The Time Stone (35 page)

“
Hello,” said Tina as she
walked closely but the neither the woman nor the big man was not in
sight in the small quarters. The living room was plain and clean
kept, notwithstanding the hot sands underneath their sandaled
feet.

They turned towards a separate tent
isolated yet connected and a woman came out and looked at them,
“what are you doing here?” It did not take them long to realize
that it was the same woman who nearly knocked them down.

“
You speak English?” Asked
Tina rhetorically.

“
Yeah, so do you.” Said
the woman.

“
We’re not from around
here” said Mercedes “and we wager neither are you.”

“
No,” said the woman
removing the white scarf from her head and face revealing her fine
dark hair, tannish complexion, and deep brown eyes. She looked to
be about thirty years of age. She had some bruising on her left
cheek. Both Tina and Mercedes stood in awe as she was an
exceedingly beautiful woman.

“
Is your husband home,
Ma’am, the big guy who left after you in the market?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
He is not my
husband.”

“
Sorry.” Mercedes
said.

“
He is more like my
master. I was not aware… women have no rights here, we are
considered property belonging to the first man who wants you and
claims you, and you have no say in the matter. I was taken by this
man and forced to live in his home subject to being beaten, raped,
or starved at a whim.” She shook her head wildly and shedding tears
while walking over to the window. “I am like a prisoner here. But
this is the law of the land. If I were you, I would watch out. It
is too late for me.” She shook her head.

“
No, maybe we can help.”
Said Tina.

“
We have a way out of
here.” “Really?” She veered her head back. “I’m Tina and this is
Mercedes, what is your name?”

“
Jenny…” she turned around
and looked at them directly, “Jenny Marte.”

“
Nice to meet you” nodded
Tina with a smile and Jenny reciprocated.

“
How did you get here
anyway?” Asked Mercedes curiously.

“
I still don’t know.” She
turned around and looked at them with an unexplained fear in her
eyes. I was on a dig in Egypt excavating a tomb of a long since
dead king and then there was a loud noise and a bright flashing and
swirling light. Something grabbed me and I felt like I was being
torn into pieces and surrounded by light everywhere, conscious of
nothing but light, then it lasted for only a few moments before I
was finding myself standing in the middle of a sandstorm and when
it faded, I was still in the desert but the environment was
completely different. An elderly couple nearby saw me collapse to
the ground and took me in and nourished me. I was with them for a
few days and couldn’t get a straight answer because of the high
position of the old man in the nearby government. I didn’t
understand their culture but I speak their language. Eventually, I
left on my own and found this place. I wasn’t here for more than a
few hours before Habarsh took me as his ‘wife’ if you can call it
that. He spoke in the same language. I understood it and I gathered
from my interactions with him that he didn’t have anyone else and I
was his first and would start his harem for him. I have been here
for three weeks from what I can tell. There aren’t any calendars
here so I have been using the sun. I studied Egyptian history in
college, including ancient and modern languages. I always find a
reason to do things to benefit my education. Boy, this culture is
different from what I remember studying in school. Archeology and
Egyptology are my fields. It’s weird that the language and culture
have been dead for over seven thousand years and yet they speak it
here like its modern. I don’t get it” she wept and Tina and
Mercedes looked at one another with a degree of intrepidity as they
bit their tongues. “Anyway, I tried to run away but every time he
found me and hit me more and more. I’m so scared I
can’t….”

“
It’s ok Jenny, come here”
said Tina offering her arms in a hug and embraced Jenny as she wept
uncontrollably.

“
I graduated with a PHD
from Yale and was the youngest person ever inducted into the
International Archaeologist Association. I mastered fluency in
forty-seven languages, both current and dead. I never dreamed I
would end up like this, a battered… I don’t know what. Every day I
wake up thinking it’s going to be my last day before he kills
me.”

“
Don’t worry, he won’t
hurt you again. I promise.” Said Tina as her heart melted and eyes
widened with tears in the moment feeling she never thought she
would meet another human being who suffered as much as she and
James did or worse, in this case, and she was able to make that vow
confidently that she would not let anyone hurt this young woman
again.

Mercedes stood and watched and frowned
in empathy. “Uh, Tina. Can I talk to you?”

“
Sure” she stepped away
patting Jenny assuring her it was going to be alright.

Tina and Mercedes stepped to the side
of the tent as Jenny wandered off into the next room and re-clothed
her head and face.

“
You thinking what I’m
thinking?” Asked Mercedes.

“
Yeah, it is very likely
she is from the future too” said Tina.

“
Uh, more like an absolute
certainty. That means she might have inadvertently found the Time
Stone on her dig. It must be around here somewhere.”

“
Not necessarily. Seven
thousand odd years have passed. It might be anywhere.”

“
It’s a start.” Said
Mercedes looking towards her shorter comrade.

“
Yeah. We should get back
to market. I don’t feel right leaving her here by herself when that
brute could return any time now.”

“
Yeah, Jenny” Said
Mercedes calling out and Jenny came out of the back room. Then
suddenly before they could speak, a loud eruption emanated from the
outside like a car backfire discharge. They went outside and saw a
masked man jumping out of the back of an oxcart and who started
attacking the villagers and turning over tables of goods and food.
He was a shirtless man with a muscular build and long silk pants
but a strange metal mask over his entire heads, large and
protruding in the shape of a pentagon and his eyes began to glow a
bright orange, with mechanical underpinnings in the nose and mouth
area like a strange breathing apparatus but with moving parts that
twisted in and out like flower petals blossoming. They also had
metallic transplants grafted onto their arms with a gun barrel on
each arm. The masked man knocked over an oxcart and then jumped up
and stood on the overturned oxcart as he held out his arm cannons
and fired them back into the crowd emitting projectiles of lead and
fire into the people and tents. One after the other exploded in
utter horror. He stood and appeared to laugh as his mask moved up
and down and the twisting petals on his breathing apparatus moved
faster. Tina, Mercedes, and Jenny stood in horror at the site. The
trio stood helplessly looking around and saw the endless suffering
appearing to them like it might have well been a slow motion
replay. They knew they had to do something.

“
This is wrong” said
Tina.

Mercedes looked at her with a sincere
look and straight face.

“
We got to go” said Jenny.
They nodded in agreement as he appeared to be recharging his arm
cannons by a small indicator on the devices as he set his eyes on
their tent.

“
What about these people?”
Screamed Tina.

“
There is nothing we can
do” said Mercedes. The three women ran as they heard a loud
explosion behind them and kept running as the tent they previously
occupied burned in a large scale inferno blast behind them. The
masked man jumped away and ran off.

The three women ran towards another
part of the village that was currently being evacuated as people
ran around screaming after hearing of the horrors in the grand
arena. Tina saw Drax and yelled out to him as he had been talking
to a tall slender gentleman in the native language in his attempt
to negotiate for supplies that were not going too well due to their
shortage of funds. The merchant was frantic to get away after
observing the chaos in town. Drax turns and sees them running
towards him. He waved goodbye regretfully to his new merchant
contact and walks towards them.

“
What the heck happened?”
Screamed Drax.

“
Masked man… had guns from
the future.” Gasped Tina.

“
Great Caesars Ghost”
screamed Drax in the midst of a sea of passerby people. He pointed
up as his eyes widened with shock and they all turned and saw the
masked man surrounded by a small army of about half a dozen men
just like him. “Let’s go” yelled Drax as the masked men jumped off
their stands and appeared to hover downward on a cushion of thin
air. The lead man jumped upward firing his arm cannons into the
crowd. The bodies begin to pile up on top of one another and the
other masked men join in and run into the midst. One cut through
the corpses with lightning fast running speed and trampled them
with his heavy boots vaporizing the dead and another ran upwards in
midair like he was climbing a flight of invisible stairs and
stepped on the heads of the living ones crushing them down to the
size of a walnut with a fiery pressure from his large metallic
boots creviced with a series of small projectile launchers letting
forth little missiles into the charred remains of the victim. The
masked man laughed as the victim lay on the floor and was being
fired at by the arm weapon. A third ran and dropped kick an
innocent family of four trying to flee the violence and fired
several small missiles from the soles of his boots when he was in
midair and vaporized them all upon contact and then landing on his
feet in the spot that they once stood. The others engaged in
similar violent acts. Drax reached for his hidden sidearm and
rolled forward aiming at the lead masked man and fired a series of
shots at him. The bullets fizzled in midair right before hitting
him and vanished in a flash of orange light. Drax’s jaw dropped in
awe, “they got some type of energy shielding around them. Run!!!”
Drax and his entourage were scattering throughout the crazy maze of
remaining bodies and charred corpses as well as the crying moans of
the living who were escalating in fear and panic in the enfeebled
horror unfolding before their eyes. The still silence was a lot for
them to handle and things seemed to unfold in an almost continuous
slow motion melodrama depicting the harsh realities of insolent
death, slaughter, genocide, and senseless violence.

“
James” yelled Tina, “use
your powers”. James nodded as he ran over to the masked men and
flung his arms wildly with all his might aiming at the masked man’s
metallic components but the energy shield began to fizzle with a
bright orange glow leaving the man remaining in his stance angrily
approaching them.

“
It didn’t work” James
yelled. Drax and his friends stood and watched, powerless to
interfere and face such lethal adversaries with firepower beyond
theirs at the time. They run off trying to assist as many of the
fragile and wounded and survivors, getting them to safety but could
not move them all. Some ran off and others were crushed by the
strong force of the violent marauders before them.

Drax recalled the old adage “better to
run and live to fight another day” especially since staying meant
certain death. They ran off away from the village square. Three of
the masked men pursued them and jumped onto small vehicles shaped
like motorcycles that hovered off the ground and were previously
hidden behind some crates. The masked men rode off after the
forgotten ones not stopping until all were eliminated. The hovering
motorcycles were long and had a finish made out of a shimmering
blue alloy that brightened in the sunlight and they increased their
speed. James, Tina, Mercedes, and Jenny duck down behind a box of
metal crates helplessly watching but avoiding the onslaught. One
hovering motorcycle past by Drax nearly knocking him down. He ducks
as another hovering motorcycle arrives and Drax seizes the window
of opportunity and jumps up behind the masked man riding the
hovering motorcycle and rides with the masked man until Drax shoves
the masked man off and takes control of the hovering motorcycle.
Another masked man followed Drax on his hovering motorcycle and
presses a button on the handle bars firing several small
concentrated yellow energy pellets at Drax striking his hovering
motorcycle throwing him off course. Drax maneuver’s around while
spiraling in midair and comes about successfully returning fire and
the masked man fires back as they head towards one another at
super-fast speeds, the pellets from one another’s handle gun bounce
off their respective energy shields with a glowing orange hot
light. The masked man fires repeatedly towards the underbelly of
Drax’s hovering motorcycle but Drax maneuvers his hovering
motorcycle dodging the pellets as his hovering motorcycle raised up
and off to be then chased by two more masked men on hovering
motorcycles. As Drax moves his hovering motorcycle from left to
right swinging it, he uses the momentum to flip it up and spiral
about near an approaching stone wall just as the masked men race by
him and are unable to stop crashing into the wall. Their energy
shields fizzle as the hovering motorcycles repel from the wall and
land on the ground with their now unconscious riders. Drax rides
off into the storm of yet another group of masked men on hovering
motorcycles that are firing their pellets at Drax’s hovering
motorcycle. Drax returns fire and keeps firing as the glowing
bright orange energy shield then appears as the pellets strike the
masked men’s’ hovering motorcycles, the same for Drax’s hovering
motorcycle having an energy shield as well, and a barrage of small
yellow projectile lines appear between them back and forth as they
are accelerating towards one another and Drax aims his handle bars
downward and fired a new series of yellow energy missiles that
struck the underbelly of the masked man’s hovering motorcycle
directly before Drax and blowing it up and the masked man’s
hovering motorcycle falls to the ground as the hover component was
knocked out. The masked man’s hovering motorcycle fell to the
ground and exploded with him still on board. Drax continued and
came about firing at the other bikers and having figured out their
Achilles heel and how to knock them down he targeted and moved his
handle bars downward first left and then right in a quick
continuous motion as he halted his hovering motorcycle to a stop
and fired at them striking the hovering motorcycles at one time in
rapid succession almost simultaneously in their hover component
knocking each down and blowing them up with their riders on board.
Drax stood and sighed a heavy breath as he watched the great
inferno devour the streets before him and quickly
subside.