The Tomorrow Man

by Percival Constantine

  “We aren’t sure when it happened, all we know is that it did,” said Ellis.

  “Shift believes if you simply kill J’Karra, it will end her control,” said the Analyst. “I believe differently. Subconscious triggers are very powerful. So as much as it pains us to do this, there is only one way to guarantee this betrayal never comes to pass.”

  ***

  Chronos opened his eyes and sat up on the cot. He now knew his mission in Atlas was two-fold. Find the location of J’Karra and kill her underling. But his first step was getting out of this place.

  He slid his legs over the edge of the cot and gently rested his feet on the ground. The sentries turned and watched him carefully, raising their arms with teleforce blasters on the ends.

  “Do you know the great thing about my armor?” he asked. “It’s symbiotic. Cybernetic chips have been implanted into my brain that give me full control over it as if it were an extension of my own nervous system. And that means I can trigger the tachyon particles that power it, even from a distance.”

  Chronos closed his eyes and concentrated. The sentries readied their blasters but didn’t fire. A bright, flash of light appeared between them and the prisoner and when the light subsided, the armor stood there, transported by the tachyon energy.

  Chronos stood from the cot and held his arms out to his sides. The armor responded to his cybernetic command and flew from the spot where it stood. The components separated and wrapped around his body, quickly encasing him in his weapon.

  The sentries opened fire and Chronos held up his hand, generating an energy shield for protection. The visor snapped into place and his free hand released his baton into his palm. Chronos dropped the shield and spun the baton, extending it into a staff.

  The spinning weapon deflected the teleforce blasts, ricocheting them back at the sentries and quickly reducing them to scrap. Chronos retracted the staff and it returned to his gauntlet.

  He went to the door to the training room. But instead of trying to find a way to break through it, he just concentrated. The suit’s tachyons activated and transported him to the other side of the door.

  On the other side of the door he had two options. One was to take the elevator up and the other the emergency staircase. Though it was late and everyone was likely asleep, he wanted to avoid any potential conflict if possible. Ellis and the Analyst didn’t want him to hurt anyone unless he had to and his first task would be to download the information he needed from the Atlas mainframe.

  Chronos teleported past the elevator doors and found himself in the shaft. The components on his leg slid down to form the glider beneath his feet and he hovered up the length of the tube.

  Just above him was the elevator and it remained stationary. Chronos teleported past it and continued up the shaft. When he arrived at the top, he teleported past the doors and was now in a small corridor. He faced the entrance to the hangar and behind him was the elevator, the stairwell entrance, and another door.

  On approach, the door opened to a connecting hall with a curved ceiling, leading to the other section of Atlas. Chronos flew down the tube and entered the monitor room.

  From what he’d been told by Ellis, Zenith practically lived in this room, so Chronos was prepared with his staff extended. Fortunately, he found it empty. Zenith must have had other things to concern himself with.

  Chronos approached the computer terminals and held out his hand. Wires snaked from housings in his gauntlets, connecting to ports in the terminals. Chronos’ visor displayed a message that read DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS. The data flowed across his retina at rapid speed, far too quick for the human eye to process.

  After a few moments, the data flow stopped and a new message flashed: DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. Chronos needed to be sure, so he cybernetically commanded his armor to show him the location.

  A map of the world flashed over his visor and zoomed in to a location in the south Pacific Ocean. A small location blip appeared and the description read THE ISLAND with the exact coordinates listed underneath.

  Chronos smiled and disconnected his armor from the mainframe. Now he had only one more task to complete. He left the monitor room and raced back down the corridor.

  CHAPTER 9

  Anita tossed and turned in her bed. Her dreams were plagued with images of J’Karra and the coming invasion. But now she was also seeing the fractured memories she witnessed inside Chronos’ mind. The flow of different timelines, different memories, different planets was almost too much for her to keep straight.

  She awoke and pulled the sheets off her body, rubbing her eyes. Anita reached for the glass of water on her nightstand and sighed. She flipped the switch above the bed and the lights slowly came on to give her a moment to adjust.

  Anita went into the small bathroom and turned on the sink, splashing cool water on her face. She examined her features in the mirror as she wiped her face with a towel. Strangely enough, her face somehow appeared alien to her.

  Leaving the bathroom, she walked back to her bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. Anita took another drink of water, still trying to piece together what these visions meant.

  A sound like an explosion drew her away and she instantly stood. The smoke cleared and she saw a fully armored Chronos standing in her doorway, his staff pointed right at her.

  Anita didn’t give him a chance to fire another blast. She flew right at him as fast as she could, her fists slamming into him and driving him across the corridor and into the wall.

  She wrapped her fingers around his throat and pummeled his face with her fist. Chronos’ armor responded by releasing an electric charge through her body, just as he had done to Sharkskin earlier.

  Anita released him and fell back. Chronos drove his staff into her abdomen, then raised it and brought it down on her neck, then a final time against her back and she struck the ground. He placed a foot on her back to keep her pinned and the end of the staff crackled with energy as he positioned it right above her head.

  “Sorry about this,” he said. “But for the future to survive, you can’t.”

  Something wrapped around the staff and held it back. Chronos turned and saw Erin standing behind him, her arm extended and her hand holding his staff. She leapt at him, her arm pulling her towards Chronos.

  Chronos released his staff and held out his hand, generating an shield around his body, a shield that Erin slammed right into. Once she hit the ground, the staff flew right back to his hand.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her. “But your friend has to die.”

  He turned around to finish off Anita, but she was gone. Chronos used his armor to scan for her. And the scan picked her up, circling around the level to try and sneak up on him from behind. But unfortunately, he was ready.

  Anita came around the bend and Chronos stood there with his back to her, a smile forming on his face. His armor told him exactly where she was. She flew closer, raising her fist in preparation of her strike.

  A compartment opened on Chronos’ back and an energy net burst out. It wrapped around Anita, throwing off her flight and Chronos ducked, allowing her to fly over him and strike the ground. She struggled against the net, but it did no good.

  The Atlas schematics said there were three rooms per floor in the living quarters block. Anita and Erin shared this floor and the third room was unoccupied, so fortunately the battle hadn’t alerted anyone else. But Chronos knew that wouldn’t last long and he would have to finish this and get out of here before the rest of the team came at him. He couldn’t afford another battle against all of them.

  Chronos stood over Anita and she looked up at him with pleading, brown eyes. He had a moment of hesitation. From what Shift and Sharkskin told him in the future, Anita was a good person. Someone who always had their back. But she was also destined to be J’Karra’s pawn and both the Analyst and Ellis told him the only way to prevent the invasion was to kill them both.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  And then C
hronos discovered that Anita wasn’t staring up at him to plead for her life. But instead concentrating. He screamed and fell to his knees as Anita unleashed a psychic attack on him.

  Chronos grabbed his head, trying to fight back. Anita triggered the pain centers in his mind, making it feel like his entire body was under attack. Chronos held up his hand and squeezed. With that motion, the energy net trapping Anita contracted. The energy, previously harmless, now pained her as it pressed against her body.

  Chronos was struck on the back and hit the ground. He shook his head and got to his feet to see Erin standing there. But her body was significantly taller, her head just below the ceiling. Every muscle in her body had also increased in mass. She linked her hands together and brought them down on Chronos.

  He vanished an instant before her fists struck the spot where he stood and reappeared behind her. Chronos heard noise coming from the stairwell and turned just in time to see the rest of the team arrive on the scene.

  Jim and Thorne opened fire on him with teleforce guns, with Zenith using his cannons. Koji changed into his shark form, ready to move on him next, and Dom’s eyes crackled with the ebon energies he commanded.

  Chronos engaged the shield around his body to fend off the attacks. He didn’t have much chance against all of them, not again, and he didn’t have the time to deal with another capture. Or worse, in case they decided capturing him was no longer worth the trouble.

  He teleported through the elevator doors and the glider activated, raising him up the tunnel. Once he reached the top, he teleported through the doors again and then up through the ceiling and into the early morning sky.

  Paragon was still a threat and he’d deal with her soon enough. But he’d have to wait before taking her out. And that meant he had a new priority.

  CHAPTER 10

  Once Chronos’ armor was out of range, the energy net he used to trap Anita dissipated. Zenith was on his knees beside her, running scans over her body to ensure she was okay. The results of the scans—and her insistence—proved she was and he helped her to her feet.

  “So much for dealing with this in the morning,” muttered Dom.

  “How did he even get out?” asked Erin.

  “Very good question,” said Thorne. “Lee, Zen, can you guys check out the training room down below? Figure out what happened here?”

  “Sure thing, chief.” Lee gave a nod to Zenith and hit the call button for the elevator. While they waited, Zenith felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look into Jim’s face.

  “Where were you during all this?” he asked.

  “In my room,” said Zenith.

  “Thought you didn’t sleep.”

  “Not in the conventional sense. But after my time spent in Lucent’s body, I found a certain tranquility in the practice. So now when I have the opportunity, I place my body into low-power mode.”

  The elevator arrived and both Lee and Zenith boarded it. After the doors closed, Dom scoffed.

  “Did he have to pick today to be even weirder?”

  “Let’s head up to the monitor room, figure out what went down and what our next move is,” said Thorne.

  ***

  The team gathered in the monitor room, seated at the round table with a giant V engraved into its surface. On the monitor was a live feed from the cameras in the training room, where Zenith and Lee examined the scene.

  “Unless he’s got some other powers we didn’t know about, Chronos had his armor when he escaped.” Lee knelt over the destroyed sentries. “They were taken out with energy blasts.”

  “How’d he get his hands on the armor?” asked Anita.

  “That’s the big question. Also look over here.” Lee stood from the sentries and walked over to the door. “It was sealed up when we got here, no damage whatsoever. After that trick he pulled downstairs, looks like he teleported through.”

  “That part seems obvious,” said Dom.

  “No, what I mean is that the door was never opened.”

  “So his armor teleported to him?” asked Jim.

  “It certainly seems that way,” said Zenith. “We performed some diagnostic scans on the armor that we can review. But my assumption would be that he possesses some cybernetic link with his armor that even works from a distance.”

  “Have you checked the surveillance records?” asked Thorne. “Those cameras should have been running the whole time.”

  “They are unfortunately unhelpful. See for yourself.”

  Zenith’s image vanished, replaced with the security feed of the night. Chronos was asleep on the cot, the sentries standing guard. He sat up and then the screen went black. A message across the screen read, “DATA NOT FOUND.”

  “He erased it,” said Jim. “That means he accessed our system.”

  Zenith’s image appeared on the screen again. “Correct.”

  Thorne turned his chair to face Anita. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Not much. Just something about needing to kill me to save the future.”

  “Said the same thing to me when I jumped in,” said Erin. “He said Anita needs to die. And…it’s weird, but he seemed almost like he regretted having to do it.”

  “Why would he think Anita’s a threat to the future?” asked Koji.

  “Gee, I wonder…” muttered Dom under his breath.

  “What, your theory that J’Karra is controlling me?” asked Anita.

  “Even if that were true, no one’s going to die on my watch,” said Thorne. “Anita, did you see anything in his memories that could prove what he said?”

  She shook her head. “They were jumbled, but no. Nothing I could make out anyway.”

  “And you’d tell us, right?” asked Dom.

  Erin glared at him. “Would you just shut up already?”

  “We’ve gotta consider every possibility, right? Even if we don’t like where it leads. And if we’re facing down an alien invasion and Anita’s part of it in some way, then—”

  “Then what?” asked Anita. “You want to kill me, Vaughn? Pull the trigger yourself?”

  Dom sighed. “I didn’t say that. But maybe we should take some precautions, right?” He glanced at Jim. “Bet boy scout thinks it’s a good idea. After all, he agreed when he said there’s something to killing J’Karra to stop the invasion.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth.” Jim pointed at Dom. His finger began to shake and he had to pull his hand down, covering it with the other and holding it on the table. “Anita’s one of our strongest members. If we’re going to face whatever’s coming or have a prayer of stopping Chronos, we need her out there.”

  “Think we’re all forgetting something here,” said Lee. “If Chronos got into the mainframe to delete the footage, what else did he do?”

  “He’s right,” said Thorne. “Zen, you got anything?”

  “He was good at covering his tracks, but I do believe there’s something worth noting,” said Zenith. “If Chronos had full access to the system, that meant he was also able to download the Island’s GPS data.”

  “He knows where the Island is,” said Anita. “And he’s going to kill J’Karra.”

  “Everyone suit up and get to the hangar immediately,” said Thorne. “I’ll get in touch with Howard, let him know he’s expecting company.”

  “What’s the rush?” asked Dom. “J’Karra almost killed us. Almost killed the damn President. And she’s destined to summon an alien invasion. If Chronos wants to take her out, I say, ‘faster, pussycat. Kill, kill.’”

  Thorne stood from his seat and rested his hands on the table’s surface, leaning over and glaring at Dom. “In case you’ve forgotten, there are about a hundred or so Cerberus agents on that ship. Including the warden, a friend of everyone in this place. Not to mention the dangerous prisoners aboard. Or did you forget about the guy who almost fried your ass in Vegas?”

  Dom sighed.

  “It’s not just about killing J’Karra. If it were, I’d be on your side,” said Jim, placing a
hand on Dom’s shoulder. “But this is about collateral damage. We can’t risk the lives of those agents, or a jailbreak for that matter. Chronos has to be stopped. Afterwards, we can debate the merits of killing someone to save the future.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The Island was first used by Nathan Callus, the former Cerberus director, as a means of rounding up and holding specials to be used in his experiments. It is a massive aircraft carrier constantly on the move so as to make the prospect of escape more difficult. Though Callus’ intentions were wrong, when Abram Zukov was appointed interim director of the agency, he found the concept of a mobile prison appealing, and so kept it on.

  The Island moved through the southern waters of the Pacific Ocean. Bright, blue light shimmered in the sky above and Chronos materialized into being, hovering on his glider. His visor displayed his current location and he looked down at the ship.

  Chronos made his descent, approaching the ship. As he came within range, his visor warned him of the potential for lethal force. The gun turrets on the deck rotated and pointed at his location. A radio transmission was broadcast on multiple frequencies and Chronos’ armor automatically tuned to them to hear the Island’s crew warning him to identify himself or be considered a hostile.

  He ignored them.

  The turrets opened fire, releasing teleforce energy blasts into the air. Chronos put his armor on auto-pilot and let it take care of the flying. The armor’s AI was much better at dodging things like the turret fire and easily swerved to avoid the teleforce blasts.

  Other warnings appeared on the visor. Chronos looked to the source and saw Cerberus agents boarding small fighter planes. They used VTOL technology to rise above the Island without need for a runway and instantly shifted into battle mode, coming straight for him.

  Chronos spun and flew off into the distance with the two jets following. Teleforce blasters beneath their noses delivered a constant stream of fire, but Chronos was still easily able to maneuver past those.