Showing posts with label rope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rope. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 22, 2398

Mateo, Winona, and Tarboda arrived on Rapa Nui yesterday, but they were required to wait in a facility during a 24-hour quarantine period. They came out with a clean bill of health, and are presently arriving at the volcano on the southern end of Easter Island, Ranu Kao. The last time Mateo was here, it was in the main sequence, and things were a lot different. For him, this island is famous for the mysterious humanoid sculptures that are located in a different region. For the people of The Third Rail, this is a nice resort with a rich history that the people who visit here don’t care all that much about. The island has beautiful landscapes, unique flora, and tame fauna, and is considered one of the best places to go if you want to get away from civilization, since it’s so far from the mainland. The statues Mateo remembers were never built here, though. He can’t recall exactly what they’re called, and since they don’t exist, no one can tell him. Perhaps this island doesn’t have any special temporal properties here. It would explain why the crater lake that’s meant to be here is completely dry.
“Is that bad?” Winona asks. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea,” Mateo answers. “Leona should be here.”
“She’s quite busy.”
“Because your father is trying to take over the world with fusion power!” he argues, but he knows that he shouldn’t be too mad about it. Of course the government would want to mass produce the greatest breakthrough in energy production thus far. Leona knew it would happen, she just didn’t realize how little they cared about the rocket they built, which started it all.
“You said there was a secret passageway under the water,” Winona says, taking no offense to his words. “Maybe it’s still down there.”
He just frowns and kicks at the dirt.
“Come on. Let’s go on down. Tarboda, stay up here and keep a lookout.” The pilot nods respectfully. He’s been pretty cool about all this. He doesn’t seem to have ever belonged in that amoral group of mercenaries they met in Bermuda.
They carefully climb down the steep sides of the crater, and head for the bottom. As it was indeed underwater, and pretty dark, Mateo can’t remember exactly where the cave was, but it was somewhere on the opposite side as the ocean. His instinct is that it’s precisely the opposite, so that’s where they start looking. At a quick glance, there is no opening, which makes sense, or someone would have found it forever ago. Still, it can’t require a key, or a map, or an incantation. He also won’t accept the possibility that, like the moai—oh yeah, that’s what they’re called—it just doesn’t exist at all. It has to be here somewhere. All of the other significant places they’ve been to have been at least a little significant in this reality too. He starts running his hands along the walls, looking for anything unusual. “Go that way, please,” he asks her.
She does as he asks, but her heart’s not in it. Neither is his, but even so, they keep working at it. She has one little collapsible shovel, and one machete. She gives him the former to look for unstable spots. There’s so much ground to cover, and they don’t know where it might be on the z-axis, so Tarboda drops ropes down, and manages them from the top of the crater. No one comes to find them doing this. It’s apparently not that popular of a tourist destination, probably because it’s dried up, and they’re approaching the off-season. They work at this for hours. Ramses sent a bottle of Existence water in case he needed to do an emergency teleport, but it’s probably not going to come up, so he just drinks it once his regular canteen runs out. Once that container runs out, he decides that there is no point in going on. “Stop, just stop. There’s nothing here.”
“I know,” Winona agrees. “I’m sorry that this was such a disappointing trip.”
“What’s that you say!” Tarboda asks from above.
“We’re calling it quits!” Mateo explains.
“Oh, okay! I’ll pull you up!”
“No! I’m gonna do one more thing!” He removes his harness, and drops a meter down to the ground. Then he runs over to as close to the center of the crater as he can find. Here, while flipping off the world beyond, he pees. “Now who’s too dry?” he asks the island. Once he’s finished, he turns around, and gives the other two a thumbs up.
“Real classy!” Winona shouts at him.
He pumps his fist in the air. “Yeah!” Yeah, is right, assuming the question is if he’s tired, hungry, and closer to dehydration than he probably should be for as much as he drank. He tries to start walking back towards his rope when the ground trembles; just a little, but enough to throw him off balance.
“You better come on back!” Winona advises.
“I’ll get right on it!” Mateo replies. He starts again, but the ground shakes again, this time much harder. Each time he stops, the shaking stops, and each time he tries to move again, it moves too. Either it’s a coincidence, or some wibbly-wobbly shit is going on down here.
“Run!” Winona yells at him.
He takes her advice, but doesn’t get very far. The ground caves in under him, starting from the center, and expanding out, but not uniformly. It becomes impossible for him to stay ahead of it when the ground between him and Winona disappears early. Before he can see if enough of the Existence water is still in his system for him to teleport, he falls, and loses consciousness.
He awakens in the tall grass, wet from the morning dew. He’s not aching anywhere, but he’s dizzy and confused, and he can’t see well. His short term memory is gone at first, and has to come back to him in waves as he’s looking around and blinking, trying to fix his vision. The fuzziness subsides, and reveals an open grassy area, and some nearby trees. Winona and Tarboda are both lying there too. He crawls over to confirm their pulses and steady breaths. This is enough to wake them up, and they seem to be experiencing the same symptoms as they work to wake themselves up more.
“Where are we?” Tarboda asks.
“Unknown,” Mateo answers. We fell down into a cave, though, and now we’re back on the surface. Either someone moved us, or...”
“Or what?”
“Or we traveled. Can you both walk?” Mateo asks.
“Yes,” they answer simultaneously.
The three of them struggle to their feet, then struggle some more, like a newborn calf. Once they feel comfortable enough, they pick a random direction, and begin walking. It’s not long before they come upon something that Mateo recognizes. “Whoa.”
“What the hell is that?” Winona asks.
That is Stonehenge, and these...are the missing British Isles.”
“The whatnow?”

Monday, June 4, 2018

Microstory 856: A Bridge Too Far

We’re walking slowly, which I’m grateful for, because even though I’m in good enough health to move as fast as these horses normally walk, not everyone here is. The guy tied behind me is absolutely emaciated. He must not have eaten for weeks. If the men leading us to our deaths were pulling us along as fast as they sometimes do, he would probably fall down and die right here. I look up at the lead ranger. He has kind eyes, but they’re also sad. He feels a lot of empathy, and does not appear to personally want to be doing this, but it’s his job. He notices the starving man as well, so when the other guards aren’t looking, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of bread. He hands it to me, and jerks his head over my shoulder. If he weren’t asking me to give it to the other one, I would have done it anyway. And I’m not just saying that because I’m going to die anyway, because I’m not. Unlike everyone else here, I’m lucky to have lived in this county most of life, and I know a secret about these tracks that no one else does. No one here is going to die; not if they listen to every word I say, and trust me. Execution by train is a fairly new concept in these lands. In the olden days, it was too dangerous; While 999 times out of a thousand, the train would be fine, that thousandth execution could lead to a derailment. Now that even rural areas used maglev trains, the government decided it was a good way of getting rid of its undesirables. It’s quick, and nearly impossible to survive, and they always do it over a high bridge, so the bodies fall off, and disappear downstream. If the prisoners try to escape, they’ll just fall and die anyway, so no harm done. They picked the wrong bridge today, though.

The extremely tall man ahead of me is actin’ real shifty-like. I can see his eyes dart from side to side, and he’s twisting the rope on his wrists, hoping to eventually get them off. But even if he does, he’s only a third of the way there. All of our arms are tied to the stomach of the man in front of us. All of our ankles are tied together as well, and the same goes for our necks. It’s possible to shake these restraints, but by the time you get all the way done, a guard has noticed, and then he’ll just shoot ya. Some men try this, thinking it better to die from a bullet to the head than the strike of a train goin’ four hundred miles an hour. They may be right, but chances are, they’ll be caught quickly enough to just be tied back up, and then it was pointless. Other prisoners have tried coordinating massive escape plans, which caused the guards to keep people scheduled for the same time and place locked up in separate locations until it was time to go. That didn’t stop every attempt, so they started adding emaciated people like the poor schmuck behind me, so the team has no chance of getting too far. Fortunately for this group here, they’re with me, and I have a plan; a plan that doesn’t work if the guy ahead of me tries his own fool’s errand. I sneak up when even the nice guard isn’t looking, and try to whisper to the other prisoner that he needs to trust me. We have to make it all the way to the bridge for this to work, and it will work, but he has to let go of whatever he’s thinking. He doubts me, but he knows how hopeless his situation is, so in the end, he gives up and agrees. Just in time too, because a guard turns around, and starts lookin’ at us suspiciously.

As we step onto the bridge, we begin to feel the vibrations, and hear the train up ahead. One of the guards urges us on. It’s best for us to be nearly on the other side, so we’re not thrown clear back to the road. But there’s a special spot on this bridge for what I want to happen to work, and it’s about three-quarters of the way there. I whisper up to the guy ahead of me again, and also the guy behind that they need to jump when I say. I can’t get any message up to the other prisoners, so the weight of us three will just have to pull them over. We hit the spot, and I can see the greenish ripple in the air that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t staring at it. I scream for them to jump, and we jump. The guards try to stop us, but they’re not strong enough, nor do they think we have any hope of surviving the fall. What they don’t know is that the ripple in the air will transport you to the other side of town in an instant. No one in the county knows what it is, or how it got there, but we all know about it, and we all agreed to never tell anyone else. The old world is over, though, so the secret no longer matters. I remember jumping through the ripple as a child, and having so much fun with it. I also remember the three kids who died because they missed the ripple. You gotta go right at that ripple, or you just fall. Other people grew out of the exhilaration, but I never did. I continued to enjoy it all the way up until the world turned to crap, and today, I’m extremely grateful for it. We land on the edge of the Humphrey Farm, just like we’re meant to. I’m the only one on my feet, but the others scramble up quickly, relieved and excited about what happened, but still so very confused. I smile, and help the man ahead of me get his ropes off. The others start helping each other too, and we make plans to get as far away from here as possible, but then we hear rustling in the trees behind us. A half dozen men with guns come out and grin at us. One of them points his shotgun right at my gut, and cackles. “You didn’t think we knew about the spatial distortion, did ya? Glad to disappoint.” Then the firing squad squeeze their triggers.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Microstory 797: Cowgirl

Despite her codename, Deborah ‘Debbie’ Mynatt, a.k.a Cowgirl did not grow up on a farm, or a ranch. In fact, she grew up in the densest part of Manhattan, and had no interest in the outdoors. She even refused to go with her parents whenever they wanted to spend some time in Central Park. After the incident, though, she sought help from a man who couldn’t care less what his followers wanted, or what their personalities were like. He had this idea of the future—of the people he wanted to rule over it—and instead of adapting his plans to the people he was able to recruit, he forced his people to conform. Still, she felt she owed him her life, and did as she was told. She trained every single day, honing the skills he wanted her to have, and learning to effectively demonstrate her persona’s gimmick. She learned how to ride a horse, how to fight dirty, like a southerner, and how to handle a rope. Every villain and hero had their own special accessories that were tailored to them, and as unoriginal as it was, hers was the lasso, though she referred to it as her lariat. The lariat was a technological marvel, capable of loosening and tightening itself according to sensors attached to her hat that could read her brainwaves. She also carried with her sheath knives, and revolvers, making her one of the few members even of Forager’s crew who utilized deadly weaponry. Debbie was Forager’s most loyal servant, carrying out his every order to the smallest detail without question. She was not evil, but she was damaged, and the only way she would be able to get out from his thumb would be if someone else came along to control her instead. What she really needed was for someone to help her learn to be independent; to reject her abuser’s manipulation. Fortunately for her, the team she was up against wanted what was best for her. The only thing now was for her to decide to take the first step towards goodness.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Flurry: The Lake House (Part X)

“Quivira? Was she named after the street?” Serkan asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ace said, taking charge. “We’re kind of in the middle of our own crisis. We don’t have time for anything else. I’m sorry, but you’re just gonna have to find some other way.”
The way is clear. I know the way. You are the way.”
“We don’t even know your name.”
“I go by many names.”
“Well, great, Bob. I’ma call you Bob. Or no, Not Bob. You’re Not Bob.” Sassy Ace was about the same as regular Ace.
“Look,” Not Bob, said, “I know this might be difficult for you to understand, but there are bigger things at play than just a little snow. By measure, Keanu’s thing isn’t all that big of a deal. His friends are far worse, and they have no intention of stopping. We need you. Quivira is important.”
“Right now, I don’t care about the snow either. I’m just trying to protect my daughter.”
“Well, then, if you’re not going to listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to a voice your trust.” He started taking something out of his bag.
“We don’t trust many people,” Serkan said.
“This person you do.” He removed a polaroid camera, and carelessly took a picture of whatever was in view at the time as he was swinging it around. By the time he had the chance to put the photo away, the woman they now knew to be an older Paige teleported herself in.
Ace lunged to hug her, but resisted. He didn’t know what she’d been through, or how she felt about them anymore. “Paige.”
“Hi, dad. I can’t stay long, but you need to follow this guy. Keanu is just the tip of the snowflake.” It would seem that photographs were some sort of transportation technique for her, which was fitting since she was holding a camera when they first met her. She took out a phone and started sifting through an album.
Serkan could kind of see over her shoulder. “Are those pictures of us?”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you,” Future!Paige said. “But we’ve had a lot of good years together. It won’t always be this bad. I can’t tell you much about what happens, of course, but know that the three of us always have each other’s backs.” She had presumably found the picture she was looking for. “I’ll see you later, and you’ll see me soon.” She disappeared.
“Well,” Ace said to Not Bob, “it looks like you have your wish.”
Not Bob nodded. “I have a car waiting for us outside.” He lifted his arm to let them pass first.
As Serkan was heading down the steps, he could hear Ace confront Not Bob, probably under the impression that Serkan was out of earshot. “We’ll help you now, but if you ever use my family against me again, make no mistake, I will kill you. In another life, I was a pro.”
Not Bob was scared shitless.
Wanting to avoid another fight, Serkan kept quiet, and just left the house. A couple years back, some now-defunct company produced this weird clamshell car with no navigation controls, and a door that locked from the outside only. It was designed to transfer prisoners, but it never took off. The few hundred models that had already made it through production were being kept in a warehouse somewhere in Tennessee, but it wasn’t well protected. A group of criminals, who were never caught, made their way in, and managed to steal almost every single one of the models. They had been floating around the country, and some internationally, ever since. It was illegal to send one on the road, but not to just have one sitting in front of your house, which was why the one Serkan was standing next to now was being left alone.
“We can’t get in this thing,” Serkan said.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Not Bob tried to assure him.
“This feels like a trick,” Serkan responded.
“You heard Future!Paige.”
“This feels like a trick!” Ace repeated.
“This is the only way to get to Quivira. We don’t have time to fly to Wisconsin.”
“Oh, but a car gets us there faster?”
“It’s a magic car,” Not Bob said with a smile. “The Chauffeur built it himself, with help from The Weaver, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Ace said sarcastically.
Not Bob stepped in first to show them that he was not trying to lock them up. They were in there for only a few seconds before it evidently teleported them all to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, right next to a lake. They removed all their winter clothing, and left. They walked about a mile before coming upon a house. Nice, well-maintained, secluded, but clearly not built a hundred years ago. There were a few too many windows for Serkan’s taste, but the area did look like a great place to run.
Then they saw it. Through the windows, they spotted a woman place a chair into position right under a noose. Serkan froze. As much of a runner as he was, springing into action wasn’t one of his strengths. He was no scaredy cat, but he hadn’t found himself in any emergency situation before. Still, he wished he had been stronger. Fortunately, Ace was fast enough for the both of them. He ran down the hill to the front door, which was locked, so he kicked it in like a federal agent. Finally, Serkan broke out of his fugue state, and followed him in. Ace was already slowly walking around the woman, trying to give her a berth, but ready to take action, if necessary.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked from the chair; the only piece of furniture in the room.
“We’re here to help,” Ace answered gently.
“You can’t help me,” she replied.
“If you tell us the problem, maybe there’s something we can try.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“Maybe there is. You don’t know what we’re capable of.”
“Can you go back in time and stop me from making the biggest mistake of my life?”
That was an interesting question. He looked to Serkan, and gave off a slight shrug. “We may be able to accommodate that, yes.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she said before starting to place the noose around her neck.
“Wait!” Ace pleaded. “It’s not a joke. We are time travelers. We weren’t just walking along the lake. We were sent here to help...by another time traveler.”
“And who would want to save me?”
“Well...” Ace looked around. “Where the hell did he go?” he whispered to Serkan.
“I thought he was here.” He looked out the windows, but Not Bob was gone. “Maybe he had fulfilled his purpose by getting us here.” Or maybe he was just worried Ace would kill him.
“That’s right,” Ace said, turning that news into an opportunity. “His job was to bring us here, and my job is to bring you down from there.”
“Then what’s his job?” the woman asked, indicating Serkan. That was a good question too. He would be useless in this situation. He had no idea how to help this woman, either as a time traveler, or an empathetic human. He had empathy, but no training or predisposition to use it effectively for something like this. He had turned eighteen, but in the end, he was still just a kid.
“He’s here to save me,” Ace said quietly.
This gave her a reason to stop what she was doing.
“Now, your name is Quivira, right? Quivira Boyce?”
“It is, yes.” She didn’t seem too bothered that he knew her name.
“I feel like I knew a Boyce once. “Gavin...or Gideon, maybe?”
“My parents were gonna name me Gilbert if I had been born a boy.”
“Hmm.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Ace probed.
“If you can go back in time—if you really can, then I would want nothing more. Otherwise, we have nothing to talk about.”
“If we do find a way back, we’ll need to know what we’re doing. So start there, and we’ll see what happens. Deal?”
“Okay.” She stepped off of the chair, and sat in it. Then she waited until she could figure out what to say. “I’m not a good person. My parents were civil servants, working their whole lives to serve a country that never gave a fuck about them. When it came time for me to become an adult, I couldn’t, because I didn’t have very many options. I could shovel shit at a zoo, or I could take what I wanted. I chose the one with less cleanup. It started out small, as you might expect. Most people don’t break into Fort Knox on their first day. A little shoplifting here, a few car stereos there. Then I went on to credit card scams, and ATM skimming. Eventually, though, I started actually putting people in danger. I cased houses so I could rob them when they were on vacation, but there were a few miscalculations. The worst one was three weeks ago. I got away with something I shouldn’t have, and it’s been eating me up the whole time.
“It’s worse than you think. Yes, I killed someone, but it’s who I killed that matters in this story. At first, I just saw him. He must have realized what was going on in his house before I knew he was there, because he already had his gun. I didn’t carry weapons, so all I could do was hope he didn’t do anything stupid while we waited for the cops to arrive. He was angry, though. He kept screaming at me, trying to find out where my partner was. I didn’t have a partner, but he didn’t believe me. It was a huge mansion, so he just figured I was working with a team. I guess he had seen Home Alone a few too many times. He was waving the gun around, and growing more and more agitated by the second. I don’t think he knew how to use that thing; he just bought it for protection. I just could not convince him that I was alone, and that I wasn’t dangerous. I wanted his stuff, but I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” She kind of got lost in her own thoughts. “I just wanted his stuff...”
They waited patiently until she was ready to get back into it. “The floorboards creaked behind him, and I assume he thought it was one of my people. But the hallway was dark, and he was flustered, and he couldn’t think straight, and he wasn’t trained to only point a gun at something he wanted to shoot...and to be sure what he was shooting deserved to be shot. He just swung around and fired. It was his son. Maybe seven or eight. He had come up to help his father stop the bad man. At least...that’s the story I made up in my head, because the kid didn’t make it. Way it looked, he died pretty quickly. I tried to console the father, but of course, I was the last person who could do any good in that situation. He decided that he wasn’t going to live in a world without his son, so after spending some time sobbing over the body, he lifted the gun to his temple, and left this world.
“It was like he completely forgot about me. In fact, he had never gotten the chance to call the police. Upon realizing this, I put everything back, wiped my prints, and walked away. There was no evidence that I was there, or at least as far as I knew. I had completely resigned myself to the fact that a SWAT team would soon break down my door. But they never did. I was fine. Two people were dead; one a child, and I was free to do it again. I’ve tried moving on with my life, but can’t.”
“I remember this,” Serkan said, possibly insensitively. “It was on the news. They say a father accidentally shot his son, so he killed himself.”
“Yes, it was national news. But they didn’t say anything about a robbery, because I was just that good.” She stared into space for a good long time. “I have to kill myself. I can’t live while they’re dead. That is...unless you can kill me before I even step foot in that house.”
Ace smiled warmly. “We don’t have to do that. Now that you’ve told me the truth, I can tell you mine. I’m saying this now, and just hoping it makes sense in the future...before it’s too late. Forgive me if I fail. I didn’t know your name because that teenager told me. I knew it because you and I have already met. You have a bright future ahead of you,” Ace said to her believably. “You go on to do great things...save a lot of lives. You even save me once. You can’t die here today, Quivira Boyce. If you do...I do.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Would this face lie?”
This made her smile narrowly, but it didn’t last long. Everything changed. She disappeared, furniture appeared all around them, and they were even wearing different clothes.
“I thought we were changing the future,” Serkan said, confused.
“We changed her future, which is part of our past, and thus our present. All this is the result of those alterations.
“What made you think to lie to her about having met already?” Serkan asked.
“I didn’t lie,” he explained solemnly. “It happened.”

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Voyage to Saga: Right in Front (Part VII)

The first thing that Vearden could feel was the pain. His head felt like someone had cut an ever-delicate slit over the tip, and then pulled the two halves apart just a little. He tried to reach up and massage it, but could not. They were trapped behind his back. Even lifting his chin had painful consequences, but still he did. Across the room was a woman who was tied up too. There was no one else, not even a guard, in this small dungeon-like room. It was all metal, with two metal hatches on either side of them. It was very clearly a ship. It didn’t feel like they were on the water, though. All he could hear was creaking. The most important things to figure out now was why they were tied up, and how they were going to get out of it.
“You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty terrible, actually,” Vearden replied. “Where are we?”
“In an abandoned something or other. Though, I suppose everything’s been abandoned these days. With what religion did you identify?”
“What? My religion? That’s the first thing you ask? Not my name?”
“What’s your name?”
“Vearden Haywood.”
“Imelda. I was a deist.”
“I’ve never believed in God, but I never gave it much thought either.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If you were an atheist, you would have been sent to hell.” Then she got a little excited. “Unless you were sent to hell, and then you escaped. Are you part of the resistance? Is that why they captured you?”
“What? No! How dare you say I belong in hell. Where I come from, we respect each other’s beliefs.”
“Oh, I do. It’s just...you’re completely unaware of what’s going on, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, let’s just say that I’m not from around here.”
“I hope it’s nicer there than it is here. Maybe you could take me there...someday. Maybe.”
“Imelda, explain to me what’s happened. Why were you so confident that I should be in hell?” More creaking from the walls.
“That’s just the way it is now. All atheists were sent to hell...all at once. Over half of people were sent to heaven, and the rest of us stayed here. We call it the rapture.”
“So, the Christians were right.”
“They weren’t, no. They were wrong. We were all so very wrong. And now the demons have taken over. It is my position that we were all in such a hurry that we hastened our own demise. We should have been more patient.”
Vearden struggled to get out of his restraints, but not even his chair would move. It was bolted to the floor. Hers wasn’t, however. “Hey, I can’t move, but you can scoot over to that twisted metal conduit over there. Use the sharp edge to cut through your ropes.”
“No need, we will both survive this.”
“What? Imelda, we have to go. I don’t know what happens when whoever took us comes back.”
“They will try to kill us.”
“Then we definitely have to leave. Come on, please! It’ll just take a second.” Each time he got a little worked up, the creaking would intensify.
“I wish not to waste my energy.”
“If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. Please!” he begged.
“You just need more patience.”
“No, what I need is to survive, so I can go save my friend.”
“I have faith that you will find her in time.”
“I never said she was a girl.”
“Hm,” was her only reply.
“Imelda. I’m asking you nicely, and slowly...with patience, to please help me get out of my ropes.”
“Just wait.”
They waited for a few moments before hearing muffled voices from the other side of one of the two hatches. Vearden couldn’t really hear exactly what they were saying, especially with the creaking, but they were clearly angry with each other, and he did catch something about gold.
“No, you little imp—!” was the last thing one of them said, fairly clearly, before the gun went off. Then they heard a body drop.
“Is he...an actual imp? As in the demon.”
“Well...” Imelda answered vaguely. “No.”
The person—or demon, as it were—left standing tried to open the hatch. They could hear the latch jiggle a few times. Then they could hear what sounded like little beeps. Then bang, bang, bang! Then creak, creak, creak.
“I guess the guy he killed never gave him the code.”
“God...DAMMIT!” cried the demon. He just went berserk, kicking and banging on the hatch over and over again, while screaming profanities, and sometimes just nonsense. He would not let up. He wanted to be in the room, and nothing was going to stop him, not even the creaks.
“Okay,” Vearden said, trying to take that patience thing a bit more seriously. “That hatch is not going to hold him forever, so if you could just try this. Just try it. If it’s too hard, you can give up, and I won’t be mad. Please try.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?” Vearden repeated, angry in his own right. “Don’t worry about it!? This is life and death! Maybe in your world, people can just come back from the afterlife, but for me, dead is dead!”
“All will work out in the end.”
“Now, you listen to me.” He stopped himself once Imelda casually pulled her arms to her front and massaged her wrists.
“What. The. Hell?”
Imelda reached down behind her chair and lifted something up, saying, “thank you” into her palms
Vearden squinted through the darkness and was able to see that she was holding a little mouse. “He’s mine, I brought him here.” It was the mouse he had incidentally picked up from the island with the plane crash in the previous reality.
“Then I thank you as well.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “That’s why you didn’t bother getting yourself free. My mouse was chewing through your ropes. You coulda said something.”
“You would have seen eventually. We could all do with a little more...”
Vearden rolled his eyes and recited the word “patience” at the same time as her. She was a broken record.
“Yes,” she said on her own, happy that her wisdom might be reaching him afterall.
He took another deep breath, trying to call himself down, despite the constant ruckus from just outside...and the creaks. “I know you’re all about patience, but if you don’t get up right now, you’re going to die.”
“Death is no end.”
“And I told you that it is for me. Now that you’re free, you can stand up and untie my ropes as well.”
“We are better off with you there.”
“What are you talking about? Is this a test? Are you actually the one who knocked me on the head? I never did see who did it. Is this some elaborate interrogation plan?”
“There is no plan but God’s.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he said, rolling his eyes again.
“He’s not very involved this time.”
“What?”
Just then, the banging stopped. But Vearden knew that this was no good sign. The demon was probably just taking a break. A few minutes later, he realized he was right. They could hear the sound of metal dragging on metal. “I have you now!” the demon yelled to them through the door. The banging started back up again, but this time, he had a tool.
“Okay, now we have to go. I can see the door move. He’ll break it sooner rather than later.”
“Patience.”
“Stop saying that! My legs are killing me, I shouldn’t have to sit like this anymore.” He stretched his legs away from the chair as much as he could, to relieve some of the pain.
With Vearden’s last word, the door broke free. It swung open a little bit on its own. They could hear the demon more clearly now. “Ha!” it said through heavy panting. It pushed itself through and immediately ran for Imelda who was standing patiently in the opposite corner, petting Vearden’s mouse. The demon had to pass in front of Vearden first, and didn’t notice Vearden’s legs. It tripped right over them and felt on its face. It fell hard, and then it stopped moving.
“Ho-oly shit,” was all Vearden could say.
“No, it was quite unholy,” Imelda disagreed. “It was the embodiment of impatience.” Ooooohhh, it wasn’t an imp. It was impatient. Haha, that’s dumb.
Just then, they could hear footsteps headed for them from down the hallway. “Can we go now?” Vearden asked.
“Of course...now that he’s finally opened the door for us. If he had just been patient, backup would have arrived with keys.”
They slunk out of the door and separated into rooms on either side of the hallway, peeking around the corner to watch as black-clothed figures ran past them, and into the hostage room.
“Where did they go?” one asked.
“They couldn’t have gone through this door. We would have seen them,” added another.
“Open that one,” a third one ordered.
As he did so, the creaking came to a head and moved the entire structure. Vearden stepped out of his hiding place due to curiosity as the entire hostage room broke away from the rest of the structure, and tumbled into the abyss below, sending all the pursuers to their deaths.
“You knew that would happen.”
“They shouldn’t have opened that other door. It was the only thing keeping the pressure balanced.”
“What are you?”
“I’m God,” she said, and she wasn’t joking. “But enough about that. We ought to be going. The rest of the ship could fall at any moment.”
They ran down the hallways. She looked like she knew where she was going the whole time, like she had been there before. Finally, they made it to that ramp that people use to get on and off. It didn’t look or feel stable, but they had to risk it.
Just as they were reaching the bottom, a group of people nonthreatingly ran up to them. One of them asked, “Imelda Angelo?”
“I am,” she said kindly.
“My name is Dana. I know this may sound strange, but—”
“Yes, yes, yes. We’re hypostates, and we’re trying to save the world. Got it. We should leave.”
“I was told that you would be—”
“Patient?” Imelda asked. I am, which means I know when it’s time to act.” She turned to Vearden. “Oh, before you go, here’s your mouse.”
“No, you keep it. Her name is Monica.”
“Monica Mouse, I like it.”
Then it was over.