The Time Stone (60 page)

“
There is going to be an
attack. She was named Sylvia Armstrong.” Said Mercedes.

“
I know her” said Tina.
“The news lady.”

“
Yeah, she said she was a
reporter for CB-13 news and was doing an inside job on Temporo,
Inc. and found out they were planning an to sabotage some group
across town, a competitor, I don’t know but her discovery must have
caused them to accelerate their schedule and they have something in
orbit that is going to strike any moment now and cause major
destruction.” Said Mercedes.

“
That’s why they were
trying to sacrifice her. She was discovered.” Said Drax.

“
We got to do something”
said Mercedes. “This could be what James saw in his vision, what we
learned causes the great conflict. A major catastrophic
event.”

“
Oh no” said Drax. “In
theory such a catastrophe could be a temporal divergence that leads
to the future the way we saw it. That could be the coming they kept
referring to.”

“
They?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
Never mind, we have to go
now.” Said Drax as he fiddled with his wrist remote and said “I am
summoning the scorpion car to us.”

“
I guess this is the
better time” Tina smirked looking upward into the roaring winds as
the car approached them in mid-air.

Within minutes, they are racing across
the air in the scorpion car. “Here, Tina. “Said Drax handing her
the handheld scanner and told her to find the weapon.

“
How do I do that?” She
screamed.

“
Follow the yellow lines”
said Drax as he pointed to a red button on the front and slider
switch. The lines will lead you to a strong energy surge and if it
seems there is something big enough to be emanating a radiogenic
particle field, hit the red button, OK?”

“
Yes sir” she replied
holding the device carefully.

“
Mercedes, when I say take
the wheel; I need you to take the wheel, OK?”

“
OK” she said nervously
sitting in the seat beside him.

“
We got to find this
weapon and use the scorpion car’s primary weapon against it before
it can be deployed against its target and virtually end the world.”
Said Drax.

They both nodded in response to his
commands. They raced across the sky at lightning fast
speeds.

“
I am getting something”
said Tina. “It’s very big, radiogenic identified.…”

“
Hit the red button” said
Drax.

Tina pressed the red button as hard as
she could. The handheld scanner started beeping loudly and the
scorpion car was changing direction towards the heavens above
higher and higher. Drax pressed a button and converted the car back
to its scorpion attack mode and isolated the three of them in a
small self-sustained bubble. The car broke through the atmosphere
and into orbit zooming high above into outer space to their
amazement.

“
I have never seen
anything so beautiful” said Mercedes. The aura surrounding the
craft illuminated the space before them. The space was immense and
yet small as a vaguely lit dim vacuum. They saw a large object in
orbit, a metallic orb the size of a continent stretching on for
thousands of miles across and high.

“
That’s it” said Drax “the
weapon”. It began to glow bright purple and emitted small beads of
light energy.

“
Fire the weapon… let’s
blow it” said Tina.

“
Mercedes take the wheel
and began chauffeuring it in circles” said Drax. Mercedes got
behind the wheel and Drax climbed up to a second tier of the small
bubble they occupied where he sat up and held himself like a gunner
in a battleship. He pressed a series of commands on a panel and
within moments the scorpion weapon began to heat up bright orange
and almost instantly thereafter fire a projectile of pure energy
into the orb. The blast spread outward for miles but afterwards
they saw it did nothing.

“
It didn’t even put a dent
in the orb. “Said Tina. The Scorpion car’s main weapon blast
fizzled in the middle of empty space before the orb
object.

“
Damn it.” Yelled Drax. “A
shield.”

“
Try again” said Mercedes
piloting the car around in circles.

“
No use, we got to find
something else.” Drax said.

“
How about the time
stone?” Asked Tina.

“
That could work” said
Drax.

“
Uh oh” said Tina. “Look,
as she saw on the device a large buildup of radiogenic energy.
“It’s building up to something.”

“
It’s going to fire” said
Drax.

“
Mercedes get us back to
the planet now. Pull the wheel down.” He climbed into the cockpit
with them again just as Mercedes obeyed his order and pulled the
wheel down causing the car to spiral downward back into the
atmosphere’s majestic flaming roar surrounding the car. The orb
began to turn and the beads of light concentrated at a single
point. “We’re not going to make it” said Drax seeing they were in
the atmosphere but far from landfall. “We got to eject or we’re
dead” so he pressed a command on the console before Mercedes and a
small hatched opened up with a yellow and black marked lever. He
pulled it and the small bubble they occupied reared up and out in
the momentum of the falling car just as the orb emitted the beads
of light in a single focus concentrated energy beam down towards
the car striking it and obliterating it into several small
unidentifiable pieces. The bubble with the trio rocketed towards
the landscape below barely missing being hit by the intense beam of
light.

“
Wow, that was close” said
Tina. The bubble flew down burning up and surrounded by
flames.

“
Can we control where we
land?” Asked Mercedes.

“
Yeah, good idea” said
Tina “I can pick up a tall structure 3000 feet away.” She said
looking into the handheld device.

“
Steer a course” said Drax
as Mercedes navigated the bubble with the wheel in the direction
Tina pointed. The bubble zoomed down and came approaching a tall
building with a large antennae and then crashed down onto the roof
of the tall skyscraper dragging along the floor until coming to a
screeching halt at the edge of the roof near a small inner
structure.

“
Whoa” said Mercedes. “My
scorpion driving days are over I guess.”

“
Let’s go, we don’t have a
lot of time” said Drax popping the hood of the bubble open and they
all poured out. The darkness of the night sky was awe-inspiring but
pale in comparison to the destructive impact on the side of the
building they were on as the glass windows were broken and the
obvious remnants of an explosion were left charred into the side of
the building.

“
Looks like the missile
attacks stopped but this is obviously where they were targeted by
Temporo no doubt” said Mercedes.

“
We need to try something
else to destroy that orb.” Said Tina.

“
This is the key” she held
out the time stone glowing brightly. Mercedes and Drax reached for
it.

“
Whatever we do we have to
do it quick?” Said Drax the winds blowing fierce about them. Then
they each tried to pull away and the time stone disconnected into
separate parts, the five sides became disjointed and the five orbs
became separated, with one in each part.

“
Oh great we broke it.”
Said Tina.

“
Huh? It’s never done that
before” said Mercedes. Tina smirked.

“
Did you know about this?”
Said Mercedes looking at Drax.

“
I swear I didn’t” he
shook his head. “But this must mean something. We unlocked some
other possible potential for the time stone.” They each held a
piece.

“
We got to figure this out
and fast before that weapon strikes again.” Said Tina.

Then Satyr lands on the roof flapping
his wings.

“
Uh oh, company” said
Mercedes as they turned to face him.

“
What do you want?” Yelled
Drax.

“
I was cooped up too
long.” Satyr replied. “I am not here to fight. I was thinking long
and hard about what was said to me long ago, some odd seventy
years.”

Tina looked at her comrades and
remembers it like it was yesterday as they were there. “Yeah?”
Asked Tina.

“
We are the same race and
I know it now. My misgivings were compounded by ages of hatred and
prejudice. I am ready to begin a new and work towards a brighter
future.”

“
That’s sweet Satyr” said
Tina.

“
Yeah except no one is
going to have a brighter future unless we destroy that orb.” Yelled
Mercedes.

“
We got one shot” said
Drax. “But we don’t know how…”

“
The solution to stopping
the Alchemic Orb is to unleash the time stone’s ultimate potential,
a direct shot upward harnessing the type 3
quantum-chronoians-posian particles drawn by the device from the
space time continuum will annihilate the orb by accelerating the
temporal divergence process and ultimately pushing it out of phase
with this reality and it will not be able to survive nor impact
this world.” Satyr said.

“
Time as a weapon” said
Drax confidently.

“
How do you know this?”
Asked Mercedes.

“
I ate a scientist” he
grimaced to their dismay.

“
Let’s make it happen”
said Drax. They walked over to the center of the building. Satyr
grabs a piece of the time stone too leaving Tina with one outer
piece and one inner peace.

“
If only we had one more
person.” Said Tina sadly thinking of James. Then suddenly a white
light appeared overhead as a vortex opened releasing the white
light they last saw in the desert, the calming and peaceful halo
remnants of their comrade James Timewalker.

“
Is it the weapon?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
No” said Tina, “its
James” she felt his presence, peaceful, carefree, joyous, loving,
and warm. The light spread over them in the night sky.

“
Amazing” said
Mercedes.

“
Also look where we are
standing” said Drax, “there are five corners to this building like
the time stone. Maybe if we all stand in one corner and put our
faith into this light entity being our friend it will be enough to
tap into the time stone’s power to stop the attack wherever it
is.”

“
A good defense is a good
offense” said Mercedes. “Anyone know whose building this
is?”

“
Beats me but we got to do
this or we don’t stand a chance at beating the orb.” Said
Tina.

“
Let’s do it” Said
Mercedes.

“
OK, everyone to your
places. Said Drax. Tina, Mercedes, and Satyr went to a corner of
the building and Drax took the extra piece middle section from Tina
and placed it in the central corner where the white light
concentrated and set itself.

“
I hope this is you James
old buddy old pal. If so, we will find out.” Said Drax dropping the
fifth piece of the time stone before the white light. Then he ran
over to the other corner.

“
Let’s do this” Drax
yelled “put our faith in the white light and in each other. We are
one!”

Together they held up the time stone
chards they held and the light elevated the fifth piece off of the
ground by its own psychic energy having its own life. The five
pieces began to glow.

“
Concentrate everybody”
said Satyr. Then in orbit the orb spun around and began to generate
the light beads around it at a focal point ten times as large as
the last burst it let loose and in an instant it was intensifying
in its preparation to fire the weapon. A beam of yellow hazy light
emerged from each time stone chard on the building roof and the
five pieces each shine a light that met in the center and combined
to form a large circular loop of light energy that intensified and
in an instant fired upward just as the orb fired downward, the
individuals below felt themselves combine as if they could hear
what each was thinking, their respective concerns for the future,
the orb’s projectile was then neutralized by the blast from the
time stone galvanized by the white light being’s own aura as it
continued upward to the orb blasting it in a horrific explosion as
the mass debris from the orb scattered itself with concussive force
throughout the planet’s orbit and atmosphere burning up the
incoming fragments exploding in the air like fireworks over the
night sky as the lights dissipated. The fragments exploded and
clearly faded almost instantly upon impact. Tina, Mercedes, and
Drax jumped for joy as they witnessed the event and Satyr nodded in
retrospect smiling gleefully. The white light being faded up into
the air as if bidding them a final farewell into the vortex that
opened for it and closed thereafter and the crew remained staring
up into the sky forever focused on the future.

“
The good book observed
‘[f]
or as the lightning comes from the
east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of
man.’ Matthew 24:27.” Said Mercedes smiling.

The group stood on the
edge of the rooftop together as they saw the remnants of the device
explode and phase out into the atmosphere in a flashing display of
lights and colors.