Chapter Twenty

Not Yet

 

From his perch on a small hill, with tall grass reaching up to his waist, the wiry man in the black suit looked down at the ship in silence.

He was not alone.

There were two other individuals near him, looking in the same direction. Neither seemed to mind in the least that the rain was soaking their clothes.

One of them must have been at least six feet tall. He was a huge-looking man, wearing a ushanka hat and a long fur coat, which made him look like a large immobile block or bust. He had small black eyes, expressionless, under two thick bushy eyebrows and a large mustache hiding his lips.

Next to the huge man was a fey girl with silver hair, who also wore an outfit similar to that of the wiry man. The hat on her head, from which thick raindrops fell, made her expressions a bit hidden, behind the silver strands of hair.

It had been a strange moments for her, even though the passage of time was different from her perception. It had been almost two days since she had to take care of Sil's head, but for her it had only been moments. But now was no longer the time to worry about that.

The three of them were looking silently towards the ship, as if waiting for something when, next to the girl, a black mist formed and two more people appeared. It was Weiss and Priscilla.

"Shall we go?" asked the fey girl with the silver hair, in a dry tone.

"No, Dawn. Someone else is missing," the wiry man said.

And almost as soon as he finished saying that someone else appeared. It was another girl in a suit, with silver hair tied in two short pigtails. She was a little shorter than Dawn. Her eyes were pale and pupil-less.

She walked a few steps closer to Dawn and stood next to her. The man glanced back sidelong. "Rei is here for you, Dawn. This is not a personal vendetta. You understand that, right?"

"Yes," Dawn said, crestfallen, in a voice that could barely be heard above the sound of the rain. Her yellow eyes twinkled unnaturally, as if two conflicting feelings were being debated within her. Rei, though not looking directly at her, took Dawn's hand and squeezed it gently. Dawn in turn did the same and her breathing seemed to calm.

"Rei, you and Dawn take care of the distraction inside, split up and let me know when you have the girl's body in your sights, I'll handle the extraction. Prevent whoever is in charge of the mission from escaping, we need him alive." Both girls nodded solemnly, though Dawn bit her lower lip. "Tiny." The giant man cocked his head to one side, looking at the wiry man, almost with a mechanical motion. "You'll take care of the soldiers outside the ship." He then looked at Weiss and Priscilla. "You two make sure copy and destroy any information you can find that might change the course of events."

"Mr. Cold, and what will you do?" Rei asked.

"I will help you two get to the body..." Mr. Cold looked down at the ship, narrowing his eyes. "We have a problem." They all looked at him. "I'm detecting something strange around the perimeter of the ship. It may be one of those things that slows down our movements. We won't be able to move as usual unless we destroy it."

"Where is it?" Dawn asked.

"I don't know. Unless the disruptor is destroyed we won't be able to transport. Let's change the order. Weiss, Priscilla, you two find the device and transport with it, we need to know how it works. I'll take care of the intel. There's something else... these invaders have enhancements for a phase shift. Can you feel it Rei?"

The young woman looked in the direction of the ship with her silver eyes and said, "I only detect a kind of vibration."

"Can they move like us, my lord?" Tiny asked. His voice was deep, though there was a certain overly formal tone to it.

"I think this team might be after the 1963 event," Mr. Cold said. "If so, we now know what happened to the candidate and Lin. They may have copied the engineering of our bodies to adopt it to their own agents." The man turned and opened his eyes to see three mobiles far away in the bumpy road, silently approaching the scene. They all mimicked him.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Priscilla said.

"It's the confluence, it's another variable that has changed. Destroy any information that might alter the course further. This is our last intervention here. We will not move for this lapse, until next week's event is over."

The shadow people followed the path of the vehicles in silence with their eyes. When they were less than two hundred meters away from the ship, they saw the vehicles come to a screeching halt and there was a sound of something crashing, broken glass, horns and insults immediately.

"Let's get down to business," Mr. Cold said and together with his strange companions vanished from the hill.

***

While the signal that Stuart had first detected placed Sil's body near the abandoned lighthouse, the dock was farther away. Surely something had happened when they opened the bag containing the body and the ping signal had been activated at that location. When they had arrived they discovered that the place was completely deserted, but the signal reappeared a few hundred meters to the north where some abandoned ships were stranded. It was the place they were heading for, when they crashed.

The blow had dented part of the front bodywork of the police vehicle driven by Walter Grant. The other two vehicles behind had crashed into each other too.

"What the fuck was that?" Grant mumbled angrily, as the safety bubble deflated.

"An invisible force field," Stuart said.

The constables, who had emerged unscathed from the crash, jumped out of their cars and helped them out. But there was no time to relax. The bullets had started talking. They were firing at them from different directions from among the overgrown grass of the abandoned park.

"They knew we were coming!"

"They must have detected that we were following the ping on the app."

Grant and Stuart drew their guns and, covered behind the doors of the crashed vehicles, began to respond.

"Who the hell was this girl and why are so many people interested in her?" Grant asked.

Stuart for his part drew his gun and fired a couple of shots leaning out and looking towards the boat, but something else was catching his attention. "Do we have more reinforcements?"

"I'm calling for them now."

"So, what's that shooting over there?" he asked, pointing toward the deck of the ship.

***

The giant man materialized suddenly from behind them and almost took the soldiers by surprise. He barely gave them time to step aside and respond.

"It can't move that fast. Fire now," said the squad leader.

While the police were answering the Chimera team's attack, all hell had broken loose on the deck of the ship. The ten-man of the Hippogriff Team was unloading plasma ammunition on the huge man named Tiny.

Every shot that hit the giant seemed to have no effect on him at all. Not even his clothes were affected by the blasts. But he didn't stay still for long.

Despite his huge body, he moved with incredible speed and approached those who were shooting at him from closer range. With one of his huge arms he tried to hit two of the soldiers, but they reacted with the same speed and disappeared from his sight. One of them simply crashed twenty meters away.

"Your bodies are not acclimated enough to use those moves here. You won't leave this place alive," Tiny said.

As he took the hits from the projectiles, he barely had time to dodge a kick that went straight for his head and blew off his hat. He couldn't dodge a second blow to his side from a soldier, though.

They move better than I had anticipated. Five of the men in the squad were attacking him from close range while the others fired short bursts as the others moved back.

"Fall back!!!" said the team leader and fired two consecutive plasma blasts into Tiny's face that hit full on.

The giant bent backwards for a few moments and then, leaning forward again, looked at the leader. Despite the damage done, everyone saw how underneath the skin and where the flesh should be, instead there was something similar to crystals on the inside. It was the closest thing to seeing the inside of a geode. The wounds caused by the shock had left cracks and fracture-like marks all around the skin, surrounding the crystals inside. But the vision lasted only a second, the face was reconstructed and the wounds disappeared.

Tiny countered by moving like a flash among the soldiers, while hitting them with his huge fists and sending them flying through the air.

To anyone watching the scene, only the glow of the weapons being fired and a kind of black gale that swept through the whole place were visible. They were the blows of fists and kicks between the giant and the soldiers who were also moving at an impossible speed.

***

Weiss and Priscilla materialized on the roof of the ship control bridge and watched the spectacle on the deck.

"This is not good, they can already move almost like us." Priscilla said, angrily.

"These people are already dead," Weiss said. "Come on, we won't be able to move properly if we don't destroy the device's signal."

She had barely finished saying that when they both had to move, leaving a residual image behind them. They were being shot through the ceiling with traditional ammunition. They quickly slipped inside, breaking the windows and there they found three other soldiers and, in the center of the room, a cylinder with rings rotating in different directions. They both looked at each other and nodded.

The two girls began their counterattack quickly, moving in three dimensions around the cabin and trying to put the soldiers out of combat. However, they responded in kind, leaving a residual image with their movements around too.

"Leave them to me, you take care of that thing first," Priscilla said, as she dodged the soldiers' blows.

"I can't use the watch one hundred percent with this thing running," Weiss replied and tried to approach the cylinder. She opened her pocket watch and moved the hand at random.

It was a mistake. When she touched the cylinder with her free hand, it fell apart and its parts floated in the air for a few seconds. Long enough for her to see, among the mechanisms that made up the strange artifact, a tiny glass tube with something violet floating inside. Weiss opened her amber eyes wide, as she put on a terrified expression.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up and straining beyond her limits, she pulled away and grabbed Priscilla in her arms, knocking over two of the soldiers and pushing the third, and approached the window through which they had entered.

The strange violet substance in the tube began to vibrate and a second later the three soldiers were burned alive by a scarlet and black explosion that erased even the smallest particle of their existence. The control bridge exploded and the sound of the detonation was more than enough to be heard for miles. A shockwave rippled through the place and everyone, soldiers, fey, and even the police at their distance lost their footing and staggered.

Around the ship Grant and Stuart watched as a kind of shield that had been invisible until then was disintegrating.

About a kilometer away, on the roof of a building, Weiss and Priscilla materialized and rolled violently until the security fence stopped their momentum. Both girls felt the explosion and dematerialized just as the gigantic fireball swept over the command deck.

Priscilla slowly sat up while moaning in pain. On their faces there were fractures and cracks, as if their bodies were made of some kind of rock, and from between the scars the same iridescent crystals peeked out. Weiss grabbed her arm and Priscilla heard how something was breaking in her partner's body.

"Don't move, you absorbed too much of the blast when you covered me."

"I didn't expect there to be a violet philosopher's stone in that thing, now we at least know why we can't move like usual when those guys activate those things." Weiss looked at her partner's face. "You're hurt."

"Less than you."

"We can't move now."

"Let's leave it to the others. At least we destroyed that thing."

"That's what worries me. The wave of destruction may have affected them too."

Priscilla raised her hand and looked at the brittle wounds. Slowly one of the breaks began to close, but stopped halfway. "I can't use my healing."

"I've already used my watch three times here. We can't go back."

Priscilla looked worriedly toward the harbor, where a plume of smoke was rising from the ship's deck.

***

Tiny had not lost his fight, but the explosion had left him with the same brittle wounds all over his body and now he was on one knee on the ground trying not to fall. Part of his clothes had been vaporized, revealing the wounds that seemed to be growing by the second. The scarlet fireball that had swept through the control bridge, and the shockwave that followed, had taken out five of the closest soldiers. A sixth had been thrown out of the ship. The other four could still move but were in a pitiful state.

Mr. Cold, a few seconds before the explosion occurred, entered the interior of the ship, followed by Dawn and Rei, reaching the lower parts of the ship, where it was a hotbed of soldiers. At the time of the explosion they were much lower and, thanks to that, the fireball had not reached them, but it was not the same with the shockwave that went through the whole place as if there were no barrier to it. Cold staggered and fell to the ground as did the two girls. The same types of brittle wounds appeared on their bodies, though much smaller.

"A violet philosopher's stone," Mr. Cold said, looking at the skin on his fractured hands. Then he looked at the two girls. "You two, go ahead, find the body and transport out before this gets crowded. Don't come back later."

Rei looked apprehensively at the wounds on him and then at Dawn's wounds, but still said nothing and they both went deeper into the maze of corridors of the ship trying to find Sil Moore's body. Regardless of the orders given by Mr. Cold, whichever of the three found her first would have to transport the body out.

Mr. Cold continued his search through another of the opposite corridors, while at the same time, from time to time, a soldier would come out of his, way shooting at him or trying to stop him with blows. The blast wave did not seem to have affected him as much as the other members of his group. Despite his wounds, he could move quite freely and fight at the same time. The narrow corridors made it very difficult for them to move in a fight, and he could easily slip between them and take them out of combat.

Despite the improvements, it was obvious that many of them did not have full control of the super speed, with which they could move or how to stop without taking too much damage. In one of the soldiers' lunges, he launched himself like an arrow at Mr. Cold, but he only parried him with the palm of his hand against his chin. The unlucky man was so fast that the part below the neck went on for a few meters before stopping, while leaving his head behind.

When he reached another of the corridors he found one of the rooms open, and on entering, he saw scattered on the floor several cables connected to a series of instruments in industrial cases. It was the room where moments before the technicians were preparing the hyperbaric chamber for the body. As he touched one of the wires his fingers glowed and he closed his eyes as he accessed the information. He was unable to concentrate too much when he had to move quickly as the shock of Timur's two fists, tried to hit him squarely in the head. The man had crept into the room so as not to be overheard, but the surprise blow was ineffective.

Both opponents engaged in a new fight that gave no time for any introduction. The blows were more than enough of a presentation card for both of them. The room was large enough for them to move freely, but neither of them was able to take advantage of the other. Timur gritted his teeth. Even though the situation had ruined the operation, he couldn't help but feel the adrenaline coursing through every part of his body.

"You picked a bad time to show up," Timur said, taking a safe distance with his fists raised.

Mr. Cold for his part remained with a solemn stance, as he looked at him with his empty eyes. "I can say the same thing about you. You have good moves and upgrades, but they're not much use if you can't move properly here. You don't belong here."

"We were leaving anyway. We didn't come here because we wanted to, we need something."

"That won't be possible. The girl belongs here since she was a baby, and your interventions are causing more repercussions in our universe."

"We're just trying to survive."

"It won't be at the expense of our universe. This is our home and we are the ones in charge of the balance."

"Let me tell you, you' re doing a piss poor job. This place is also falling apart just like ours."

"If that's the justification for kidnapping people from our universe. I don't accept it. Anomalous events are happening for a reason. They are deterministic, not destructive. But the intervention is causing an even greater deterioration in the fabric of this reali-"

Mr. Cold did not have time to finish his exposition of the facts, when Timur charged at him again like a tornado of fists. Despite this, the wiry man had no trouble dodging each of them, blurring his silhouette with each swift movement, almost like a snake circling his enemy.

"It may look that way to you, but it didn't work for us," Timur said.

"That's not the fault of events. Just bad decisions from the people from your side."

Timur clicked his tongue as he felt the pressure between the flesh muscles and the artificial ones increase with each movement. The mechanical parts of the back were in charge of keeping that pressure from destroying Timur's body, but the speed of movement of the fight made that really laborious.

In a second of Timur's carelessness, Mr. Cold was fast enough to get behind him and with his hands grabbed the man's head. Timur felt a twinge in his brain. He felt like something was accessing his every memory, as images of his life flashed by like a clonic shock of memories.

Can you see it? it was only bad decisions on your part that allowed me to get behind you. Some things are destined to happen, no matter how much we oppose them, but decisions can change the possible outcomes.

Timur saw himself on the day of his graduation from the academy, training with long-dead classmates. Kissing his wife as he caressed her stomach. Then some less pleasant memories of creatures of strange and grotesque anatomy running rampant through cities, destroying everything in their path. Visiting a tomb. Then more recent memories of his homeland, Nak with whom he shared a few beers. More operations, death and duels enough to win the lottery jackpot. The memories ended and Timur felt like Mr. Cold just let go of his head. Timur whirled around like a bolt of lightning and they were both at a safe distance from each other.

It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Mr. Cold changed his expression. "I see," he said stepping back and putting on a more relaxed attitude.

Timur didn't hesitate for a second and began a new lunge. But this time it was different. Instead of backing away, Mr. Cold this time waited for the blow with a taciturn look on his face. Timur wondered for a split second if it was some new tactic, but it was too late. He was moving faster than he thought, to change tactics at that moment.

But Mr. Cold did not respond to the attack by moving away, in fact he did nothing at all.

It was a direct blow to the chest and Timur heard the cracking sounds and saw his fist destroy Mr. Cold's body, whose pieces of crystalline stones were scattered around the room by the fury of the blow, and his suit fell to the floor imprisoning the parts of the body that had not been sent flying through the air by the violent blow.

On the floor rolled part of the head that still had that serene expression on his face.Timur stepped back, while the metal parts of his back released the pressure he had been holding back. He felt weak and a little dizzy. It was the first time he had used the phase shift for so long. But he was more struck by what had happened. Timur did not understand what had happened, but he won against one of them. One of the creatures that other teams had encountered several times. But this time he was the winner.

But he had no time to rejoice at the fleeting victory. From the agitated orders of Team Manticore's leader, and the sounds around the ship, he already knew that there were two others moving around. He had lost contact with Team Hippogriff on the deck of the ship after the explosion. Team Chimera, now composed of eight men, was still holding off the police, while Mr. Cold had taken care of most of Team Dragon by himself. Team Manticore was currently fighting the other two intruders who were searching the ship.

There was no time to rest and he left the cabin at full speed, hoping that the other side would hurry to open the breach that would take the remaining ones back home.

On the floor of the room, the pieces that had composed Mr. Cold began to reassemble and lift off the floor as the different parts came together as if there was some sort of metaphysical magnetism holding them together. In less than five seconds the strange being called Mr. Cold was standing there as if he had never suffered any blows.

"For him it hasn't happened yet," he said looking toward the entrance.

***

Let's see if this works, Grant said with a frown, and pressed the accelerator as the bullets bounced off the vehicle's force shield.

They had requested information only in case there was a special forces operation going on in the area, but that was not the case. Reinforcements were sent from the nearest headquarters and within minutes the armed police drones had arrived on the scene, while it would take a few more minutes for the vehicles to reach the scene.

The three vehicles drove down the park road, towards the ship while responding to enemy fire.

The drones had tried non-lethal deterrence methods, but upon seeing the amount of enemy fire, and the situation of the explosion, they switched to their traditional ammunition in accordance with security protocols in cases of terrorist events.

The advance of the vehicles stopped, when the soldiers began to respond with plasma ammunition and grenades. The security of the police cars was good, but Stuart was pretty sure that even now with the shields up a grenade to the underside of the car would send them to the moon.

From the drone image, they had an image that ten soldiers were the ones firing at them. Two were quickly shot down by the drones, as the constables and Stuart returned fire.

"2MA," Stuart said and his gun changed shape slightly, the cannon of the gun grew larger and fired. Inside the car there was a muffled detonation and several meters away from them one of the soldiers went flying backwards. Grant looked at Stuart dazed from the explosion. "Sonic boom-boom," Stuart said, with a shrug.

Thanks to the quick movements of the drones, the soldiers on the ground now had a new problem. Although Grant was seeing that three were surrounding them from the left flank. While the drones took care of two on the right side, the police started firing at those on the left.

It wasn't as easy as they expected, though. One of the soldiers in the front fired a consecutive shots of plasma into the underside and the car lifted a few inches, just enough for the second to send a grenade underneath.

Grant and Stuart looked at each other and half a second later they felt the detonation under their feet, the car lifted in the air 180 degrees and landed upside down on top of the car behind and rolled to the side.

The constables jumped out of the vehicles, as they took cover behind the doors again while the drones took out the two on the right. Stuart had landed on Grant who at the time was dealing with the deflating security pillow. Stuart kicked the broken glass removing what was left and fired at the two in the front. The two soldiers went flying through the air and never got up.

Stuart got out of the vehicle helping Grant off the pillow, while the four cops returned fire from the remaining two.

"One is missing, where did he go?"

While the drones were firing at the two, the missing third one was moving at super speed and in less than three seconds had managed to disarm and reduce the cops, knocking them unconscious on the grass with his blows.

The soldier fixed his sights on Stuart and moved like lightning to where he was. There was a quick flash of lightning and the red-haired fey flew a few meters back and remained immobile on the grass.

Grant had just finished exiting the vehicle and saw the fey fly through the air and then the soldier set his sights on him as he raised his gun. Grant did the same with his gun, but at that moment something happened.

The soldier suddenly lowered his gun a few inches, almost as if he was thinking something. Grant couldn't be sure because of the mask covering his features, but he was almost certain that he was looking at him with surprise. But the strange impression only lasted a few seconds and the soldier raised his gun again in order to shoot the detective.

Grant didn't hesitate and fired his weapon accurately, opening a hole in the man's neck. The unfortunate man took a few steps back and collapsed on the grass.

A few feet away, Stuart slowly got up amidst moans and curses.

"Are you all right?" Grant asked.

"Yeah, just a couple of broken ribs I think." The soldier had shot him at point blank range, the smart tactical clothing had saved him from first the blow and then the discharge of the gun, which would have blown his torso to pieces.

Grant looked again at the soldier stretching out his hand toward him. He was still alive. Grant reached down and tried to apply pressure to the wound, while with his other hand he tried to pull off the mask so he could breathe. Not without some difficulty did he free him from the mask and then from the ski mask he was wearing.

It was at that moment that the detective fell backwards and froze, as he looked into the wide eyes of terror of the one who was begging for help. Blood was still gushing from his neck, but any help was beyond the reach of science, even if they didn't know it at the time. The soldier slowly closed his eyes as he kept his eyes on the detective.

In the distance Stuart saw the lights of the police cars approaching the scene. He then walked over to Grant and with an expression similar to the detective's his eyes were fixed on the now lifeless soldier.