A Paradox Broken, page 3
They have to be powered up first by borrowing the necessary energy from me. Especially because they have been dormant for several months.
“At least we are making good progress,” I said with a sprinkle of enthusiasm lifting my spirits as I looked at the remaining sticks. “We’re already halfway thr—” A shockwave from behind threw me into the bookcase, splintering wood and probably bone.
CHAPTER 2
A shrill frequency higher than that of a shrieking alley cat burrowed into my eardrums like ice picks attached to electrodes, shrouding all my thoughts in a dense, all-encompassing fog.
My ribs and half of my face steadily started to fill with fire delivered fresh from the pits of hell, fighting my concussed brain for control over my nerves—and it was winning.
ANDREW! Tim screamed in my head, somehow cutting through the other pain and nearly dropping me to the ground from the sheer volume that seemed to bounce around my skull.
Oh, my science, you are severely concussed!
I wanted to say No shit, but it hurt to think.
Sending nanoids to begin repai—LOOK OUT!
I had the sickening sensation of being on a roller coaster as the room tumbled all around me. A bearded, unblemished face appeared just inches in front of my nose, and it took all my rattled faculties to recognize the man who had been severely scarred the last time I saw him.
One of his eyes had been milky, while the other had been protected from an incredible heat blast by a metal bar in Drew’s dungeon. A white line had run from bald scalp to bearded chin, while the rest of the face had been a bubbling mass of pink blisters. But now, the man appeared as fresh and unscarred as the day we had first met.
“You thought you could run from me, Frost?” Retnuh Ordune asked in his smooth Spanish accent.
Andrew! Stay with me! Tim cried out as a zap of what felt like boiling electricity flashed across my brain.
“RRRAAAHHH!” I bellowed as everything became clear, shoving the palm of my metal arm into Retnuh’s chest before sending out an incredible amount of unfocused energy.
The skin on my neck felt like it was being ripped off as the Clockman’s grip refused to release my throat while he was thrown back.
I started to smile, anticipating the bastard flying through the thick brick of the basement walls, surely killing him. However, my smile fell faster than it had started as Retnuh blipped from sight, only to reappear a split second later. But this time, he was flying toward me with his own hand glowing a fierce blue.
My metal arm moved on its own and punched toward the ground with enough force that my upper body buckled at the waist, doubling me over, right as Retnuh flew above where my head had just been.
There was an explosion that threw me forward as the splintered bookshelf behind me was disintegrated.
My repairing mind flashed with the VHS box for Alice in Wonderland, and I rolled to my feet with an unbridled shriek of rage that made froth spout from my mouth. I wasn’t going to let the bastard destroy my daughter’s research.
Moving faster than what should have been possible, I crossed the distance to where Retnuh was recovering from unleashing his blast against the wall and grabbed him by the back of his neck with my synthetic right hand.
I sent signals to my fingers to crush his spine like I was trying to turn coal into diamonds.
Retnuh spun in my grip, his clearly synthetic skin and bone easily enduring my enhanced fingers. As he broke free, he slammed the back of his left elbow into my eye socket, shattering the bone as if my skull had been made of inferior glass.
The crunch was deafening as half of my vision was filled with a pulsating white lined with an electric red. Unfortunately, that was the least of my worries, as something clamped around my throat, again, and lifted me off the ground.
The pressure in my aching head was immediate, feeling like every vein was on the verge of popping, like tossing an intricate balloon animal into a cactus field. But what was more pressing was the sensation of suffocating, as Retnuh had apparently grabbed my throat near the end of an exhale, leaving my lungs empty and deprived of fresh oxygen.
Tim! Blast him! I pleaded inside my head as my white vision began to darken at the edges at an alarming pace.
You used up too much energy with your initial attack! We have to wait until it recharges!
He’s going to kill me! My voice, though only a mental projection, was growing weak as the blackness swarmed in my vision, racing toward the center.
My remaining eye was vaguely aware that my metallic right arm was punching Retnuh like a Wing Chun master, but my attacker only reacted by morphing his grimace of rage into a gritting smile as crimson began to spill from porcelain teeth. We were hurting him, but it was clear he would win this battle as everything I could see blurred.
Kick your feet out as hard as you can! Tim shouted as something buzzed to life just behind where I was hanging.
Without waiting for an explanation, I sent a prayer into the universe, lifted my knees, and kicked out like I was trying to break down a bank vault door.
A feeling of weightlessness took over, and I knew I was dead.
CHAPTER 3
Retnuh screamed in rage and surprise as his arm vanished inside the portal as the traitorous AI closed the doorway, taking the Clockman’s limb with it. What’s worse was that the Tick escaped.
Scarlet slipped through clenched teeth to drip down a thick, neatly trimmed beard before being soaked up by a black suit caked in dust and splinters. Holding up his cauterized stump, Retnuh gathered himself mentally, forcing his mind and body to relax while a robotic eye scanned the damage.
Crimson teeth disappeared behind lips that neither smiled nor frowned as the nanoids inside his body began to work. Silver bone began to form, with synthetic tendons racing just behind. Muscles stronger than tungsten flashed forward while a vascular system as resilient as titanium crisscrossed the growing limb.
Within a minute, a brand-new, improved hand was flexing open and closed while nerves finished the job by connecting the new appendage to a nano-infused brain. Even his suit and trench coat began to reform as the tiny machines evenly borrowed material from his remaining outfit.
Dropping his new arm to his side, Retnuh mentally sent an order to have the machine ready to refill the lost materials and nanoids back at homebase. But first …
His bionic eye scanned the room as he slowly turned toward where the bookshelf had been, remembering where the Tick was kneeling with something in his hands.
Half of Retnuh’s vision snapped forward to zoom in on what remained of an open rectangular box. His artificial eye superimposed a tag over it that said VHS box. He could have selected the text to further discover what that was, but he didn’t care.
Moving to where the half-evaporated box lay open, Retnuh crouched down to pick up three rectangular sticks a half inch thick and seven inches long.
Bluetooth Solid State Universal Serial Bus.
This time Retnuh did select the text, and a smile formed at seeing that it was an old USB.
“Got you …” Retnuh said as he shoved the three sticks into his chest pocket and opened a portal.
CHAPTER 4
There was a wet, sucking sound, like lifting a soaking bedsheet from a tiled floor, and my eyes fluttered open to see a hand just in front of my face.
“AH!” I yelped, my right fingers wrapping around the wrist and squeezing on instinct, like I was going to choke it to death.
Andrew … you can let go, Tim said with tenuous relief laced with the beginnings of humor.
Focusing my blurred vision—I noticed I could only see out of my right eye—I stared at a dismembered arm, which I was still trying to choke.
“Oh,” I said with mild embarrassment as I let my fingers fall away from the unmoving hand. When it didn’t do anything, I tilted my face so the eye I could still see out of took in my metal fingers still around the forearm. It was then I realized Tim had pulled the thing off of my throat.
My throat.
“Ah!” I croaked, feeling fire flood into my neck as my nerves came back to life after being choked unconscious.
My fingers reported a sticky coating over my skin, and I briefly imagined boiling honey had been slathered on my neck. But what was confusing was that only the flesh of my throat burned; my hands merely reported a warm liquid.
Working to close the tears, Tim said. I could feel something crawling beneath my chin and just above my chest, the sensation shifting to where my hand grasped. It was unnerving to say the least, but if it meant the pain would soon stop, then I was totally for the tiny machines moving through my body.
I tried to swallow but was unable, feeling like a softball had been lodged in my esophagus.
Sending signals to your cells to cancel the inflammation order, Tim said clinically before adding, Oh, to your left eye as well. Yeesh.
Yeesh? I mentally asked. Not very good bedside manner.
Would you like me to show you what half of your face looks like? I can change your point of view, you know.
I remembered taking the elbow to my socket, tried to swallow, and eventually just slightly shook my head. I didn’t need to see it in order to know that Retnuh’s attack could have punched through a tank.
That’s what I thought. But just know that you looked like you tried to pick a fight with Mike Tyson in his prime. You’re just lucky I’m good at puzzles.
Puzzles? What does that mean? I asked before having my question answered when I felt the tiny machines inside my face begin to move the shattered bones of my eye socket back into place. Ow … ow-ow-ow … ow.
Blocking the pain-receptor signals from reaching your brain … nnnnnow.
Like flipping a switch, the burning electricity—which I had forgotten about due to the other pain—inside my rib cage ceased. Along with the feeling of boiling honey on my throat. However, I was still able to hear the bones being relocated in my face, making my stomach want to lurch.
Wow, you are messed up, Tim noted in mild amazement. This is going to take some time to fix.
I’m not going to have to eat another fork … am I?
Don’t worry about that, leg butt, Tim said with a smile in his tone. We have more than enough materials inside your artificial arm and bones to fix this hot mess, as the kids say.
Bones? I asked before remembering how they had replaced my skeleton with the equivalent of nanomachine housing. Oh … right.
You’re lucky we did upgrade them, Andrew; that initial shock wave would have liquefied your brain had your skull not been reinforced. Not only that, but the impact would have turned your rib cage into dust instead of just breaking your bones.
My face started to scrunch at the thought of having all my bones replaced, but then, I felt the resistance as my left eye refused to participate—which brought another question.
How was my cheek shattered if my skull is artificial? I asked, picturing my metal skull caving in like a car during a crash.
I assume you are asking why it broke like real bone instead of just denting in like a car?
That’s actually exactly what I was thinking …
The reason is because one, I had to keep your skeleton honeycombed to lessen the weight you would have to carry, he explained before quickly adding under his breath, because someone won’t let me replace their entire body, effectively nullifying any strength concerns.
And two? I asked, wanting to steer him away from the subject of replacing every part of my body with machines.
Two, they failed precisely as I had designed. Had they been a solid structure, they would have just caved in like a boulder landing on a car hood, and gone into your brain.
Oh.
“Oh” is right. Had the energy not dissipated outward along faults I had designed specifically to shatter, then the force of Retnuh’s strike would have killed you without question.
Unable to help myself, I asked, What comparison can you give?
In regard to?
How hard did he hit me?
Now that I’ve had time to analyze his limb, I am able to see that Retnuh is ninety percent artificial at this point.
Which means?
Well, I was getting to that, if you would stop interrupting.
I waited in silence for Tim to continue. After several seconds, I prompted, Well?
See what I mean? You just can’t help yourself!
“Tim,” I said with my mouth, which was a mistake, as only half my face could move. Tim, I repeated inside my head, please …
Had your cheek been a brick wall, it would have been turned into dust.
I let his words absorb as I floated. The feeling of being weightless took hold, making me realize how bad I had been hurt if I hadn’t even noticed I was in the wormhole.
Continuing the conversation, I mentally asked, So it’s not my bone I feel being moved around under my skin.
Well, it kind of is. But technically, I am repositioning the material inside of your face using the nanoids.
My mind betrayed me and filled with the image of ants building half a skeleton face using tiny, scalpel-sharp shards of glass. And for some reason, my cheek started to hurt, even with the pain signal pathways to my brain being blocked by Tim.
In a flash, I remembered what we had been doing before Retnuh had burst into my timeline.
How much of Alison’s research did we get? I asked sullenly, already fearing the answer.
Only half.
The support lines holding my heart at the center of my chest popped, plummeting the organ toward the viscous tar pit in my guts.
N-Now what?
I’ll have to think on that while I continue to heal you.
Can we at least use anything of what we did get? I asked while desperately holding on to hope like a freestyle mountain climber clinging on for dear life as a violent storm dropped on their head without warning.
So far, it appears that what we grabbed was already provided in the original files Drew gave us.
I wanted to utter the most flagrant, offensive curse words known to man, but I just didn’t have it in me, as all my energy seemed to deflate … along with the remains of my hope. On top of that, with only being able to mentally speak while my fractured face was in the process of reforming, the senseless swearing would be muzzled if I was only able to think it. There was something cathartic about verbally spouting profanity, like dispelling the hate directly outward from your body.
But maaaaaayybeeee … Hmm.
“What?!” I cried out with a numb face slurring my word.
Can you get us back to the tesseract?
“Tess—” I began to try and say before I switched back to mental communication. Tesseract? Oh, the river … thingy … place?
Yes, Andrew. The “river thingy place.” More colloquially known by today’s youths as a tesseract.
Someone’s sassy.
Tim ignored my quip and continued with his thought.
If we can make it back to the tesseract, we might be able to hop to a different time stream and try again.
Something tickled at my thoughts. Why don’t we just go back to where we were, but, like, an hour sooner?
I already thought of that.
And?
And I don’t like that Retnuh knows which timeline we are currently on.
I mean, he found us before, didn’t he? After destroying …
I agree with where you’re going with this, but I would feel a tad safer if we put one more layer between us and him. 01 knows what he will do to this timeline if he can’t find us.
Can we go back to our original timeline?
I thought of that, because I fear the farther we move away, the more events could have changed.
You mean like there being a basement in Florida? I asked, letting my mind sift through Drew’s memories once more and failing to recall a house with a basement in a state predominately without them.
Yeah, I noticed that as well. How odd.
So we can’t go back to our timeline until we have the answers? But the farther we stray, the more the answers might be wrong?
Or not be there at all.
But if we go back, Retnuh might destroy it to make sure he gets me?
I cannot be sure of his intentions, but it isn’t worth the risk.
A dark thought crested over my consciousness like a solar eclipse.
And that is my timeline—my home. The one with my family.
I, uh, see what you mean, Andrew. But the other timeline variants of Alison and Sylvie could still technically be construed as your family. Just with differing life experiences that could range from something as simple as one day clipping their fingernails instead of filing them, or …
Or maybe a timeline where Sylvie and I never met … and Alison was never born. So no research to find and try to save them.
Aaaaactually, Tim let out, my initial calculations are consistently resulting in a zero-point-zero percent chance of you and Sylvie not getting together on any timeline.
We … We always find each other?
Further proving the thesis that this is what the universe wanted all along.
For the big reset, you mean.
Whatever you wish to call it, yes.
The implications of what he was saying were staggering. How could one man fight the will of the very universe?
Tim must have sensed my drop in mood. Now, come on, Andrew! We have some research to find!
You’re done repairing my body?
Oh, uh, let’s try that again, Tim said before clearing his throat. Now, come on, Andrew! We have some research to find after I finish healing your broken body! Tim said like a movie announcer before shifting to a slightly hushed speaking tone, like he was talking to someone nearby. How was that? Do we like it? Yeah, let’s go with take two and call it a wrap.
Tim …
As for you, leg butt, nighty-night.
I blinked, but my eyelids were unable to open again, and I fell into the warm embrace of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 5
Wakey-wakey! Hands off snaky! Tim said in a singsong as consciousness flowed back into me like a garden hose filling a birdbath.
