by Fae York
“We’re not going to be able to take your car,” Aleph said when Emelia pulled her keys from her pocket.
“They have the whole lot blocked off now.” He looked around the parking garage for a few seconds before his eyes landed on something in the far corner. “Fancy a motorcycle ride?” he asked.
Aleph didn’t wait for her response. Instead, he jogged over to the motorbike and slid on the glove, touching the ignition with a few sparks. The machine immediately roared to life, and he pushed the sole helmet into her hands.
Emelia laughed nervously as she swung up onto the bike and snuggled in behind him.
They pulled out of the parking garage and onto a narrow road, headed for the center of the city. Aleph had the motorcycle speeding forward at full throttle, so the winter air tugged at Emelia’s hair and scraped at her face. She slid her hands into Aleph’s jacket pockets and pulled down the helmet visor to keep her eyes from watering.
The streets of D.C. were covered in debris and filled with all sorts of people.
The couple wove in and out of small crowds, trying their best not to draw attention to themselves. Helicopters continued to patrol the skies up above, but the chaos and confusion of earlier had subdued. Men and women walked slowly from one place to another, assessing the damage of the terrorist attacks and exchanging stories. Emelia wished that she could warn them that the worst was yet to come.
Ten minutes later, Aleph brought the motorcycle to a screeching stop. Emelia tightened her grip around Aleph’s waist and mumbled an apology when her helmet slammed into his back.
They dismounted the motorbike—rather ungracefully on her part—and found themselves staring up at the Pierce Global headquarters.
If Emelia hadn’t known any better, she would have thought the building had long since been abandoned. There were no cars in the parking lot, not a soul to be found around the perimeter, and every window was dark.
Together, Aleph and Emelia cautiously approached the backdoor and were surprised to find it unlocked. Aleph pulled Vane’s glove from his back pocket and slid it onto his hand. He motioned for her to stay behind for a moment while he went ahead to check things out. After a few seconds of silence, he reappeared at the door and Emelia followed him inside.
The foyer of the building looked like that of any other building in the D.C. area. There were couches and chairs scattered to the left and a front desk directly ahead. Though the electricity was off, soft blue light filtered in through the thinly curtained windows. The foyer itself was silent, but somewhere in the distance Emelia could hear the sounds of movement.
Pressed against the wall, Emelia and Aleph slunk around the front desk and down the hall. At the end of the hallway, Emelia could see two distinct shadows. Aleph tugged on her sleeve to get her attention then pressed a finger to his lips. He rounded the corner and Emelia heard a few electric jolts followed by two loud thumps. Emelia stepped out to find Aleph standing over two unconscious guards. He smiled, looking all too proud of himself.
“Very nice,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t happen to have another weapon, would you? I’d like to be a little less useless. Also, if Time decides to kick you out, I need to be able to defend myself.”
Aleph chuckled and handed her back Vane’s glove. “Of course, take this.”
“What will you use?” Emelia asked, sliding the glove onto her hand.
Aleph shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t really need it. It just makes things . . . cleaner.” Then, without another word, he continued down the second hallway.
At the end, Emelia and Aleph came face to face with two more guards. Unlike the first two, these men saw Aleph coming and had time to pull out their weapons. One guard threw his knife and Aleph ducked just in time, the knife grazing his neck and back just enough to slice through the thin fabric of his travel suit.
In one fluid motion, Aleph grabbed the knife from the ground and threw it at the second guard. The man crumpled, clutching the handle that now protruded from his stomach. Now weaponless, the first guard moved as if to charge Aleph. However, he didn’t take a single step before familiar hands appeared around his neck and he too fell to the ground.
Where he had stood moments before, Vane now stood with an irritated look on his face.
“You need to stop moving,” he said, glaring at Emelia. “It is incredibly difficult to locate which room you’re in when you don’t stay put.”
Emelia shrugged. “Sorry. But hey, if this goes well, we won’t have to leave this building.”
Aleph rose to his feet and pushed his hair back with one hand. Vane’s gaze bore into him, but Aleph refused to meet his eyes.
“Traitor,” Vane growled, gesturing at Aleph’s torn travel suit. Emelia hadn’t noticed until that moment, but his tattoos were out in the open.
Not only could Vane see the government-sanctioned marks on the back of Aleph’s neck, but also the unsanctioned travel marks farther down on his spine. Emelia dug her nails into her palms.
“I am not from your time,” Aleph said calmly. “Things are different now; I am here to help.”
“I told you not to trust another traveler,” Vane snapped.
Emelia shushed him. “Can we talk about this later? We really don’t have time right now.”
Begrudgingly, Vane tore his eyes from Aleph and took off down the hall, motioning for the two of them to follow. They took a right, a left, then another right before arriving at the door of a large conference room with lots of windows.
“Aleph,” Emelia said in a hushed tone, “could you travel to 2131 then come back on the other side of that room? If you create a distraction, Vane and I can cut across and out the other door.”
Before Aleph could answer, Vane blinked out of view then reappeared on the other side of the conference room. Equipped with a second glove, he wove in and out of the small group of guards, knocking them out one by one.
When he finished, he gave a sarcastic bow and strutted through the opposite door. Aleph and Emelia exchanged a glance then joined him on the other side.
“It’s much easier if you’re an authorized traveler.” Vane smirked then looked at Emelia. “There are hundreds of rooms in this building and at least twelve floors. Where are we headed?”
“I-I’m not sure, exactly,” Emelia admitted. “I guess I was hoping that the weapon would be somewhere obvious. It’s huge, so it can’t be that hard to find.”
Vane leaned against the wall between two large elevator doors. “If I were planning on killing millions of people, I wouldn’t leave the evidence out in the open.”
“There has to be some sort of control center with a floor plan,” Aleph said. “I’d imagine it’s on one of the upper floors. Let’s head to the top floor and work our way down.”
Emelia and Vane nodded, and Vane pressed the elevator button. The doors parted, and the three of them stepped inside.
When the elevator opened on the top floor, Vane was the first to step outside. Before he had time to orient himself, a guard rushed in for the attack and his tight fist contacted Vane’s cheekbone. The blow stunned Vane so much that he stumbled backward, slightly dazed.
Four other guards filed into the open space in front of the elevator, unaware of Aleph and Emelia’s presence. With the element of surprise on his side, Aleph stepped out of the elevator and charged one of the guards with his head down. He rammed his shoulder squarely into the man’s midsection, knocking the wind out of him with an ooofff.
Vane came to his senses and joined Aleph in the fight, slamming another guard’s skull into the cement wall.
Emelia watched in fascination as the two men ducked and weaved, gracefully avoiding the other guards’ blows.
Aleph grabbed the third guard and threw him into the fourth guard. The two collided with a loud thud then moaned, their heads each lolling to one side.
Then, the man that Aleph had charged was back up on his feet, but before he could move Vane grabbed the back of his shirt. He swung his glove backward and
drove the heel of his hand into the guard’s nose. Blood exploded from his face and Vane tossed the body to one side with a grimace. He and Aleph were now the only two men standing.
“Remind me never to piss off either of you,” Emelia muttered quietly, stepping out of the elevator.
The first two rooms on the top floor were empty, simple offices designed for one or two employees. The third room appeared to be exactly what they were looking for. Computer monitors covered three sides and filing cabinets lined the back wall. Emelia searched for a way to open the door but came up empty handed. It was sealed from the inside.
“Sometimes . . .” Vane began, stepping toward her. He powered up his glove and pressed it to the door. With a surge of electricity from the glove, the door slid open. Aleph looked entertained at the trick but offered no compliments.
They stepped into the room and Emelia’s eyes were immediately drawn to the monitors.
The screen in the bottom left corner revealed a room of enormous size, filled to the brim with bustling people. In the center of the room, stood what Emelia could only imagine was the super weapon that they had come to destroy.
“Where do you think this room is?” Emelia asked, pointing at the monitor.
Aleph stepped up beside her, squinting his eyes to read the code on the lower corner of the monitor aloud, “I’d guess it’s room 1218B?”
Emelia leaned forward, surprised that she hadn’t noticed the numbers before. “Do you think that means that room is in the basement?”
“That, or it’s on the twelfth floor,” Vane stated.
“Or the 218th room of the first floor.” Aleph sighed. “We should probably just look for that floorplan.”
Emelia took to the desk drawers while the two men rifled through the filing cabinets. In the last drawer, Emelia found the floor plans.
“Guys,” she said slowly, holding up a dog-eared and coffee-stained binder, “I think this is it.”
Aleph took the binder from her hand and flipped through several pages. “This one here,” he said when he paused, “comes the closest to what we’ve experienced on this floor.”
He carefully took out the page and the other fourteen that were stapled to it. There was one page for each level above ground and one page for each of the three levels that were, apparently, underground. The print on the pages was small, faded, and overall difficult to read. To save time, they split up the stack, and combed their pages for anything close to 1218B.”
“No dice,” Aleph said after a few minutes. Emelia looked up and in that very moment, they both realized that Vane was gone. They looked to the monitor and Emelia tried not to laugh.
“Apparently, Vane found 1218B on it.” she said.
On the screen before them, they watched as Vane took out one untrained engineer at a time. The men in that room were obviously not trained for combat, and it was almost sad to watch them try and fight back. Just when Emelia was beginning to think that they had this under control, a slew of armed guards poured into the room. Without hesitation, Aleph grabbed the stack of papers from where Vane had been sitting and combed them over.
“He’s on the eleventh floor, almost directly above us,” Aleph said.
“Why the hell is room TWELVE-18B on the eleventh floor?” Emelia asked, following Aleph out of the room and back into the elevator.
“Dramatics?” Aleph called back to her.
The elevator doors opened on the eleventh floor and Emelia and Aleph sprinted into the hallway. Aleph wove in and around corridors until they reached their destination. They burst through the double doors to find Vane, who was sweating and heavily outnumbered.
Their entrance had distracted the guards for a moment, giving Vane a window for escape. He turned to Emelia and looked her in the eyes.
“This is not worth my time.” He shimmered back into 2118.
Right in that moment, the machine that sat in the center of the room suddenly whirred to life. With the weapon up and running, the guards no longer took the time to deal with intruders. Emelia and Aleph watched as they filed out through the back doors, heading in the opposite direction of the death machine.
“What even is it?” Aleph asked, his mouth gaping.
Emelia sighed. “According to the information I uncovered, the machine emits ultrasonic waves that are so intense that they fry the human nervous system.”
“That . . . can’t be pleasant.”
A grinding sound split the air and the wall to their right began to rise. Like a huge garage door, it opened to reveal the smoky city skyline. Emelia watched in horror as the machine rolled forward, wings slowly extending on each side.
Aleph turned to her with a concerned look on his face. “We have to go.”
“Go where?” she asked.
“Pierce Global has a warehouse that’s about ten miles from here. When I was doing research back in my time, I found something about multiple weapons. Now that I know that Pierce is behind the massacre, I’d be willing to bet that the rest of the machines are stored there. We arrived too late to stop this one, but maybe if we hurry we can get to the warehouse before the others are let loose. We have to try.”
Emelia nodded. “Let’s go.”
21 Sorrow
Emelia and Aleph exited the building just in time to witness the super weapon, the size of a small car, hovering startlingly close to their parked motorcycle. They spun around in the opposite direction and sprinted down the street, dodging debris in search of a fast car. Not too far away, they found one in a McDonald’s parking lot and Aleph broke the window to unlock the door from the inside. They hopped in and Aleph surprised her by hot wiring the car. Five minutes later, they were flying down the road.
A mile away from the warehouse, they got stuck in traffic. Horns were blaring, sirens whirring, and civilians weaving through the chaos of it all. Emelia watched from the window as the machine rounded the corner a hundred feet away and passed by them on a parallel street.
The men, women, and children in its wake collapsed, their blood mixing with the slush on the frozen ground. Emelia was so focused on the horrific scene that she almost didn’t notice when a small gray object struck the windshield.
Aleph immediately got out of the car to retrieve the small hand grenade. He hurled it away from them, but it was still close enough that, when it detonated, they stumbled to the ground.
Emelia sat up gingerly, and shook her head, trying to hear over the ringing in her ears. Her eyes burned from the smoke and she felt nauseous. Emelia blinked several times in an attempt to clear her vision, and her head was throbbing. She tried unsuccessfully to stand, serving herself a face full of asphalt.
“Emelia!” Aleph yelled from somewhere behind her. “EMELIA, GET UP! WE HAVE TO GO!”
He rushed to her side and tried to lift her to her feet, but Emelia didn’t move. She groaned at first, but then attempted to cooperate. She opened her eyes but could only see through one of the two.
My hair must be blocking it, she thought, reaching up to push her hair out of her face. Her hand contacted with her eyebrow and she winced, her fingers were sticky with blood.
“You’ve got a nasty gash above your eye,” Aleph said, pulling her out of the middle of the street. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a concussion, too. Do you still want to do this? Emelia, we can leave right now. I can take you to 2131 and we’ll be safe.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, we’ve come this far.”
“Okay.” Aleph nodded and dragged her down an alley and they stopped over a manhole. He pried off the large metal disk and climbed inside.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Emelia asked.
“When we were in the control room, there were all sorts of blueprints and maps for a tunnel system in the sewers. If we want to get to the warehouse, this is probably the safest way to go.” With that, Aleph started down the ladder and Emelia reluctantly followed.
The smell was horrendous, but at least they didn’t have to walk in the waste. At th
e base of the ladder they found a strip of cement, about the width of a sidewalk, to stand on. Aleph pulled her along, and slowly the smell of sewage began to dissipate. At the end of the tunnel, they found a door where Aleph stopped short, holding up his hand. He pressed his ear to the door and shook his head.
He stepped back and opened his mouth to speak when a gunshot blast tore through the air.
Emelia ducked, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her head. When nothing followed the sound, Emelia slowly straightened and looked around with wide eyes. She wiped her sweaty hands down her pant legs and she searched for Aleph. She found him in a heap to the right of the door, clutching his midsection and gasping for breath. Beside him, a pool of thick redness was growing. Emelia’s scream died in her throat. She ran to his side and knelt down, pulling his head into her lap.
“No, Aleph,” she choked between sobs, “You’re okay. We’re okay.”
He moaned, his breathing shallow and ragged. Aleph mumbled something incomprehensible and smiled up at her.
“Aleph, sweetheart, you have to get up.” She struggled to lift him to his feet. “Aleph,” she yelled again, but he wouldn’t budge. She looped her arms under his and forced him into a sitting position, his back propped against her chest.
Another gunshot fired, the bullet coming dangerously close to Emelia’s face. It was close enough that when it plowed into the cement of the wall behind her head, the fragments that sprayed out cut her face. Aleph began coughing weakly, blood speckles dotting his chin and shirt.
“Looks like I may have overstayed my welcome this time.” He chuckled, then grimaced, his pain clear on his ashen face.
“Time doesn’t shoot bullets, Aleph. This is my fault,” she sobbed.
Aleph studied her face. “No,” he said, slowly raising his arm to brush the tears from her face. “No, this isn’t your fault at all.” He then grew quiet, his breathing shallow and slow. Though she didn’t want to accept it, Emelia knew that, even with help, he probably wasn’t going to make it.
