The Time Stone (55 page)

James sits with Tina on
the stoop of an apartment complex in the meager community and
waits.

“What
are we waiting for Tina?” Asked James.

“Drax
said he needs to get something like a letter or postcard from
someone about someplace in the mail place here. He said he
recognized one of the people there and Mercedes went with him
because it’s best for us not to travel alone in this environment. I
don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Yeah”
he smirked wryly.

“
Tina, I was thinking a
lot lately about everything we have been through and what do you
think it all means?” Asked James.

“
You mean like ‘meaning of
life’?” Tina asked.

“
Yeah!” James exclaimed in
recognition. “Well I always grew up with the notion that we all
have a mission to complete in life, a destiny!” “I wish I still
believed that. After all the hardship and struggling we have been
through, it is hard to believe in anything anymore.”

“
I guess you got to have
something to believe in sometimes but it’s not always necessary”
Tina said.

“
I wish I could believe in
something… I feel that there is nothing left to believe in” said
James.

“
Do you have to?” Tina
asked.

“
I don’t know … It’s just,
how we can think we’re doing the right thing? Are we really helping
to make a difference or are we succumbing to every Satyr or other
villain that is out there waiting and ready to take advantage. It
just seems like it’s not worth it or is there another
way?”

“
Beats me” said Tina.
“It’s like with me. I never had a real family. I lost my parents at
a young age. I grew up in a boarding school after being abused all
my life and they were the only family I have ever known but it
wasn’t really the same. It was artificial. No one to really care
for me you know?”

“
Yeah.” James frowned
looking at his friend.

“
Now, being with you,
Mercedes, and Milton, I think I am starting to feel like what a
family is supposed to be like. You look out for one another above
all else and got each other’s backs all the time. I finally know
what it means to have a family, a real family.” She
smiled.

“
That’s good. But
destiny-wise, I think that I forgot what it is that I started
fighting for.” James said.

“
Maybe that’s why we’re
here. Maybe I’m here to remind you. We were put on this same path
together for a reason. It’s bigger than both of us.” Tina
said.

“
Sometimes, I feel I’m a
rebel without any cause.” Said James wallowing in utter sorrow,
depression, and desperation. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like
there is anything left in the world that is worth saving. I feel so
bad for thinking like that.”

“
I don’t think you can be
bad in anyway. You’re too sweet and good. You were blessed with
amazing powers and only used them to help those in need” replied
Tina wildly and passionately as she reached out and gripped his
hand. “James, there is hope in the shadows of doubt.”

“
You’re getting
philosophical on me?” James uttered.

“
I can read you know” she
laughed forcing a brief smile from him. “I know love and friendship
can be some things worth fighting for, otherwise I am clueless as
to what is too.”

“
There is this power I got
and something is growing within me that I feel sometimes I cannot
control or figure out a damn how it…I think it’s trying to break
free and I am afraid I won’t be able to stop it or want to.” James
added.

“
Maybe you’re not supposed
to or maybe it’s who you are really and what you’re meant to be.”
Tina said and smiled.

“
You think so?” asked
James.

“
You know what I think? I
think that when you are ready to do what you were meant to do, you
will do a great miracle. I know you have the potential to be really
great. I know it because just believing in it is enough. After all,
knowledge is power.”

He looked at her for a moment and
smiled but then frowned again. “Like I said, I don’t believe in
anything anymore. I don’t even believe in myself anymore.” James
said upsettingly distrait and focusing on his worries.

“
It’s ok if you don’t
believe in yourself,” she smiled after a long pause, “because I
do.”

“
Maybe I was wrong….”
James said looking at the skies above. “You know which the better
time is?” asked James.

“
What?” asked
Tina.

“
The next time!” Said
James. “Let’s go!” They got up and headed out towards the post
office at the center of town.

At the post office, Drax nodded to a
man with a postal uniform and strange mustache that stretched out
like whiskers on a raccoon.

“
Thank you” as he took the
letter from the man who scattered off.

“
What’s that?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
Something from an old
friend. When I recognized this friend of mine who works for the
postal service, I put it together that it’s no accident we’re
here.” Drax said.

“
What do you mean?”
Mercedes asked.

“
Remember when I explained
about experiments by the machination with human and beast DNA?”
Drax asked.

“
Yeah.” Mercedes
replied.

“
Well, the experiments
were also with time travel to pre-war effort periods of isolation
some operatives from the more successful experiment results were
sent here when a hole in time was erupted by accident. Some of the
agency’s original team existed here, even if later went elsewhere.
But others were back in the late nineteenth century, 1880 AD to be
exact.” Drax said.

“
How do you know that?”
Mercedes asked.

“
Because they reached out
to us by leaving letters for long periods of time in the post
office, like this one…” he held the letter up. “In short, we aren’t
the only ones in this century who are from the future!”

“
Who else could there be?”
She asked.

“
The other agents,
including our old counterpart, Broad Staffnight and the team that
disappeared that night from the Magnitude fortress for starters
also are trapped in time.”

“
The chanting in the
citadel that rainy night?” Tina asked rhetorically as she and James
walked up to their friends.

“
Exactly” said
Drax.

“
And where there is Broad,
there is a Satyr?” Mercedes asked rhetorically.

“
Indeed.” Said Drax. “They
want the time stone and they have killed for it and would stop at
nothing to obtain its ultimate power that the ancient peoples of
the Yucatan worshipped as the source of divine power and control
over the entire world in all of time, the key to time travel.” They
walk out of the post office together.

“
Did you get what you were
after in there?” Asked James.

“
Yes, this is it.” Drax
said.

“
A lousy letter?” Tina
asked.

“
Not just any letter” said
Mercedes “a message through time.”

“
Ooh…saucy” said
Tina.

“
But Drax, don’t you
already know what it is if it was received in the future?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
I was not privy to all of
them.” Said Drax.

“
Aren’t we altering
history by taking the letter now?” Mercedes asked.

“
Maybe but maybe we are
supposed to take it. Causality and fate are complex structures.”
Said Drax.

“
So what should we do?”
Asked James.

“
We send our own letter!”
Said Drax.

“
Just open it” said Tina
eagerly.

“
OK.” He tears open the
envelope and from within it, he unleashes a piece of paper with
strange writing on it in some foreign language he does not
recognize. “This is not familiar to me” said Drax.

“
What could it be?” Asked
Mercedes.

James reached out and touched it and
felt his mind turned inward and he saw a vision of the entire
universe again then an image of a beast, one he has seen before and
revered.

“
Dear God” said
James.

“
What is it?” Asked Tina,
“What did you see?”

“
Satyr!” Said
James.

“
He could have sent the
note?” Said Tina.

“
That cannot be!” Said
Drax.

“
But it must be true if
James had a vision from it!” Said Mercedes. A mysterious figure
lurks in the background watching them and pops out as they are
talking. “Satyr” they say almost simultaneously as he stands before
them, his appearance slightly different from what they were
accustomed as if he was younger in age and with less pronounced
hair and wingspan.

“
Do I know you?” He
said.

“
We’ve met in the future”
said James.

“
So the experiment has
begun sending humans. How pitiful. How I simply despise your kind.
And now I see you have obtained my letter meant for our
forbearers.” James took out the time stone as Satyr was talking.
“The eye of the Gods. It is the greatest treasure of all time.” The
winged warrior danced around them, his eyes glistening with hunger.
“I must have it. If you are from the future then you must know its
pedigree and danger to behold it. There is more to it than even you
know. If you care to look back in your inferior human intelligence
and think of what it might cause for mankind and your existence.”
Said Satyr with a hideous snarl.

“
Let’s just say we’re old
friends” said Tina “and he is the legendary holder of
stones.”

“
Friends with humans?
Never! I hate humans! Enemies is more like it. But the holder. That
is something, ha, ha, ha, a powerful being supposedly dedicated to
the preservation of mankind against the insolence of evil. How can
this mere hobo be the holder?” Satyr snarled.

James angrily waved his free hand at a
tree branch and it cracked open and went flying towards
Satyr.

Satyr hovered up into the air and
dodged it. “Impressive” he snarled at them. “What do you want dear
holder?”

“
We want to go back to our
own time unharmed.” Said Drax.

“
That is not possible. The
eye of the gods stays with me.”

“
I don’t think so” said
James.

“
Hey Satyr boy” said
Tina.

“
You know he’s not really
a Satyr” said Mercedes.

“
Close enough…” shrugged
Tina. She then turned to Satyr. “If you hate humans so much, why
don’t you just eat me?” She screamed. “I bet you don’t even know we
have some things common. You don’t know what the future is going to
hold and what good exists in loyalty and friendship” she said
humbly.

“
What are you yammering
about?” Satyr snarled.

“
We are meant to form a
union and something’s will happen that will be bad but we will be
strong together.” Tina argued.

“
That is ridiculous.
Humans are weak, inferior, imperfect.” Satyr yelled.

“
We are strong together.”
Tina corrected.

“
You conquer and destroy
for your own personal gain; you don’t care about anyone but
yourself.” Satyr observed.

“
You got us all wrong.”
Tina said.

“
Why should I trust your
race?” Satyr inquired.

“
Because we are the same
race
!” Tina yelled at the top of her
lungs.

“
What?” He gasped
back.

“
That’s right. Beasts from
your universe were once human. You lived in a human populated
world. Some mega mutant meta virus or something transformed you
all. You are living for hatred and intolerance not of something
else you fear is that of your own being!” Tina smirked.

“
Satyr, have you ever
heard of the legend, the prophecy of the warriors of the rainbow?”
Asked Drax.

“
What?”

“
It is a story from native
American legends that at some point in the future there would be
great disaster, including greed, corruption, and filth of the
earth, sky, and water caused by people and beasts a like. Then
there would come out of the darkness those who would change the
world for the better, offer cleaner ways of living and doing things
bring shelter and hope and overcome poverty, disease, hunger, war,
and drought. They would be of every race, religion, color, creed,
and lingo, and they would literally save the planet from
annihilation, they are the warriors of the rainbow.”

“
Yes,” said Mercedes. “We
have seen the future and what is in store and it’s not pretty.
Things have to start to change with us now and in all of
time.”

“
That is the way we can
hope to truly breathe free” said James.

“
You’re words are odd to
me but strangely familiar” said Satyr calmly. “I do not fully
understand but I see there is hope.” Satyr said.