Second Stage of Something Started: Observers (Part V)

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Vearden never had a thirst for blood, and never thought he would kill anyone, not a human anyway. But this was different. Saga was in danger, and that always put him in a special state of anger. This Makarion guy had been toying with them for the last couple days, which was annoying, but their whole lives were meant to be nothing but challenges. Once he made them play the golf game of death, though, there was no saving him. Even if he had never killed anyone himself, he enjoyed putting people in no-win situations. He was basically just the character of Jigsaw, but without the tricycle. He was having the Colosseum built for nefarious purposes; there was now no doubt about that. Someone had to do something about him. He had to be stopped. Might as well be Vearden.

Unfortunately, he was growing tired, and the blood rampage was wearing off. Presumably, Gondilak could keep ahold of it indefinitely, but Vearden was human, and had his limits. In a matter of only seconds, they were really just two men fighting. It wasn’t epic or badass. There were no jump kicks or backflips. There was just sweat, skin, and spit.

“Stop right now!” Saga ordered.

Vearden immediately backed off, not because he saw the gun in his partner’s hand, but because he trusted her.

Makarion backed off because of the gun.

“Now we’re here to help people,” she continued. “That’s what we do. We may be freelancers, but we don’t kill people! You corrupted our morals. You turned us into killers. That is not supposed to be the deal.”

“You’re not here to help people,” Makarion explained angrily. “You’re here on a whim. The only difference between that other planet you were on and this island and is now it’s my whim. You don’t serve a purpose, Saga. You’re just a game piece.”

“Well now I’m a game piece who has a gun, so you’re gonna open that stargate and take us back to Stonehenge where we can sort this all out.”

“Who has the gun?” Makarion snapped his fingers, landing in the familiar vague shape of a gun. The sound of a real gun went off, however.

Vearden thought Saga had shot Makarion, but it was the other way around. In Makarion’s other hand was another revolver, a slight wisp of smoke curling out of the end. But it wasn’t another revolver, it was the same one. He had used his ability to steal it from Saga. Vearden wanted to go help her, but his masculine instincts kicked back in, this time without the benefit of the blood rampage.

The two men began to fight again, but this felt much different. Vearden could see the scene change behind Makarion’s shoulder, as if there were a portal. But they were not in front of a portal, they had just straight up teleported. He looked behind himself to see what was very clearly The Constant. It was a special building in the middle of nowhere Kansas. Construction workers had built it underground an unknown amount of time ago, designing it to accommodate salmon on vacation. Almost nothing in it had changed since Vearden had first taken refuge long ago. The Concierge was still there, and as young as ever, even though she would have to be at least centuries old. Makarion jabbed him right in the face, so Vearden lifted his leg and slammed it into his stomach, forcing him to trip over the coffee table. No, it didn’t collapse under him, because no one wants to own a table that just falls apart so easily.

“Dad? What’s going on?” His daughter, Laura was there, along with Saga’s son, Samwise. Some girl he didn’t recognize was with them.

The Concierge pursed her lips and waved her finger around. “Nope, nope, nope! This is 2034, you are absolutely not supposed to be here right now!”

“The year 2034? What?”

Before he could ask further questions, Makarion had recovered and tackled him to the floor. No, the ground. It was grassy and dewy. They were in Stonehenge, just like Saga had wanted, but in what year?

“Okay, this is getting weird, Makarion said. He climbed off of Vearden and crept forward. They could faintly hear voices on the other side of the stones.

Vearden crept alongside him, more curious about what was going on than he was angry at Makarion. Saga was shot and hurt, so he would need to get back, but that apparently wouldn’t happen for another few decades. The Delegator would know how to return to her.

They drew closer and could hear him speaking, “that’s the brilliant thing. Every salmon is given assignments. It’s my job to dole them out. But you’re different. To my knowledge, you don’t have any responsibilities. It’s my assumption the powers that be want to see what you do on your own.”

They peeked out from behind one of the stones and watched as Mateo and Leona disappeared from sight, leaving the Delegator alone. “I know what this is. This is when Mateo and Leona first come here. This is...” he had to think about the history. He knew entirely too much about all of them. “This is the year 1517.”

“Saga and I left 1517 and came here just before meeting you.”

The Delegator had come up to them as they were looking away. “Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet. You’ve just stepped into your own past. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, and I don’t wanna know. I just want you gone before the past version of yourself shows up and wonders why there’s another him.”

“We have no idea how we got here,” Vearden said honestly.

“I might have an idea.” He tentatively lifted his hand and slowly moved it towards Vearden’s arm.

As soon as he took hold, the scene changed again. Fire raged all around them, burning trees and stealing their oxygen. A fiery branch fell down between them. “Get us the hell out of here!” Vearden yelled.

“I can’t do it on my own!” Makarion called back, trying to breath through his sleeve. “Something happens when we make physical contact!”

“Okay, you come to me!”

“No, you come to me!”

“Goddammit, get the hell over here!”

“Son of a bitch, fine!” Makarion looked all around him to make sure nothing was going to kill him. Vearden was torn between wanting something to snap him up, and needing him to get back to Saga. “This is the Yellowstone fire of 2039,” he informed him, for no apparent reason.

Vearden tried reaching for him, only to be rejected. “Don’t you want to leave?”

“I think you may be in control of this,” Makarion explained. “I can control where I teleport, but I can’t travel through time. You can travel through time, but you can’t control it. I think we combined our powers.

“Okay...?”

“I told you when and where we are so that you understand this power. Concentrate on when and where you want to be, and that’s where we’ll end up.”

Vearden closed his eyes and thought about the island where they had left Saga. But he didn’t want to land back there at the exact same moment. He wanted to get there before so he could stop her from getting shot in the first place; perhaps even stop them from having to kill the brothers. He could feel Makarion’s hand on his shoulder, and he instinctively reopened his eyes.

They were standing on a bridge in the dark. A train was coming right for them. “That didn’t work,” Captain Obvious said.

Between them and the train were three figures which disappeared just before being run into. “Ya think?”

“Just take us anywhere.” He placed each hand on either of Vearden’s shoulders.

“Not again.” A man Vearden didn’t know was rolling his eyes at them. “I just got rid of you people! Literally ten seconds ago!”

They found themselves in a pristine room that looked like a laboratory or something. “Where are we?” Makarion asked.

The man scrunched his face in disgust and pointed to the wall with his middle finger as if they should already know the answer.

Out of the window they could see planet Earth. “Is this the moon?”

“No, it’s Mars, dipshit,” the man said, of course sarcastically. “I am Commander Parker, King of the Mascos!”

Makarion squinted his eyes and asked, “who like us have you met?”

“I dunno, a bunch of people. I didn’t care about their names.”

“Was one of them named Mateo?”

He sighed out of exhaustion. “Yeah, I think that’s what they said.”

“Just as I suspected,” Makarion said, nodding his head.

“Shut up.”

“We’re jumping into important moments of Mateo’s timestream. God, that guy’s so important, and I do not know why.”

“Well, how do we get back?” Vearden demanded to know.

“All we can do is keep trying.” This time, Makarion cupped Vearden’s cheeks in his hands, but not in a good way, because he was a psychopath.

As Makarion was releasing his hands, they could hear an alarm blaring, and a voice on the intercom. “That is it! I’m calling in the cavalry. This is who we’re lookin’ for!” The walls around them turned out to be computer screens. Each panel was displaying a picture of Mateo Matic. Horace Reaver was in the midst of trying to capture him, as always. But that battle had already been won from Vearden’s perspective, so there was nothing left to do about it now. “Bring him in and I’ll write a blank check!”

“God, I hate that man so much.” Makarion had a deep scowl on his face. He really meant it.

“He sounds like your kinda guy.”

Makarion squeezed Vearden’s arms against his body with the fire of a thousand suns. “Don’t you ever compare me to Horace Reaver ever again! You under-fucking-stand me?”

Vearden nodded then looked around. They were outside, and it was a bit difficult to breathe, so they must have been pretty high up in the air. It seemed to be some kind of town. Three men were sneakily running across the lawn. One of them was Mateo, the other was Reaver, and the third was someone Vearden didn’t recognize.

Makarion looked horrified. This was different than his hatred of Reaver. “I don’t wanna be here. Not again.”

They were standing in a gigantic cavernous amphitheatre. The ceiling was showing the sky in various locations, like a constantly changing portal. Vearden wanted to admire it, but Makarion would have none of it, and they did hear what sounded like rushing water barreling towards them from the corridor behind them. “Ugh, I don’t want to be here again either!”

“Hello,” Doctor Baxter Sarka said to them. “Sorry, I was just doing a consult here. I’ll leave you two to grieve in peace.” They were in the special graveyard where salmon are buried. Vearden had only been there once, but he remembered it as an impactful experience.

“That’s okay, we were just leaving,” Makarion said.

A young woman was staring at them midstride, like a cat burglar who had just been caught. Vearden and Makarion were standing on a mattress in the middle of the floor of a warehouse. How odd.

“You understand how time travel works, yeah?” Makarion asked.

“Um...” she began.

“Causality, paradoxes, E-T-C?”

“I do.”

“Then when I tell you to forget you ever saw us, you recognize the importance of that.”

“I do, yes,” the woman replied.

“Perfect. Byeeeee.”

“Oh my God,” Vearden said. “Where the hell are we now? I just want to get back to Saga.” They were in a cemetery, but a much larger one than before.

“She’s right over there.”

Vearden looked to where Makarion was pointing. He could see an earlier version of himself, along with an earlier version of Saga. This was March 21, 2014; the night Mateo first began his pattern of jumping forwards one year every day. They were there to witness it that night; after finishing their first mission, and before going back in time to live with Samuel and Laurel.

“And there’s Mateo,” Makarion moved his hand to a separate group of people. “And there’s also Mateo.” He was right. Birthday boy, Mateo was standing in the middle of the crowd, hanging out with his friends. But another Mateo was standing with two guys he didn’t recognize, and the girl from the warehouse jump. That must be Leona. He wished he had known that then.

Vearden threw up his hands and plopped down on the ground. “We’re never getting back!”

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Microstory 320: Geographic Stability Part I

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Safety from Chaos

As I was nearing the end of my tenure as a high school student, a few things were made clear. One of those things was that I wasn’t ready for college. Another was that I didn’t have the sufficient skills or experience to enter the workforce either. My parents suggested I look into major volunteer work. I’m talking full committment; move to a new state, or even country. I ended up volunteering on a farm in California. It was supposed to be for six months, but only lasted two, so I needed to find something else. As it would happen, not long after I returned home, Hurrican Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. I went to the Red Cross to earn the necessary certifications that following Thursday, went back on Friday for travel plans, and left on Saturday. I saw a lot of damage at my ultimate location in Slidell, Louisiana. I saw more when I returned for a second stint in Florida later that year. So many people lost their homes, their belongings, their lives, and their loved ones. Katrina wasn’t the first natural disaster, it hasn’t been the last since, and the worst is yet to come. Climate change is ravaging our world, and though there are things we can do to protect ourselves, we won’t be able to do enough. By the 2050s, the global temperature will rise so high, we’ll start to experience superstorms the likes of which we’ve never seen before. A great number of coastal towns will be completely underwater, and will probably have been abandoned by then due to earlier frequent flooding. Everyone has the right to live in a location that is geographically stable. We need to find ways to fix our environmental issues, but right now, if you live close enough to the ocean, I can’t recommend you not make plans to move inland. You may not find happiness if you don’t.

Geographic Stability Part II

Microstory 319: Safety from Chaos

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Neuropsychological Function

Though everyone is worried about threats like terrorism, some people are more worried than others. I hear a lot of outcry about the government’s prying eyes. Everyone thinks they’re entitled to their privacy, yet also feel entitled to knowing what everyone else is up to. No one wants their browser history revealed to the world, but as soon as they find out their elected officials have been keeping secrets from them, then it might as well be the end of the world. People like to spout the word freedom, but they don’t really know what that means. The truth is that no country is completely free. If it were, it would likely die out, because that would be chaos. There is this thing called the social contract. Basically what this means is that you agreed to give up some of your rights in exchange for protection. This protection comes with stipulations; notably those in place to keep everyone within the population safe, even from each other. Some value this safety, while others only freedom. I happen to be of the first camp. You do not have the right to know absolutely everything the government is doing just because you’re a citizen, or because you voted, or because you pay taxes. National security is more important than you knowing “the truth”. And to that, we can’t just get rid of the government altogether, because then we wouldn’t be a country. We would be a collection of corporations, and I’m not sure why people want that. Libertarians want more “freedom” and less government. I want more government, and fewer terrorist attacks. You signed the social contract, whether you realize it or not. The government is there to prevent invasion, occupation, and annihilation by the hands of our enemies. It is also there to support the populace and guard against chaos. If you were a patriot, like me, you would understand that.

Geographic Stability Part I

Microstory 318: Neuropsychological Function

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Disease Prevention

When I say neuropsychological function, I’m really just using it as an umbrella term for all things that have to do with the brain and mind. As with many other needs, I struggled to find a place for it in the list. It sort of feels like it’s something you don’t want to worry about until other issues are resolved, but there is an argument for its earlier placement. I suppose, in the end, I decided to treat it as a bridge between personal needs and societal needs. Most, if not all, needs I’ve discussed thus far have involved an individual’s ability to survive. Everyone needs those things somewhat independently of how they relate to others. Psychological health, however, is a global issue; one that every nation and subculture has a responsibility to deal with, in some way. If there is no general drive towards a world of well-adjusted, fulfilled people, then there is probably no world at all. As I’ve said before, I was recently diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Autism, as a word, comes with a lot of stigma, so it’s not a perfect description, but the word disorder probably does people like me the biggest disservice. I’m personally happy with who I am, and I wouldn't call my autism a mental health issue. My duty to find my place in the world is no more important than anyone else’s. It is, perhaps, simply more difficult. All this means is that I’m not one to believe we should all possess the same brain chemistry. But there are things that people of certain mental conditions struggle with, and these problems should be addressed accordingly. Likewise, a population must consider these problems as a whole, and try to find ways to make everyone capable of enjoying life. The first step in solving any problem is education. We could all learn something from the mental state of someone else.

Safety from Chaos

Microstory 317: Quality of Life

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Disease Prevention

Many people talk about quality of life when someone has fallen into a medical state not conducive to typical daily activity. This may be due to a terminal disease that allows some semblance of normalcy, but often at the expensive of life-prolonging treatment. It can also be used in regards to a loved one who is too incapacitated to even communicate their thoughts. But quality of life is an ongoing process every individual goes through regarding their personal needs and desires. Everyone needs to decide how they would like to live their lives; what they’re willing to risk or do without, and what limitations conditional factors have on their choices. It’s no secret, and also wholly unavoidable assuming the status quo, that rich people are more capable of living high quality lives. One of my favorite quotes comes from a television program called Switched at Birth where a less fortunate character is explaining themselves to another by saying, “you live in a world of money. Money means choices. No money, no choices.” It’s important to remember that there will always be someone with less than you, and also someone with more. This is not an inherently bad thing; it’s just the way that things are. There is a grand difference between giving up on your aspirations, and accepting what you’ve been born into by making the best of what you have. An impoverished person can have a higher quality of life than you may think. It depends on their perspective, and their priorities, among other considerations. This concept may sound like it belongs further down the list where I’ll discuss more psychological and emotional requirements, but I decided to place it here because it’s something you need to think about while covering more basic needs. You could have everything you ever wanted, but if you never thought about this, you may find yourself wanting for even more.

Neuropsychological Function

Microstory 316: Disease Prevention

Click here for a list of every step.
Sleep

Disease Prevention is one of the hardest things to accomplish. The work is never finished, and not everyone has access to the same resources. The impoverished population often has ways of finding shelter, water, and even food. They can make clothes out of something, and can carve out some time for sleep. But cleanliness and preventive healthcare are two things that cannot be achieved if the wrong environmental factors are at play. Healthcare professionals have outlined five levels of disease prevention, each subsequent level being more difficult to attain than the last. The first step in creating a population, not entirely free from disease, but protected against preventable medical conditions, is education. People must be aware of the risks they face when engaging in certain activities. They need to know that bacteria can thrive under unsanitary conditions. They need to know how to recognize the signs and symptoms of diabetes, heart disease, and sexually transmitted diseases. They need to know the dangers of alcohol consumption, why smoking is unhealthy, and why exercise is important. This all may see obvious to you, but you probably grew up in a developed nation, and were exposed to a degree of education. But just being aware of the risks of certain lifestyle choices, and knowing what diseases you could contract, is not enough. There is so much conflicting information out there that it’s either hard to trust anyone, or it’s easy to choose whatever lines up with your preconceived notions. One thing to remember is that literally everything causes cancer, so unconditionally cutting out anything you read about that in an article isn’t practical. Preventing disease comes from exercising regularly (steadily, not necessarily intensely); eating natural foods (but not shying away from anything that tastes good: that doesn’t mean it’s bad); and seeking medical check-ups, as feasible. Completely avoid recreational drugs, relieve stress as possible and legal, and—above all—find balance.

Quality of Life

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 19, 2073 (continued)

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“Get out of the car,” Darko ordered.

“What just happened?” Mateo asked in a panic.

“Leave the car now and ask questions later,” Darko said authoritatively.

They slipped out of their respective doors and slinked over to hide behind a large pile of boxes and random parts they couldn’t identify. They were back in the warehouse where they were first sent off on their Transporter tribulation. The car was not a burning pile of wreckage, nor were the three of them dead. Mateo didn’t quite know how many times he was sure he was going to die, but he was starting to think he would be better of counting the times they lived.

“Leona,” Darko went on, “hack into the car’s cameras and erase the last two minutes of footage.”

Leona only tapped a few  buttons on her computer.

“That was quick,” Mateo said, impressed.

“I had already written that function into the program.”

“Quiet now,” Darko said in a loud whisper.

They watched as their own past selves were apported into the warehouse right next to the car. Darko had threaded them through the car, back in time to just before they started the tribulation. It was a bizarre experience, watching his past self open the door for Leona’s past self so she didn’t have to look up from her computer. Mateo had been to the past before, and seen his first jump through time in the graveyard decades ago, but that felt more like a movie. Seeing himself just a few hours ago somehow felt more real, like an out-of-body experience.

The older version of Leona was still typing on her computer, but more quietly, as their past selves drove off. “There are no cameras in the warehouse, at least none that I can find.”

“Good,” Darko said with relief. “We have to go.”

“Why did we not think to do this before?” Leona asked while they were escaping the warehouse, “to escape Makarion?”

“It is not as simple as that,” Darko explained as the three of them walked down the streets on the edge of town, keeping their heads on swivels. “The powers that be do not appreciate when choosers disrupt salmon patterns. I was only able to take you back a day because it didn’t break your pattern; it just delayed it.”

“What about when you took us back to 2014?” Mateo asked.

“I was able to thread you back to 2014 because, from the security guard’s hat’s perspective, 2014 was only earlier that day. I didn’t know I would be using that loophole when I asked you for the hat in the first place.”

“The original Rogue manipulated our pattern all the time,” Mateo pointed out, “especially mine.”

Darko nodded his head, clearly expecting this line of questioning. “He had his own loopholes to exploit, and he was far more powerful than I could ever be. With me, you can either go back over the day you’re already on, or quickly skip to the next one.”

“One day would be all we need, though,” Leona said. “That doesn’t explain why we didn’t try this before. Makarion’s not looking for us because he thinks we’re driving in the car, completing his tribulation...because we are. The other us, that is.”

“Makarion has someone working above him,” Darko said. “I suspected there was someone else, and he confirmed his subservience to this mysterious unknown party after you got back from the dancing tribulation. I think it’s how he knows so much about all of us.”

“So?” Mateo asked. “Go on...”

“So we don’t know who this person is, or what they can do,” Darko said. “They could be watching us right now, like the Cleanser does. We’re not out of the woods yet. We can try to get away, hoping Makarion thinks we’re dead by day’s end, but that’s predicated on the idea that no one else knows we’re here.”

“We have to hope he doesn’t look too hard at the wreckage too,” Mateo said. “There aren’t any bodies in there.”

“This is true,” Darko agreed.

“All we have is hope anyway,” Leona said.

They had turned onto a dirt road that looked like it went on for miles, away from civilization. Rather, it went on for kilometers. Mateo jumped a little and stopped, “our death bracelets.” He looked at his own wrist to find the death bracelet was apparently off. There were no working indicator lights. “Hm. Let me guess, going back in time deactivated them because they interfered with their past selves? Some kind of entropic cascade failure...or something?”

Leona laughed. “Nope. That’s what I was doing on my computer while we were driving; figuring out how to dismantle the bracelets. It’s a good thing I did, because Makarion would otherwise have six bracelets to track, and would know what’s happened. When we get to a safe place, I’ll start working on removing them completely, just in case.”

“Where might a safe place be?” Darko was still not sure they would get out of this.

Leona went over scenarios in her head. “If you jump us forward exactly a year and a day, it doesn’t break our pattern, right? I mean, if the Rogue was able to keep Mateo in a time bubble across a single day, then surely you could use the same method, but  in reverse.”

“You mean speed up your pattern? I’ve mentioned that I can.” Darko thought about this. “Why would we do that?”

“Best case scenario is that Makarion thinks we’re dead in 2073,” Leona started to go over it. “If he suspects you did something, then he either thinks we’re in the past, or the future.”

“That’s a wide range of possibilities,” Mateo noted. “He would always be looking for us.”

“I’m focusing on the ‘wide range of possibilities’ part,” Leona said. “I think that’s too much for him. Yes, this other chooser he’s working with may be powerful enough to find us, but let’s ignore that, because worrying about him or her does us no good. If we just worry about Makarion, he can’t find us in the past, because we could be anywhere in the world by the time we catch up to his timestream.”

“I am so confused,” Mateo said helplessly.

“The details don’t matter. All we can do is try to get away. The only question is how many years you want me to skip.”

“I hear 2078 is beautiful this time of year,” Leona said confidently.

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Second Stage of Something Started: Lost (Part IV)

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They woke at first light and looked at Step One in their instructions for the Colosseum job. They were being asked to find a nice open space to build the whole structure. The best way to know where to find this was to climb up to the highest point. Otherwise, they would have to search the entire island. Again, they didn’t know how much time they had, but starting early was the best plan of action. They ate a couple of the freeze-dried meals Makarion left for them in the survival pack, then they headed out. The climb up the mountain wasn’t all that bad. They suffered some bug bites and burr scratches, but that was nothing compared to the lives they had led up until that point. What they discovered upon reaching the summit was possibly the scariest part. They didn’t have binoculars, but they could see something white and big moving in the middle of the valley of a mesa down below. No, it wasn’t just moving, it was crawling. It could have been a bear, and in fact probably was. In another life, Saga had been a huge fan of the television show LOST. “Perfect,” she whispered.

“That’s a golf course.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, I meant to phrase that as a question. That’s a golf course?!”

“Of course it is,” Saga answered before beginning the climb back down. “They build it in episode nine.”

“What?”

By the time they got all the way down to the makeshift golf course, the polar bear was gone, if it was even ever there. Two people they didn’t recognize were standing by one of the flags, as if waiting for them. “You must be our competition,” one of them said.

“Are we?” Vearden asked.

“Only one team gets to build the Colosseum,” the other one explained. “Did the Rogue not tell you this?”

“Who is the Rogue?”

“Makarion.”

“Oh, yes,” Saga said. “I mean, no, he didn’t say anything about another team.”

“So we’ll be golfing for the contract?” Vearden asked. “Like rich idiots whacking balls around while hammering out business deals?”

“I thought you didn’t watch the show,” Saga lamented.

“What show?” Vearden asked.

“Are we gonna do this thing,” the first guy began impatiently, “or just talk about it? The wind’ll pick up soon.”

The other one felt the need to mediate. “What my brother, Octavian is trying to say is that bad things happen when you keep the Rogue waiting.” He lifted his hand. “I’m Sevastian, by the way.”

“Saga and Vearden.”

Sevastian motioned for his brother to be polite as well.

Octavian reluctantly shook their hands. “You must be the door-walking freelancers.”

“We are.”

“Well, let’s play, door-walkers.”

After losing the game, Saga and Vearden found themselves rushing through the jungle. What they hadn’t known at the beginning was that they were competing not for the contract to build the Colosseum, but for the right to live long enough to build it. Had they won, they wouldn’t have been able to go through with this task, but Sevastian and Octavian seemed to have no trouble with it. In fact, they were acting like their responsibility was no different than any other day. Perhaps they had killed people before. Saga and Vearden were no strangers to death, but they had never been the direct cause of it. Vearden drove the first ambulance back in 1487 during the Siege of Málaga while Saga was a nurse at the hospital. It is there that they met their spouses-to-be. Vearden’s future wife, Violante was a nurse as well. Saga’s future husband, Hernán was an injured soldier that they all treated. The two of them had spent the majority of their lives helping and healing people. They didn’t want to kill. They would never kill. But it was either them or the brothers. They had to find a way out of this.

“We have to get back to the stargate,” Vearden eked out while they were at a jog, unable to keep the high pace from the beginning of their escape attempt.

“We don’t know how to operate that thing,” Saga noted.

“I do not intend to operate it,” he replied. “The guns should still be under the ramp.”

She pulled him down so that they could hide under some brush. “I thought we didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“This is our island. We can’t leave, even if we had the means to do so. If we don’t fight back, we’re just going to keep running and hiding. That’s not practical. Somebody’s going to die, and somebody’s going to build a Colosseum. I know which one I choose.”

“So we shoot them?”

“It’s a lot more humane than their plan to bash us over the heads with golf clubs.”

“Were there even bullets in the guns?”

“Yes, twelve. I did look.”

“Violante would be disappointed in you.”

“My wife is dead, and has been for centuries, so I don’t really have time to worry about what she might have thought.”

“You don’t know she’s dead.”

“She’s dead to me, just the same.”

“Okay, well what would your daughter say?”

“Stop putting up roadblocks!” Vearden yelled. “I’m trying to get us out of here!”

They could hear Sevastian and Octavian draw nearer. “I think I heard them somewhere around here,” one of them, doesn’t matter which, said.

Saga and Vearden stopped talking and kept their heads down. They watched as feet walked by, still on the hunt for their prey. Saga wanted to point out that this was an iconic scene in the second season of LOST, but she managed to stay quiet. Once the danger seemed to have passed, they stood up and started running again, this time in a completely different direction. They were able to make it about a half-mile before Sevastian plowed into Saga like a bull, dropping them both halfway into a shallow creek. Vearden tried to run back and help, but was stopped by Octavian.

“Just let it happen,” Octavian growled.

Vearden called upon his memory of fighting the two Gondilak on Orolak many years ago, and also of some things they had later taught him. Though they were an extremely sophisticated race, they had a special brand of battle. They didn’t learn technique or control. They learned to let go. They summoned their baser instincts and forced themselves into a kind of fugue state they referred to as the blood rampage, so that all of their reservations could drift to the side. He had never actually tried this himself, but there was no time like the present. He first pushed Octavian away from his person and knelt only one knee on the ground, holding balance with the opposite fist. He began to hyperventilate himself, increasing in speed and intensity with every breath.

“What the hell is he doing?” Octavian screamed to his brother who had Saga pinned down, but was too intrigued by Vearden to continue his assault.

Vearden ignored them and went about his routine, purposefully allowing slobber to spray out of his clenched teeth like a rabid animal. He added a voice to the barrage of breaths to convert them into howls. Part of this ritual was to enter the battle state, but also to disarm nearby opponents. It was especially effective against an enemy who had no clue what was going on. The howling changed to shrieking, and then to full on yelling. Vearden’s head was pulsating with pain, and had turned red to prove it to everyone else. With no warning, he leapt off the ground, higher than he ever had, aided by a surge of adrenaline. He landed in Octavian’s arms, who had opened them by an instinct of his own. Octavian fell to the ground so that Vearden could begin a proper beating.

Before Vearden could do all that much damage, Sevastian had gotten up from Saga to pull him away, holding Vearden’s arms behind his own back. Vearden kicked at Octavian furiously before sticking his leg between Sevastian’s and tripping him. Sevastian let go to protective himself from the fall, so Vearden took his chance to attack them both simultaneously. It was like an action film sequence, but one choreographed by somebody who had come into work drunk that day. Not only did the the blood rampage increase the user’s ability to do damage to the opponent, but it also prevented them from being bothered by injury. A rampager will continue to attack until their final breath unless the danger passes, or they can be calmed by someone else.

While Vearden was fighting, a sort of summoning happened to Saga as well. After turning to her side so as to not drown in her own blood, a silvery object appeared before her eyes. It was one of the guns from the trunk that Makarion had left them. Despite Vearden’s wild side, it was clear that he was going to lose. His defeat over the two Gondilak was a fluke. Deadly weapons were involved, and he was mortally wounded. The only reason he survived was because he was imbued with the ability to self-heal. And he only won the fight because this was something the Gondilak had not expected. Nothing like that was going to happen here, so if they were going to beat the brothers, they would need an advantage. Without hesitating, she lifted the gun, pulled that thing on the top of it back, and squeezed the trigger with her eyes closed. She quickly reopened them—embarrassed about succumbing to a stereotype of female weakness—to see Sevastian fall to his knees, and then to the side. She had landed a hit right in his back, exactly where she was aiming.

Octavian flipped around, hoping to catch his brother, and somehow prevent him from dying. Vearden, still in blood rampage, picked up one of their golf clubs and slammed it against Octavian’s head.

Makarion teleported into the clearing as Vearden was coming down. “Wow, that was totally unexpected. Where did you learn how to do that?”

Remembering one last thing about the blood rampage, Vearden slammed his fist into his own jaw as hard as he could. Gondilak were taught to go for their eyes. They were the most vulnerable spots of their bodies, and the pain of a strike there was enough to push them back over the edge in case a new threat ever came about while they were in the middle of the self-calming process. Vearden used this second wind to attack Makarion.

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