The Time Stone (29 page)

“
Wish I knew” said
James.

“
You know what you have to
do buddy!” She retorted as she dodged a blow from a large sword
barely missing her head and she rolled onto the ground. James flung
his hands up into the air and waved them around feeling like a
crazy person and then the six figures flew backwards simultaneously
as if struck with a heavy force causing them to soar through the
air and into the streets behind them, their baggy uniforms flapping
in the breeze as they went backwards and hit the pavement. “Wow!”
Screamed Tina.

“
Let’s get out of here
before they come to.” James yelled and grabbed his friend by the
arm helping her up and the two headed down the street running as
fast as they could. The six men got up and composed
themselves.

The apparent leader picked up his
sword and yelled in a fierce and determined voice in Spanish, “kill
them!!!” They ran after the duo in a triangular formation. The six
chased them down halfway to the next set of blocks and one of the
men with a dagger grabbed James by the scruff of the neck and held
him down with the dagger pinned to his throat and two other men
came up behind him and grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his
back tying them with a knotted rope quickly before he could think
to use his power again. Tina turned and ran to them but was
apprehended by one of the other men with the bow and arrow who
pinned her down and bound her arms behind her back with rope as
well.

“
Uh” she muttered as the
man with the sword approached and reached into her pocket pulling
out the green emerald object, its light reflecting brightly off the
clear night starry sky.

“
This is what we want…this
is what we want” he spoke in Spanish with a dark and sinister voice
as his cold dark eyes glared into the centered five orbs within the
object shimmering in the mesmerizing light of the street
corner.

“
Why do you want this for?
It’s just an old family heirloom.” Tina yelled jokingly.

The man looked at her and nodded, “I
said that this is what we want and we will take it.” Now he spoke
in English. He held his scimitar to her throat.

“
OK, you got it” she
yelled frantically, “now let us go.”

“
No. You know too much.”
He added harshly. “You will die.”

“
No.” Tina yelled as she
and James struggled for freedom helplessly. “James, do something.”
She beckoned for him to try his powers again.

“
I can’t” he tried to move
his hands but was restricted by the ropes.

“
This is the end, I guess”
she yelled as the man with the sword pulled it out and struck her
in the face and she dropped to the ground.

“
Tina,” yelled James
trying to run to them but was held back by the others. The man with
the sword approached and James kicked out with his right foot to
the man knocking the symbol off of his tunic but the man, being
pushed back slightly, kept going forward angrily.

“
Now you die… now you
die!” He yelled as he raised his sword with his right hand and
holding the object with his left hand. He brought his armed hand
down towards James and as the sword came down to James’ face about
to make contact, a large force interrupted the blow like a blur of
yellow and red light knocking the man with the sword back. Within
seconds, a figure jumped into the fray and danced around kicking
each of the masked men knocking them back and then standing between
James and Tina in their bound and helpless forms and the would be
assassins. The figure wore a red suit that glistened in the
streetlights, shining similarly to the suit worn by the ninja
warriors, the figure wore a similar mask completely red with
yellowish stripes and he had on a yellow bandana around his head
and waist, a blue set of goggles and held a large curved sword with
a handle on each end that extended with a flick of his wrist and he
curved it at will as he battled with the sub doers of the duo as he
came to their rescue. He had a strange symbol on his chest that
resembled the mark on the tunic of the ninja warriors but it was
slightly different. He grabbed the arm of one of the ninja warriors
as he tried to attack and swung him about over his head like a rag
doll, and he quickly tossed each one without cutting them with his
weapon but merely knocking them back using his blade as an
implement to defeat them without killing them. In a further array
of roundhouse kicks and extended fist and foot maneuvers that
appeared mechanical and artificial to the duo as they watched as he
circled his way through the group and dropped them all. He stood
over them with a proud sense of accomplishment and then turned to
James and Tina and untied their hands. The duo got up confused. The
mysterious figure then picked up the green emerald object that fell
out of the swordsman’s hands and onto the ground. He handed it to
Tina and then with a smile he stepped back.

“
Wait who are you” she
uttered as the man held a squared device his wrist and pressed a
trigger causing him to instantly vanish in a haze of yellow and red
light as quickly as he arrived.

“
Who was that?” Asked
James.

“
I wish I knew” remarked
Tina. “But thank God for him.”

Then suddenly the six men also
vanished in a quick flash of darkness and light
combined.

“
Whoa”, Tina looked at
James as he walked over to where the unconscious forms of the ninja
warriors once lay and picked up the metal character that fell from
the swordsman’s uniform. “I wish we could get some info on what
this is all about, who these men are and why they are after this
thing and why they would kill us.”

“
I think this may be a
clue” replied James holding up the metal character.

At the Seneca Falls Public Library,
James and Tina sat in a back room of the basement level with
several old books scattered out on the table before
them.

“
Are you sure we should be
wasting time like this?” Said Tina.

“
We should try to research
this symbol. It may be important. The librarian said the symbol
should be in one of these books. Not that I think the lead you
obtained from a common criminal is of value,” he smirked “but we
can check it out later.”

“
A common criminal?” She
uttered.

“
Look” he pointed out as
he turned the page of a treatise on the occult and symbolic
phenomenon. “This looks like the symbol” he spoke softly. “The
origins of the ancient order of la culto de la piedra
tiempo...hmm.”

“
What?” Asked Tina
rhetorically.

James read the passage before him in
the old book. “And those who transcended reality and are the core
purpose behind the religious mythology surrounding the ancient
Mayan and Aztec cultures, the signs on that monuments of the
people, they call themselves protectors of the people, we call them
El Culto de la Piedra Tiempo. The symbols of the holy order.” He
looked at it in a concerting pose and sudden silence.

“
Piedra Tiempo???” Said
Tina. “I remember from my high school Spanish classes that this
means… Time Stone!!!” They both looked down at the large green
emerald in her hand and its curious abilities that they had the
opportunity to witness first hand. “This is what they are after,”
said Tina and the two thought the same thing looking at one another
now.

“
This is what they have
killed for and would stop at nothing to obtain, the ultimate power
that the ancient peoples of the Yucatan worshipped and the source
of control over the entire world in the future, the key to time
travel.” Said James. “So this rock we found is some sort of actual
time machine?”

“
The ancient cultures have
been known as masters of time.” Said Tina. “The ancients had a
whole mythology on it; they believed it was connected to the black
hole at the center of the galaxy.” Continued Tina. “Wait a minute,
so that symbol of the ancient culto is the same one worn by these
men, that’s why they want this” she holds up the time
stone.

James nods in response. “Do you think
we could travel in time with this thing? I mean we did travel in
time with this thing?”

“
Well, they say time is
like a river so if it is possible, it could revolutionize
everything.”

“
Wow” he said in response
sheepishly.

“
So what do we do now?”
Said Tina.

“
I don’t know!
Hmm.”

CHAPTER 65

“
Sometimes I wonder what time has in store for us. I know it’s
a complicated stream of consciousness and thought mixed with our
own inner emotions of anger and fear, pride, lust, rage, sloth,
gluttony, envy, greed, wrath. George Orwell once wrote ‘he who
controls the past controls the future and he who controls the
present controls the past.’ Are we doomed to repeat our own fates
as to that which makes us question our destiny?
” James thought as he sat outside of the library waiting for
his partner to return. He thought of the possibilities with the
time stone they had in their possession and what they already went
through to get it, being only scratching the proverbial surface.
“
From the past to the future the arrow of
time shoots,
” he thought,
“
is it really possible to shoot from the
future to the past?
” He looked up into the
clean dawning air. He wondered what it was all about. Then suddenly
Tina comes running towards him with a large box under her arms. She
is being chased by several of the ninja warriors, “la culto” James
yelled getting up and catching up to his friend as they ran
together into the desolate alleyways of the urbanized
community.

“
Let’s get going!” She
yelled and they ran passed the turned over garbage cans and bags in
the alleyway. The group of six men ran after them in synchronism
formation knocking over the dumpsters and stomping on the bags
emptying trash onto the floor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About a half mile away, Mercedes
Gonzalez exited a taxicab in the middle of downtown Seneca Falls.
She paid the driver with some crumbled dollar bills and slammed the
door. Looking up at the commercial buildings nearby, she sighed,
pushed up the sleeves of her brown sweater, and walked down the
sidewalk. She carried a large purse around her shoulder patting it
gently as she veered inside and saw the green emerald was still
there, its five orbs center shining in the partial light from the
daylight. She walked and wondered what to do next as she felt bad
about what happened to Juan Carlos and his mother in Mexico and she
knew she had to get out of town before those men in dark suits came
after her and found her. She thought how dreadful it was, the
entire ordeal, and wept uncontrollably as she kept driving the
carrier as fast as she could until she ran clear past state lines
in Texas, Georgia, and ran out of gas on a small suburb nearby. She
stayed there and did odd jobs for a while saving up some money
before it dried up and she wound up leaving and wandering around
until she found her way into a small dirt town on the outskirts of
Florida and called for a taxicab to Seneca Falls where she was told
there would be more solid work and she figured it would be far
enough away from the men in dark suits where they would never find
her. She walked down the street hearing a sudden commotion in the
distance, a loud roar of individual screams and wild laughter
followed by dark crinkled voices screaming in Spanish, “kill them”,
“find them now!” Mercedes saw two young people in their
mid-thirties run out of the alleyway near a bank, a man and a
woman, the woman had a box under her arm. Six men in black and red
ninja suits ran out of the alleyway after them. She jumped back in
shock and gasped as she saw them and recognized them from her last
encounter with them.

“
Oh my God!” She took off
running away from them unknowingly alongside the man and woman.
“How did they find me?” She thought as they caught up with the trio
and surrounded them forcing them to a standstill. The six men
circled around the trio who saw the menacing look in their captor’s
eyes that forced them back to back.

“
Who are you?” Asked Tina
abruptly.

“
Now is not the time,”
said James.

“
What do they want?” Asked
Mercedes rhetorically in a panic.

“
I think we got what
they’re after” said James beckoning to the box.

“
No, I do” Mercedes
replied motioning to her purse.

“
We got to do something”
said Tina. The lead man pulled out a dagger and held it closer to
them.

“
Give us the Time Stone!”
Said the lead man.

“
What?” Said
Mercedes.

James and Tina looked at one another
and Tina smirked, “you want it? You got it!” She tossed the box up
in the air and the top flung open with the time stone flying out of
the box and every pair of eyes was fixated on it. Mercedes was
shocked to see another one. The six men lost their circular
formation and scrambled to pursue the relic, including the man with
the dagger. Tina pushed her way through the crowd knocking down two
of the men with round house kicks. Mercedes lunged at one of the
masked men and punched him in the face dropping him to the ground.
As the others began to retaliate, James flung his right hand up and
curled his fingers repeatedly summoning a branch from a nearby tree
causing it to break off and flung to his hand landing directly into
it and then with his free hand making the same repeating motion
summoning and grabbing with his invisible reach the culto warriors’
shining baggy black attire and propelled them towards him and then
swung his left hand out with his right hand knocked them out with
the tree branch and pushing them back onto the floor. Then he and
Mercedes ran through the opening created by the melee and James ran
across the gauntlet of culto warriors lying on the floor, dropped
the branch, and caught the time stone. The trio kept running
together as the six men regained their composure and took off after
them. The trio got into an empty cargo van nearby that James
noticed had the doors unlocked. He entered the driver’s seat and
before he could say anything he saw Tina had boarded the passenger
seat and the new young woman who they befriended in the heat of
battle was between them in the back of the van leaning forward on
both seats.