Fisher And The Bears

by T Hodden

  The things on the walls hissed. The skin between their long fingers parted to reveal the tips of the bone darts.

  “Good point well made!” Ginger squeaked. “How can we seem like we are helping? I mean, how can we help?” He held his torch behind his back and gave a cheery wave to the Dogs of War. On another wall of the chamber a doorway slid open. We stepped through to a long thin room. At one end was a bone plinth. Hovering a little above the plinth was a jagged red crystal that glowed with an inner light. I felt my hairs prickle with the Clarke Effect. When technology was advanced enough, it became indistinguishable from magic. The reverse was also true. This was an item from the grey area between. A psychic computer.

  “Now where did you get that?” I asked.

  “We obtained it.” Ishmael was now speaking with the buzz of the Expara's own voice. “It is an alien device. We can not use it, but humans, the right humans could use it for us. To give us the ability to travel time and space. To reignite and reclaim our empire.”

  “And I am the right person?” I asked.

  Ishmael grinned and nodded. “I had no idea treasure such as this was here.” He whispered, his voice a little more like his own. “Here to be found.” He grabbed at the crystal and lunged at me. I threw up my hand to defend myself but it was too late. The crystal plunged down into my chest, slicing through my clothes and flesh, glancing my bones and punching into my heart.

  “Ow!” I said, as I felt the crystalline computer take root and an ocean of information opened up in my head. “No! I don't want th-”

  Everything went white and smelt of steak. Weirdly as I tumbled into a dream of flowing data it felt horribly familiar. I had been in this place before. In the future. This time however it was not trying to hold me as a prisoner, it was trying to consume me. I threw up my defences, but it was too late. The tsunami of information swept me away. I let it, thinking the secret may not be to fight against drowning, it might be to drink an ocean. After all, I had been here. I knew I could control it.

  Oroboros demanded in my mind.

  “When are you?” I said. “Ah. You can't broadcast through time can you? So you are right here in my present?”

  Oroboros snapped.

  I felt his mind forcing a way into mine. He rummaged around and found out where I was, that Clarumcoma, Musket and Tears were in Shadowbrook chasing leads, that I was in Australia. I got flashes of his searches for me to exact his revenge.

  His thoughts and intentions burned in my head.

  “Yeah well wait until I finished saving the-”

  He sent a howl of pain and anguish at me with a command signal. The computer in my chest seared with heat as the roots began to withdraw. I felt the connection to the computer sever. I opened my eyes and saw I was flopping like a fish on the floor, as the crystal pushed itself out of my chest.

  “That is not possible.” Ishmael observed.

  “Sorry.” I gasped for air. My mouth was dry and my throat felt swollen. I went to drag myself up, but Ishmael kicked me down and lunged at me with the crystal again. Before he was even close Ginger was stood over me, clicking at his flaming torch until a cone of flame burst from the end. He waved it like a sword to drive Ishmael back.

  “You will not do that again!” Ginger warned. The other three bears joining him in a spearhead formation.

  “Or else!” Wendy promised. “Or else I will shove this pitchfork so far up your bottom it will touch your feet.”

  “You,” Ishmael snarled, “and what army?”

  There was a popping sound from the octagonal room. The sound of spheres of fire and light bursting into the world as time travellers slid between eras. They were closely followed by the sounds of gunfire and the screams of the Dogs of War pouncing into combat.

  “Robot bears.” I sighed. “Just when things were bad enough, these little toe rags are back.”

  Through the doorway we could see a horde of Paladin bears, their arms transformed to machine guns, blasting away at the Dogs of War, who were happy to throw themselves in acrobatic fury, scything through the bears with their claws. There poison darts, showers of sparks, howls and cries. Ishmael was distracted for a second. Just long enough for Wendy and Tiger to knock the crystal from his hand and sweep his feet out from under him. I caught the crystal.

  “So what now?” Ginger asked, wrapping Ishmael in duct tape.

  “The magic holding this place up comes from technology. If I shut down the power plant the magic collapses, and those doors become mundane stone doors to a blank stone wall. It has to be magic, these chambers are taller than the mine, this is all a pocket reality.” I looked at the bears. “So I turn on the power and run for the door and hope I get there before it becomes a blank wall of stone when the pocket reality vanishes.”

  “We can run.” Tiger said brightly.

  “We can help.” Ted assured me. I nodded for them to follow me and headed away from the fighting towards the heart of the tunnels. We crossed a bridge over a deep chasm filled with swirling silver mist. The bears stopped to look over the edge.

  “Fish.” Wendy said.

  I stopped and looked over the side of the bridge. In the bottom of the chasm giants slept on vast surgical tables. They were lobstery, spidery, scrorpiony things.

  “Gaze upon us and tremble.” The voice of the Expara hissed around us.

  Ginger leant a little further and spat. His eyes widened as he got a direct hit on one of the sleeping gods. He giggled to himself. Then another idea formed. He took out one of his fireworks.

  “Lets not waste time.” I said, waving for him to follow.

  “And lets not wake up the cranky demon gods!” Tiger shouted at him. She dragged his arm as she hauled him after her. “Come along now!”

  On the other side of the bridge was the power plant. A towering pipe organ of organic crystals that pulsed with cold blue light. I studied the stone control panels for a moment.

  “Is there a problem?” Ted asked, putting on his glasses.

  “I need to operate that lever,” I said pointing at a large stone lever on the side. “But-”

  The bears looked at each other, got a helpful expression on their faces and charged at the leaver. It thumped to close the circuit then with a crackle of ozone was sheaved in lightning. They gave shuddering whelps as electricity flowed through them. They broke free just after all their fur stood on end. Most made ouchy noises, but Ginger bounced around excitedly.

  “It is live.” I warned. “Okay we need a boost of power to disrupt things and we are good to run.”

  “Whoo!” Ginger yelled fist pumping the air. “Oh.” He stopped as he saw the figure crossing the bridge towards us, Dogs of War at his heel. Ishmael smiled.

  “You will cease that.” He declared, as the dogs stood taller than men, held out their forearms and threatened us with their bone darts. “And you will give me the crystal.”

  “No!” A sphere of flame and light folded open. From the voice I figured the armoured titan to be Oroboros. The red glow of a crystal in his chest was interesting. So was the way my own crystal shimmied as he got close. They were the same crystal from different points on the same tangled time line. “Hand me the crystal.”

  I ignored them both and pressed one of the controls. It did not respond. There was no surge of power. I tried again.

  “Ah.” I said.

  “That should have worked.” Ted said, patting down his fur.

  “The crystal!” Oroboros said. “Or the bears die.”

  “The crystal.” Ishmael said. “Or the world dies.”

  “A surge of power...” Ted whispered. “You know how dangerous it would be to meet yourself if the past? The Pertwee effect!”

  Before I could ask what that was he knocked the crystal out of my hand and in the direction of Oroboros. The armoured figure grabbed it and held it in triumph.

  “With twice the power I will
conquer all.” He laughed. The laugh stopped as he felt the first few sparks from the crystals.

  “Power surge!” Ted said. “Ginger!”

  “I am the Ginger Flame!” Ginger screamed as he shoulder barged Oroboros into the control panel. There was a a flash as lightning and energy flashed and arched between the crystals. The controls started to glow and the power plant turned a very ominous red.

  “No!” Ishmael shoved me aside as he lunged for Oroboros and wrestled him for the crystal. Tendrils of electric blue light webbed between the figures as they fought and thrashed. The Dogs of War turned on us. I dragged the bears to cover as bone darts fired through the air with cracks of the sound barrier being smashed. I felt useless. I could not fight the dog-lizards, nor could I save either of the villains who were now pinned against the controls as the surge of power burned through them. Their screams were intermingled. As Oroboros tried to stagger free, his armour burned away, leaving only a naked, burning scarecrow of a man within. I realised the crystal in his chest, the oldest incarnation of the computer had burned out. It was a black lump of coal.

  “This.” He slurred as he reached for his time travel device. “This is not over.” He thumbed the button and vanished in a pool of light. I turned to Ishmael, but he was beyond saving. No more than a charred skeleton reduced to dust as the power plant started to break down in a chain reaction.

  “You can't save him.” Tiger said, tugging at my hand. “We have to go.”

  “How fast do we have to run?” Ted asked.

  “Very fast. Run!” I shouted. But as we turned towards the bridge we saw the Dogs of War, having wiped out the Paladin army were baring down on us. “Oh.” I sighed. “I will buy you time.”

  Before I could say anything else the tell tale balloon of flames and light blossomed. A time travel device. But when it washed away it revealed not a new enemy, but Tears, on a motor scooter gunning the engine. Musket was sat on the handlebars, waving for us to get on. Both wore protective masks and fatigues.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Not now!” Tears shouted. “Get on! We don't have time.” I climbed on behind her and the bears scrambled into the little cargo pod over the rear wheel. As soon as we were holding tight she released the brakes and we hurtled across the bridge at full speed, scattering the dog-lizards around us as we powered our way through the structure, weaving a terrifying path through the corridors with out ever slowing. The rocks were starting to crack apart, showers of dust and deep rumbling noises tumbled from every direction. The ground shook as the pocket dimension collapsed like a dream on waking.

  “Hold on!” Tears screamed as she found the last reserve of speed and powered us out of the corridors through the doors into the mine. We did not slow. The ground heaved and buckled as the mine collapsed, tremors escaping the doorway rippled through the ground. We came to a halt in the open air and watched as a gale force wind sucked dust and debris into the mouth of the tunnel as the doorway struggled to remain open, then with a croaking sigh, the air grew still and quiet.

  The taint of magic had faded from this ghost town in an instant and the silence of abandonment had returned. We watched as the dust cloud dissipated and the mine grew still and quiet.

  “How did you know to find us?” I asked again.

  “We were on the train to Shadowbrook with Clarumcoma.” Tears said. “We tried to pass the time by playing that board game with the words you make out of tiles? And er... The letters we drew did not seem very random. They were a message.”

  “From the Ancestor Bear?” I asked.

  Musket nodded.

  “Thank you!” I shouted up to the stars. “Thanks!” I grinned at the pair. “So where will you go now?”

  Musket held out the time travel device he had used. It had one charge left.

  “The Ancestor Bear warned us first that Musketeers were coming for us, then to come find you. After obtaining a fine luxury motor scooter.” Tears continued. “Now we have one trip left. And we should use it to return home. To a base that has been flooded. My brothers and sisters should be freed, of the programming that controls them.”

  “If that future still exists.” I said. “The Expara are gone. Their hold on this planet lost. Perhaps somewhere out there they still sleep, but our world is safe from them. Perhaps you will find a brighter future now.”

  “But this will be the last time.” Tears said. “No more time travel. Ever. It is dangerous.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you. For freeing me of the control, for believing in us, for...” She caught herself. “The Oroboros base is protected, shielded against changes to the timestream. What ever else is in our future it will remain. We think we can drain the flooding, set the atmosphere to the right pressure and set everything working. But this time we will all have our own minds. Our own souls. We will be free. To decide what we are.”

  “You are a friend.” I assured her. “You will do fine.” I nodded at Musket and Wendy. They were somewhere having their goodbyes. It quickly became a goodbye hug. “Do you think she should...?”

  “I am sorry.” Tears shook her head. “We should all stay in our own times.”

  I nodded. When Wendy had let Musket go I gave her a pat on the shoulder and tried to console her. We waved one final good bye to our time travelling friends, then we found one of the Psybernetix trucks with the keys in the sun visor so we could drive away. When we were past the fence line I took my mask off and looked down at the bears. They were sad to see their friends go, but were happy that it was to a brighter future.

  *

  I lay on the towel and looked out at the sea. Doreen was curled against me, our limbs entangled. The bears were all splashing and sploshing around in the surf, or examining rock pools with unbound curiosity. Doreen squeezed my fingers.

  “It is amazing isn't it?” She said brightly. “In some ways that is a whole different ocean to the one I saw my whole life in Eternity. But not really, because it is just another part of the great sea that covers the world.”

  I nodded.

  “In some ways what we do is stumble through so many dangers and adventures.” She continued. “In other ways it is all one life. One history. One future.” She kissed my cheek. “You gave them something nobody ever really gets. A second chance. It is something everybody should make the most of.”

  “I intend to.” I said, looking into her eyes. I could see how bright her smile shone, how deep it reached into her soul. She nodded and nestled her head on my shoulder.

  “The future is back to being unwritten. Ours to make as we wish.” Ted said, laying a towel so he could sit beside us and helping himself to the contents of our picnic hamper. “Which is exactly how it should be.”

  *

  Musket and Tears walked the corridors of the undersea city. The corridors were drying out nicely. The clones had been freed from the programming, the circuits that once controlled them neutralised. The Paladins too had been freed of the influence of Oroboros to be a little more like bears.

  “So what do we do now?” One musketeer who called himself Bob asked.

  “Where do we go?” Pip asked.

  “Well, we have a whole world to explore.” Tears said. “Maybe we should see what it holds?”

  Musket nodded.

  “I wonder where Oroboros ended up?” Bob mused as they made their way to the submarine bays.

  That was one thing, Tears decided, that she did not wish to trouble herself thinking about.

  *

  It was a bitter winter morning. Oroboros found himself standing in a duck pond, the water turning to steam and the ducks flapping their way into the air. Fresh rain and frosty air soothed his burnt and twisted flesh, raking his lungs as he laboured to breathe. There was something familiar about the morning. He had been here before. Sometime long ago. Long before...

  “Of course.” He hissed, but the words became a mewing incoherent scream as anguish filled him. This was it. This was the end. But also the beginning. At long last the nam
e he had used made sense. His eyes fell on the confused, slack jawed and terrified policeman who stared at him from across the park. He tightened his grip on the crystal and darted forwards.

  “Oroboros!” He shouted, as he slammed into his former self and wrestled him to the floor. “Oroboros!” He screamed and plunged the crystalline computer into the heart of the policeman. Then he rolled aside and laughed. Oroboros. The dragon consuming his own tail, the cycle that could not be broken.

  His last act of this life had been to start it all...

  Fisher and the Bears will return...

  Epilogue

  Ginger was not quite sure what to say, so he did not say much at all. He walked beside Tiger, his paw in hers, looking up at the Christmas lights that had been draped across every street of Eternity. The night was clear and full of stars so bright they seemed to have sucked all the heat from the air. Each breath he made filled the night with a fine silver mist that twinkled.

  Tiger was awed by the lights. They draped from building to building, hung from the lamp post and clad the upper floors of every shop on the high street. She walked like she was dancing turning on her heels so she could see them all. When she looked back at Ginger her eyes were filled with eternal youth and the childish wonder.

  She held out her bag of candy coated nuts for him to share and Ginger found her broad smile reaching his own lips. He grinned at her for a few seconds before realising that they were no longer sharing a grin. Tigers eyes were still wide, but they were now filled with something closer to confusion or horror. Her lower lip was quivering and she was pointing at something over her shoulder.

  Ginger turned to see what had scared her and felt his own smile fall away. He swallowed and yelped as he saw the figure that now loomed over the street. It was tall, thin as a rake and seemed to be made entirely from shadow and smoke. It had a long angular face that was filled with terrible malice. The red eyes burned with contempt.

  “Hello little bear,” the tall, lean and mean figure said in a whisper that sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard. “Could you tell me where to find Fisher King?”