Fierce Flight

by R. A. Rock

  The murmuring of the crowd got louder.

  “Where’re the girls?” Shiv whispered under cover of the noise.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we might be on our own. Audrey may be sorry but she also won’t be much help. They’ve put the cuffs on her, too.”

  She was sitting on the ground with the awkward cuffs around her wrists and a gun to her head. She was staring at the grass with tears dripping off her face.

  “Enough of this,” Natasha said. “I have made a decision as the mayor of this city and I will see it through. Jeff, do it.”

  He didn’t move towards the lever, though. Instead. he walked down the stairs and stepped back in solidarity with the crowd that was against her. The man with the gun on Audrey put his weapon away and did the same.

  That was good.

  Natasha had a desperate expression on her face as she felt her control over the crowd slipping away from her. Then she got a determined look on her face and headed for the gallows.

  That was bad.

  Shiv and I glanced at each other as she got her hand on the lever that would make the trap doors drop out from under our feet, leaving us hanging by our necks. Jeff had realized what she was going to do and was running towards her. But he wouldn’t make it in time.

  “Hey, I love you, man,” I said to Shiv, taking a shaky breath. “It’s been great being your friend.”

  “Same here,” he said, his eyes filled with dread. “See you on the other side.”

  This was really happening.

  I took one more deep breath of fresh air that smelled faintly of wild roses. I supposed it was a good day to die.

  But I still didn’t want to.

  Everything seemed to go into slow motion, as Natasha got a good hold on the lever and pulled it hard. The trapdoor disappeared from under my feet and I felt myself falling.

  The rope cut into my neck and I knew my life was over.

  United

  Yumi

  “Now.” I sent as Grace and I watched the men we loved drop and hang by their necks. It was sunrise on the prairie above New Winnipeg and we were hidden behind some nearby bushes where Grace had teleported us about an hour before dawn.

  Grace’s face was nervous but she gave a sharp nod.

  She was supporting the guys enough that the ropes wouldn’t kill them. But at the same time it still looked as though they were hanging, so nobody would realize that she was holding them up kinetically and suspect that we weren’t like them. We had calculated that if she just gave them a bit of slack, they ought to be able to breathe.

  “God, Grace, they look awful. Can you loosen the ropes, too?”

  She nodded and a little colour came back into Chad’s face.

  “Okay, Part 1 accomplished,” she sent. “Your turn.”

  I looked at the crowd of people that were now arguing and shouting at Natasha about her leadership and, from what I could hear, Chad wasn’t the first guy she had tried to seduce. The word slut was tossed about several times.

  “Shield the guys,” I reminded her.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” she sent back, and I felt the tight, thick mental shield she had stretched over all of them.

  They would never forget the dogs with the brains leaking out of their ears. Of course, neither would I.

  I focused on the people in front of me and prepared. I was planning on modulating my mental scream to knock them unconscious but not do any more damage than a punch to the head.

  Of course, after what had happened with the dogs, even though my powers were back under control and I was sure that I could do this, I still felt afraid of myself. I didn’t want to hurt any of these people.

  “Do it, Yumi. It’ll be fine,” Grace sent encouragingly.

  I closed my eyes and sent a mental scream at the people in front of me. Then I waited.

  “It’s okay,” Grace said, out loud.

  I opened my eyes and saw that they were all collapsed on the ground. Grace had her hand on the neck of one person, checking for a pulse.

  “They’re alive. It’s okay, Yumi.”

  A second later Gracie had teleported the guys on to the ground. We ran to them.

  “Cut it a little close, didn’t you?” Chad said, his voice raspy.

  I put my arms around him, close to tears.

  “Thanks ladies,” Shiv said, his voice hoarse, too.

  Everything had gone according to plan and we had stopped the execution without drawing undue attention to our powers. Of course, they would be pretty confused when they all woke up, but by then we would be long gone. And soon we would be back to our own time and it wouldn’t matter.

  After a little while, they were able to sit up with help.

  Grace removed the adamantium cuffs and then our attention was drawn to where Audrey was sitting. Sobbing.

  “Audrey,” I said, going to where the small woman sat dejected on the cold ground. I hugged her, letting her pain wash over me. “We forgive you. We forgive you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” she said. “You shouldn’t. I’m terrible. A horrible person. I should have let them hang me. I thought they were going to kill Chad and Shiv. They almost did.”

  She choked out the words between sobs.

  I had never seen her so upset.

  “I just wanted… I just wanted to get back at you guys for leaving me out. I know I deserve to be left out. But it just… hurt too much. I couldn’t stand it.”

  I held her closer, feeling terrible.

  “We didn’t mean to leave you out, Audrey,” I said. “We love you. You’re one of us.”

  “I’m not. I’m not part of your Circle. I betrayed you… so many times. I’m not one of you and I never will be.”

  I looked at the others helplessly.

  They came over and we held hands, making a Circle to try and heal Audrey’s broken heart.

  “Stop it,” she said, resisting. “I don’t deserve to feel better.”

  But we didn’t stop and soon her weeping ceased. She closed her eyes and basked in the powerful positive energy.

  “You are one of us,” I whispered and she opened her blood shot eyes.

  “You’re one of us,” Grace sent.

  “You’re one of us,” Chad said.

  “You’re one of us, Audrey,” Shiv said.

  She didn’t say anything but I knew that she believed us. Deep in her heart, she finally believed us.

  “You should punish me,” she said, her voice nearly gone from the harsh sobs. “But I know you won’t.”

  “Because we’re the good guys,” we all said together.

  After a group hug, we got up.

  “What now?” I said, feeling exhausted, though it was only about eight o’clock in the morning.

  “We can’t leave them out here like this,” Grace said, gesturing towards the group of New Winnipeg citizens unconscious on the frosty grass. “The Plague Carriers might get them. I’m going to teleport them all to the first floor down. Let them figure out how they got there.”

  “While you’re at it, will you destroy that gallows, too?” Shiv said, rubbing his neck.

  “Done.”

  The people disappeared. Then before our very eyes the gallows flew into pieces of kindling and was stacked in a neat pile next to the entrance.

  “Brilliant, babe,” Shiv said, slinging an arm around Gracie.

  “We should get out of here before they wake up,” I said, feeling nervous.

  “What about the bracelets?” Audrey said. “That was the whole point of this trip from hell.”

  Grace held up her hand with the bunch of devices. A moment later, the bracelets were on each of our wrists.

  “Guard them with your lives,” Shiv said, his face solemn. “They almost cost us ours.”

  “Now, let’s get out of here,” Grace said, taking Shiv’s hand.

  The five of us headed off towards the north as the first pale rays of the winter sun caressed the grass, bringing hope to my heart as
it lit up the prairie.

  Our group was once again united against the world.

  And I knew that our team, working together, could take on anything that life threw at us.

  Aftermath

  Chad

  Grace listened in on some minds in Gimli and found out that Gideon had already headed North, so we didn’t have to worry about him waiting for us when we weren’t even planning on stopping there anymore.

  Grace ended up teleporting us back to Nessa and Matt’s place a couple hundred kilometres at a time. And when we got to the cabin road, we decided to take a little break before walking back to Matt and Nessa’s, just to regroup. Everything had happened so fast, it was sort of overwhelming.

  I rubbed my neck where the rope had cut me. The scrape was healed but I remembered the feeling of the rope tightening around my throat. I took a deep breath and pushed the memory away, feeling grateful that I could still breathe.

  The air was cold but it had never been so sweet.

  The plan was to tell Matt, Nessa, Ernest, and Zoe everything that we had found out about New Winnipeg, in case it could be of use to them in the future. Then we would return to the same place we had time travelled to and go back to our own time.

  I felt so excited at the thought of finally getting home.

  The first thing I was going to do was to visit my parents.

  And then take a space craft out for a spin, just to remember what space flight felt like.

  And then I was going to sleep for a week.

  Because I hadn’t been this tired in a really long time.

  Or maybe I would sleep before. Whatever. It wouldn’t matter because we would be home.

  Audrey was alone, walking in circles around the clearing where we were resting. Grace and Shiv were sitting on the ground, their backs against a tree, whispering quietly to each other. For one second I envied them their easy relationship and then I was nothing but happy for them.

  Yumi came up to me.

  “Sickeningly happy,” she said then smiled. And there was no bitterness in her tone. She really was happy for Grace and Shiv. We both were.

  “They are.”

  I turned and faced her.

  “Think we’ll ever be like that again?” she said, as if she really wanted to know what I thought.

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know. But I think you’ve made a good start in getting your shit together,” I said, referring to the very real changes in her behaviour recently. “Must be my turn.”

  “Maybe,” she said, pivoting and heading down the road towards Matt and Nessa’s. I kept pace with her.

  “I had an interesting dream when I was unconscious,” she admitted. “When you guys were healing me.”

  “Must have been some dream,” I said. “To have made such a change in you. Maybe you’ll tell me sometime?”

  “Maybe,” she said, cutting her eyes over to mine.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” I said.

  It wasn’t the first time I had thanked her for saving me and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

  “Grace did most of it,” she pointed out.

  “But you thought of it, didn’t you?”

  “I figured it was easier to let them take you out for us, save us the difficulties of getting you out of the cell.”

  “That’s smart,” I said. “I don’t know if Grace would have thought of that. And you’re the only one who could knock them out like that.”

  “Okay, you’re welcome, then. I’m awesome. Is that what you want me to say?” she said, a hint of sarcasm coming back.

  And I was glad to hear it.

  I didn’t want her to turn into some boring, vanilla woman without an opinion or backbone.

  “I only want you to say it if you mean it,” I said.

  She shook her head, a smile on her face.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of this place and time,” she said. “I can’t wait to get back home.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  I looked back and saw the others were following.

  Soon we would be back in our own time.

  I don’t think I had ever looked forward to anything more.

  Because finally the future looked bright.

  And I couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

  THE END

  Want to find out how this whole adventure started?

  Choices were made in the far distant future that resulted in

  Chad, Yumi and the others ending up stuck in time in post apocalyptic Canada.

  How did they get there?

  Get Fierce Future to find out!

  I wrote Fierce Future: A Drastic Times Prequel Novella exclusively for you and it isn't published anywhere. But you can get it for free as a thank you gift for joining my Drastic Times Reader Group, which will also get you cool stuff like more stories written just for you and other goodies. Plus you'll be the first to know when a new Drastic Times book releases!

  Click here to get Fierce Future for free as a thank you gift.

  http://drastictimesbooks.com/gravity-landing/fiercefuture2

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Fierce Future...

  Yumi

  I sat up and looked around, surprised to see that I was still in the clearing. The quarry looked the same. It was the same time of day — morning. A dried leaf skittered across the clearing, doing cartwheels. The oranges and yellows of the trees told me that it was still fall, too.

  A moment later, Shiv sat up.

  “What happened? Did we travel?”

  He frowned and looked down at his wrist.

  There was nothing there.

  “Holy shit,” he said, feeling his wrist as if somehow the bracelet was just invisible and if he searched around, he would eventually find it. “They’re gone.”

  I looked down. I didn’t have mine either.

  Grace and Chad were just coming to and they looked at us questioningly as we searched the ground and surrounding forest, in case somehow they had come off when we travelled.

  “Did we go?” Grace said.

  I flipped over my arm and activated my comm unit, which was a clear piece of plasteel that adhered to the skin of my inner forearm. It worked. I connected to the Grid (once known as the Internet) and checked the date and time.

  “We didn’t,” I said, holding up my arm to show the others. “It’s an hour later.”

  “So, what happened?” Grace said, still confused and sleepy looking.

  “They were fucking stolen, of course,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “How?” Shiv said. “How could anyone have known we would be here and how could anyone have knocked us unconscious without us knowing?”

  “Because,” Audrey said, sitting up with a groan. “Whoever it was is working with Protectors — Finders specifically. They’re the only ones who would use that particular knock out technique.”

  “Which one?” Grace said.

  “There’s two ways to mentally knock someone out,” I explained. “One is to hit the point in the jaw that controls the flow of blood and oxygen into the brain. By briefly pressing on this point, you can knock someone out.”

  “Like in martial arts?” Chad said. “It’s the same knock out point?”

  He indicated the point on his jaw and I nodded.

  “Yes, except you press on it kinetically, of course. And the other way is trickier and messier if you make a mistake.”

  Audrey wrinkled her nose.

  “You have to mimic what happens when you get hit hard and your brain slams into your skull.”

  “That’s dangerous,” Gracie said, her eyes troubled. “It would be so easy for a Kinetic to be a little off and kill the person.”

  “That’s right,” Audrey said. “That’s why I’m assuming they used the sinus point. Finders were trained to use that point to knock someone out. Unless they were authorized to use lethal force on the person, because then it didn’t matter if they weren’t careful when they slammed t
he person's brain against their skull.”

  Grace frowned and Audrey held up her hands.

  “I’m just telling you the truth.”

  “Whatever, let’s get back to the issue,” Shiv said. “The bracelets have likely been stolen, clearly by at least one Kinetic who is probably a Finder. And they now have an hour’s head start on us.”

  “We’re going after them?” Grace said, blinking and still looking groggy.

  “Grace,” Shiv said patiently. “This is exactly what we were trying to prevent."

  “But how did they know we were going to be here?” I said, still feeling like my brain was a little foggy, myself.

  “They intercepted our subspace transmissions? Had tracking devices on us or on our spacecraft? Guessed? Or…” Chad snapped his fingers. “Are working with a Precog.”

  Chad gave me a look that implied I should have figured that out myself. Which I should have. And would have. If I didn’t feel so damn out of it.

  “Precogs,” Shiv echoed, nodding as if that made sense.

  Precogs were the division of Protectors that deal in visions of the future. A trained sensing Precog can accurately tell what a person or group of people is going to do. Others have singular visions that tell about an event that will happen. Both usually have about a 85% accuracy rate but they have to form a Circle and link minds for that. Not many Precogs can be that accurate alone.

  The wind keened in the bare trees, echoing how I felt. As if my life wasn’t enough of a mess but this mission, which was supposed to be straight forward, had already taken a left turn straight into what-the-fuck’s-ville. Figured.

  “Doesn’t matter now. How are we going to get them back?” I said. “Maybe there’s a trace of mental signature I could pick up on?”

  I began to close my eyes, taking a deep breath of fresh, cold air that held the delicate scent of the forest, reminding me of my youth.

  “No need,” Audrey said and I snapped my eyes open again and on her.

  “Why not?”

  She smiled around at us all.