by Lee Bond
It was hard not to stare at Nickels. The man didn’t look like anything terribly special, not when you took into consideration that the 25th century was chockablock with characters both dangerous and unassuming.
No, no, what made Nickels dangerous was the ire drawn his way from Baron Samiel.
There was one caveat in the future, one you followed if you wanted your life to be one of mediocre danger and not quite a guaranteed grisly death, and that was: ignore the mystery that was Samiel. Everyone in the future knew who he was. Some even professed to understand what he was doing, and why. And so long as you ignored the … well, they were called men and women, they wore pants and shirts and et the occasional bit of food like men and women did from time to time, but that was more for propriety’s sake than anything resembling the actual truth.
Chez never worried about himself and the mystery. Nah. That were for other people. But if you were a normal person hoping to live a nice, quiet life, you treated them with the odd smell and the weird eyes as if they were long-lost kin and you minded your P’s and Q’s so long as they were in earshot.
But Nickels … ah, the burly man with the wicked grin … he’d started butting heads.
“And here I am.” Chez pursed his lips thoughtfully, wondering if it were worth the risk to copy over some video footage his slapdash viral network was encountering on some of the phones inside the center; as he’d hoped –prayed for, really- his viral bridge had hopscotched right inside the large building to oh, so quietly infiltrate the devices nearest Nickels. “Stood outside this stupid facking building, gettin’ ready to do summat as I’ve never facking done before.”
The assassin decided against downloading any of the video footage. It’d be nice to get more than a mere sense of the man, but his short and curlies were getting twisty. No point in alerting a man as capable as Nickels that there were someone on the outside who were peeking in on his private little party, was there?
Besides which, Chez knew all he needed to know.
His target was inside. His target was more or less being held at gunpoint, by an angry army official. His target looked like he was having some kind of fun.
Chez picked an assault vector that’d take him through the positively security-stupid massive glass roof that were situated right atop the main speaking area. “I do so love a big entrance. All eyes on me, mouths agape, brain fairly spinning in fourth gear, as everyone tries their best to figure out what in the hell is going on. There ain’t nuffink I love more in this world than a wee bit of showmanship. Well, time to get moving, hey, lads? Allez oop!”
Not caring one way or the other whether or not anyone saw a man in a brilliant white suit jump straight upwards in the air five times higher than was theoretically feasible, Chezzik Elteren aimed himself directly for the center of the massive glass roof, enhanced eyes automatically picking the General and his lackeys out from the rest of the crowd.
He’d land nice and light, right beside the General. Do a few of the gun-toting lads in as a preliminary convincer. When everyone’s attention were positively riveted on the dashing time-traveling assassin from the future, he would then attempt a few seconds of polite parlay before just flat out killing anyone as got in his way.
Samiel’d said not to kill Nickels. Nickels needed to be sequestered in the worst of ways, but the fatman hadn’t said nowt about the rest of the world.
Chez crashed through the glass, what little blood remaining inside his polymesh veins thrilling to the excitement of it all.
***
Chez rose up out of the shattered glass and twisted metal, a shrouded figure out of the far flung future, guns in hand, senses recording, assimilating, and determining everything around him at a few thousand times faster than even the quickest witted could possibly hope to achieve.
Something were wrong. The panic vectors were off. Aye, yes, there were people –soldiers included- reacting to his presence by spinning away from his present location, precisely as expected, but that wasn’t all. No. There were other vectors, large groups of people fleeing at breakneck speed down the stairs of the structure behind him, people in front of him inexplicably peeling off to the left and right, and more people –these ones with guns- pushing through the thick black drapes behind the podium where …
“Where in the fookin’ ‘ell is Nickels?” Chez demanded loudly, angrily. The General beside him moved to draw his sidearm, so the Brit introduced the blustering military man to his next chance at life sometime in the future. If he were lucky, he’d wind up a ‘lander in a ‘load somewhere, given the gift of understanding what it was to live a proper, prosperous life.
Then, because disappearing Nickels’ and unexplained, panicky motion and extra people with guns was the sort of thing that put him right off his mood, Chez shot pretty much every single soldier he could find, expertly drilling bullets into foreheads and, whenever heads didn’t make themselves immediately available, right through the laughably described ‘bullet resistant’ body armor.
Nothing in the present could stop slickjack bullets. They’d go right through damn near anything in the world.
“Well,” Chez commented to himself, drilling a few of the new people with rifles in their heads as they crept out from the drapes, “I suppose a few dozen feet of solid steel might stop one of these luvverly beauts, but …” Chez took a breath and shouted as loud as he possibly could, which were very loud indeed, “OI! All you fookin’ people calm the fook right down, yeah? If everyone is polite and stops moving and implying that you is going to shoot in my general direction, I is not shoot anyone.”
An old bloke with snowy white hair and the general look of Mother England about him opened his mouth to say summat, so Chez shot him right in the arm, as a polite warning. Of course, the old codger would almost certainly die because a slickjack bullet was a very big bullet and he were very old, but whatever.
It was the thought that counted, yeah?
All motion in his general vicinity ceased. Somewhere off in the distance, someone had obviously grown bored of being cooped up inside the convention center; the sounds of breaking glass –and a lot of it- reached his ears.
Whatever. He’d scoop Nickels up and be off before local authorities could do a damn thing.
“Come on out, Nickels. Be a good lamb and meet your fate like a champ, hey?” Chez pointed one of his guys rather … pointedly … at a lovely lass with heterochromia. “Is you know, in the future, a lass with your kind of eyes would most likely be kilt at birth? Aye. Abnormal eyes in human stock aren’t to be trusted, oh no, they aren’t. Come on now, Nickels, be sporting!”
“Fuck yourself.”
Chez took a few steps forward, explaining what his plan was so the remaining lads and lassies with guns and the intention of using them understood just what was happening. “I am here for Master Nickels. Hain’t no one need to do a fing. If everyone remains stood where they are … that means you, you scallywag, I will shoot you in the forehead so hard the bullet comes right out your arsehole, and I mean that quite literally, it will exit through your ring wi’out touching the sides, leaving medical coroners for the next few hundred years with nowt to talk about except your arsehole … I will collect my bounty and I will be on my way.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Chez sent a few bullets through the podium, just for good measure. The chrome and plastic talk-box broke into a few pieces. A laptop fell to the ground and broke apart. Master Nickels was revealed. “There you are! Come on now, be a … Oi. Who is you fookin’ talkin’ to? Is this look like the sort of place you want to call a friend?”
Garth stood up, that old devil-may-care grin on his mostly handsome face. He clicked his phone shut. “This is just the sort of moment to call a friend.”
“Why is you nose bleed like that? Is there summat comin’ from your eyes as well?” Chez looked around, confused as hell. “Did someone shoot you or summink?”
Garth shook his head. “That was the past. This is the presen
t. This,” the Kin’kithal dabbed at the blood seeping around the edges of his ODDlenses, “is a side effect.”
Against his better judgment and the explicit advice of his ‘pieces, Chez demanded answers. “Wot in the utter fuck are you talking about, side effects? Side effects from what?”
“Localized time-travel, my friend who is far too familiar for my liking.” Garth flashed the dark haired assassin a fleeting grin. “Is your name Chad Sikkmund of Taryn?”
“Arsehole, my name is Chezzik Elteren and I am here to kidnap you. Stay there like a good b… wait, what? Time travel?”
“In … 3 … 2 … 1 …”
***
Chezzik didn’t like the men with guns inside the convention center, rather pointedly aiming their weapons at his bounty, but there was nothing he could do about it. That Nickels had fallen afoul of the American Military Complex and their desires to return to the way of the world before their man Kennedy had gotten his wig split open was of no real surprise to Chez, but what was of surprise was the fact that –if he were understanding the body language evident in the photos he were looking at- the General was apparently listening to Nickels.
More than that, whatever he were being told were apparently interesting.
And that was no good. There’d be no problems in dispatching the armed forces down there. That was a no…
A shot rang through. Chez jumped, aiming himself dead center of the glass roof.
***
Bullets tore into his immaculate flesh, mindpieces began tallying the damage. Chez drew his weapons and started firing, delivering pinpoint precise death to every lad and lass in eyesight, introducing brains to fresh air, souls to the next chance, blood to the thick carpet.
Landing amidst a pile of bodies and a rain of thick glass shards, Chez tallied his wounds.
“Not good.” Garth called from the other end of the room. He pulled out his phone. “Too many dead.”
Chez eyeballed Nickels. The man was bleeding profusely from the eyes and nose and if he weren’t mistaken, there were quite a bit of the old red stuff leaking from the earholes as well. “Oi, is you shot?”
“No. This is a side effect, Chezzik Elteren. Of localized time travel.” Into the phone, “Hey, yeah, no. That didn’t work. He killed basically everyone. Yeah. No. Rommen. More bodies on the stairs.”
“Who is you fucking talking to, arsehole?” Chez stormed through the crowd of dead bodies, wrapped his fingers around Garth’s throat and squeezed. “And what the fuck are you talking about, localized time travel?”
“I. I’m. Talking. To. Myself.” Even though he was being choked so hard his vertebra were grinding against one another, Garth smiled and flashed Chez a wink. “3. 2. 1. Here we go…”
Chez couldn’t shake the feeling he’d heard that line before…
***
According to photos stolen from phones inside the center, fourteen soldiers with guns were stood about, surrounding a General of indeterminate stature. The General, an older fella with gray hair and a surprising amount of medals on his broad chest, was –if body language were to be believed- listening to a young woman dressed head to toe in black and carrying a very dangerous looking weapon. Mixed into the crowd were even more of your typical Black Ops types, all in black, all toting guns.
Chez toggled his POV until he found some pictures taken from the opposite end, from where Garth was stood.
“Ah, well. That hain’t a surprise.” A few more Black Ops types were stood atop a stairwell overlook thing that made positively no architectural sense whatsoever, pointing their long rifles at a handsome man with blonde hair and a positively anguished look on his face. “Stands to reason, lad like Nickels, bound to make enemies both throughout time and space as well as t’home. Well, I do believe this calls for some pacifying grenados, does it not?”
And thus, Chezzik Elteren tossed a few grenades in a perfect arc towards the thick glass rooftop. The first one –an ordinary cracker that went bang pretty nicely- shattered the roof into a million pieces. The next five were of the nighty-night type, spilling thick, choking gas everywhere.
Chez made certain his lungs were turned off before he jumped in through the hole he’d blown.
***
“You are a persistent motherfucker, Chezzik, I … cough … cough … fuck this stuff tastes disgusting.” Garth shoved the phone away. “Like deep-fried barf.”
“How do …”
“Time-travel.”
“Of cou…”
“Yep. Best way to win friends and influence enemies.”
“What’s…”
“Side effects.”
“Is you going to count …”
“You bet. I’ll get this right. I got … eternity. In 3 … 2 … 1 …”
***
Chez eyeballed the convention center. He looked at the photos in his mind. He counted the people with guns. There were so many. Of course there were. Garth Nickels was –allegedly, if you ignored his checkered past- an asset to the American people. Naturally the government would want to protect that asset against all harm. Out in the open like this, away from his heavily fortified bunker full of highly trained Securicorps soldiers …
“Risky, hey?” Chez pulled at a lip and ran a diagnostic. He weren’t feeling … proper. Déjà vu were running friskily up and down his back, and he didn’t like it.
A few seconds later, the ‘pieces came back with their situation report. The majority of remaining ‘pieces announced that all systems were green and fully functional, mentioning also that while he was still surrounded by that ubiquitous and invisible network, his systems weren’t compromised.
A short time after that, three of his ‘pieces announced they weren’t feeling well.
“Not feeling well?” Chez’s forehead beetled at such a thing. “Not feeling well? You is facking organic constructs, not wee kids looking to skive off from school. Get your head in the game! Let’s do this.”
Chez launched a handful of grenados towards the thick glass roof. The first one would shatter said glass, nicely allowing the remaining …
The first grenade exploded, but there was no shattering of glass. The sleepy time grenades bounced off the unbroken glass roof and started spilling their payload everywhere else. Men and women only moments ago frantically banging their phones against thighs, purses, even foreheads … they all fell to the ground, unconscious.
“Fine.” Chez aimed himself for a doorway. “Through the fucking front it is.”
***
“Hey. Are … are you a cyborg?”
“Obviously, you cunt.” Chez staggered towards Garth, who was in the process of typing furiously on his laptop while running away; some of the soldiers he’d just finished murdering had been outfitted with some very surprising to see armor-piercing ammo, and they’d managed to chew up his legs fairly seriously before having their skulls split open. “If you could just be a nice little la…”
“Yeah, but you see, I’m picking up local tech in your systems, and that’s just fucking weird, right? Like, you’re obviously from the future because you smell like Wasteload and you’ve got slickjacks chambered in those Idiwah Yackguns of yours, and fuck me if that’s not one of the sole remaining EverKleen suits from Cho’Nihobat Sekai.” Garth slapped the side of his laptop firmly. “Nope, yeah, fucking British hardware? Hm.”
“You is…”
“No I’m not.” A thick pulse of blood poured freely from … well, from everywhere this time. Garth knew he was about done for. “He’ll have noticed by now. We’re almost done here, Chezzik. You know how the world ends?”
Chez had to admit he was in a far worse way than he was pretending. His legs were pretty heavily chewed up and he feared there wouldn’t be a way of resupplying before more local authorities arrived. “With a whimper?”
“You got that fucking right.” Garth sighed heavily. An ODDlens popped off and he squinted against the brutally bright red lines filling his sight. “You know the interesting thing abo
ut time travel, Chez? No, no, just stay right there. If you stop, listen, and answer my questions, I’ll be a good lamb. Time travel. You know the interesting thing about it?”
“Wot?” Chez licked his lips. He reckoned he could incapacitate Nickels right where he stood, but the dozen or so malfunctioning ‘pieces screamed they’d tried that summink like a hundred times already, all with no success. The time-traveling assassin shut the ‘pieces down and absorbed the proteins and nutrients into the overall system.
Precisely one single bullet hole healed itself.
Bollocks.
Garth continued typing on his laptop. “The interesting thing about time travel, Chezzik Elteren, is how long it takes for change to take effect. For example, in the here and now, it takes about … a minute for anything I change in the past to swing forward. And of course, there are those side effects.” He grunted in mild anguish when the second ODDlens popped off. He hardly even felt the thick flow of blood pulsing from the freshly freed socket.
“So every time I is come here, you is change the past, to make it more difficult for me?”
“You’re quick.” Garth wiped two thick trails of blood pouring from his nose on his arm, then tried wiping the stuff on his shirt. All he succeeded in doing was smearing his life essence all over everywhere. “But that’s local stuff. Long term stuff, that takes longer. But the single, solitary, absolutely most interesting thing about time travel is that some things, once set in motion, are always in motion, and that when they’re complete, they’ve always been complete. Since the beginning of time, to the end of time. Like, for example, a global trap, laid down with invisible circuits, filling the earth, the air, the sky, across the oceans and atop and around mountains, all over the earth, everywhere. But … open ended. An unfinished circuit. Waiting, in the Amazon Basin, for a power source. A power source to complete that circuit. Connecting past and future. Once that circuit is complete, Chezzik Elteren, the power flowing through it will ignite the circuits, transforming history. Circuits here, barely formed, become circuits there, fully formed, and backwards through time they’ll travel. Until they are everywhere. Because that’s how the Baron’s power works. And I’ve got him just where I want him.”
