Part III
No Time for Tomorrow Today
Nerva Archipelago, Rogue Isles
"I know we've been friends for a long time, Mordechai, but I can't just give you the chronotometer. Do you have any idea how long it took me to build that thing? I mean, I started it before my husband died and he's been dead for six years!"
Doctor Terri Belinda Malevolon sat in her favorite swivel chair, arms crossed under her chest. Her sky-blue eyes surveyed Task Force Fugit with some amusement. Seeing the group of heroes in her Rogue Isles stronghold was kind of funny. Herr Geist, who stood behind Desert Runner (or Mordechai, apparently) had been staring at Malevolon's chest for some time. She was one of those women with a gorgeous face and a wide frame; Geist believed the term would have been 'thick in the right places.'
"I know, Terri. I know. But I don't think he'd object; he was a man of science just like you're a woman of invention. Besides, he's right there. He could tell us himself." Desert pointed over to a positively enormous robot. It raised it's head, shook it as if to say 'no way' and promptly went back to looking lifeless.
"Oh screw you, Ignatius," Terri barked at the giant machine. It sagged like a man scorned.
"What exactly do you need the chronotometer for anyway? It's not like someone stole the Timepieces of Lord Millstone."
Desert Runner scratched his neck.
"No. Way," the doctor said excitedly. She shot up out of her chair and walked briskly across the room. Herr Geist's glowing eye orbs followed her hips as she did so and, with a 'thwack,' were both knocked out of alignment with his head by Desert Runner's swift backhand. The neon green orbs spun wildly around his eyebrows for a moment before syncing themselves up with their rightful areas. He shot Runner the finger and quickly stashed the offending appendage away as Terri turned back around. She was holding a device that looked like an oversized compass.
Dr4k3 piped up immediately.
"D00dz! Th4t thing l00ks li3k a Dr4g0n R4daR!" The room stared at him.
"… j00 kn0w, from Dr4g0n B4|| Z?" He looked around and threw his arms in the air, nearly taking out a section of ceiling with his left hand hammer.
"D1d n0 1 h33r h4v3 a fr33k1n' ch1ldh00d but m3? J33zu5!" He fiddled with his mohawk and stormed off to another corner of the room.
"How does it work," Safeguard said calmly.
"And how durable is it?"
"Your Freakshow buddy is right, actually," Terri said.
"t's a lot like the Dragon Radar. It's solidly built; I dropped it down the stairs a lot when we moved here in March. To use it you just hit this button on top and it'll scan a one-thousand yard radius area for temporal anomalies. I actually got the idea from that old anime, and thought 'I should make one of those but for time!' and Ignatius said '47 6f 20 66 6f 72 20 69 74 20 68 6f 6e 65 79 2e.'"
Safeguard stared at her blankly for several seconds. When she'd spoken the numbers her face had gone completely blank and her voice a flat monotone. Once the last number left her mouth her face went right back to the 'Maybe I
am crazy' smile she'd been wearing since they'd arrived.
"Very well then," he said after that awkward pause.
"It will be returned to you as soon as our investigation is complete. Any attempt to retrieve it during our investigation will be considered obstruction of justice."
"Just don't break it, muscles." Terri went back over to her chair and plopped down. The enormous robot hummed to life again. It stomped idly over to Herr Geist and leaned in close.
"4c 61 79 20 65 79 65 73 20 6f 6e 20 6d 79 20 77 69 66 65 20 61 67 61 69 6e 20 61 6e 64 20 49 20 67 72 69 6e 64 20 79 6f 75 20 69 6e 74 6f 20 68 61 6d 62 75 72 67 65 72 20 6d 65 61 74 2c 20 75 6e 64 65 72 73 74 61 6e 64 3f," it blasted out in a grating electric monotone.
"Vat, I don't—" Geist began, stepping backwards.
"You should leave. All of you. Best of luck getting those watches back." Terri Malevolon pressed a button on her workbench and the ceiling panels over each of the heroes lit up.
"Oh and don't break my chronotometer!"
With that, the tiles fired pillars of downward pink light over Task Force Fugit.
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Thirty Seven Seconds Later
Brickstown, Paragon
"Great work, Geist. Now when I take that thing back to her I get to listen to her yell about your wandering eyes and have my ears destroyed by her husband's exoskeleton."
"I cannot help it," Geist said while adjusting his cravat.
"Ze Geist is a vinner vith ze ladies." Geist's eye orbs were once again sent for a spin around his head courtesy of a slap upside the back of the head from Zambonia. She grabbed the cravat and pulled Geist's face close to hers, her breath frosting his mask.
"We're here to do a job, Geist, not ogle mad scientist women. Stop being a chauvinistic buttmunch and focus." She pushed him away and sauntered over by the rest of the group.
"Zambonia is right. We're back in Paragon, and we have the exact tool we need to finish this little runaround before it turns in to something worse. Let's get started right here in Brickstown," Safeguard lectured impatiently. He hit the top of the device, and after a few seconds it made a buzzing sound.
"… I don't believe it," the herculean hero said.
"It's five hundred yards north of where we are." He suddenly looked at his wrist. With a tap of his finger, a thin band the width of his wrist popped off of his suit. He held it to his ear like a bluetooth headset.
"This is Safeguard. Yes. We're actually here now." He nodded a few times.
"We'll be there before you know it." He replaced the small device and looked to his fellow heroes.
"Follow me."
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Everwood Grove Apartments, Brickstown, Paragon
"Thom?" Booker hopped down the stairs sideways, coming up on Thomson's lab door. It was an impressive 9 feet high with interlocking deadbolts and securing rods all originating from a centered half-sphere with an indentation of a hand in it's center. He put his hand in the imprint and it passed a glowing blue line over his fingertips. A panel slid open on the door, displaying the words "HELLO BOOKER." All of the rods and deadbolts slammed inward, and the door sank into the foundation of the building.
"Thom," he called again.
"Dude, where's that hydraulic plunger you made? I clogged the can again. We gotta move Tamale Tuesdays to every other week."
"Hey!" Thom barked out as he swung around the corner of a hallway. Booker reeled backwards and made a startled squawk.
"Good gravy man, do you want me to crap or something?" He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.
"Did you hear about the plunger? I really borked the toilet this time around."
"Gross," Thom said and produced the plunger from a wall panel that slid open with a soft metal sigh. It looked like one of those bizarre steampunk rifles Booker had seen in Atlas.
"Hey, how's the cannon holding up? I took a look at it's readouts and you've really been putting it through it's paces."
"It's great, actually," Booker said as they walked up into the living room.
"I've been trying to—
A knock at their door interrupted Booker's explanation. With a shattering noise, the door just… opened, the deadbolt sending pieces of the door frame plunking to the floor. Standing in the doorway (with four other heroic figures behind him) was Safeguard.
"Booker Wheldon 'Beam Time' Calhoun, you're under arrest for the murder of Wayland 'Mechanoxx' Trent and the theft of the Timepieces of Lord Millstone. You can surrender by placing your hands on your—"
But Booker was already sprinting across the room. He jumped, spinning in midair and landing perfectly in the X-0 suit. As his back hit the interior of the suit the wind was thrust from his lungs; didn't matter, he thought. Had to keep Thom safe. Had to stay alive. Fight or flight. Fight and flight. Fight
then flight. Belts and straps slapped across his forearms, thighs and middle. The suit closed and fitted to his form. As soon as the suit sealed, the HUD began to boot. No time. He flung his right arm forward.
"X-0 Cannon," he barked. The cylindrical pod holding his trusty plasma cannon slid open and the oversized weapon fired out of it handle first into Booker's hand.
"Oh no you don't," Safeguard said and moved in on Booker, landing a strong right hook into the chest of the suit. Booker went spiraling into the back wall, smashing it to pieces and demolishing the guest bathroom.
"You have ten seconds to surrender, Calhoun. Comply or be destroyed."
Booker's reply took the form of a brilliantly orange plume of energy that exploded from the dark hole in the wall and collided with Safeguard in that strange, deep "wobwobwobwob" that sounded so much like dubstep. The muscular hero flew backwards and knocked Dr4k3 off of his feet. Zambonia stepped into the apartment and took a deep breath, her eyes focused on Thomson. With no warning at all Booker smashed out of the wrecked bathroom in a hail of splinters and slid in front of Thomson at just the right moment. His HUD began to blink a message on the lower left of the readout. 'SCAPULA SERVO TEMPERATURE -45°C AND FALLING. SEIZE IMMINENT.' Behind him, Zambonia had let loose an arctic exhalation in an attempt to freeze Thomson. He tried to turn, but the motion-acceleration servos in the back of the suit did just as the HUD warned. His upper body was somewhat limited now.
Then it hit him. The watches. DUH, his brain yelled at him. He focused just slightly and—
The world stopped. Just like that. Safeguard was hovering back into the apartment, Dr4k3 was dusting off his butt, Zambonia was pulling the heat from the air to form a patch of icy wind. Booker identified Safeguard at once; he'd met the hero during a joint operation to stop Arachnos in Faultline. He'd never seen the Freakshow guy and was puzzled about his being there, and Zambonia… well, he stared at her skin-tight black and light blue costume, admired her thigh-highs, and made a mental note to dig chicks with her swept-back hairstyle. He turned, and saw his brother lit up with fear. He grabbed him gently and suddenly Thomson was moving with him.
"Don't freak, it's just me," Booker said.
"You need to get in your lab and seal it tight.
"Book, I—"
"Thom, just get to safety. I can't have you involved in this, okay? Some **** went down, I had to make a few really poor choices to save my own life, and you're not about to get caught up in it. Whatever happens we'll both be fine but for now you need to get in that lab and hit that big purple lockdown button I saw you installed on the wall."
"But Booker I'm—"
Booker's helmet opened in four places, the three faceplates and the visor spreading open like a mechanical flower. They sank behind his head and formed into the neck of the suit. He leaned forward and kissed his brother on the forehead.
"Save it, man. I don't know how I'm gonna make it through this, so if it gets heavy and you never see me again, I love you. I'm serious. You're the best brother a guy could have. Now get. To. Safety."
With that, Booker released his brother. Thomson fell backwards onto his butt, looking around. The three present heroes stopped, and began searching the room along with Thom. Booker was nowhere to be found. The suit, the cannon, the watches had all gone with him.
"Where is he," Safeguard said darkly. He stepped forward and helped Thomson up.
"He can't be allowed to roam free like this, he's a dangerous man."
Thomson brushed himself off and stared at his feet.
"I don't know where he's going," he said quietly.
"He could be anywhere by now. I'm sorry I can't help you any more than that. I need to get to my lab." He dashed down the stairs before any of them could make a move, skidding past the door and hitting the lockdown button. The door slammed shut so hard the building shook, the rods hammering into place.
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Two Seconds Later
Baumton, Paragon
Booker appeared in the very heart of one of Baumton's biggest fallen skyscrapers. He sat, thudding to the concrete in the X-0 suit. His heart was pounding, his mind racing, his thoughts on his brother's safety and his own situation. The sun was setting, and no one knew he was here.
He needed sleep.
Yeah…
Sleep.
Did you open the Paragon Store after launching it?
