Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my latest report.
Now, as those of you that have been following my reports might remember, I'm not actually in Paragon City at the moment. I'd love to tell you where I am but, due to a few small misunderstandings, it might be better if I didn't. You see, even though its been a month or two since I left Galaxy City, there are still a few people who are ... upset... with me.
And, just to be clear about this readers, I'm using the word upset to mean "would kill me if they had the chance."
I seem to be on a lot of people's lists. Longbow is still not happy with me but, as I understand it, they're having problems of their own right now. Also, the Paragon City government is a bit miffed but they're politicians, they'll get over it. No, readers, I'm talking about the extreme displeasure that the Council has expressed in me. Now, I have been reassured that there are persons that are ... persuading... them to forget all about me, but that's going to take some time and that may be a story for someone else to tell. Until then, I'm on something of an extended vacation.
At the moment I am several hundred miles Southeast of Paragon City, sitting on the foredeck of the Katana, a private yacht that has been loaned to me by an associate of mine, Madam Masada.
Ok, before I get into trouble for that last sentence, I should say that Madam isn't exactly an associate. Our relationship is a bit more complicated that that. It would be better to say that she has accepted me as one of her own in the same way that Queen Victoria accepted every person in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and India as one of her own.
There's more going on there than I fully understand. That's not surprising since Madam is one of those persons who deals in secrets. I suppose, sooner or later, I'll figure it all out. But, what it basically means right now, is that I have been given one of her yachts along with it's crew, for the express purpose of getting me out of Paragon City while things cool down.
Also, at Madam's orders, I've been given ... my own personal demon.
Sitting next to me or, more precisely, lounging next to me like a smug cat in a sunbeam, is Caridad. Normally, she's Madam's personal secretary and, when necessary her bodyguard, but while I'm on board the Katana, she's become my watchdog. She's also (with way too much eagerness and glee) taken on the role of physical therapist and personal trainer. You see readers, although I sound like my usual, cheerful self, I still haven't fully recovered from the events of Galaxy City. My ribs have knit back together fairly well and my heart and lungs are recovering nicely but I'm still not quite back at 100 percent.
Caridad has decided, without any consideration for my feelings on the matter, that I will not only be perfectly healthy when we return to Paragon City, but I will be in perfect shape as well. Now readers, while I admire the dedication of those folks that work to maintain a healthy level of muscular and cardiac health, I fully and freely admit that I am much less dedicated to perfection. I do attend a gym regularly and, with much reluctance, put myself through a thorough workout program designed to offset the fact that as a reporter I spend a lot of time sitting down, eating fast food and not getting enough sleep.
That, in Caridad's own words is "nowhere near good enough".
She has made it her personal mission to see to it that next time I find myself facing off against a superpowered, psychotic Vampyre with a martyr complex (or something similar, we do live in Paragon City after all) I'll be able to face him down with a steely glare and deliver a well quipped one liner before beating his head into the floor with my mighty (yet still feminine) fists of frenzy. Then, after wiping his blood off my hands, walk away in stiletto heels to play hostess at an elegant social event where, dressed in the latest fashions, I'll be raising money for orphans and widows...
I'd like to say I made all that up, but that is almost exactly how she explained it to me. Perhaps with a bit more graphic detail on the fighting and a kind of feral look in her eyes, but that was the basic idea. Oh, don't get me wrong readers, she's a perfectly lovely person but she has a joie de vivre powerful enough for ten regular people... and more than enough to drive one slightly dented reporter to distraction.
Ah, it's so like Caridad to get me off topic even when she's not trying. I meant to tell you about some of the things that have been happening since I left Paragon city. I would love to have this be nothing more than a pleasant travelogue filled with colorful scenery and florid descriptions of exotic places but, as happens far too often to me, it's actually become something far more exciting. As Caridad puts it, "Alexis, only you could turn an all expenses paid trip around the world into the plot of an Indiana Jones movie."
When we left Paragon City my health was still a concern, so we proceeded at a leisurely pace down the East coast. Our first stop was at Mystic, Connecticut where we stopped to take on more fuel and supplies. I would have liked to take a bit more time there since I am a bit of a history buff and Mystic has some great museums but, honestly, I was still too doped up on pain medications to have really enjoyed myself.
We continued down the coast until we reached Manhattan where we actually went ashore for a day or two of shopping while the Katana's crew resupplied and did some basic maintenance. Now I know what some of you might be thinking, Why, if I was trying to stay out of sight would I stroll around New York City? Well readers, as odd as it may sound, New York is one of the safest cities in the world when it comes to superhuman threats. You see, due to the insane number of superhumans that make New York home (second only to our own Paragon), it takes a truly brave or crazed soul to try anything that would attract the attention of the superhuman population.
Imagine a swarm of angry hornets and you'll get the idea, readers.
It didn't hurt that our tour guide was a wonderful young woman who fought crime locally under the name Manhattan Express. She was a third generation super speedster who's family had lived in the city for the better part of 200 years. She knew everything and everyone and, between her and Caridad, the possibility that anyone could have gotten close enough to do me harm was practically zero.
We continued on this way for several days, making stops at ports along the Atlantic Seaboard. Norfolk, Ocracoke (a special request of mine since they're doing recovery of the Queen Anne's revenge around there), Myrtle Beach (a bit touristy I know), Charleston, St. Augustine (oldest city in America, could not pass that up), Cape Canaveral (the Space Center and the Orlando theme parks just a few miles inland.), Miami (for more shopping and a chance for Caridad to visit some cousins while I stopped in for another medical check up).
From Miami we changed course almost due east for the Caribbean Sea and the islands of the Bahamas. Somewhere along the way we came up with the idea of following the path of Columbus' fourth trip across the Atlantic.
It made sense. South and east through the Caribbean then across the Atlantic to the Cape Verde Islands and then Northward to Europe. I didn't think of it at the time but we were wandering into one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Given everything that happened, I should have paid better attention.
But honestly, who really believes the stories about the Bermuda Triangle these days?
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.
I should have known better. I really should have. But things were just going too well. We were heading South after two days in Nassau where I did better than I expected in the casino (Well, at least I didn't lose as much as I could have, I really don't have the patience to be a good gambler.) The seas were as green as they appear in the pictures, the skies were a deep blue and the winds were calm. Shroud and Hawksbill Cay were somewhere off out Port side and the Katana was making good time as we aimed for Hispaniola and our next planned stop in the Dominican Republic.
It was mid morning and I was lying on the foredeck feeling vaguely sick. Not from motion sickness, but more from the fact that Drill Sergeant Caridad had just graciously permitted me thirty seconds to catch my breath before she started abusing me again.
"Come on Alexis, you have to get back on your feet faster. What will you do if you're attacked again?"
"Roll over and throw up on their shoes before making my attacker feel really, really guilty, " I said while slowly getting to my feet. "You do know I'm still technically in recovery. Right?"
Caridad waved her hands dismissively, "The doctors in Miami said you were fine they just said not to overdo it."
"And 100 sit ups isn't overdoing it?"
"Weenie. When I was your age, I did 200 sit ups a day. And did I complain? No."
"When I wa...?. Caridad, you're five years younger than me. Don't give me that!"
That's when she tried to hit me.
Fortunately, I was expecting something like that and I was already in motion when her first punch came in. I'll admit that I'm not the most enthusiastic fighter but I am skilled enough to have earned a Black Belt in Karate. I ducked down and right letting her fist pass over my head. Using the momentum from that, I swept my left leg around toward the back of her knees.
My kick almost landed but she jumped up and over at the last moment. I carried the kick through a full spin and had every intention of catching her when she came down but she never did. She was hovering about a foot off of the deck, grinning like the smug so and so that she is.
Did I mention that, in addition to being a bit of a cheat, Caridad can fly?
Yes, readers, not only is she a six foot Amazon who can (and has) made money modeling, but she's also superhuman. I was about to hit her with a scathing estimation of her sense of fair play when a bullet slammed into the deck between us. The shot did not go unnoticed by the crew as the Katana suddenly accelerated up to her top speed and a minute or two later, three of our five man crew stepped out onto the deck carrying automatic rifles.
"Ms. Alexander, perhaps you should get inside," said Michael our second engineer.
"Is it the Council?" I asked after ducking inside the doorway to the mid deck.
"Probably not. Even if they knew where to look, it's not easy to find a ship at sea."
"Besides," said Jean-Paul, our navigator, "knowing how they feel about you, they probably would have just tried to blow us up. I'm guessing pirates. They probably had someone shadowing us since Nassau and just waited until we got far enough away from easy help."
"I have them, " said Louis our Helmsman. "Astern and a bit to Starboard. The Captain caught them off guard by speeding up, but it looks like they're not giving up yet."
Now that I knew where to look, I could see the smaller boat in the distance. It wasn't much, maybe the size of a small fishing boat, but I could see what looked like several persons aboard. I knew that if they were given a chance, they would try to board the Katana and, most likely, kill everyone aboard. The yacht was more valuable for its parts than for the lives on board it.
The smaller boat swung directly into our wake and started closing the gap. The armed members of our crew had ducked down behind the railings and had already started taking aim. The pirate boat was still a bit too far away for effective fire from their rifles, so they were just waiting for a better shot.
The pirates must have been using something heavier since a second and then a third shot hit the back of the Katana. After the third shot, a dull clunk came from inside the yacht and I could feel our speed drop.
"Hm, sounds like they hit one of the engines.They're serious about this," said Michael.
Our speed dropped even more as the Captain decided not to risk straining the still functional engine. The crew took a moment to check their weapons. A fight looked unavoidable. I ducked back farther into the cover of the cabin, not out of any sense of cowardice, but more out of the knowledge that perhaps only Bruce Lee could use martial arts on a target over 600 yards away. If they got aboard, I'd kick their teeth in but for the moment, it would be all up to the men with rifles.
Somewhere in the back of my head, years of Hollywood action films flared to life and I could almost hear the music that would inevitably be underscoring a scene like this. It would be something with guitars and a dramatic string arrangement. There would be tense medium shots of the pirate boat cutting through the waves mixed in with close ups of our crew as they prepared for the fight of their lives. The shots would blend closer together and the music would build to a fever pitch until, finally, the first trigger would be pulled and it would be all noise and screaming...
Unless the pirate's boat exploded first.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.
I wasn't quite sure I'd seen it happen. One minute we were just about to be in the middle of a gunfight; the next, burning and smouldering pieces of wood were raining down on the ocean behind us. I'll admit to being a bit shocked readers. I've never been the kind of person to believe in the legendary 'bolt out of the blue' but, judging by the faces of our crew, they were almost expecting it.
It took me a moment to realize why.
Caridad drifted down from the sky in a lazy spiral, seemingly unconcerned about the damage. Her meandering flight carried her out over the wreckage where she hovered for a moment before turning back toward the Katana. Just before her feet touched the deck, she folded into a deep, elaborate bow that ended with a slow tumbling backflip. Her grin was annoyingly bright as she acknowledged the applause of the crew.
"Thank you, thank you," she said, waving off the applause with obviously false humility.
"Tricky shot there Cari, " said Jean-Paul. "It was, what, 300 yards against a moving target?"
"Something like that, Ringo." She usually called Jean-Paul that. When she wasn't shamelessly flirting with him that is. Officially, workplace rules prevented them from dating and, as far as I knew, they were honoring that rule. The letter of it anyhow.
In spirit, they had locked themselves in a hotel room an put up the 'Do not disturb' sign.
Putting all that aside for the moment (and, for my own mental well being, a good long time) I was feeling more than a bit confused. I guess it must have showed on my face because Caridad stepped over to me and guided me to a nearby deck chair. Once I was seated, she flopped down on the deck in front of me and, oh so innocently, stared into my eyes.
"You want to know how that all happened?"
"It would be nice. Yes."
Caridad leaned in closer and pointed at the sky "They. Never. Look. UP!" I must have looked confused because she continued. "Alexis, we live in Paragon City. We're kind of jaded about the fact that people can fly. For us its normal but, for most of the rest of the world, its still kind of a magic trick. When that first bullet hit the deck and the Captain gunned the motor, I went straight up. While the boys got out the guns and got ready for a fight, I had time to look around and line up a shot."
" A shot? With what?" I know I didn't see her leave the deck with any kind of weapon.
"My fingers," she said, blowing across them like the barrel of a hot gun.
As it turns out, Caridad is something of a living ultraviolet laser. Through some unknown quirk in her genetics, she can amplify UV radiation and use it as a weapon. Which does go a long way toward explaining why the pirates' boat exploded. While our crew was getting ready for the OK corral, she waited until she could target their engine and then punched through it and the fuel supply with a single high energy shot.
"So," I said feeling on a bit more solid mental footing, "the guys were just pretending in order to hold the pirates' attention?"
"No." Caridad replied, sounding a bit annoyed by the question. "They were there to fight. If my little bit of grandstanding hadn't worked as well as it did, they would have done everything they could to keep the pirates from boarding. If the pirates had gotten on board, the crew would have fought them with hands and knives and whatever else they could. They've all had military combat and marksman training. There's a reason they are the crew of this yacht.
I had forgotten. The Katana was more than just a pleasure craft for a spoiled billionaire. It was, very often, a floating palace and embassy. Nobody who served on her crew would be less than competent. Quite often, as I was discovering, they could be brilliant.
Now, then," said Caridad in her overly chipper way, "lets go see the Captain and find out how bad things are."
The bridge of the Katana in an interesting mix of high tech and golden age of sail. The room is finished in rich dark woods and brass fittings. The chairs are all dark padded leather in a very French Renaissance style and the rugs on the floor are deep, lush, and probably cost more than I will earn in a lifetime.
At the same time, the control panels are filled with the latest and greatest electronics. In several trips to the bridge over the time I'd been on board I had figured out some of them. I could, with very little prompting, find the readouts for the GPS and the other navigation systems, the radio and (although I couldn't fully understand it yet) the radar.
The Captain had a handset to his ear when we walked in. He waved us over to two chairs off to the side of a small table and indicated that he would be able to speak with us in a moment.
"...let me know when you get it apart. Thanks Rick. Well," he said to us as he put the handset back on the hook," it's not as bad as it could be."
"How bad," asked Caridad.
"Number one turbine is fine. We'll have to take it a little slower for a few days but nothing we can't handle. Rick tells me that number two shouldn't be run at all until we know exactly how bad it is. He suspects some of the turbine blades have been damaged and, if thats the case, trying to use it could just make things worse. We also have three bullet holes in the ship but those are minor and I already have those being patched. So," he said as he sat down in his own chair and swiveled to face us," what I need right now is a decision from you Ms. Alexander."
"Me?" Readers, since when did I become the person in charge?
"You. I have several options available to me but I need you to tell me which one you prefer. I can turn back north to Nassau or Grand Bahama. Both have shipyards that will be able to make the repairs we need. We can continue on our original course southeast and make for Santo Domingo and make repairs there. That will take some time since we can't make quite as much speed as usual. Or, we could turn west and make for Cuba."
"But," it was a day for me being slow on the uptake. Comes from getting beaten up early in the day, I suppose. "I don't know. Shouldn't you be making that decision?"
"Ms. Alexander. I'm not sure you understand. I command this ship and her crew but, by Madam's orders, you decide where we're going. So, Ma'am, where to?"
It finally dawned on me that when Madam had said 'I'm giving you the Katana' she meant that more or less literally. Oh, I have no delusions who actually owns this 150 foot long luxury suite, but as far as the crew were concerned, until they heard differently I was the boss.
No pressure, Alexis. No pressure.
"Hm, Santo Domingo I think," I said trying to think this through. If the Council were somehow following us, going back would be a risk I wasn't sure I wanted to take. Cuba was appealing but, ignoring politics, it would be just about as easy to reach the Dominican Republic. Santo Domingo was where we were heading for anyway so, it made the most sense to me.
In retrospect, Cuba might have been less complicated.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Just a touch early this week. Thanks for stopping in --JWB
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.
There's nothing more comforting than a good meal after a stressful situation. Actually, in the Caridad view of the world, there is at least one thing, but I know for a fact that she says things like that just to watch me blush.
When she's not beating me senseless in her 'training sessions' (once we picked up the pieces from the attack, she insisted we resume our morning workout) she's determined to 'bring me out of my shell.' Whatever that is supposed to mean. I like my shell the way it is, and she knows that. She's just one of those people who can't resist the urge to pull on a loose thread...
She's done it again, gotten me completely off track, sorry.
Once I had recovered enough to eat something more substantial than soup I casually mentioned that I would feel more comfortable if the crew ate with me. I'm way too much of a middle class kid to have someone bring me dinner on a silver tray (and, yes, before you ask, the ones on the Katana are silver) while everyone else grabs a bite in the kitchen. Not quite knowing then that my word was something akin to law, mealtimes became a lot more casual.
Our chef that night was Louis. He had put together something that involved roast beef, potatoes and vegetables and transcended mere pot roast. It probably would have commanded fifty dollars a plate and been served by a way too serious waiter if it had a fancy French name. As it was, he just called it 'that beef thing.'
The only person not at the table with us that night was Jean-Paul who was on wheel watch. Caridad had offered to take a plate up to him earlier, and none of us were going to say no. Watching the two of them was a chief source of amusement (and no small amount of betting) for the rest of us. She had come back after a little while (not a long enough while, just a little while) looking a bit... rumpled. As we were eating I managed to catch her eye and, with a raised eyebrow, actually made her blush. They were just so cute.
We'd made it through the main course and a dessert that I knew would earn me another twenty sit ups, when Jean-Paul's voice echoed out from the cabin speakers.
"Attention all hands, prepare for a storm. Repeat, prepare for storm."
The Captain was on his feet before the sound of the announcement stopped. It only took him moments to cross the room and start heading upward for the bridge. The other members of the crew were on their feet moments later heading for their stations. A storm at sea could mean trouble, and the Katana was not quite at her finest. I knew exactly what my job was in a situation like this. Stay out of the way.
"Come on Alexis, lets get to the bridge," said Caridad. "Something's not right."
"You mean something like that?" I said, pointing out of the window that made up our portside wall. Even though I had only been at sea for a few weeks I was pretty certain that storms, either on land or at sea, did not have neon green and blue lightning. I was very certain that the red light that backlit the clouds had no business at all being there.
Caridad stopped for a moment and stared out at the approaching Technicolor squall. She was very still for a moment before speaking.
"Ok... wasn't expecting anything like that," she said in the quietest tone of voice I'd ever heard her use.
"What? You didn't plan on UFO's?" I joked. She stared at me for a second before taking off at a run up the stairs to the bridge.
"I was just jok...oh, never mind," I called out before following her upstairs. I could hear the voices on the bridge before I stepped into the room. The Captain was already at the controls, turning the Katana away from the line of fire and opening the throttle on our remaining engine.
"How could it get so close Jean-Paul?"
"I don't know. It wasn't on radar a minute ago."
"It still isn't," I could hear Caridad's voice reply. "The electronics don't even see it."
"Someone get on the radio and start a mayday call. I don't think we've got enough speed to get away from it."
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayd..."
************
It's hard to say how much time passed before I got my wits about me again. My first sensations were the scratchyness of the wool in the rugs and the smell of warm wood and leather. When I opened my eyes I realized I was lying facedown on the floor of the bridge. I took that as a good sign.
I will admit that I was greatly relieved to be alive and even more relieved not to be strapped to an examination table staring up at some alien medical device, but that led to the more important question of where I actually was.
I climbed to my feet and, still to my relief, I was on the bridge of the Katana. Sunlight was coming through the window so some time had passed, even if I couldn't tell how much. The Captain was slumped in his chair, unconscious but breathing. Jean-Paul was sprawled a few feet away. He was moaning faintly but didn't look injured. Caridiad was more of a worry. I could see blood on her head as I made my way over to her. I rolled her over for a better look and saw that she had a cut on her cheek, probably from hitting the counter.
The Captain and Jean-Paul had regained consciousness by the time I found the first aid kit. They started checking on the condition of the Katana while I cleaned Caridad up.
"OW!"
Iodine wipes, readers. Perfect for cleaning up minor wounds and for acts of petty revenge against certain over-exuberant combat instructors.
"Big Baby," I said to Caridad as I placed a small bandage on her cheek. The cut wasn't bad, just messy. She glared at me in a "I'll get you for that" way as she stood up and crossed over to the Captain.
"So," she said, her usual confidence back in place, "how are we doing?"
"Just fine, I think," said the Captain. "The rest of the crew has checked in and nobody is badly hurt. We seem to have power but we're at a dead stop."
"That's not all, the instruments are dead," said Jean-Paul.
"Broken?"
"No sir. They're powered up but not telling us much. I can't find anything at all on the radio and the GPS is drawing a complete blank. Radar is working normally... I think. It's showing clear skies and seas out to ten miles."
"Well, that's something," said Caridad.
"Actually, it might not be," I said. "My Blackberry's not getting a signal."
"So? We're hundreds of miles from a cell tower."
It was my turn to give Caridad a Look. "You know perfectly well who I have on speed dial. If I can't reach HIM then I think we have a problem."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya, Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here, with my continuing report.
Readers, for those of you who haven't been following my previous reports, I have something of a Guardian Angel. Actually, it would be more accurate to describe him as a darkly obsessive, intensely wealthy, avenger of evil who, for reasons that he doesn't really understand, continues to associate with a much more cheerful, one could even say, cheeky, reporter.
I think its because he's scared of me. I'm one of the few people in the world that isn't intimidated by him. In fact, I've made it my personal mission to stick sharp pins in his ego every chance I get.
Maybe it's just because I amuse him. Or I haven't annoyed him enough. I don't know.
In either case, he rebuilt my Blackberry some time ago and added several features that the manufacturer never intended. At that moment, the most important of those features was the ability to bounce my cell signal off of a privately owned satellite in a geo synchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean. On any normal day, this gives me an almost unlimited coverage area (without even any roaming fees) but, more importantly, it was designed to reach him if he was anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard of the US.
The fact that I wasn't even getting a dial tone worried me, but it gave me a clue.
"We've lost the satellites."
"What?" said Caridad.
I dropped my Blackberry back in my pocket and leaned back against the counter top holding the radar. "That's why we're blind," I said, testing out the theory. "This ship is state of the art which means it has satellite uplinks for everything. GPS, Radio, internet. Since we don't seem to have any of those available that means that there's nothing for them to bounce off of."
"Or they've been taken offline," Jean-Paul said.
"Another invasion?" asked the Captain. As I've mentioned before elsewhere readers, Alien invasions are a lot more common that most people think.
"Too soon," Caridad answered. "We're still waiting to see what the latest one has in store." I had to agree with her readers. It was just too soon for that. Besides, the last few waves of alien invaders had been a lot more media savvy. They usually just hacked into the satellites to give the world the standard "Cower before us, Humanity" speech.
They still haven't quite figured out why there always seems to be several thousand brightly dressed human beings waiting for them when they land.
"But that would explain why we still have radar and our onboard systems," said the Captain. "If it were some kind of global EMP effect we'd be completely dead in the water. Right, first things first. We need to find out where we are. Once we know that, then we can figure out what to do next."
I had a sneaking feeling that we were seeing only part of the picture. It wasn't just that we'd lost touch with the satellites, it was something...more. Now readers, you know as well as I do that, in our world, the concept of more can be anything at all. We could have been under the influence of Magic, or sufficiently advanced science, or just a really powerful telepath making us think weird things.
If you ever find yourself in one of those situations readers, the best way to deal with it is to act as normally as possible until a better solution presents itself. Don't worry. Sooner or later, all of the weird gets explained. You just have to put up with it until it does.
We were fortunate that the Captain seemed to have been well trained in that very same philosophy. It didn't seem to bother him that he'd lost fifty years of navigation technology as he and Jean-Paul spread out several charts and maps and had weighted down the corners with what looked like modern versions of the same tools that took Magellan around the world.
He waved Caridad and I over to the table and made a rough circle on the map with his finger. "I'm operating on the assumption that we are in the same rough area of ocean we started in. If we are, then Mayaguana should be about twenty miles to our South. That would be a good place to hold up for the night and figure out or next step."
"Now," he said indicating the brass and wood devices on the table," I've got a clock and a compass and a few other ways here of getting a fix on our location. That will take a little bit of time but it'll be accurate enough. If you're willing to wait until nightfall, I could use the stars or I could just turn us in that direction and hope to get lucky. But that might just get us even more lost if I'm wrong."
"I think I have away to improve the odds," I said. "Do we have any portable two way radios?"
"Yes." said Jean-Paul. They're only good out to about five miles or so but they should be just fine."
"Great. Cari, get your flying shoes on. You're going to be our eyes in the sky."
The plan, as I saw it, was pretty simple. Caridad could get out in front of us and, like the man in the crow's nest from centuries before, would be able to shout as soon as she saw land. Since she'd be able to get more than just a few dozen feet off of the water, she would be able to direct us to land fairly quickly.
It took a little longer than I had anticipated but otherwise it worked nicely. She had flown out to the limits of the radio's range and gotten a few hundred feet up. After about thirty minutes, she had spotted land and talked the Captain onto the right course.
I was waiting for her on the foredeck when she landed. I don't think I was doing a good job of hiding my anxiety.
"So," she said as soon as she saw my face, "what's the bad news?"
"According to the Captain, we're only a few miles from where we should be."
"And that's bad because?"
"That island you spotted isn't Mayaguana."
"Ok, so which one is it?"
"One that shouldn't be there."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here from somewhere that shouldn't exist.
I know what you're thinking readers. And I don't blame you one bit. Bermuda Triangle, strange storms, mysterious island, it's all just so cliché. You'll be expecting me to start talking about ancient conspiracies and cryptic numbers and smoke monsters next but, as much as I hated to admit it, things were getting weirder than I was comfortable with.
And for a girl who grew up in Paragon City, thats saying a lot.
It wasn't a big island, maybe only two or three miles across at its widest point. It looked pretty much like you would expect any Caribbean island to look with white sand and green trees and all of the usual things.It was a bit taller than most islands in this part of the Caribbean, but otherwise it was fairly unremarkable. If it weren't for the fact that it just wasn't supposed to be there, it wouldn't have drawn a second glance from anyone on the crew.
Caridad was fascinated.
"Let's go take a look," she chirped.
I believe I've mentioned her lack of impulse control. Actually, she has perfect control, she just chooses to ignore it most of the time. She can be perfectly serious about things but she has a catlike urge to pounce on anything that catches her interest.
She had decided that the inconsistencies that had popped up in reality really weren't worth worrying about. Or, perhaps, it was her way of dealing with the weird. In either case she was determined to get a look at that island.
"Come on slowpoke." she shouted from her perch about three feet above the bow of the Katana.
"Some of us need a boat," I replied singsong under my breath.
"What?"
"Nothing, " I called back. Jean-Paul had already lowered a small inflatable boat over the side and was steadying it while I climbed down from the main deck. Notice readers that I was already making plans to explore the island. After all, how could I pass up a mystery like this? I'd have to give up my reporter's notebook if I let something like this pass. I was more annoyed by the fact that she was flittering around like a six foot Tinkerbelle while us mere mortals had to take the time to do things the normal way.
It was simple enough to operate the small boat and, in fact, it had been designed with this sort of thing in mind. It didn't need much water to operate and could be beached fairly easily. The motor was powerful enough to move it at a nice clip through the bay so, once I had gotten clear of the anchored Katana, I'll admit to doing a little bit of flitting of my own.
Caridad and I chased each other around the bay for about a half an hour. We didn't have a plan, we were just looking things over. It all seemed harmless enough and I suspect all we were really doing was terrifying the local wildlife before we aimed for a crescent of white sand that looked like a good place to pull the boat ashore. We were both giggling a bit as we tied the boat to a tree and took stock of our surroundings. Hey, how often do you get the opportunity to explore someplace that doesn't exist?
The sand on the beach had the rough quality that was almost unique to the Bahamas. The tideline was outlined by seaweed and dotted by shells of all shapes and colors. It was a very picture postcard image, and one that just looked too wrong.
As sad as it is to say, I was expecting the usual beachside sights of a beer can or a cigarette or some small thing that said 'humanity was here'. As it was, the lack of those things was making my skin crawl just a bit. It could just have been that nobody had ever picked this spot but, considering that this island wasn't supposed to be here, it just added to my list of wrongnesses. Before I could say anything about it, Caridad had already started making a path through the trees.
A few feet off the beach, the land started a shallow but steady rise. We'd seen from the water that the island had quite a bit of elevation and might even rival the 200 feet of Cat island. I'd have expected this was the work of a volcano but that wasn't how the geography of the Bahamas worked.
It wasn't a hard climb (In fact, although I would never mention this to Caridad, I suspect it was a lot easier for me that it would have been months earlier) but we did have to work our way around some fairly thick plants and trees. The whole time my sense of unease was growing. I would have felt better if there was just one thing that didn't feel wrong about this situation.
"Come on Lex, You're getting lazy," called Caridad from somewhere ahead of me. Oddly, her cheerfulness was just about the kind of thing I was looking for. How wrong could things be if Caridad was enjoying herself?
We were near the high point of the island when we broke out of the trees and had our first good look around. I'll admit readers that it was an impressive sight. We could see down into the cove where the Katana was and, beyond that, we could see the green waters of the Caribbean sea. The clearing itself was a wonderful sight to take in, full of flowers, and green grass, and bright tropical plants of a dozen different varieties.
And zombies.
Now that, readers, was something I understood. There's something comforting in knowing that your mysterious island in the Caribbean has zombies. It just adds the right touch of the exotic to any vacation. And, admit it, when you travel to the Caribbean don't you half expect to see one zombie?
Now I know that there are some of you out there that are saying "You consider zombies normal?!" Well, yes. Remember, I live in Paragon City. Currently there are five distinct varieties of zombie found in the city ranging from the patchwork brides and grooms of Frankenstein that follow dear, mad Doctor Vazhilok, to the basic shambling corpse used by magicians citywide. The real trick is to know which is which and react accordingly.
Caridad obviously figured that blasting them to pieces would be the best method. Admittedly, that is usually an effective way of dealing with them, but it does seem a bit... I don't know... unsubtle.
Three of them had burst into flames before I had even really had a chance to react and a fourth had just ignited when I snapped a kick into and through the knee joint of one that had gotten a bit too close to me. Now, unlike the somewhat overpowered zombies that have become a favorite of moviemakers recently, your typical zombie is slow and fragile. They can be effectively disabled by destroying their legs and then just staying out of their reach.
Of course when they outnumber you about twenty to one, that's not easy to do.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
a quick note before we begin....
With the recent news, it would be far too easy to throw my hands up and walk away from this. Believe me, it's very tempting. After all, there doesn't seem to be much point. But I hate to leave a story unfinished and perhaps, in my small way, this will be my final tribute to the game. So I will continue to post these episodes and try to wrap the story up before the lights go out. Thanks to all of you who have followed along and who have most graciously agreed to be a part of the story.
Thank you all. --JWB
With that having been said...
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.
Zombies to the left of me, Zombies to the right of me, Zombies in front of me shuffled and moaned...
Ok so I suppose I'll have to answer to to the ghost of the late Lord Tennyson for that horrible paraphrasing but it was what was going through my head at the time. You see readers, assuming you've had some kind of basic fighting training (or skill with a baseball bat or chainsaw) classic zombies really aren't all that hard to fight. They are slow, quite literally mindless, and really have only one attack- grab. This normally isn't a problem except when there's twenty or thirty of them around you.
Thank the Gods of Journalism for Caridad. I'll admit with some pride that I was holding my own but I was only able to take on one or two at a time. After about a dozen or so, my ribs were really beginning to hurt and I was running out of breath. Fortunately, Caridad was taking her position as bodyguard seriously. Even before her feet touched the ground behind me she had ignited five more zombies. Her UV blasts were taking the corpses all the way from rare to overdone to charcoal in record time carving a circle of severely sunburned bodies around us.
Even then the zombies kept coming.
"Get down low," she ordered as I could feel the air around us heating up. I'd never heard her say anything in that tone of voice before and I figured it would be a good idea to make a very detailed examination of the local grass.
I buried my face in the dirt as the air above me superheated. It was the heat of a thousand summers and I could hear Caridad growling a little as she built up to whatever it was she had planned. I was sure I could feel my own skin starting to crisp and char when Caridad's growls became a full fledged shout and the world exploded around us.
Caridad was breathing raggedly as she dropped to one knee next to me.
"Get up quick" she whispered. "I need to you help me to my feet."
"What did you just do?" I asked as I hooked her arm around my shoulders and pulled us both up. Her legs had no strength at all and mine weren't much better.
"Desperation move," she mumbled. "Tell me I got them all."
She looked bad but, as I looked around, I noticed that the hilltop looked worse. With the exception of a circle about 5 feet around us, everything on the hilltop was either burnt or burning. For thirty feet or so in every direction there wasn't any part of a zombie larger than, maybe, a few very burnt pieces of flesh. I wasn't really concerned about which pieces they were.
Outside of that thirty foot ring the grass was brown and even the trees that were adapted for blistering island summers were wilting. If there were any more zombies, I could not see them. As an act of sheer willpower Caridad brought the sun closer to Earth for a moment and paid heavily for it.
"All clear," I panted slightly. "You might have set the island on fire though."
"Oh, is that all? Ok." If she was concerned she didn't have the energy to do anything about it. I could understand how she felt.
We stood there for a few moments and tried to catch our breath. My lungs burned from the exertion and I could feel the muscles in my legs beginning to cramp. This, readers, is why I never considered a career as a professional crimefighter. It hurts way too much.
"Your kicks were a little low," mumbled Caridad.
Now? She was giving a critique now?
"And you could have put more power behind those punches."
I couldn't help it readers, I just had to let go and let her fall to the ground at that point. She was correct in her assessments but she was also giggling. I suspected fatigue poisons had something to do with it so I figured she'd recover faster lying on the ground. That and she really deserved it.
While she laughed quietly to herself, I decided to take a look around the clearing. I know what I said earlier about expecting zombies but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really expecting them. According to a magician friend of mine, zombies do not usually appear at random. Someone has to put in a fair amount of time and energy creating them. Even then they're not self guiding.
That's what I was looking for readers; a clue about the living mind behind all of the corpses. The odds of twenty or thirty zombies just happening to be standing in a random clearing on a random island (that wasn't even supposed to be there, I hadn't forgotten that point) were pretty slim. There had to be somebody close by.
They were a bit closer than I expected.
I didn't recognize the language, but I knew from the tone of voice that somebody had just said "surrender or die, you pitiful fool." As I turned around I noticed that Caridad was in the arms of a very tall, very dark stranger. Normally she would be enjoying that except for the fact that he was also very obviously dead. I figured she still hadn't recovered enough to fight back since she wasn't surrounded by a pile of ash where a zombie used to be but it might have been something else as well since she looked defocused and disoriented.
Standing next to them was, I assume, the speaker from the moment before. He was a well built, dark skinned, bald, man wearing little more than a strategic loincloth, a few tattoos, and odd grass neckpiece and a faint but unmistakable purple aura.
At that moment I knew there was something wrong with Caridad. A man in a loincloth (with or without an aura) would definitely have gotten her attention. At the moment he had mine. To be honest readers, I didn't have the slightest clue about what to do next. He shouted something and made a downward slashing motion with his arm. I was guessing that translated into something like 'grovel before me' which, I will admit was on my list of options at that point.
He continued to issue demands (I assume) while I weighed my options. I had to cross about fifty yards of turf before I had even a chance of getting Caridad free. On top of that, the zombie that had a grip on her had arms like a python. There was a good chance he would crush her before I even got half way. Given the glow surrounding the one in the loincloth, I had no illusions that I would even make it ten yards but I had to try.
I had taken three steps when I saw Caridad snap awake. Her eyes met mine and I even if I could not hear her voice I could see her mouth moving.
"Alexis, get away!" her lips were saying. "Please run," her eyes were saying. I didn't have a chance and she knew it. She was still being my bodyguard and had already decided to sacrifice her safety for mine. Swearing softly, I turned sharply and sprinted for the trees. I didn't want to abandon her but I would be useless to her if I got killed or captured. If I could get back downhill to the Katana I could get help.
I'd be back, Cari.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
---Sorry folks. I got a bit distracted the last few days (haven't we all) and I'm a bit late with this week's episode. --JWB
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.
Running full speed downhill through thick brush and trees is not something I would recommend for anyone who wasn't a member of a special forces unit, an extreme sports competitor... or a completely desperate investigative reporter.
My thoughts were pretty straightforward. Get back to the Katana. Get the men with guns. Get back to the hillside. Save Caridad. It became kind of a mantra. Every step was punctuated with the thought:
Save Caridad.
I had a mission that I couldn't let myself fail, but the pain in my lungs and legs were becoming far too much. On the hill top I had taken one too many hits to my still damaged body and what little energy I had to spare was running out rapidly. When my foot hit a tree root there wasn't anything I could do to stop myself from falling and even less I could do to stop myself from rolling down hill.
Now if this were a movie, you'd be expecting me to roll for several hundred yards crashing through plants, scaring colorful tropical birds into flight, and generally leaving a trail of destruction down the hillside. If it were a movie from certain directors, you'd be expecting me to roll right off a cliff or a waterfall or something similar, while explosions lit the scene behind me, plunging to what should be my certain death only to escape by a minor miracle.
Sorry to disappoint you.
As it was, I only rolled about fifteen feet or so before landing at the base of a broad leafed plant that smelled faintly of melon. I decided to lay there in the shade for a moment before trying to get back to my feet. I was pretty certain that I hadn't broken (or, more importantly, re-broken) any bones but I couldn't draw a decent breath.
I mean to look up whatever plant that was and see if I can get it to grow in my apartment because it was responsible for saving my life. Not by stopping my fall, but because it gave me enough cover to hide from the zombies that followed me down the hill.
I couldn't figure out where loincloth got more zombies from. I know he couldn't have reused any; Caridad hadn't left any pieces large enough to reanimate. I suppose he could have summoned more from whatever extra dimensional closet that magicians keep their zombies in, but that should have taken some time. I'd have to make a note to ask my magical contacts about things like that but right at that moment, the details weren't really important; staying out of sight was.
It took several minutes for the zombies to shuffle past my hiding place and I waited a few minutes more to make sure they were gone. I took a few more deep breaths and crawled out from my hiding place. It took me a few moments to reorient myself but, fortunately for me since I was still feeling a bit scatterbrained, downhill is an easy direction to find.
I went a little bit slower since I didn't want to trip over any rocks or roots but, more importantly, I didn't want to trip over any zombies. Also, despite what the doctors said, I wasn't quite sure my ribs were ready for something like this. As I headed downhill, I was sure I was making enough noise for six people but I guess the zombies never noticed.
Another thing I mean to ask my magical friends is how, exactly, zombies sense things. I mean, they are dead. That means, by all usual medical definitions, brain activity has ceased which implies (as far as my junior college biology goes, anyway) that nothing relying on nerve impulses should function. I admit I skipped a few days of biology in college so I might have missed that one. But ... still.
I made it back down to the beach and it was wonderfully free of any reanimated corpses. Unfortunately, it was also completely free of anything resembling inflatable boats. I did find some foot prints and a small piece of cut rope tied to a tree that looked suspiciously like the one I had used to tie my boat.
Ok, important note, undead does not mean stupid. Now I know better.
I pulled my Blackberry out of my pocket and stared at it for a moment before dropping it back in. Without access to either satellites or a convenient cell tower, it was little better than a Palm pilot from the late 90's. Most of its more exotic functions were still perfectly fine but the one I really needed, the one that would do me the most good, was completely useless.
I wanted to call the Katana and have them send another boat (and three or four heavily armed men) but that wasn't going to happen from my Blackberry. I remembered that we did bring one of our short range radios with us but, at the moment, it was in Caridad's pocket where it didn't really do me much good. I could see the Katana sitting at anchor a few hundred yards out and I was entertaining the idea of swimming out to her when a sharp pain in my ribs reminded me why that probably wasn't a good idea.
To help you get a better idea of my aquatic abilities I'll borrow a quote from The Princess Bride; "I only dog paddle." I can manage to keep myself afloat and moving but managing several hundred yards across open water with damaged ribs and weak lungs, working through tides, and waves and hoping that the local sharks had taken a day off; even with the assistance of adrenaline driven desperation, was completely beyond me. I would have to figure out a better way.
Years of reading adventure fiction gave me the idea of a signal fire. It wouldn't have to be very big since the Katana wasn't all that far away, but it would have to be big enough to really get the crew's attention. All I needed was a big pile of wood and a few dead leaves for tinder. I can already hear you saying, "thats all well and good Alexis but how are you going to light it?' Easy, I have a Blackberry.
I keep mentioning the fact that my Blackberry is a bit beyond average. Well, one of it's non standard features is that it doubles as a Taser. I figured I could use the arc from the Taser to ignite the kindling and use that to get the rest of the fire going.
I wasn't going to be given the chance.
I was dragging the last piece of wood onto the pile when I heard the zombies approaching. I held on to that last branch as they shuffled out of the trees about ten yards away. There were a dozen of the corpses; all massive in build. I had no illusions that I could take them all but they weren't the thing that worried me most. They were accompanied by a ten foot tall walking Tiki idol with flaming eyes.
Banished Pantheon. That I understood. See? Sooner or later all of the weird gets explained.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with a few vitality-challenged friends.
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting them, the walking Tikis are a manifest spirit of the Banished Pantheon, a cult dedicated to bringing their particular gods back into existence. In fact, they tend to be a bit single-minded about it. So single minded in fact that about 30 percent of the missing persons cases reported to the PPD can be attributed to them.
Yes, readers. That means almost exactly what it sounds like. The Pantheon are not above using the pain and suffering of innocents to raise power. And guess who the closest innocent victim was. Go ahead. I'll give you three guesses. Right! One battered, beaten and bruised reporter.
As I saw it I had three options. I could: One, dive into the surf and take my chances with drowning and sharks, only to be caught by zombies before I had gotten ten yards: Two, stand my ground and take down maybe one or two zombies before being pounded into paste by the Tiki. Or, Three: bolt into the woods and try to outrun them while thinking of a better plan.
I'm a big fan of plan 'C". It's always nice to have one. Just in case plans "A" and "B" fail.
I'm not a hero. Nor am I a fool. I threw my stick at the closest zombie and ran for the woods like a rabbit with a hawk hot on her tail. The only way I was going to get out of this alive was to be as far away from the undead as possible, and the only way to do that was to try and imitate an Olympic sprinter.
I have to admit that I was proud of myself readers, I managed to clear the beach and get several yards inland before I heard movement behind me. I had a head start; which was good, but I had no idea how long it would last. If I was going to get Caridad and myself out of this alive, I was going to need something more than just running away. The problem was, I didn't really have any better plan.
If I thought running downhill was bad, running across and up one was worse. Rocks, tree roots, and vines all seemed to be trying to kill me; which, in a way, was a comfort. It was better them than the Pantheon.
I'd come up with the very rough plan of circling around and making for the beach again (the sharks were looking better all of the time) when the tiki crashed out of the trees to my left. I caught the movement just in time to duck under the first swipe from it's clawed hands and I turned that into a forward roll to keep out from under it's feet.
That seemed to confuse the tiki which gave me a moment to get back on my feet and to settle into something resembling a fighting stance. The relationship between ice sculptures and flamethrowers ran through my head with me playing the part of the swan as I launched into a low spinning kick intended to take the tiki's feet out from under it. Surprisingly, it worked better than I expected. Tiki's don't really have knees but I must have hit something right because it went over onto its back with a ground shaking crash.
Score a point for Kings Row Karate, my home dojo!
One of the things they teach in most fighting schools is to follow up on an advantage when you have one. I finished the kick and bounced (somewhat slowly) back to my feet. Two short steps forward placed me close enough to plant another solid kick into the the tiki's chest as it started to rise. I was lucky enough to be uphill from the tiki before I hit it. My kick started it on a short slide downhill.
That gave me a few more seconds of much needed breathing room. I was running through attack options in my head and coming up with very few that sounded any better than 'keep hitting it until one of us falls down.' The tiki lumbered to it's wooden feet (forgive the pun) and started back uphill. I took a moment and slowed my breathing and centered my stance and tried to focus all of my chi into one devastating punch.I pulled my arm back and, as the tiki got within reach, let out a shout and let fly with a punch straight into it's midsection.
I felt my fist connect with the wood (which feels exactly as good as it sounds like it does, readers) and had a brief moment of pride as I saw a section of wood chip off and fall to the ground. I had done it readers. I had actually damaged it. I had hurt it. I had let it know that I was not going without a fight...
Unfortunately, I had also made it angry.
The tiki paused for a moment. Flames blazed from its eyes and mouth and although it wasn't speaking, I had a pretty good idea that what it was saying wasn't very complimentary.
It moved fast, far faster than I could react. It's arm swept out and smashed me back into the trees.I felt something in my ribs snap...again. I was already beaten up and now I couldn't breathe. This fight was over and most likely, so was my life.
I tried to think of something clever to say. Something that would provide a final, fitting statement of my life. It was a reporter's dream, the chance to write my own epitaph. But, since I couldn't really draw a decent breath, I'd have to settle for a gasping, wheezing, growl.
Dark flames roared out of the tiki's eyes as it raised both arms above its head for an overhand smash that would do nothing less than crush my skull and bring the whole fight to a sudden, messy end. I kept my eyes open, not because I wanted to face my death with dignity it was more that I was to terrified to do anything else. It was only because of this that I saw the top half of the tiki disappear with a buzzing whine.
Terror led to confusion then to shock. I looked past the remaining half of the tiki and saw a slender, auburn headed girl wearing a bomber jacket and looking down the sights of a glowing, baroque, firearm. She lowered the rifle and looked at me with an ear splitting grin.
I could hear the blood pounding in my ears as my consciousness finally decided to step out for a few minutes. Just before the darkness took over I heard her voice...
"Hiya!"
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here... at least, I think I am...
I must admit, I've spent way too much time unconscious in my lifetime. Don't misunderstand me readers, I'm not talking about the time I've spent asleep. That, I am convinced, I haven't done enough. I freely admit that, given my choice in the matter, I will sleep ten to twelve hours a day. Sadly the basic necessity of making a living prevents me from doing that more often. No, I am actually speaking about a loss of consciousness due to physical injury or trauma. Most people don't have this problem and there are days when I envy them. But, then again, most people have never had the opportunities I have.
Now I suppose that I'm a little odd as defining the word 'opportunity' as being the chance to get into a losing fist fight with an animated refugee from a 50's Hawaiian lounge, but honestly, how many people even get to see something like that? True, this kind of thing is sort of normal in Paragon City, but not for everybody.
One of the surreal things about unconsciousness is that vague amount of time when your senses are busy rebooting. There's the rough tingling as your fingers negotiate cotton sheets or concrete and the dull murmur of sound that resolves itself into street sounds or the vaguely disturbing beep-beep-beep of a medical monitor. There's the bitter taste of secondhand diesel fumes and the astringent dryness of antiseptics. There's the dim glow of moonlight and the first blinding glimpse of incandescents and the smell of bacon over the campfire...
Wait a second...
From my experience, I've learned that suddenly opening my eyes after a blackout really does nothing more than give me a major headache. But I figured it was worth it since bacon was far, far down the list of things I was expecting.
"Awake now?" came a light soprano voice from my right. "Good. Please sit up slowly. It would be terribly inconvenient for me if you were to die now."
Inconvenient for her? Well I suppose, but I had a bit more personal stake in that arguement. Still, sitting up slowly sounded like a good idea. I could feel the pull of the gauze wrapped around my ribs as I worked up onto one elbow and then the other. Sitting by a small fire (made of pieces of tiki I noticed) was the same auburn haired girl I had seen before.
She had her rifle propped up against a nearby tree. It was within easy reach but, since she had her jacket draped over the barrel, it didn't look like she was expecting to use it any time soon. She looked way too casual for somebody that was having a picnic on a zombie covered island. I suppose the glowing blue field surrounding us might have had something to do with that.
She noticed my glance and nodded her head as she handed me a plate.
"It's a time distortion field," she said. "I won't confuse you with the math but basically, everything inside of it is moving at a 1000 to 1 ratio compared to the time outside of it."
"So about 16 minutes to the second then?"
She looked impressed. "A little more than that but...yes."
I had impressed myself as well. Normally I'd have needed calculator or a friendly engineer to work something out that quickly. Math and I are old adversaries. I decided to leave that thought behind for the moment. There were a few more important things I neded to know.
"So how long was I out?"
"About 3 hours relative time. You looked like you could use a nap. And, maybe, a surgeon. Fortunately, we have tools for that."
I hadn't really noticed how little pain I was feeling until she said that. Neither had I quite processed the fact that she was casually talking about manipulating time as if it was something she did every day. The part of my brain that just has to ask questions woke up at that point but, before I could get the words out, she casually reached into her pocket and pulled out a little blue and silver box that looked familiar.
"That's ..."
"Your Blackberry? Not really. Yours is still in your pocket." She tossed it into the air and, as it tumbled end over end, I saw a very familiar silver bird logo on the case. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own Blackberry. Questions were starting to stack up behind my eyebrows and I figured that it would be best to ask them before I developed a massive headache.
I figured I'd start with the simplest one. "What's your name?"
"Zandra. But I suppose you'll want the long version. I'm Doctor Zandra Alexander-Reyalde, professor of Time and Related Studies at New Paragon University."
"New Paragon University? There's no such place."
"Not yet."
Not yet. Readers, I suggest that, if you are ever offered to opportunity to travel through time, you pass it up. It creates far too much confusion.
I suppose I should not have been surprised to meet somebody from the future. After all I've met aliens and magicians, demons, vampires, werewolves, and just about everything else to have graced the pages of centuries of fiction. I was due for a time traveller.
"So," I asked, "Doctor, why are you here?"
She laughed a bit before answering. "Please don't call me Doctor. It makes me think I should be running around in a 14 foot scarf or something. Call me Zandra. I'm here because you and the members of your crew shouldn't be." She paused a moment to gather her thoughts. I could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to find a simple way to explain something very complicated. Most of my math tutors had that same look whenever they tried to explain calculus to me.
"I suppose I should explain a bit. You and your crew ran afoul of a semi-stable, localized, time space distortion wave."
I tried to take a moment to work through that. I could feel my headache getting worse so I gave up. "What?"
"Oops, sorry. Fell into shop-speak there. The area around the Caribbean is a weak spot in time. Normally, everything is fine. But every now and then the energy levels get out of whack. A really powerful Hurricane or solar flares or something like that happens and then that weak spot tears a bit and you get..."
"The Bermuda Triangle."
"Exactly. We, the organization I work for that is, have all of those disruption points mapped. We know when they are going to happen down to the second. Those maps are so reliable that we can use the disruptions as a power source for some projects." She ran her fingers through her hair and stood up quickly, starting to pace around the inside of the bubble. She was waving her hands in front of her as though she were trying to shape her thoughts.
"The wave you were caught by was not mapped. It should not have have happened and we want to know why. Something or somebody has radically screwed up the energy flows in the here and now and if I can't figure out why, it's going to cause all sorts of problems with History as you know it."
History as I knew it? That didn't sound good. In the movies, a moment like this would have called for a musical sting or a clap of thunder or something. All I got was the crackling of the fire. It was a bit anti-climactic. I suppose that I should have asked some more important questions but the only one that came to my head at that moment was, "So what now?"
She turned, clapped her hands together, and smiled at me with that same maddening Cheshire grin.
"First we finish breakfast. Then we find your friend, rescue her, figure out what the zombies are all about and then we save the world.
After that we can think about lunch."
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
-- Late but not abandoned. Sorry gang. --JWB
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my latest report.
I wish I had Zandra's energy. Actually I'd like to have it in a convenient pill form that I could sell as the world's greatest anti-depressant. I'd make a fortune.
After two helpings of breakfast (which she insisted I eat, readers) Zandra packed up her camping gear, grabbed her jacket and rifle, and dismissed her time bubble with an elaborate flourish of her hands.
"Nothing up my sleeve...presto!" She said in a reasonable Bullwinkle voice before breaking into a light bubbling giggle. There was something not quite right about her. Well, to be honest, there were several things that could be considered 'not right' but none of those were really important at that moment. The most important thing was figuring out where Caridad was and getting her to safety. I'd picked up some very welcome but unexpected firepower and now I just needed a place to put it to good use.
We started back uphill to the clearing on the cliff top. I wasn't exactly sure where to look for Caridad so I just went back to the last place I had seen her. It's a method that usually works for car keys I figured it would work for people. At least, I hoped it would.
The clearing was pretty much exactly the same as when I saw it last, minus several zombies. Zandra gave a low whistle as she surveyed the damage.
"Wow, crispy!" Zandra pulled another small box out of her belt and extended two antennae from it. "Ok, we've got a starting point, lets see what we can see." The area between the antennae started to glow as Zandra slowly swept it around the clearing. I could see images forming from the glow almost like watching a video rewind of reality itself."
"It picks up residual impressions of events over a localized area," said Zandra distractedly. "It not very detailed and it doesn't have a very deep scanning range, only about three or four hours over about 100 meters but..."
"It would be perfect for tracking a person's movements," I added.
"Exactly," she said. "It's invaluable for search and rescue work and standard issue for NPPD detectives."
There it was again. New Paragon. She said it so casually that it had to be just part of normal for her but it sent little echoes of fear through my head. Between my reality of Paragon City and her reality of New Paragon had to be an event that changed one into the other. I decided not to worry about it much. It was most likely another alien invasion would wreck the city and we'd move on like we usually do but I kept getting the feeling that it was something bigger than that.
"Ah, here we go," she said as she waved me over to look at the images. I watched as Caridad was picked up by three large zombies and carried across the clearing to a boulder. They stood there for a moment while a section of turf swung upward.
"You know, there has to be somebody making a fortune on the secret doors-in-rocks franchise," Zandra quipped. "I'm not sure we ever found them all."
I gave up trying to balance my curiosity against prudence. "You know, I've been meaning to ask about New..."
Zandra froze the playback and walked across the clearing to the same boulder. She knelt down and looked at the area that had to be the hatch we had seen.
"Hm," she said. "Nothing obviously mechanical or psychic here. Possibly a magical trigger to open this but I wouldn't be able to do much about that. I suppose we could blast it open, and I have no intention of telling you anything about the future."
Her bubbleheadedness was all an act apparently. I guess the word professor should have given me a hint.
She didn't look upset as she looked back over her shoulder at me. In fact, she had a smile on her face. "What took you so long? I've been expecting you to ask for the last hour or so."
'Well..."
"Alexis, knowing wouldn't do you any good. You are intelligent, clever, and braver than is probably good for you, but you lack the proper context to get it all right. Even if I gave you a printed timeline of events from Damocles' first shot to the Grandville firestorm, there wouldn't be anything you or anyone you know could do to stop it. Let's just say that it was bad, very bad. We lost a lot of people, and everything changed.
Right now, it's far more important to save the ones you can save, and that means getting your friend out of this hole. Once we get that done, I promise you we can worry about saving the rest of the world."
She didn't say anything more as she closed up the antennae and slipped the box back in her pocket. "Looks like there's nothing for it, I'll have to blast it open."
I was getting mental whiplash from the speed of her topic changes. There was so much more I wanted to ask but I didn't know where to begin. I watched as she made a few adjustments on her rifle and pointed it at the ground. There was a white flash and the hatchway faded out like a slow movie effect.
"Tah Dah. Instant hole, just add raygun."
"When do those become standard equipment?" I asked.
"Never. But I got this one in 1968 from a lovely man named Karl Wunder. An underappreciated genius if there ever was one."
Now that, readers was a point we both agreed upon. Karl Wunder was one of my favorite historical figures and as the armored hero Kaptan Wunderfaal, fought crime in Paragon city for 20 years before opening a highly popular amusement park. And that thought depressed me a bit readers. He didn't deserve what happened to him, but I'm getting off track. That is a story for another time.
As we looked down into the hole Zandra glanced out of the corner of her eye and asked "see anything here that just doesn't fit?"
"I see a staircase. What's so wrong about that?"
"A steel staircase on a Caribbean island circa 1552?"
I caught her meaning instantly. This was modern technology in a place it had no business being. "Somebody else came back in time to set this all up?"
"Looks like it." She sighed quietly and pulled a small flashlight out of her belt. "Here we go again. Why can't people just stay in their proper times? Is that too much to ask?" She grumbled under her breath as we started down the stairs.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
I don't like posting in the middle of stories because it breaks up the flow for those that are following along... but seeing as how time is short I'll do it anyway.
Thank you, jwbullfrong (and all of the other fiction writers) for sharing your tales of the strange, the fantastic, and the heroic.
I appreciate it.
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
--- getting better with the delays. only one day this time. ---JWB
Hiya, Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here from a hole in the ground.
It almost makes sense to be looking for zombies in a hole in the ground. Kind of logical when you think about it. Actually, thats not quite right. Zombies are usually found outside of holes in the ground. Thats part of the problem with them. If they stayed in the ground, they'd be much less trouble.
Our footsteps had a hollow echo as we descended the metal stairway. The light from Zandra's flashlight chased shadows from the corners and complimented the light streaming in from the now evaporated hatchway. I was tensed up and just waiting for the flashlight's beam to highlight something that wanted to kill me.
Zandra was still grumbling something under her breath about fools and time machines.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into what looked like a large pre-formed concrete hallway. Whoever our Zombie master was, he bought off the shelf. A string of industrial lamps were draped along the wall just close enough together to make walking along the hall without running into the walls possible. No effort was made to improve upon the bare concrete. I was guessing that whoever made this was far more concerned with function than form.
The hallway had a slight tilt downward and that, I think was what allowed us to see the guard before he saw us. Much to my surprise, it wasn't a zombie. It seemed to be a normal, living, human man dressed in gray fatigues and steel helmet. I knew that look all too well.
"Why am I not surprised?" I mumbled. I was over 500 years in my own past and I still could not get away from the Council.
"Friends of yours?" asked Zandra.
"One of them tried to use me as the trigger for an Atomic bomb once."
"So, not good friends then."
"No."
Zandra knelt down and took aim. A bluish white light shot from her rifle and into the Council soldier. His body stiffened and then slumped to the floor bonelessly. Without changing her position she glanced up at me. "Taser, I promise."
Actually, I wouldn't have minded otherwise, but she did have a point. He was just doing his sadly misguided job and probably didn't deserve being vaporized.
Probably.
As we walked past the unconscious soldier I began to wonder why he was even here. Readers, it's no secret that the Council tends not to make friends. Truth is, other criminal organizations find them a bit... intense? Creepy? Uncomfortable to be around? In any case, they don't often work with others so what were they doing here with the Banished Pantheon?
More to the point, what did the Pantheon need the Council for? There was a mostly incompatible set of goals at play here. Both groups wanted to rule the world but I was pretty sure that the were not going to settle for a coalition fascist/evil god kind of government. It really didn't make sense.
The hallway wound deeper into the island. and it became obvious pretty quickly that we were looking at an iceberg situation. There was far more of the island below the waterline than above it. We took care to stay out of sight as we moved farther into the island. We were here on a rescue mission not as an assault team. The few people we encountered were disabled either by Zandra's rifle or a quick kick or two from me.
"We need a map," said Zandra after sending another soldier off to an electrically induced sleep. "I don't suppose you've found a helpful 'you are here' sign recently?"
"Mmm, no. But will a computer do?"
"Maybe," said Zandra as she walked over to the terminal I had found. She pulled her silver box out of her pocket and set it down next to the screen and pressed a button. The screen flashed for a moment and went into what looked like a reboot. After a moment it settled back to a more normal looking interface.
She leaned closer and started opening files. She scanned through most of them quickly, discarding them as useless or at least not what we were looking for. One or two of the files prompted a longer look and a small sigh, but even those were closed and forgotten after a few moments. The entire time, a small green light blinked on her box.
"Aha, got it!" she said as she leaned back from the terminal. She pressed another button on her box and the green light went out. The computer flashed for a moment and the screen reset to what it had looked like before.
"You can hack computers?" I asked.
"Not at all. But this thing's operating system is kind of old news from my point of view. I just pulled the programming up from the archives and declared myself an administrator."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Nope."
Readers, she really believed that. I wasn't going to argue the point or ask the really obvious question of how out of date. It really wasn't important. We had a map and, even more importantly, a specific location where prisoners were kept. The cell block was one level below us and, according to Zandra, it was currently occupied. The file on that read: Prisoner, 1, female, recent, hold for interrogation and/or dispersement to allies.
That didn't sound good.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
---- and back on time this week. Ha, knew I'd get there--- JWB
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here from a desperate rescue mission.
Ok maybe going all hyperbole on that byline was a bit much, but it was essentially true. After seeing in print that Caridad was scheduled for 'interrogation' I knew we had to move quicker. The Council were the kind of people who interrogated by hitting you with several objects until you were barely able to answer the questions they asked. Then, if they didn't like whatever answer you just gave, it started all over again.
In case you missed the clues in my earlier writings about the Council, they are not nice people.
And, if that weren't enough to get me running, the line 'dispersement to allies' was ominous all by itself. I chose to interpret that as 'becoming the focal point of a magical ritual that would suck out her soul and feed it to a rather unpleasant being, leaving nothing behind but a shriveled husk which might then be used as an undead foot soldier.' Caridad annoyed me more often that not but not enough to let her become a zombie.
Zandra seemed to share my urgency. I didn't quite notice when her rifle had been switched from 'stun' to 'vaporize', but it's blue white beam made short work of anyone who got in our way. After taking down a group of three Council soldiers with a few well placed strikes and a bit of packing foam (it was handy, deal with it) I caught a glimpse of Zandra's face as she, very calmly, blasted a Vampyre to atoms. She wasn't the dead eyed, soulless killer that you hear of in fiction, but she was not at all cheerful about her work. She was very methodical and clinical about it. Almost like she was taking notes for a report that she would have to file later.
I guess the word got out about us or, more likely, about the madwoman with a high powered energy weapon and her sidekick. The Council started throwing more and more robots and drones at us mixed with Banished Pantheon zombies. The living members of the opposition had had enough of risking their own, still mortal, necks in dealing with us so they'd decided to wear us down with constructs.
Actually, I didn't blame them.
It did cause a slight shift in our tactics since, not being super strong, trying to punch a robot would just break my hands. I went on zombie duty which was just about as pleasant as it sounds. I could have lived without the feeling of punching a dry sack of bones and skin, or the nauseating feel of something oozing between my fingers when their heads split open. The smell was indescribably foul, like leftovers that had been left over just a bit too long. And I would have dreams about the sucking, squishing, sound when I hit one that was still sort of fresh, for a long, long time, afterward.
I will admit that I had a few 'oh wow' moments as well. I actually was able to punch one zombie's heart out of it's chest (there wasn't much keeping it there) and I did get to pull the arms off another and use them to beat it to death (also not very well attached in the first place). But, overall, it was a very nasty and exhausting slog down to the prison wing.
We reached the cell block and I ducked inside while Zandra set up another of her time fields.
"This one's a bit weaker," she told me as the blue field covered the doorway. "We'll have maybe twenty minutes before the charge runs down. There should be something around here that will tell us which cell she is in."
"You could just ask," shouted a very welcome voice from behind a door at the end of the hall.
"Cari?"
"About time, Alexis. Get me out of this box. I'm running out of songs I know all the words to."
We found her cell easily. It helped that she was wiggling her fingers at us through the eye slot at us. I gave those fingers a brief squeeze before warning her to get back from the door. Zandra had already lined up her shot and was just waiting for me to get out of the way. I stepped back and Zandra's rifle lit up the door. It didn't seem to be doing much at first but after a few seconds the door did a perfect Hollywood fade-out revealing a very messy but otherwise unharmed Caridad.
"Alexis," she said as she stepped toward me to give me a hug only to stop a yard away "you smell bad.."
"Well I'll remember to shower first the next time I have to rescue you from zombies."
"And who's the girl with the ray gun?" asked Caridad as she noticed Zandra standing off to one side.
"Introducing Professor Zandra Alexander-Reyalde, " I said. "She's from the future trying to rescue us and figure out who's screwing up the Bermuda Triangle all at the same time."
Caridad looked her up and down for a moment before asking "lottery numbers?"
"No chance," Zandra shot back before unleashing one of her epic grins.
Caridad was smiling just as brightly and I think they had each just found a new playmate.
"Ok, now that that's been settled, " I said trying to head off the inevitable mischief, "how do we get back out of here? It's not like we have a magic blue button or anything."
"Well," said Zandra. "I'd say we go out the way we came. There can't be too many of them left."
"That might not be true," said Caridad. "They have some kind of portal at the core of this thing. They might be able to use it to bring in reinforcements."
It took her a moment to realize that both Zandra and I were staring at her.
"What? They talk too much. I overheard it while they were carrying me down here."
"Right. Change in plans then." Said Zandra. "We need to find that portal."
"You want to use it to get out of here?"
"No, Alexis, I want to use it to find out where in time they came from then I want to blow it up."
"I like her. She's my kind of girl." said Caridad.
I just knew I was going to regret staying close to those two. And I still smelled like zombie.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
-- It's ready to go so, here we are, just a bit early this week. As always, thanks for sticking with me -- JWB
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here, covered in Zombie goop.
Ok, not exactly goop but the smell was definitely something that stuck to you. Surprisingly, there was a small restroom, not much better than the one you find in your average convenience store at the end of the cell block and, thanks to Zandra's time screen, I was able to wash up a bit before we moved on. Even though I was able to scrub off the worst of the sludge, the harsh, institutional soap that was in the dispenser couldn't completely kill the undead smell.
"Great, now you smell like anti-bacterial Zombie," said Caridad in a snarky tone of voice that made me strongly consider locking her back in her cell. I could tell Zandra was trying not to laugh. I was outnumbered by my own side.
As we got ready to leave the cell block, we were faced with the very real possibility that there could be dozens of soldiers waiting for us. We couldn't tell because one of the side effects of Zandra's time screen was that we couldn't see through it. Zandra tried to explain why but after a few seconds of temporal-physi- blah, blah, blah, I stopped listening. It wasn't important I know and, even if I did, knowing wouldn't do me any good. I got the feeling that it was a bit like explaining the theory of electricity to the average medieval farmer.
"Sure," the farmer would say, "but what does that have to do with oxen?"
Not that I know that much about oxen readers, but you get the point.
I could tell from the way that she was bouncing very slightly on the balls of her feet that Caridad was eager to get going. I didn't really blame her, I'd been a guest of the Council before and I knew it wasn't a picnic. I wasn't as familiar with Zandra's body language but she was holding her rifle in a way that suggested she was personally offended by the fact that there wasn't anything to zap.
Both of them were trying, and failing, to keep a straight face whenever I was looking at them. I knew we were in trouble because, even though we had rescued Caridad, there were a few unresolved issues to sort out. We had to get out of the base and back to the Katana, most likely fighting the entire way. Before that, we had to go deeper into the base looking for some kind of portal which might or might not give Zandra the answers she needed and, once she had those answers, a portal that she felt the need to destroy. This was not going to be easy. We needed to be serious.
They couldn't wait to get started.
Zandra had dropped to one knee and took up a firing position facing the doorway. Caridad stood to her right and just a bit behind. Her right hand was in front of her, palm to the door. The faint glow that was a side effect of her own mutant abilities surrounded her.
"Where do you want me?" I asked.
"Around the corner," both of them answered, just slightly out of sync. They looked at each other for a moment before breaking out in a fit of giggles.
"Alexis, " Caridad said after a moment, "you've done a great job getting in here and I'm proud of you. But I am still your bodyguard and right now I need you to let me do my job."
"And," said Zandra, "it would be far too much paperwork if I were to let you, of all people, die right now."
"You know, I've been meaning to ask abou..."
"Screen coming down in five...four...three...two...one!" Zandra's shout interrupted my question as the time screen blinked and then went out. Caridad's golden beams and Zandra's blue-white lanced out at the same time, tearing a hole through the midsection of a large robot that the Council had brought up. They must have hit something important because the robot staggered backward one step then dropped heavily to the ground, crushing a group of zombies behind it.
"Mine!," shouted Caridad as she launched another set of beams down the hall, sending soldiers scrambling for cover.
"Yours?" Zandra replied as she climbed to her feet and started slowly walking forward.. "I don't think so, I hit it first."
"How do you figure?" asked Caridad.
"I'm a Professor of Time, I'm an expert in when things happen."
"What? You cheat," Caridad accused as she stepped forward, slowly moving her hands in front of her looking for the next target."
I stepped out from around the corner and slowly shook my head. I could hear them arguing about 'the rules' between blasts of high energy fire. I stepped over the sparking hulk of the robot and kicked a zombie that was still a bit too lively. Those two were peas in a pod and the part of my brain that obsesses over puzzles began spitting out the insane theory that they might be related.
I'd have to come back to that since the fighting had grown more intense. Zandra and Caridad were blasting their way through the soldiers and, as far as I could follow, Caridad was ahead in the point total. With those two in front of me, my job became very simple, kick in the teeth of anyone who got to me.
We kept moving, clearing the base hallway by hallway. By the time we reached the nearest stairwell (we weren't crazy enough to trust the elevators. I was certain the Council had seen the same films I had) we were unopposed.
"Computer maps said that his should be the last flight," said Zandra. "we're near the bottom of the hull and if there are any more stairs, we'll be swimming out."
"Ok, so what's the plan?" asked Caridad.
"The plan," said a hollow voice that was both above and below us, "is for you to die so that Mot may live."
Mot? What was a Mot?
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here from the trapped like a rat department.
"The plan is for you to die so that Mot may live..."
How do they do that readers? I swear there must be a how-to book for villains titled '101 ominous things to say when you've caught somebody by surprise.' I can just imagine that its full of fill-in-the-blank templates for all occasions so you just have to add the heroes name and a verb.
For example: Once you have the hero strapped to your latest fiendish machine you could taunt them with, No, (add hero's name here) I expect you to (verb). See? Easy.
With minimal preparation, you can have a snappy one-liner for all occasions. And, to be honest readers, most of the villains that have tried to kill me have needed the help. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are some dangerously intelligent villains out there who really don't need the help (they probably write their own material. Or at least hire someone good to do it for them) but for some, like the 80 years out of date fascists of the Council, the book must be indispensible.
What really made that particular line good was the fact that it was said by a floating ceremonial mask that had drifted down the stairwell behind us. Sometimes, style matters and it's really hard not to award style points to a self propelled, glowing, wooden mask.
The mask was another of the manifest spirits of the Banished Pantheon, one of their nastier ones. The masks usually manifested as the sprit of one emotion or another. They embodied, Hate, Anger, Lust, Desire, Envy... you get the picture. I wasn't sure which one that particular mask was supposed to be but it didn't really make a difference. It had the drop on us.
I still wasn't sure who or what Mot was but, since I didn't have any urge to die for it, I classified it as bad and tried not to think about it. Caridad and Zandra, on the other hand, had decided to be a bit more proactive on the subject. As soon as the words had finished echoing, both of them opened fire on the mask.
Caridad swept her hands in front of her and the air around the mask started to glow. Zandra followed up with a set of rapid fire shots from her rifle. The mask was smashed backward through space as the bolts hit home.
"Run," I heard in two part harmony as two hands grabbed me under the shoulders and propelled me down the last few stairs and into the room at the base.
I've made more dignified entrances but I understood the urgency. I did manage to keep my feet under me though, which made delivering a swift side kick to to council soldier that much easier. He sprawled off to my left as I took up a stance and looked for my next target.
Much to my relief, there wasn't one. What was in front of me was a large room with a glowing ring in the center of it. Caridad was right, there was a portal. I remembered one that looked similar from a tour I had taken of Portal Corps a year or two earlier.
I wasn't certain but I thought I could see something through the shimmer at the heart of the portal. It looked like the neighborhood in Astoria where I went to school but that couldn't be right, Astoria was lost to the Banished Pantheon years earlier...
"Importing zombies from the past," I said to myself.
"Looks that way," said Zandra's voice from my right. "I always wondered how they managed to get so many in there so quickly."
"But we can stop it, right? I mean before it all goes.."
"No," she said sadly. "we can't. It's already happened."
"But all those people..."
"I'm sorry, I truly am. Time can be altered in small ways without causing harm but events that big cannot be changed without causing even more disastrous tears in reality."
"So we do nothing?"
"Oh no," she said with a bit more steel in her voice. "That," she said pointing her rifle at the portal, "is going to go boom along with this island."
"And, said a slightly breathless Caridad from my left, "maybe we can get a bit of revenge for Astoria."
It was a truly inspirational thought. One that, if this were a movie, would be accompanied by a massive string section and some special effects. It would have been perfect if it weren't for the sound of a dozen rifle bolts being pulled back at the same time.
I wasn't being exactly honest a little while ago. I told you there weren't any targets but what I should have said was that there weren't any targets within reach. It turns out that the room was full of Council soldiers. It just took them a moment or two to close on us.
"Lay down your weapons and surrender," shouted the lead soldier. "And we might not throw you through the portal to use as they see fit."
That was a death sentence. I figured I'd see how far I could push. "And what will happen if we do?"
"Then we take your friends rifle and other technology, experiment on your other friend, and make sure you have a good view of the proceedings."
Have I mentioned that the Council are not nice people? I'm sure I have. But they had one massive disadvantage I could use. They had egos the size of Texas.
"Fine. You win," I said trying to sound as dejected as possible. "But I have a last request."
"You're not going to ask to be released are you?" Oh, a smart one. Had to happen sooner or later.
"No. You're too smart for me. I just want to ask if we could be executed at sunrise. I'd like to see one last day before I go."
I held my breath at this point. I really had nothing left and I was hoping that the Council were as arrogant as I thought they were. If I could get us outside, there was a chance. All I needed was a break.
"It's almost that time. A few extra minutes won't change anything. Take them to the roof and let them die facing the dawn."
I do so love predictable people.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Hiya Paragonners, Alexis Alexander here from a rather cramped elevator.
How many zombies can you fit in an elevator? I know, it sounds like the opening line of any number of zombie jokes but the Council seemed to be willing to find out. To be honest with you readers, I kind of lost count around fifteen. I will admit that it was a large cargo elevator and Zandra, Caridad and I didn't take up that much space, but every other inch of it was filled with zombie.
You'd think that our captors didn't trust us.
The council soldiers had already gone topside. Probably to stake out a good spot to watch the execution and listen to the glorious speeches that would proceed and follow it. The good thing about my plan was that I would miss most of the opening speeches. The bad part was that, if it all went wrong, I wouldn't be alive to hear the speeches afterward. I didn't plan on being around in any case. Getting back to the top of the hill was just the first part of my plan. Being able to talk was the second.
Yes, being able to talk was my big plan. I'd like to say that I had something dramatic in mind to save the day and, in a way, I did. Like I've said before, the Council have massive egos. I guess it's a way of compensating for their critically withered sense of decency. It's a very rare occasion when the Council thinks that it is even possible for them to lose.
You'd think that after the 100th time or so they'd get the message.
It was just a little before dawn when we stepped out onto the hillside. I could feel a slight chill on the breeze and there was the scent of tropical flowers and the lingering aroma of scorched zombie. I could see maybe a dozen council soldiers, some of whom were sporting bandages from recent medical care, and maybe twenty or so zombies. I was pleased not to see any tikis or floating masks, since that would make things much harder.
I could hear somebody talking as we were herded to the center of the clearing. It sounded like the same soldier that, oh so cleverly, got the drop on us earlier. It was good to hear his voice. I hated to think about how this would work if I had to deal with his superior officer.
"... And although we suffered losses, we, the men of The Council have once again proved ourselves superior. And now, because we are superior, we will execute the traitors to give the world another example of what happens to all those who dare defy the Council. Soldiers! Take Aim!"
"Excuse me," I shouted over the sound of imminent doom. "But it would be better if you lined us up on the cliff side first."
"What, " said Caridad and Zandra together.
"What?" said the soldier in charge.
"The cliff side. It's more poetic that way," I said taking a step toward the soldier. "Look, I'm a writer and I know about proper framing and placement of elements in a scene to convey the right image. If you just kill us here in the middle of the clearing, what does that say? It says, you're no better than common thugs, and I know that's not the image you're trying to convey. Am I right?"
"Well..."
"Am I right?" I countered. Sometimes getting your opponent off balance is just as important in conversation as in martial arts.
"Well, yes..." he sounded unsure. Somewhere in his brain was the thought that she should have shouted 'fire' a few moments ago and gotten back to business but somehow, things weren't quite going to plan.
"Ok, good. Now you just need to line us up on the cliff side...." I walked over to Caridad and Zandra and linked arms with them and walked them to the edge of the cliff. "Ok, now you have us lined up against the sky. That's much much better. It makes a far more dramatic image. Now all you need is the sunrise."
"What," said the soldier, more than a little out his element.
"What," said Zandra, more than a little out of hers as well.
Caridad tried to keep a straight face but I could hear a quiet snort from her. She'd figured out where I was going. All I had to do was give her the time she needed.
"Yes, the sunrise. To symbolize a new dawn for the world under Council leadership. To show the end of the old system and show the world how bright the new day can be..."
By now you're probably wondering, "was he really that dumb?" Actually, I was relying on an old trick. People, even completely deluded ones, hesitate to interrupt a person who is speaking with authority. As long as I could keep talking, he'd wait for me to finish.
I rambled on extolling the virtues of the Council and how it was clear to me how right their worldview was and how wrong I had been. I pushed every button I could think of to keep the Council distracted, and the fools were soaking it up. Behind me the sun was getting higher in the sky and next to me Caridad was standing very still.
Glowing.
"Enough of this," shouted the soldier. He'd either figured out that I was stalling or he'd just gotten tired of listening. Actually readers, I'm surprised I got as much time as I did. He cut me off with a wave of his hand and started to give the traditional orders.
"Ready," twelve rifles pointed at us.
"Aim," a dozen red dots floated over critical points.
"Duck." shouted Caridad as I dove sideways and pulled Zandra to the ground.
For the second time in my life I found myself face down in the dirt while a significant fraction of the sun's heat lashed out overhead courtesy of Caridad. I kept Zandra down as low as I could get her since I knew she could survive sunburn far better than incineration.
I know I heard come of the soldiers start shooting but unless they were using something other than their standard magnetic acceleration rifles, their bullets were melting within moments of leaving the barrels.
I tried very hard not to listen to the other sounds that meant men were dying.
As soon as I felt the wave of heat subside I stood up quickly and grabbed Caridad around the waste before she could fall off the cliff. I propped her up for a few moments and looked over at Zandra. She was already propped up on her elbows with her rifle in her hands, covering the clearing.
"Ok, I know that was taken away from you," I said. "How did you do it?"
Zandra smiled and actually had the good grace to look ashamed. "Recall button. Karl Wunder really was a genius."
I couldn't find fault with that statement as I scanned the clearing for any targets. I didn't see anything moving except for flames. And those were moving far too quickly for my taste. Zandra had climbed to her feet and looked at me.
"I think she overdid it. Any ideas?"
"Not unless you have a fire extinguisher on that gun."
"Sorry, he wasn't that much of a genius."
"I was kind of hoping."
The entire top of the hill was in flames. The word 'overdone' kept running around my head as the grass at our feet began to brown and ignite. I couldn't see a way out and Zandra looked just as lost.
"Alexis, Zandra," said Caridad weakly, "group hug."
Zandra propped up her left shoulder while I got my balance under her right. Caridad wrapped her arms around us tightly and put all her strength into a massive bear hug. I leaned into her and wrapped my own free arm around her waist.
Caridad stepped backward off the cliff and took with her.
I was too shocked to scream. Burning to death was a horrible way to die, but falling of a cliff wasn't much better. I knew that cliff divers had managed to survive these kind of falls but they usually weren't jumping as a trio. A few moments of terror passed before I realized that we were slowing down and that we probably would not hit rock hard water and splat.
I have mentioned that Caridad can fly, haven't I?
She turned our fall into a power dive and swoop above the wave line. All three of us were whooping like fools as she pulled us into a sharp climb which turned into a reverse loop which became a barrel roll. It was the ultimate roller coaster and we were enjoying every second of it as she carried us back to the Katana.
We landed lightly on the deck to the renewed applause of the crew. They had seen the flare from the first time Caridad blasted the hillside but they were too busy repelling their own zombie invasion to come to our rescue. They wrapped us in blankets and gave us glasses of wine and generally made a fuss which, I will admit, I did not mind at all.
An hour later we were showered, changed into clean clothes, and ready to get underway. Most of us were anyway.
"I have to go back there," said Zandra as she checked the contents of her belt pouches. "I can't leave a time portal just sitting around for anyone."
"Need help?" asked Caridad as she dried her hair.
"It's probably better if you don't. In fact, I'll need you to get as far from here as you can."
"What are you planning on doing Ma'am?" asked the captain.
"Time bomb."
"So you set the timer and we run, no big deal," said Caridad.
"Sorry, I forgot that the terminology has shifted." Zandra looked at me, "This island wasn't on your maps because it wasn't there when the maps were made. I plan on overloading that time portal to detach that whole island from the timestream. If you are too close when it goes off you might just be pulled along with it and I don't know if I'll be able to pull you back again."
"How far?" asked the Captain.
"I'm not sure. It's not a precise science even for my era." She reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a small glowing crystal and handed it to me.
"This is an old family heirloom. It was given to my great-grandmother some time ago. Family legend says that, if you do find yourself lost in time, hold this in your hand and concentrate on home. How it smells, how it looks, how it feels, how it tastes. The stronger your memories, the better."
"And what about you?" I asked.
"Not to worry. I still have a few tricks left. Captain, get moving. The faster the better."
Zandra disappeared and the Captain gave the orders to get us underway. Our second turbine was still not functioning so the Katana wasn't quite as nimble as she could be, but she gave us everything she had. I watched the island recede into the distance and waited for... I don't quite know what.
Caridad stepped up beside me. "It's time to go home."
I put my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around Zandra's crystal. If felt almost warm, a bit like both fire and ice together. I closed my eyes and thought about Paragon City. The statue of Atlas, the skyscrapers of Steel Canyon, even the Ghosts of Croatoa. I had to remember them all or else I'd lose my home forever.
The crystal grew warmer and I could feel the world shifting. All I could think about was one word.
Home.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
And that's that. I did say I was going to try and end this before time ran out. I almost didn't make it.
This will most likely be the last Alexis Alexander story posted on these forums. I wish I had time for more but...
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with these and, again, to those of you who have let me borrow your characters from time to time. It has been my greatest pleasure to be a part of this community. I hope to see you all again in new worlds.
This may be the end of stories but I'll still be around until the end.
Until then Paragonners, good night to you.
---JWB
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Excellent story as usual, sorry there will not be more reports from Alexis.
@tiggy
Beware the attack cat
PROLOGUE: Some time ago...
..."You're going to disappear for a while," she said. "I'll lend you the Katana and her crew. Take her...anywhere. I don't care where. Sail around the world once or twice. I'll have an anonymous account set up for you to take care of shopping and expenses and I'll send Caridad with you as a bodyguard. Don't come back until you hear from me. And for God's sake, don't tell anyone where you are."...
...
...
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.