Skypunch (The Skypunch Chronicles Book 1)

by Logan Castle

  As the security footage rolled on, Sirius watched Isaac Kent taking a single step towards the hardware, preparing to lash out at it. Just as suddenly, however, he stopped, dead in his tracks. Confusion overtook Sirius as he watched Isaac Kent stand perfectly still for several long minutes without moving a muscle.

  “Computer, is the footage still playing or is it on pause?” Sirius asked, his uncertainty making his voice quiver.

  “FOOTAGE IS PLAYING,” the computer confirmed.

  Perplexed and unable to gather what was happening or what he was watching transpire, Sirius brought his face closer to the holographic image. He tried to block out everything else in the image but Isaac Kent. Isaac Kent continued standing only feet away from every inch of vital hardware that he, if he were so inclined, could have damaged badly enough to throw the Axis into complete darkness. But Isaac didn’t budge. Not even once.

  “What is this?” Sirius asked himself, puzzled and hoping the computer didn’t mistake it as a query addressing it. Thankfully, the computer didn’t answer.

  Sirius’s eyes narrowed as he watched Isaac Kent’s head finally move, cocking to his left side ever so slightly. Sirius brow furrowed. What the hell was he just standing there for? It was almost as if he were listening to somebody…

  And then Isaac’s mouth moved.

  “TIME KEEPER, THERE IS AN URGENT TRANSMISSION COMING IN FROM KT-1,” the computer suddenly announced, startling Sirius and causing him to nearly jump right out of his skin.

  “Excellent,” Sirius sighed. He took one last long look at the image, deciding to return his attention to this strange development after he listened to KT-1’s message. “Computer, play the message.”

  The holographic image disappeared and Sirius stared down at the computer console in front of him as words began to appear on the screen. He read them aloud.

  “Time Keeper, I’ve explored two of the four worlds without any sign of Isaac Kent. I do have more disturbing news, unfortunately. There are indications of chronological disturbances in both worlds I have visited. It is becoming apparent that his use of the Time Force has already begun to affect realities throughout the Multiverse. I will continue my search in the next charted world and keep you apprised of my progress. KT-1, out.”

  As he read the message, Sirius’s stomach twisted and turned. The message was a bleak one. Indeed, if there were already clear signs of distress coming from the Multiverse because of Isaac Kent’s usage of The Time Force, they were already in big trouble. And where the hell were the Galaxies?! He had summoned them some time ago. Even though he gave them no specifics, they should have answered him by now.

  “SIRIUS.”

  Sirius nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a booming voice that filled every square inch of the room. He instantly knew it did not belong to the computer. His heart pounding against his chest, he swung his head around wildly but didn’t see anyone.

  “SIRIUS.”

  A chill swept from his head all the way to his toes and Sirius looked up into the black expanse of space above him. Positioned overhead and just off in the distance was a nebula, its outer layers a breathtaking array of greens and blues. In the very center of it, he saw a blood red sphere. Together, the sphere and the outer layers looked just like an eye.

  As he stared into it, the nebula suddenly blinked and Sirius felt his breath catch in his throat.

  “They’re here,” he whispered.

  At last, the Galaxies had arrived.

  Chapter 13

  We trudged through the stuffy dankness for what seemed like forever. The echoes of screams and gunshots faded in our ears the further into obscurity we went. Even the humming from Lynn’s little black device continued to subside until it was barely a whimper. All indications told me that was probably a good thing.

  Gazing down the length of the tunnel, it seemed like the curved walls were narrowing around us with every step forward. The pain from my cracked ribs, along with various other parts of me that I couldn’t identify, only grew in intensity since I’d climbed onto Bardham’s back. The toll it took on my physical state was one thing, but the effect it had on my mental outlook was quite another. It was nearly impossible for me to concentrate on anything but the searing agony. I was counting Bardham’s heavy footfalls simply to pass the time, but even that became too arduous a task to carry on. It was painfully obvious (no pun intended) the only thing that could help me was the one thing I most assuredly could not count on happening anytime soon. Rest.

  The number of footsteps was quickly fading from my mind and it became all too clear that my body weight was now a critical factor for Bardham. While our gloomy trek through the tunnel seemed never-ending, Bardham’s endurance evidently was not. His breathing had become noticeably heavy and ragged his feet had also begun dragging as sweat poured down his dark skin. He was exhausted. He seemed like the type that would never admit to it, but I knew he couldn’t carry me for much longer. The mere thought of trying to run on my own in my current condition filled me with panic. If it came to that, I knew we were in a lot of trouble.

  Thankfully, just as it seemed he would topple over from sheer exhaustion, Bardham reared up. Lynn stopped as well, her hands falling to her knees as she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Get off,” Bardham barked at me. Hastily, I carefully put one foot down on the ground to make sure I was steady before lifting the other off. Once I had fully dismounted, Bardham shook himself and rearranged his disheveled uniform before speaking again. “We’re here.”

  I watched him step over to the right, lifting a long, massive arm, and grasping onto something which he pulled. A terrible, screeching noise hurt my ears before a ladder slid down, seemingly out of thin air. It was clear that Lynn had no clue of its existence either and the long, toothy smile on Bardham’s face did nothing to explain that fact.

  “Now,” Bardham said, motioning upwards, “I climb. Wait here for my signal. The helicopter is right above us. I want to make sure the coast is clear first. Keep a close eye on him.”

  With that, Bardham grasped the ladder and began to pull himself up. He didn’t even bother taking one step at a time, but climbed up two rungs at a time almost effortlessly. In seconds, he reached the ceiling of the tunnel, where he turned what appeared to be a twisted metal lever using one powerful hand. With an audible grunt, he pushed it open.

  Daylight instantly warmed and blinded us, pouring from the opening and directly into my anxious, yet unprepared eyes. Having spent so long in the dark, my first reaction was to cover them. Although my body physically shunned the light at first, my soul lapped it up feverishly. It had been so long since I enjoyed the warmth of the sun’s rays shining on my skin. The pure magnificence of the sun’s radiance was vital to my body and sorely missed. I was instantly soothed and energized at the same time. I nearly cried out in anguish when it was temporarily blotted out by Bardham climbing through the small opening.

  Several long moments passed before Lynn threw her arms up in frustration. “Where the hell is he?!”

  I had to struggle to tear my face away from the sun and the cognitive ability I needed to understand the words that came from her mouth momentarily vanished. While I managed to do the former very begrudgingly, the latter was simply a losing battle.

  “Huh?” I must not have completely snapped out of my daze because, instead of speaking at a normal volume, I shouted it.

  Lynn’s slender white hand came up quickly to cover my mouth. With her other hand, she flashed me the little, black box. The loud hum that came from it was all I needed to bring myself back to the here and now. The hum, while steady, was gradually increasing in both volume and bass.

  Lynn swiftly grabbed hold of the ladder, turning her face to me and flashing her open palm, a tacit signal for me to stay put and remain silent. Then she headed up the steel column herself. I watched her reach the top and slowly put her head through the opening.

  In the blink of an eye
and with only enough time to emit a sharp cry of surprise, she was picked up and lifted out. Her legs kept swinging erratically and violently until they too disappeared from view.

  “Hey!” I yelled. But there was no response.

  Panic overtook me as I fumbled with the idea of either climbing up the ladder myself to see what had become of her or remaining rooted where I was. As I furiously debated the merits of my options, the sound of quick, pounding footsteps were approaching from where we had come. My heart began to race as I realized they were headed right for me.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered, resigning myself to the only course of action I had left. I wasn’t about to just stand there and wait for whatever was running in my direction to attack me. Of course, going up the ladder from where I’d just seen Lynn disappear was not much better of an idea… but just standing here and waiting was a lot less appealing.

  I grasped the cold, hard steel of the ladder and began to climb, lifting one foot after the other gradually while trying my best to keep my core as tight as possible. I wanted to minimize the pain in my rib cage that erupted with every ascending step. In the distance, I could hear the footsteps getting louder and I knew they would be upon me within a matter of seconds.

  Then I heard a sound that stopped me cold. It began as a whirring noise, like the purr of gears moving. All at once, it became a blood-curdling scream that seemed to go on and on. It assaulted my ears and I felt it all the way down to my toes. Every single hair on my body stood on end. It was such an ear-piercing sound that I nearly tore my hands away from the ladder to cover them. A fall from my current height onto the hard concrete below would certainly end my life, and yet the screams, like the cacophony of nails on a chalkboard magnified by a thousand, had me considering it.

  Bardham’s bellowing voice momentarily ripped me from the clutches of the death shriek.

  “GRAB MY HAND!”

  Looking up, I saw Bardham lying down on his stomach with his arm outstretched to me. In his other hand, he held a revolver trained directly at my head. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were bulging as if they might pop from his skull. It was obvious that the screams were affecting him every bit as much as me. Somehow, despite the jarring sound, I gathered what strength I had left and stretched my hand out until I reached his. His fingers grasped my wrist so tightly, it felt as if he would snap it under the pressure of his grip.

  “LET GO, YOU MORON!”

  Releasing my grip on the ladder, uttered a silent prayer, hoping that the man still had the strength to pull me to safety. He did not disappoint me, but lifted me through the opening with surprising ease. My landing, however, was not so well executed. In his haste to extract me, he essentially flung me up and out of the opening. Mine wasn’t a graceful landing and I hit the hard dirt unceremoniously with my limbs sprawling in every direction. It hurt, but frankly I was too overcome with relief. Hearing the screams fading in the distance was so pleasant that I didn’t immediately register the pain caused by the impact of my landing. Even now, I could still hear them and they made me want to tear my ears off, but it was becoming more tolerable. I didn’t feel the same incapacitating claustrophobia I had while I was still in the tunnel. Bardham was on his feet immediately.

  “What the fuck was that?!” I yelled up at him.

  “Don’t play stupid with me! That’s our cue to get the fuck out of here!” he yelled back.

  There was a sudden rush of air around my ears and the simultaneous sound of an engine rumbling to life. Together, they all but completely drowned out what was left of the shrieking. I was staring at a sleek, black helicopter – the rotor already spinning wildly and cutting through the air like a hot knife through butter. I couldn’t give it much attention because at the same moment I first became aware of it, Bardham had already pulled me up and hoisted me into it. I landed on the cold metal surface of the helicopter’s underbelly before Bardham jumped in right behind me. The loud thumps of our rude landings were all but muted by the swirling gusts of air coming from the increasing speed of the rotor blade.

  Lynn’s shrill voice cut through that, however. “We have to get this bird in the sky now, Captain!”

  I turned my head to find Lynn sitting in one of the two seats at the very front of the helicopter. A look of alarm was spreading across her face.

  “Not yet!” Bardham shouted back as he glanced down at his wristwatch. “They still have time!”

  “Captain, we have to leave now! There is no other choice!”

  “No! We will wait… until the very last minute if we must! We can’t just leave them behind!” Bardham’s voice was stern and so full of undeniable intent that Lynn just shook her head in frustration and turned back around. I watched Bardham grasp the walkie-talkie clipped to his jacket and yell into it. “Sergeant Nunez! What is your location? Sergeant Nunez, do you copy?!”

  Over the whirring noise of the rotor blade, I didn’t know if Bardham received a response or was just listening to static. After several long moments, his head suddenly shook furiously and he threw a clenched fist into the metal wall of the helicopter.

  “God fucking dammit!” he bellowed, looking directly at me. His eyes burned with a blazing fury that I immediately shied away from.

  Without wasting a single moment, he ran over to where Lynn was sitting and took the seat to the left of hers. He didn’t utter a word to her nor her to him. It was abundantly clear that the only sound Bardham cared to hear at that moment was the whirring of the helicopter.

  The rate of speed and sound of the propeller abruptly changed and I felt the weight of the helicopter suddenly shifting onto the rear of its base. My heart skipped and I exhaled a gasp as I realized we were taking off. A swell of remorse for those we were leaving behind entered my mind but getting the hell out of here took up most of my thoughts. I began to sit back and relax allowing the adrenaline to purge from my system. I was going to do my very best to enjoy the journey through the air, wherever we were headed. Just as I was about to close them, my eyes locked onto movement just in front of me.

  “LOOK!” The sound of my own voice surprised even me. I didn’t dare take my eyes away from where they were currently fixed. Instead, I raised a trembling hand to point directly at the source of my exclamation.

  Appearing out of the ground from whence we had just come ourselves were numerous pairs of wildly flailing arms. At least two pairs of them. With bated breath, I watched as two heads suddenly appeared only a second later. Feeling instantly at ease, I exhaled a huge sigh of relief as I realized they were indeed human faces.

  Jackass…of course they’re human! What the hell were you expecting?!

  Not that question in my brain, and not because it was a silly one, but because I didn’t know what to expect at this point. Lynn’s refusal to even acknowledge, let alone, answer my many questions left me to wonder. I had no clue as to what might have been coming through the hole after us. And I couldn’t even consider asking Bardham anything at this point. Despite clinging very begrudgingly to his back, I feared if I attempted to make conversation with him, he would certainly have given me a much harsher rebuke than Lynn ever could. Being resigned to the whims of my own expansive imagination, the sight of people emerging from the hole rather than the swamp creature I was visualizing in my head was sheer relief.

  As they pulled themselves out of the hole before collapsing into a heap onto the ground, however, I could see these people were in clear distress. Their faces were smeared dirty, and their mouths frozen open as if caught in some eternal, silent scream. I also saw clear trails of blood trickling from their ears. I knew instantly it must have been the result of prolonged exposure to the same awful shrieking that nearly killed me. Whatever was chasing them could not be too far behind.

  My weight shifted abruptly as the helicopter settled back evenly onto the ground. Bardham also saw what was transpiring and aborted our takeoff. He quickly rose from his seat, so tall that he had to duck down just to fit within the con
fines of the cockpit, and jumped out of the helicopter. He landed onto the surface of the platform with blinding speed. I peered over at Lynn and found her staring out in disbelief at the people emerging from the hole. There were now six of them, each of them clutching their ears and rolling on the surface in obvious agony. Bardham grabbed one of them and lifted him onto his feet before roaring directly into his face, the makings of a broad smile momentarily destroying his otherwise serious demeanor.

  “Nunez! You made it!”

  There was no immediate response from the other man, just a panicked and confused look in his eyes as he stared blankly up at Bardham. It seemed like he was desperately trying to place the larger man’s face.

  In response, Bardham shook the man violently and I watched the smaller man’s head flopping back and forth limply from the force of Bardham’s grip. “Sergeant?!”

  The man’s hands abruptly came up and rested on Bardham’s chest, instantly stopping Bardham’s interrogation.

  “S-s-sir?” the man mouthed.

  “Pull yourself together, Sergeant!” Bardham commanded.

  The man he spoke to was shorter than Bardham but, then again, I suspected everyone was shorter than Bardham. Underneath the filth, I could see the man had jet-black hair and an overgrown, unkept beard. His eyes were just barely open and he was squinting in obvious discomfort as the bright sunlight blasted him in the face. He gazed wearily at the towering man holding him up. Bardham’s harsh words must have finally broken through his haze because Sergeant Nunez was suddenly shouting back at Bardham in a clear voice.

  “Sir, the Cyphers are right behind us! We lost Jones!” His words were a frantic garble, as if he couldn’t hear or control the volume of his own voice.

  Bardham released him with a slight push, stopping Nunez mid-sentence. “You did great, Sergeant. Let’s load these people up and get the hell out of here pronto!”