Through Your Eyes Page 16

  As I thought about Stowe’s intentions, more red beams of pain came right at me, first hitting behind me and then hitting the side of my left shoulder. The pain was incredible and I took cover, waiting for about two minutes behind a concrete pillar.

  I could hear the mob, they were here already, and no more than ten feet away from me. Now they were shouting and screaming at me, so they had finally found their voices. There were words, but not understandable to me, it wasn't any sort of language I had ever heard before. They gathered around me and I had nowhere to go, so it was a case of staying in my hiding place and get beaten to death, or jump out to face a red beam in my face and more certain death. They gathered around and started kicking me. I couldn't see through all the blows and lights.

  I heard an enormous scream. Abby!

  And then there was laughter. The same laugh I had heard before.

  And then...silence.

  The mob had stopped in its tracks.

  All the red lights disappeared.

  There were about a hundred people, real people, in the atrium, looking utterly bemused. Small children were crying, men and woman were walking around with ghostly looks on their faces.

  The good Professor, he must have done it. They were free!

  "Run," I shouted. "Run for your lives!"

  Definitely a movie cliché.

  And then the red lasers fired again, but this time into the crowd.

  I saw people fall, limbs flying and children silenced.

  Smithwick was still firing and the only way to get to me was through the people. I could barely walk, but I managed to stagger to the other side of the atrium, and hid behind another pillar, trying to draw his fire. Fortunately, his attention stayed on me, and the people started to flee.

  I could see Abby still trying to free herself from Stowe's grasp.

  And then he pulled out a gun and put it to her head.

  "Ok Berner, the game's up. Show yourself or she dies. Three seconds, that's all I will give you," said Stowe.

  I wriggled.

  I held the device.

  Surely it might work now; the Professor must have sorted out the power core. I could go back and stop Stowe before it had even started. Before he even got the chance to think about this strange world of his dreams, and definitely before all the megalomania could be allowed to come to fruition. When he had counted to two, I came out, showing him the device clearly in my hand.

  "Oh there you are! How good of you to join us," he said, as he pushed Abby to the ground.

  "Sod you, Stowe," I said, as I pressed my finger into my device.

  Nothing. Naught. Nought.

  Bugger.

  The game really was up. I hadn't pulled off the big Hollywood ending. I had no gun strapped with tape to my back.

  I silently cursed the Professor this time.

  I then felt a sharp pain in my arm as Smithwick hit his red beam at me. I fell to the ground, immobile, the device thrown a full twenty feet across the room from my hand. Smithwick slowly walked over to it and picked it up. I was on the ground in the worst shape of my life, bleeding heavily, my knee was no longer functioning, and both my arms were badly injured.

  "And now, Master Sam, I will show you the grand finale of my performance," said Stowe.

  He reached down and placed a helmet over his head that covered his eyes with a large red visor.

  Cyclops from the X-Men, I thought, or maybe I was thinking about Magneto?

  And then he opened fire.

  A huge red laser the width of four feet was flying at me.

  And then silence. I was in a bubble. It was familiar, green and golden; like a protective shield, warm and comfortable.

  It was then I looked across into the eyes of my older self and nodded to him.

  "Sorry, I'm late; it took longer than I thought it would. Only just got the device on line," said the Professor.

  I looked down at his right hand. It was a mass of blood and bone. He said nothing about it.

  He continued, "I can protect us for a short time, but we cannot move to another place. There is still some form of residual dampening in this room."

  We watched Stowe from inside the protective bubble as he continued firing. I couldn't see Abby anywhere. Maybe she had escaped and found a safe place away from all of this.

  Stowe grabbed Smithwick and shouted some orders to him. Smithwick smiled and used my device. He was gone. I didn't know how he had managed to use it without my DNA, but he had somehow got it to work for him. Stowe had clearly been busy studying over the last dozen years, but how had he been able to manipulate Smithwick’s DNA to match mine?

  Maybe Stowe really was brighter than anyone had given him credit.

  The beam continued getting stronger and stronger, and I could feel our protective bubble slowly buckling. The Professor held on with all his might and I prayed that Abby had got away and was safe somewhere, hidden from all this dangerous energy. This new technology was like nothing either of us had seen before, and we were struggling to hold Stowe off.

  Red beams were now mixed with green and golden ribbons. The Professor carried on trying to hold the odious toad off. The hum and buzz of the red beam was getting louder and louder. Stowe was cackling with laughter.

  He reminded me of the Emperor from the 'Return of the Jedi.'

  The Professor was getting weaker and I realised I would have to do something to help. As weak as I was, and with no device anymore, I held his hand firmly and looked him in the eyes.

  I screamed, "Take all my energy, Professor, take it all. I give you all my thoughts and everything I have, but please, end this, and end him!"

  The Professor held my hand with his bloodied stump and closed his eyes, so I copied him, allowing my thoughts and feelings to be at one with his. The power of multiplication, was that what Siris had told me?

  The green, grey and golden ribbons suddenly leaped out around us, pushing Stowe back with a start. Slowly but surely, the red beam started to retreat away from us. I felt a momentary surge of energy from within our cocoon, and then an outwards push towards the red beam. The incessant cackling from Stowe sounded like a distant echo now, and for a split second, everything went absolutely silent.

  This was followed by the sound of an exploding volcano.

  The explosion ripped us through the room and into the next. There was dust, smoke and burning all around us.

  I must have lost consciousness for a while and when I came to, I couldn't see anything through the cloud of dusty mist that engulfed the room.

  When the dust started to dissipate, an extraordinary sight was unfolding before me. A massive hole had opened beneath us where the marble floor used to be, the force of the blast had been phenomenal. We were protected albeit temporarily by the bubble, but what about Abby, where the heck was she?

  Presently, we looked up to the marble steps and could see the blood splattered face of Stowe. He was still alive, but only barely.

  The Professor ran off looking for Abby, and I looked at Stowe.

  "What's so funny, you coward?" I asked, barely able to stand or speak.

  Stowe said, "You really don't know do you. He's gone back; I've sent him back to you as a present. He's going to find you and deal with you, and you have no way of getting back to stop him. Even if you could get back, how could somebody like you ever stop someone like him?"

  "How is it even possible?" I asked, open mouthed and exhausted.

  That was all I could say.

  "We had your blood, ha ha, we had your blood, and so we changed his to match yours. The device is his now and you're history!"

  He cackled and laughed and was screaming expletives at me, his eyes set in a gaze of absolute hatred. His facial expression remained the same as his eyes gradually glazed over, and he slipped into his final sleep.

  "Rest in hell," I said, as I started the search for my friends on my belly.

  27.

  And so I started thinking to myself, those words from Stowe repeati
ng around in my head. His cackling laugh, etched into my memory, maybe he really would have the last laugh even after death.

  Where would Smithwick be going in time, to put a stop to me and the device? The more I thought about it, the more obvious the answer seemed to me. A point in time just before I received the device, in the pub or in Abby/Gemma's flat? Yes, it had to be the flat. That was the first time I had seen him, he was the builder/boyfriend, but definitely neither of those things.

  It was his hat I had found under the bed, but what of the dead body and then the disappearing body; none of that part of the crazy story made sense?

  I was scrambling around not quite on my gut, as I was able to push my shoulder off the ground with one of my arms that still had some use, and one of my legs was still functional. I felt like a crab, but I was not looking for any prey today. Actually, I felt more like a hermit crab, trying to locate my friends, and trying to find a shell to hide in.

  It was difficult to see in this place, as the dust was thick in the air, so dense in fact, that I was having trouble breathing through it. I raised the sleeve of my shirt to my nose and mouth, blinking through the dirty mist. Where were my friends, were they still alive? There was an eerie silence in the room punctuated occasionally by falling pieces of masonry; the crack and sparkle of live electric cables that were hanging from the ceiling, lying bare in the air.

  "Professor, Abby, are you here? I can't see anything. Are you alright?" I shouted, at the top of my voice.

  However, all I could hear were my own echoes. I flinched as another large piece of masonry suddenly came down from one of the big pillars, and crashed to the floor two metres from where I lay. To my relief, despite the fact that my whole body and eardrums were shaking with either shock or fear, I heard the distinctive voice of the good Professor, however, it was frantic with panic.

  "Abby, Abby! Where are you?" he shouted.

  Why hadn't he gone to protect her when he had a chance, I was mumbling, and why had he come to me first? He should have been thinking more clearly. He was wandering around at the top of what remained of the marble staircase.

  Where had she gone? Was she vapourised by the explosion, or perhaps she had fallen into the hole that I could see in front of me?

  I crawled around the rubble trying to help him. The whole room had caved in, and a hole of about fifty metres wide was dominating the centre of this great atrium. I couldn't see how far down it went, but it was glinting with little specks of light; reds and whites. The whole scenario was beginning to look like history was indeed unravelling and possibly repeating itself, as it had been foreseen by my previous visit to this place.

  But surely it couldn't be true. The Professor was going to find her sitting somewhere, fit and healthy, telling her wisecracks and making those constant derogatory quips about me.

  The pillar I had been hiding behind was now missing, and part of the ceiling had cascaded down on top of the rubble. I looked up to the other side of the room and could see the Professor more clearly.

  I realised something was seriously wrong.

  He had stopped and was crouching down, talking with someone below him on the ground.

  He had found her, just as my gut had told me he would.

  And as I slowly made my way round the giant room, desperately trying to avoid putting weight on my knee and all my other injuries, the picture around me started to make more and more sense. This had all happened before in my mind's eye; I had visited here before.

  I remembered a recent memory of a man standing over a crater or chasm, with tears in his eyes.

  And as I got closer, he was there, holding her in his arms, looking down into her eyes. He was standing on the edge of the crater, staring at the same chasm I had seen before.

  For a second, I thought he was going to jump into the chilling hole with her in his arms, but he remained perfectly still, apart from the tears rolling and undulating down his gaunt cheeks.

  The clouds in my mind started to lift, as I slowly realised the Professor was the Sam I had seen previously. He had sent me back to get the device presumably to save her. However, in this timeline, we had swapped positions, he held his own device and mine had been taken by that thug, Smithwick.

  And then it hit me.

  I had brought the device to him.

  I had fulfilled my promise to this particular Sam that I had visited once before. So who was this person standing in front of me, adopting the very same position that I remembered? It was the first thing I did when I arrived into Stowe's dystopian city. I gave the Professor his device. I had done what he had asked me to do. I had fulfilled my duty, albeit in a backwards kind of way.

  He looked at me with his grief stricken face.

  "Look at what they have done to my girl."

  His tears fell on her face.

  Her lifeless eyes of green looked back at him. I didn't know what to say other than to scramble around to him on my belly, and try to offer him something. No witticisms or charming one liners to cheer him, it wasn't the time or place. I just put my hand on his shoulder, as his entire body shook with grief. He coughed back the tears and spoke remarkably calmly.

  "Look at what they have done, fighting over the device like it was a toy. And look at the result. We must stop it. This time, I will stop it. I know you have been here before young Sam, but it is different this time. I need to use my device. I need to bring her back," he said to me.

  I looked at him and said, "Professor, think about what you are saying. I need to go back! If Smithwick gets back to me, then you and I will both be gone. It's absolutely imperative you give me the device now. I must make sure he doesn't change the past. He's tried and failed once, but he's more powerful this time."

  He was shaking his head and I knew that even in peak health, I would not have been able to wrestle it from his grasp; at that moment, I could barely stand. Grief, disbelief and love. All those emotions were in his face as he looked down into her eyes through bitter tears. I knew at that point he was going to do this his own way, and was not going to listen to any of my advice.

  He turned to me and said, "I'm sorry Sam, but I have to go. Siris warned me this day would come, that I would have to make a choice between her and us."

  He carefully placed her body down on the ground and sat with her. The device was now in his hand, and he looked like he was ready to activate it.

  I said, "He also warned us that we cannot undo what has been done if death occurs in any timeline. That person is dead. Full stop. You can't play with such things. The potential perils and consequences of dabbling with and then pissing off death are huge. What do you think you're going to achieve by running off with your device and with her? She's gone! If you go, I'm stranded. How then am I going to stop Smithwick? He will kill us both, right at the beginning of our story. I'm begging you Professor, please don't do this, think about it for just a minute. Would Abby have wanted you to do this?"

  He heard my words but was not listening to them.

  He looked at me and said, "There is a place I can go and find her again, but it is a long way away. I must leave you now. You can get back, Sam. You don't need a device."

  His mind was made up. I knew that look on his face, as it was the same look I had when I was being stubborn. He had already activated it as he held Abby. His voice was now just an echo as he and Abby were engulfed in green and golden lights.

  "I have already shown you how to do it. Remember what Siris taught you."

  And those were his last words for me before he was gone with Abby in his arms.

  I looked around the room and thought to myself, what the hell was I going to do now? People were still milling around, searching for loved ones and friends amidst the carnage before them. Some of them were working together, trying to lift the large pieces of rubble from others trapped underneath. The cries of the helpless bounced back and forth from the walls of this once mighty room, whilst bodies lay strewn across the atrium as far as the eye could see. All I could
do was remain where I lay, not knowing what on earth I was going to do next.

  I looked down at my useless leg, my knee was completely gone, and I had a large laser wound to my arm and shoulder. I was losing a lot of blood, but I couldn't really see which wound it was coming from, as I had received multiple injuries to my body from the mob. I thought my right jaw was broken too, as my teeth weren't meeting together; a large tender swelling was appearing on the lower right side of my face.

  I remained down on the ground and just waited. I didn't know what else to do. Where was the Professor going, and what on earth did he think he was going to do for Abby? It was clear that the ramifications could be enormous. Maybe, all along, we were reaping the consequences from the seeds he was about to sow, right here and right now.

  And I continued to lie there, bleeding on the ground with no one coming to help me. There was not much pain now and I could feel a cold sensation moving up my body, followed by my muscles starting to shake involuntarily. I looked up at the remaining lights on the ceiling and watched my vision start to blur. Slowly, the images began to double and spin around.

  The only thing I could think about was the song, 'Knocking on Heaven's Door,' like in that movie 'Lethal Weapon.'

  I could do nothing now, but wait to join Abby.

  28.

  I either slept, or lost consciousness for minutes or hours, but when I awoke, the room was empty of sound and life. The crowds of people milling around had gone, and I was, to my great surprise, still alive. When I say alive, I was barely able to see properly and my whole body was numb.

  I wondered how pale I looked.