by R J Johnson
Several more hellfire missiles streaked toward where Kline had fallen as another helicopter roared up, flaring slightly as a half-dozen Special Forces men and women dropped out of the helicopter. They aimed their weapons at the crater created by the explosions and poured more firepower into the smoke and chaos, hoping to keep Kline down.
The team lead held up a hand as they approached the smoking crater cautiously. He pointed his team toward the hole, hoping to get a better read on whether or not the missile had struck Kline.
A hand emerged from the smoke, as Kline slowly rose out of the rubble. His clothes had been shredded by the blast, but his wounds were closing up, as Alex’s healing stone put the billionaire back together.
“Is that all you brought?” Kline hissed.
He raised his hand and waved, taking control of one helicopter, sending it crashing into the one next to it. The two helicopters collided, erupting in a scream of explosions and fire.
The men on the ground began opening fire, their bullets tearing into Kline’s body. Several members of the Special Forces approached Kline quickly, firing electroshock bolts one after another into the Kline’s sternum. This was the only thing that seemed to slow Kline down.
The soldiers pressed their advance, intent on taking the rogue billionaire down.
Kline grit his teeth through the pain swinging his fist up and down as a flash of lightening lit up the parking lot, striking several of the special force team members. They flew back, their bodies smashed beyond recognition.
The helicopter above Kline fired several more missiles, flames arcing their way through the night sky, lighting it up as if it were noontime. But before they could reach their target, Kline snapped his fingers, directing the missiles to arc back, aiming their deadly warheads back at the helicopters who fired them. He was rewarded with a brilliant explosion that lit up the surrounding office courtyard.
Kline watched the fireball fall to the ground with some satisfaction. He had expected the government to come after him again, just not so soon. They would have to pay for their transgressions.
Kline turned to the side of the parking garage where Tate and Ash had taken cover. Kline smiled and slowly approached their hiding place, flexing his hand, and readying another fireball to roast the man who had dared stand against him.
“Mr. Tate…” Kline called over to him. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
Tate looked back at the chaos Kline had created behind him and suddenly felt tired of all the dramatics.
“I took a shot at the king and missed,” Tate called out to his former boss. “I know what that means.”
Kline looked Tate up and down, as if appraising his former number two all over again. He’d always considered Tate too weak to actually try and take a shot at him and his stones. But apparently he had underestimated the man.
“It’s too bad you didn’t use more of this resourcefulness when you worked for me.” Kline said.
Tate was about to answer when Kline snapped his fingers, Tate’s body went rigid and froze in place. Kline looked at his former assistant, licking his lips, imagining the various ways he was going to make him pay for his insolence.
Kline turned back to Ash and nodded his head toward Tate, “Mr. Ash, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to get off your behind and help your boss, I would certainly appreciate it.”
Ash groaned, and tried to ignore Kline’s orders, but the throbbing pain in his temples began to flare up.
Ash decided that the injuries he had sustained in the attack were less painful than what it would be if he continued to ignore Kline’s entreaties to get up, Ash slowly pushed himself off the ground, feeling every bruise and cut cry out in pain.
Kline sighed, and waved his hand toward Ash. The healing blue light played over his new assistant’s body, fixing the various injuries he’d sustained during the attack.
“Feeling better Mr. Ash?” Kline inquired to his assistant as the blue light faded from his body.
Ash patted his body, and shook his head.
“Good,” Kline said, nodding. “Then we can get back to work. If you wouldn’t mind taking our friend back to the White House, I have some other matters I need to attend to.”
Ash looked down at Tate. There was something about seeing Kline’s former assistant completely frozen that made him do something stupid. He wasn’t sure why, or how he managed to come up with the strength to deny Kline’s will on him.
“No.”
Kline stopped walking, standing in the middle of the parking lot.
“What was that Mr. Ash?”
Ash was suddenly staggered by a rush of pain shooting through his temples. The cluster headaches had returned. His stomach rebelled, the pain making him incredible nauseous.
“I… said… no…” Ash managed through the pain shooting through his head at the moment.
Kline turned and held out a hand. Ash felt his body become rigid as the stone took control of his body.
“Try again Mr. Ash.” Kline said, his voice a dangerous flavor of pleasant. “There will not be another chance for you to follow my orders.”
Ash decided to remain silent instead. He closed his eyes, and suddenly felt the grip from Kline loosen a bit.
And that’s when he understood. No sooner had he closed his eyes, Kline’s control had been released on him. Why that was, Ash didn’t care to find the answer. All he cared about was the fact he had regained control of his body. Yet, Kline did not seem to sense that he had lost control of Ash yet.
Ash kept very still, playing possum until he got his chance. Kline got within inches of Ash’s face.
“Well Mr. Ash?”
Ash could smell Kline’s hot, foul breath on his cheek. But he held firm.
Kline sniffed at Ash, testing to see what, if anything it could reveal.
That’s when he made his move. Ash used Kline’s off-center balance to his advantage, tucking the billionaire into his body and throwing him over his shoulder. Ash took out his weapon and fired several times into Kline’s body, knocking him back off the side of the tall parking garage they had found themselves on.
Kline snarled out in anger as he fell off the side of the parking structure. Ash limped over to Tate and reached down for him.
“Can you move?” Ash asked Tate.
Tate slowly got up onto his feet, looking down the side of the cliff where he had thrown Kline. “You’re my kind of professional asshole.”
“It’s what’s helped me survive so far,” Ash snapped at him. “What’s our exit plan?”
“They’re coming quick,” Tate said pointing to the horizon.
A pair of helicopters were flying close to the ground, heading for Ash and Tate’s position.
But they weren’t coming fast enough. Kline flew up from the ground, floating above the pair. “You want me as your enemy Mr. Ash? Mr. Tate?!” Kline roared down at them. “Then you see what it means to suffer when you stand in my way!”
Kline threw out his right hand and an enormous fireball began to form, spinning madly within the madman’s palm. He was about to throw the fireball at Ash when a huge explosion suddenly knocked Kline away, sending his body spinning off and away from Tate and Ash.
Ash slowly raised his head to see several black helicopters roaring over their position. Tate got back on his knees, waving his arm at the oncoming Apaches.
“Go get ‘em boys!” Tate screamed, his voice hoarse from the beating he had taken.
The two birds unleashed their combined firepower on Kline, 50 caliber bullets relentlessly hitting the billionaire, battering him back, and keeping him off balance. They were doing everything they could to keep Kline from using one of the stones, and thankfully, it seemed to be working.
“We gotta move,” Ash told Tate, grabbing him under the shoulder and lifting him to his feet. “We won’t have long.”
“Let it never be said that I can’t recognize when it’s time to make a good retreat,” Tate said, agreeing. “The
truck!”
He pointed over at one of the trucks used by the Army and they moved toward it quickly. Ash wasn’t sure how long the helicopters could hold Kline off, but he didn’t think they had much longer.
They got into the truck and began moving down the highway, Ash pushing the truck as fast as he dared on the loose gravel roads next to the enormous canyon.
One of the Apache helicopters exploded in midair. Tate looked over in a panic. “That’s not good…”
The second helicopter suddenly began spinning in midair, quickly going out of control as it smashed into the canyon walls.
“…that’s really not good!” Tate added. Ash didn’t acknowledge him or the crashing Apache helicopter. His entire focus was on keeping the vehicle from spinning out of control.
Kline flew up and the truck, landing a few hundred feet in front of them and stood in the middle of the road, smiling as the truck Ash was driving barreled toward him.
“Keep going!” Tate yelled. He moved to the backseat and began unpacking equipment from one of the chests in the rear seats.
“What are you doing?” Ash yelled back at him.
“Saving our skins!” Tate replied. He pulled out what appeared to look like a harpoon rocket launcher. Tate rolled down the window and stuck the harpoon out the window.
“What the hell is that?” Ash yelled.
Tate was unable to hear Ash over the wind – or he was ignoring him – either way really. Tate was in his own world.
Tate aimed the harpoon at Kline who was standing there smiling in the middle of the road as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.
“When I say, swerve around him!” Tate shouted to Ash. Ash flashed the ok sign.
Tate took the launcher and aimed it directly at Kline. He only had one shot and he intended to make it count.
“NOW!” Tate screamed, firing the harpoon at Kline.
Ash palmed the steering wheel and deftly maneuvered around the billionaire. At the same time, Tate’s harpoon fired, and several projectiles launched toward Kline.
The harpoon’s hooks ran true and several of them stuck into Kline’s skin deeply. Kline looked at the hooks confused for a moment. That is, until the wires that had been trailing the hooks hit the ground.
That’s when the sparks began flying.
Once the wires hit the ground, the projectile hooks began shooting electricity through them, sending several hundred thousand volts through Kline – a fraction of which would have killed the average man.
Kline screamed in pain for the first time since he had recovered the first stone eighty years ago.
The truck continued down the highway, making its escape as Kline lay trapped under the mass of wires.
Kline closed his eyes and concentrated on Ash as hard as he could. He intended to make the man suffer as much as possible for betraying him.
But what he didn’t want to consider why Ash had been able to betray him in the first place. The question of how the man had slipped through his clutches was irrelevant to the pain Kline now wanted him to feel.
In the truck, Nathaniel Ash grabbed at his temples and screamed. It was pain unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. Tate looked over in alarm as Ash wiggled around in pain, his limbs shaking in violent, jerky motions until Tate mercifully passed out.
Tate hit the gas, hoping to accelerate the truck to its breaking point. They needed to put distance between them and Kline.
He looked back at Ash who looked as if he was struggling to breath. A good sign.
At this point, he’d take anything as a win.
He continued to accelerate down the highway, weaving through the heavy traffic of refugees hoping to escape the city before it was too late.
Tate knew their odds of survival over the next few days weren’t great. But he had to try and stop Kline. It was his fault that he had already gotten so close to taking over the world.
He had a debt to settle, and it was one he intended on paying.
Tate pushed the truck to a higher speed as they escaped the city.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Spring came quickly to the snowy hills of Onyx, melting away the winter chill. After a few months of living in the past, Emily, Scott and Christina had managed to set up something that resembled a normal life.
The first order of business had been to find a new home to live in. Emily didn’t like the idea that the realtor could drop in to Alex’s childhood home while they were squatting in it. Forget any paradox that could be created, if they were in jail, they wouldn’t be able to stop Kline.
Besides, they had managed to find a landlord who didn’t ask any questions so long as the rent was paid on time.
Making money had been difficult at first. Scott had suggested they use his shape-shifting stone to sneak into a local bank to steal whatever they needed, but Christina shot him down. There were plenty of part-time positions available to them on the mountain which is how Emily found herself scooping ice-cream and renting movies out to tourists, Scott patrolling the local ski resorts as a guide and Christina teaching more than a few hippies on the mountain a new fad called “yoga.”
Between the three of them, they had managed to start making enough money to set up “Operation Stop Kline” in the garage of their newly rented cabin. With the ski season winding down, Scott was beginning to spend more of his time on message boards, searching for any clues to Alex’s whereabouts.
So far, his searches had turned up nothing. But Scott remained optimistic. The internet was in its infancy he said, and the more time they spent in the past, the more resources would become available online.
Emily didn’t have as much confidence in the internet as Scott did, but, she deferred to his plan. She had other things to worry about anyway. Things that she wasn’t quite ready to tell anyone about just yet. Not that her friends had noticed how distracted she was lately.
Besides, Scott and Christina were too busy falling in love to notice what was going on with their friend. Emily knew it would only be a matter of time for the two. The longer they had stayed together, the closer Scott and Christina seemed to get. It had started small of course – neither person wanted to admit they were attracted to the other. But they began brushing up against each other more often and the hugs had grown longer between them until one night while Emily was up getting a glass of water she had noticed Christina slipping into Scott’s room.
Emily had simply smiled, and returned to her room ignoring the cries of passion coming from Scott’s room. And while she was happy that her friends had found love, she began missing her iPod and headphones.
But no matter how late the pair of lovebirds kept Emily awake, she knew they were perfect for one another. Scott’s maniac energy was tempered by Christina’s even temper, and they had so much in common that within a week they were practically speaking their own language.
Most of all Scott made Christina happy, and that thrilled Emily – even if it made her miss Alex even more.
Emily had been furious at the Old Man for telling her that wherever Alex was, she could not help him. She had never felt so powerless in her life. But as time passed, the anger faded, and was replaced by the sadness of not knowing where the love of her life had gone to.
She had always figured that if she put her mind to it, she could solve whatever was bothering her. Unfortunately, the Old Man had made it clear that there was no solution to finding Alex at the moment.
Emily shook off the thoughts of the day. She found that staring out the window toward the Onyx Summit made her day go by faster. She glanced over at the book she had picked up at the library – The Alchemist. For some reason, she could not put it down. There was something about the Shepard boy’s fight to find his dream that kept her going.
And despite the loneliness she felt at times, there were worse places than the late 80’s to be stuck in. They could have landed in a time that was much less friendly to women like Christina and her. But it was still a prison. She couldn’t ma
ke any new friends, nor even really interact with anyone in a meaningful way in public beyond Scott and Christina lest she create a paradox.
She was not looking forward to Nickelback when they came around again.
She sighed and picked up the book, rereading the part about the shepherd boy’s first encounter with the Alchemist when Scott poked his head into Emily’s bedroom, his long sandy hair falling in front of his eyes. Emily looked up at the grin on his face.
“You coming?” he asked, a quizzical expression on his face.
“I really don’t think this is a good idea…” she growled, turning back to the paperwork.
Scott shrugged. “If we’re careful, I think we’ll be fine.”
Emily eyed her book, “I’m kinda in the middle of something…”
“Please…” Scott waved derisively down at the paperwork on her desk. “You’ve read that book three times since we got here. The ending isn’t going to change if you come watch moving day with us.”
Christina ran up behind Scott, grabbing him at his waist, and leaning into his body, hugging him tight. She glanced into the office at her friend. “You’re really not staying behind for this, are you?”
Emily sighed, “It’s not right. It’s ghoulish.”
“It’s time-travel,” Scott urged her. “We’re not going to interfere, we’re just going to get a good look at Alex and his dad to make sure they’re all right.”
“And with that time-travel stone gone, we have no idea when Kline might show up,” Christina added.
“You gotta think like a Terminator,” Scott urged. “Kline knows where Alex grew up, and if Kline is the reason that time-travel stone has disappeared…” Scott let the implication hang in the air. “Come on. We’re just going to check things out and make sure he’s safe.”
Emily paused for a moment knowing that the real reason she didn’t want to go was because of Alex. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him again – even if he was only ten years old at the moment.