clouds.
His head throbbed as if someone had hit him with a cricket bat. Had he been drinking? If so where? He rolled around on the ground, a soft patch of green sod. A few paces from where he lay he saw his hat, around him his cloak was twisted around his body like thick coils of rope.
He was alone. But he did not feel alone. Inside his head he heard two other voices: The first voice, calling itself Vampiress, was begging him for blood, the other, a calm voice called Lok, was speaking to Vampiress, telling it to repent for its crimes. He tried to recall how these voices got into his head. Was he hallucinating? Or mad? Perhaps both. He wished he knew his name.
He looked around at his surroundings again. Where was he? How had he arrived here? Images of a beautiful Hispanic woman floated through his mind. She looked familiar. Who was she? He could not place her name. Damn.
More faces flooded his mind, and just when he felt as if he would recognize them, they became foreign again.
Around his waist were two sheathed swords. Am I a soldier? No. You’re a doctor, said a voice. Was that his voice or one of the other two in the background.
“You’re a good doctor,” said the voice of Vampiress. “And you must help your patient; you must find me blood.”
“No, Jack! You mustn’t.” This came from the other voice, the one called Lok.
/> So his name was Jack. That’s a good start. But which voice should he listen to? Perhaps neither. He decided he would explore his new world to try and get answers. Taking his hat, he started walking, and pushed both Vampiress and Lok out of his thoughts.
He walked through the meadow until he came upon a strange-looking road. Adjacent to it was a large structure that looked like a stone cube, inscribed upon its surface was strange writing. He thought he had seen it once before. He would learn who he was, and what he was doing here, wherever here was.
In the distance he saw a group of men approaching. They marched together, in an orderly rank. The one leading the front of the column carried a long staff. As they got closer he noticed a large birdlike ornament made of gold mounted on the staff, beneath it hung a red banner with gold letters sewn upon it which spelled: SPQR. Again, his disjointed memory felt it had seen this emblem before. But where?
The column of men drew closer, and Jack could see them more clearly. The Man carrying the staff wore an animal pelt over his head which was tied under his neck. The others wore helms and strange armor and carried rectangular shields that were almost as tall as they were. Jack’s fractured memory strained itself trying to recall where it had seen these types of soldiers before.
Behind the column was another group of men, but they were mounted on horses and wore shiny helms with red plumes. Perhaps they were the officers?
