LERISTORY
Episode Two -- "Coming Of The Storm"
Kevin M. RobertsHe was almost at the door when he heard the horrific sonic scream that always precedes the firing of a plasma weapon. Fucking plasma weapons!
He reacted instantly...
His barbaric yawp joined in the chorus as the weapons sang of their building power. As triggers were pulled he threw his passenger and himself, still screaming, at the door. As he flew through the air he felt the heat scarching his hair and burning his nostrils.
I'm dead! He thought. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. De..... not dead?
Lorelei and himself ended up landing in the drainage gutter just past what masquerades as a sidewalk in this age. He was covered in slime and mud and GOD KNOWS what else. He didn't care to think about it!
Why wasn't he dead? He got up on his haunches and looked towards the door that they had just burst through. The door itself was off it's hinges and almost on the ground. Almost, but not quite...
The door had no supports to keep it from falling; it just wasn't falling! It hung suspended about 2 seconds above the ground. And it wasn't all that was "suspended."
Leaving Lorelei alone in her semi-conscious state, he walked up to the opening and peered inside. His jaw dropped at what he saw. Inside were people stuck in mid duck from the weapon bursts, one guy in mid-air, like the door, waiting to land behind the door, and the plasma bursts, stuck there in mid-air, unable to move forward.
"Fuck..." He whispered, then followed it up with two more words.
"Fucking weird..."
He wondered what was going on, how such a thing could happen, why he wasn't affected, and just how much was. He wondered if he was dreaming, if he just might be dead after all, what other explanations there could possibly be. But he knew one thing, he wasn't going to stick around here to find out.
Retrieving Lorelei and tossing her over his shoulder, producing an audible "Ugh!" from her, he took off in the direction of the Gallows (tm). He would be able to rest there, find her some clothes, and decide what to do next.
If need be, he could also call in a few favors.
When Veronica James awoke she found herself lying on the floor amongst the scattered debris of her antique desk (real wood!). As she crawled back to her feet she put her hand onto an ancient clock she had managed to buy for only half her life savings. It was a wind up with hands, no electricity.... imagine that.
On her feet now, Veronica tried to remember what had happened. Connecting to the Net, switching to 23, screaming... what time had that been?
She considered this a moment and then remembered her wind up.
The clock had been broken in the fall, this fact almost brought a tear to her eye. The only good it could do was to tell the time when it was broken, the time when she fell unconscious. The clock read 9:12. Veronica thought for a second and figured it out to 21:12 sdt (Standard Dome Time).
"Well, whatever happened, the world didn't stop," Veronica muttered and then preceded to put her Connection in. This time there weren't any problems so, with a shrug, she checked out the newsline to see what had been happening while she was out.
She was quite surprised by what she found out. And find out she was determined to do!
Just who needed help anyway??
As General Moore stormed down the Hallway with a printout in hand, the guards all turned to look. General Moore, "Scotto" behind his back and in a whispered tone, was a short oily man whose only endearing quality was that he only hung out to dry the one who was directly responsible for a screw-up.
When he reached the door marked P.R.C.D. (Public Releases and Censorship Department) (tm), the guard posted quickly stood aside. The door was kicked open and slammed shut before the guard could even blink.
When General Moore left the room 4 and a half minutes later he already had a court martial in the works for the agent who had allowed the release to be spread and a retroactive censoring of the material instigated.
It was against Fortress (tm) policy to allow security breaches to be revealed before they were corrected and the culprit killed. And still General Moore had no idea why, at 21:12 sdt, every computer hooked into the net produced only that one word: Help.
But he would find out! And he would have the hide of the culprit for it in front of his fireplace when he did.
On their travel to the Gallows they exchanged information. He revealed that his name was Peter Rezabek, and he told her to call him "rez", and that he really had no idea why he helped her out. He decided not to reveal the incident with the computer yet. After all, there couldn't be any connection between her and it, could there?
Lorelei, for her part, had nothing to reveal. She told him several stories about her childhood but they were the morbid horrors that he had assumed they had to be to lead up to what he had seen in the tavern.
When they neared their destination they found a stream of clean water, as clean as they could expect anyway, and did their best to wash up. Rez found himself fascinated by her eyes...
She had been told that he was going to call in a few favors and get her set up nicely, and Lorelei accepted this. She had no reason to think he would lie. She also had no reason to care if he was or not. Life was life, she dealt with it.
The glow of the Gallows was ahead and they headed for it. They walked for two hours before they got a good look at what they had been following. Rez's jaw dropped when he realized that they weren't following the glow of the sprawl's lights but rather the glow of the sprawl itself.
The Gallows were burning and so were Rez's idea's...
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