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part #38 of Out of the Box Series Series
Or at least...no time I was willing to spend.
Flying into the complex, I recalled the last time I'd been in an oil refinery. I'd been trying to save it from the predations of Scout Cole, an eco-terrorist, succubus, and – fitting with the pattern of the succubi I'd met – a real bitch.
You're a succubus, you know, Brianna said.
I said it was a pattern, didn't I? Geez.
I landed near the largest building in the complex I could find, and found the nearest door unlocked. It opened into a factory floor of sorts, with more piping than a plumber's supply store. They snaked everywhere. Large pipes, small pipes, and all sizes in between. A vat in the corner seemed to bubble aimlessly every few minutes, as if waiting for something to happen to it.
Scouting the area quickly, I found another corpse. Chad Goodwin. He was all jacked up, mouth open in a final scream.
Agonizing death? Couldn't have happened to a better group of people.
I found the control room, and the bodies within told an interesting story. Not one I particularly wanted to hear after this day, but one I felt compelled to listen to nonetheless.
The control room was about what you would expect. Two rows of consoles, computer screens bleating out various alarms for having been left unmanned for hours on end.
I ignored the noise. And the corpses of people splattered on the floor, their deaths clearly having come long before the city had died. No burns for them, just good old-fashioned blunt force trauma: skulls caved in, jagged metal pieces sticking out of their faces and guts, the occasional disembowelment.
If I didn't miss my guess...this was the work of Ashleigh Simone, the precocious 14-year-old psychopath who'd framed her teacher for the vicious rape and murder of one of her classmates. The broken and twisted bodies occasionally dotting the area and spattered against the walls suggested she was still running with her old friend Lucille, who I called the Giggler because of her unfortunate predilection for...well...giggling, even at the most inappropriate times.
I thought a solid wedge had been driven between these two, what with Lucille turning state’s evidence against Ashleigh. But one of the characteristics of psychopaths was their charisma. Maybe she'd flipped Lucille back.
Didn't matter. I picked my way through the ruin of the control center and found the last few bodies I was looking for.
Emilio and Christy Custis. I knew their names because I'd absorbed part of the soul of Chad Goodwin, Christy's husband. A few of his memories remained in my brain, and their faces, even disfigured as they were by what had happened, couldn't hide the fact that they'd died in screaming pain.
Yay.
And finally, curled up in the fetal position next to a computer that clearly had originated here, mainly because it was parked on top of a console and blocking buttons and screens, was the last of this little hunting party. At least...in the room.
Devin Fuller. Former aide de camp to Jaime Chapman, current revenge seeker against Sienna Nealon. Tech geek, Reflex-type meta, and man with a relentless axe to grind. The fact that I couldn't see his main squeeze Chase Blanton lying dead beside him gave me a sense of cold satisfaction. “Die alone, you pricks,” I muttered to the corpses.
You're in kind of a dark place right now, Brianna offered.
“Thought you were going to say one thing and shut up, and that was about ten things ago.”
I moved past the bodies, looking at the far wall where a giant, round clock ticked away the minutes above an old, wooden closet that remained shut tightly. The clock was one of the old analog ones, the kind with a second hand.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I sat my ass down on the cold, metal, grated floor and stared up at the clock. This place, this town, had died hours ago. Seconds didn't matter anymore.
I took a deep breath, trying to center my thoughts. I'd been angry, raging, distracted, unfocused and scattered as I'd left Kat's house and my little “talk” with Harry.
All that was gone now. I was focused, cold, relentless, and vaguely...hopeful.
With all that in mind – the possibilities, and a plan – I closed my eyes...
...And thought of Shin'ichi Akiyama.
Deep breaths.
This was tapping a power I'd seldom used. Seldom tried to, for it was dangerous in the extreme and my ability with it was limited to the small amount of Akiyama's soul I'd absorbed when I'd deprived him of some unwanted memories.
I looked up at the clock, keeping Akiyama firmly in mind.
The second hand...
...had stopped.
From across the world, from across time itself, I felt a gentle shove against my hold.
Get moving, it seemed to say.
I didn't let it move.
The force increased.
I held tight, a belligerent toddler unwilling to let go of the bedrail so the bigger, stronger parent could tell me to go to sleep.
For dear life, I held on.
For four million dear lives...I held on.
The force was strong against my meager power. Overwhelming, really.
But I had rage and focus, and I held on. It went from a gentle push – a suggestion, really, to get time moving forward again – to a shove, to a full-on assault–
And I bore each in turn, the second hand barely wavering.
Time was off its track.
I was holding it back, not allowing it to creep forward.
The force stopped, and I was left alone with my thoughts, all of which centered on one thing:
Hold.
The.
Time.
And I did. For minutes.
Hours.
Days.
Until I heard footsteps against the metal decking outside the control center. I opened my eyes.
The second hand had not moved from where I'd fixed it in place with my mind and my stolen powers.
Soft yet crisp footfalls announced the arrival of a visitor, immune to the power I executed. I was covered in sweat, had had nothing to eat in what felt like – and could have been – days.
I didn't care.
Because as soon as he stepped through the door, I knew I was halfway home.
“Hello, Sienna,” he said in that thickly accented voice, so rich and textured, and – given the circumstances – filled with a surprising amount of patience.
Akiyama was here.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Shin'ichi Akiyama stepped into the room, his hair shaved close to the scalp, a paternal look on his placid face, he shook his head like a disappointed father. “Sienna...what are you doing?”
“Clock-blocking you,” I said, knowing I had to hold on a little longer.
A little sigh was my reward for having pissed him off enough to drag himself here. I didn't know how long I'd waited, but it couldn't have been more than a few hours, which meant he was either already in the United States or he'd traveled by map.
“I sense you're frustrated,” I said, keeping my tight grip on time. It wasn't in any danger of slipping away now, in spite of the sweat pouring down my head from the effort of keeping it frozen.
“Sienna, it's not going to work,” he said, pacing before one of the consoles. He paused, looking down at the corpse of Devin Fuller at his feet. “We've been over this.” He looked up with his very serious, very sad eyes. “You cannot change what has happened.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “See, this is the advantage of being me. You don't remember exactly how you met me.”
Akiyama frowned. “Of course I do. You came to my island, you helped me...” His face went blank. “...helped me...” He stared into space. “...Well, you helped me.”
“I helped you let go of the fact that your wife Akiko died during childbirth,” I said, staring him down, “because I sucked the memory out of your head, keeping you from destroying time.”
His eyes went wide. “No...no, that can't be right.”
“Oh, it's right,” I said, a lot cooler than I felt given the volumes of sweat beads that were coursing their way down my face, back and sides. I felt like I'd done a six-hour hot yoga session, minus the craving for wine and chitchat afterward. “I ripped that memory out of your head and gave you peace because no matter how you rolled time forward or back – and you tried to roll it in both directions, doing whatever you could to keep them alive – you couldn't let go. You'd formed a pocket universe of frozen time in our own, and everything was about to snap because of it.”
In spite of being clearly taken aback, Akiyama composed himself quickly. “Then you see from my mistake...it cannot be done. The danger to the universe is great–”
“I'm not trying to stop a biological impossibility,” I said. “No doctor, no surgeon could have saved your wife.” I straightened up as best I could in my seated position. “But for Minneapolis and St. Paul...let's just say the doctor is in, and she's got just the prescription to fix things.”
He shook his head slowly. “This is madness. Do you have any idea how delicate the balance of time is?”
“It's been less than a day,” I said, keeping my iron grip on time, though I could feel it fading. “Less than a day since everything blew up. Roll time back twenty hours, and let me do it.”
Akiyama stared at me, then slowly nodded. “You know you cannot do it for yourself. That is why you have frozen time. Not just to get my attention like last time.”
“Oh, you felt that?” I smiled impishly. “That time I was just trying to witness a murder. I wasn't messing with anything.”
“But even then, you must have realized that the danger was great,” he said. “Tampering with the flow of events...”
“This would carry a lot more weight coming from someone who didn't summon me back to frigging Iowa in 1999 to change the course of my personal history.”
“Time was already changed in that instance,” Akiyama said with great fervor. “The greater wrong would have been done if you left things alone.” He gave me a pained look. “Do you have any idea what damage could result from this decision?”
“I can't let it go,” I said, putting a little excess emotion into it. “Akiyama...Shin'ichi...it's my fault.” A tear coursed down my cheek. Real. Pained.
“It is not,” he said softly, and stepped closer. “And this is not the way.”
“But how do I just let them...die?” My voice was spare, a thread of heartbreak woven in.
“They're already dead,” he said softly, stepping over to me and offering his hand.
I let time go, and sagged, and everything resumed its normal flow. A choked sob escaped my lips.
“You see,” Akiyama said with great confidence. “You know this is not right.”
“I know...” I said, breathing hard, looking at the ground. I took his hand and let him help me up. “...a sucker when I see one.”
When I looked up, he had a confused look on his face.
It switched to pained when I punched him in the throat. Not hard enough to kill him, just enough to stun him.
And I left my hand there.
He went to his go-to move, as I expected he would, and tried to freeze time.
Only to find...whoops.
“That doesn't work on me,” I said, riding him to the ground like a pouncing cat. My knee slammed home in his solar plexus and all the air rushed out of him. With one hand gripped tight around his right wrist, I brought the other off his throat and grabbed his left wrist, keeping him from punching or otherwise smacking me.
Then I pinned him as best I could, my knee in his gut, and waited for the burn.
“Si...enna...” he gasped.
“Shhhhhh,” I said, looking down at him through thinly-slitted eyes, “I can already feel it working.”
And I could. My palms were starting to tingle against his wrists, the sweet song of pleasure dancing its way up my arms, into my shoulders and beyond. He tried to struggle, but I bounced and landed that knee back in his stomach, and it took the last of the fight out of him, long enough for me to gain full entry–
“Where am I?” Akiyama asked, his face with a pleasant, slightly confused look on it.
We were in a mental version of the control room, that sort of quasi-dreamwalk state I used when in someone's mind. “They're trying to destroy the world,” I said, very seriously. I'd scooped his memories of how I'd lured him here clear out of his mind. “They killed you, Shin'ichi, but I managed to roll time back enough to save you.”
“Sienna?” He stared at me blankly. “Who?”
“Prison break,” I said. “From the Cube. We have to stop them. You're going to hold time in place, and I'm going to kill them, okay?”
“That doesn't sound right,” he said. “Messing with the flow of time is hazardous. There could be consequences–”
“This is a special circumstance,” I said. “Remember the river analogy? We're going a couple feet upstream and making ripples, we're not going five miles back. You have to help me.” That was a command, and I implanted it directly in his mind.
“Yes,” he said, taking that onboard, nodding as he did so. “I suppose...how far back are we going?”
My mind raced. I couldn't go back to the moment of the prison break; they'd all be pouring out, and even if they weren't ready for me, there'd be too many, with too many powers. Unless he held time still while I just massacred them...
No. No, even I didn't feel right about that. But this group here...
Here. I could roll back time here and happily annihilate this scouting party whose sole function was to murder me. Then I'd have free rein of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and could cut them all to pieces group by group before they had a chance to destroy the city.
“Seventeen hours,” I said, and I broke the dreamwalk, bringing us back into the real control room. Long enough for Minnesotans to know something was afoot, but quick enough that no one other than the prison guards would die. Which was unfortunate, but probably the best I could do given my solo circumstances and the fact that trying to get Akiyama to pause and release time would not be a feasible project.
“I think we can do that,” Akiyama said pensively, nodding slowly as I helped him to his feet. He didn't even notice anything had changed as we stepped back into reality. “Any further, though, and...it would get very dicey. Even this will be difficult.”
“I'll take my chances,” I said, feeling the first ray of hope I'd had in...oh, fifteen hours or so. I even smiled, though it was not the sort I would have wanted photographed, because even Akiyama sort of shuffled back. “Shin'ichi...take me back in time.”
He nodded, and the world began to twist around me, time stretching. The clock on the wall began to slowly roll backward, the stuffy air in the still room began to move as the bodies on the floor began to twitch back to life.
I watched, stepping out of the way, as things began to unfold, as time began to unfold, and I waited, and watched, for my chance to make things right.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Devin Fuller
Sessler Oil Refinery
St. Paul Park, Minnesota
December 22nd
9:23 A.M.
“We need to set up the perimeter,” Chase Blanton said as she stepped out of the van at the oil refinery, her gait still affected by the disarming Sienna Nealon had performed on her months ago. The line in their lives between Sienna catching them at the Byerly Estate and the way things had been before was still affecting Devin Fuller. And Chase, too, clearly. “Our satellite coverage will allow us to see her coming if she's flying, which is most probable.”
“I'll have it up and running in five,” Devin said, crushed gravel mixed with the snow squelching under his shoes. They'd stopped at a Kohl's in Bloomington and broken in, imprisoning the staff while they did a little shopping to replace their prison jumpsuits. “I'm going to take the control room.” He felt a little smile settle on his face at the thought.
“There are going to be people in there, Devin.” Chase paused her steps, such was the import of her words. He could tell by her “very serious” face.
Devin just smiled. “I'll take care of it.”
“Sarah, you're on the perimeter,” Chase said to Sarah Cashmore. “Coretta, we need your eyebeams in a central spot.”
Coretta Howe just smiled. “You just tell me where I can knock that short-stack bitch out of the sky and I'm there.”
Chase peered into the distance. “That tank right there. You'll be able to see her coming, and Devin can give you details on her incoming vector.” She glanced around. “We'll need to be ready to move if we get word she's changing course. This is the most probable path, but it's not the only one.” She looked at Sylvia. “Auntie Sylvie–”
Sylvia Blanton had a face like a pug. “Don't call me that when we're with people.” She shifted nervously from foot to foot. “And yeah...I'll be ready to race around and move y'all if need be.”
“You hit her, I'll bring her down out of the sky and break her bones,” Ashleigh Simone said. The girl looked young, and that wild look in her eyes suggested that nothing but trouble would come from her or the other girl that rode with her, the one that giggled all the time. Lucille, wasn't it? She was already swelled up with alarming amounts of muscle, clearly a Hercules, and following Ashleigh so close it seemed like she might fall in if the other girl stopped too fast.
“Devin, take the Custises with you,” Chase said.
“We'll be along in a bit,” Emilio said. Christy, his sister, was leaning hard against her husband, Chad Goodwin. He'd known most of this bunch from the Byerly estate mission. A few of them were new, given to them along with the plan during the breakout.
But Devin was in. All in, really.
“I'll get things set up,” Devin said, clutching the laptop he'd been handed, eagerly anticipating the bounty it would deliver. They'd failed at the Byerly estate because they'd tried to do something impossible:
Make Sienna Nealon feel remorse for what she'd done to them.
That was fine. Devin hadn't been ready for anything harder at the time.
