Out of Time by Ryan Matthew Harker (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

“Ow!” I cry out and lay back down. About now I realize I’m lying in some kind of clear, frosted tube-like coffin thingy. What?!

“The bed wasn’t real,” Sammi explains and begins removing the plethora of apparatus from my naked skin. I feel pinches and pulling accompanied by pops and hisses as they’re removed. “It was all a dream.”

“A dream?” Now I’m even more confused. “How could it have been a dream. It was real, I was there. You were there. Wolfman was there.”

“Wolfman?” Sammi shakes her head. “I’ll have more time to explain after we get out of here.” The last wire comes free with a pop. “Come on, Davey, get up.”

Sammi helps me climb out of the plastic sarcophagus, to my very unsteady feet, and guides me over to a locker standing on one side of the room. Inside are my weapons, and my clothes, which I’m grateful to get on quickly as my frazzled senses finally register the fact that I’m shivering and my teeth are chattering. Inconceivable as it seems, Khronos sits next to my Colt. I drop him in my inside coat pocket before depositing the Colt next to him in its holster. Gratefully, I sit down on a low bench of rubber next to the locker and drag my boots over my feet. Along with my coordination, my dexterity seems to be malfunctioning and Sammi has to help me tie them. This whole ordeal has my curiosity greatly aroused but I bite off any more questions, concentrating on the task at hand. Sammi’s obvious discomfort at being... where ever it is that we are, has transferred to me as well and, as she insists, all I’m trying to think about is getting out of here.

With my clothes on and my weapons strapped a clear head returns to me, mostly. I follow Sammi as she leads me from the sarcophagus chamber.

Close quarters is the name of the game and Sammi has her hand cannon drawn. I follow suit and pull my Colt from its shoulder holster, saving the AR strung over my shoulder for when we get out in the open. Sammi’s making no use of stealth in our flight, so neither do I. Twisting, turning, panting! I’ve got to quit smoking!

“Where are we going?” I wheeze between gasping for air.

“To stop the Zenociders!” she shouts back at me.

“What?!” I manage to sputter. I am, without a doubt, getting sick of saying that word.

“I thought you said we were escaping?”

I lean hard against the wall next to her as she suddenly stops short and takes aim around the corner. Boom! Boom, Boom! Her cannon jumps in her hand and she takes off running again. I’m barely a step behind her.

“We are,” she tosses a smile over her shoulder that would’ve made my knees go weak if I weren’t for running for my life. “But we have to shut down the Chronicler first!” I’m more than a little envious of the fact that Sammi can run and yell at the same time without seeming to break a sweat. What the hell? She smokes too.

“What?!” There I go again. “You mean we’re in the DTA building!”

“Yes.”

We pass a heap of smoldering Zenociders.

“How the heck did we get here?”

“Later, Davey, later!” Oh, brother, just like a woman to leave a guy in the dark. If things go wrong later, I better not get the blame.

I sure haven’t had a lot of choice in what I do or don’t do lately. At least this is something I want to do, just not exactly how I expected to do it. I throw Sammi to one side and level a Zenocider to the roar of my Colt. It doesn’t boom like Sammi’s hand cannon does but it suffices. The Zenocider’s faceplate shatters and it drops.

“Fine then,” I tell her. “How far do we have to get there?”

“Only twenty stories,” she grins again.

“Only?” I mutter as she starts running again. I take off after her. “We should find an elevator!”

“Can’t! They have all the elevators stopped and watched! Did it when I came in after you!”

Great. “Stairs then?!”

“Heavily patrolled. We’ll have to fight our way down!”

“I was afraid you’d say that!” Twenty stories, huh? Closer quarters even than these corridors, heavily patrolled- I check my pockets- and I’m running low on ammo; for the AR as well as the Colt.

“Well it’s been a good ride,” I say.

“What?!” it’s her turn to ask this time.

“Nothing!” I’m air hungry. “Never mind!”

I see the door marked ‘STAIRS’ at the same instant Sammi veers off towards it. It’s now or never, I think, let’s get these sons of sons of guns! But it’s not quite now as we’re almost to the door and Zenociders swarm like a knocked down nest of angry hornets. This isn’t going to help my present ammo shortage. I’m glad Sammi’s hand cannon doesn’t require reloading. At least I haven’t seen her reload it yet. I hope it doesn’t!

Sammi unloads into the horde while, my fingers dug deep into her shoulder, I pull her back towards the shelter of the last corner we’d rounded. The Zenociders scatter while raising Cain with their fingers. We reach the relative safety of the corner. I slip the AR from my shoulder and slide the bolt back, jacking a round into the chamber.

“Git back!” I shout at Sammi, waiting for the fingerfire to die down before slipping the barrel of the assault rifle around the corner and giving Hell.

Smoke and hot lead erupts from the AR’s barrel and Zenociders jerk and spasm, dancing a funeral dance of the dead to what deity I can only begin to imagine; or at least would if I’d begun to care. I retreat back around the corner, dragging the barrel of the rifle with me. There were six visible, now I count two, with more on the way. A thirty round clip isn’t enough. I should have gone with the drum, or even the double drum. Yeppie, I can easily see this situation warranting a hundred rounds. Easily.

I pop the magazine and slam another home.

I’m dialed in, at the ready now. I peak around the corner of my vision and volley another thirty rounds. The remaining two drop but as far as ‘the more on their way’, there’s seven left. Seven?! I’m tempted to say it again but I hold my tongue... of my thoughts... or, well whatever. So, there’s seven left, no problem, I can handle this.

A peripheral hollers from the sidelines of my lizard brain and I spare an eye for what’s taking place next to me.

Sammi has her hand cannon laying in the palm of her hand, right side up. The right side? Yes. Correct? Yes. The right side of it is up and she’s desperate to pull a little lever on its side from up to down. I don’t even understand the technology but it’s readily apparent her efforts are misdirected. I reach over casually and flip the lever form up to upper; it moves. I’m not sure what’s about to happen.

Sammi lets out a squeal of delight and shovels me backward. This was a possibility I’d had the forethought to consider.

Did I say seven? What I meant to say was one. In two shots: whatever it was she (I) did to her pistol rips through six of the more than half dozen Zenociders that eclipse the room which holds the door to the stairs. I have to admit the guns I’ve brought from the Twentieth Century pale by comparison. Perhaps it’s time to upgrade.

Unfortunately we have more visitors. They come more slowly this time, hesitant before what is most decidedly an unexpected onslaught on our part. Creeping into our anteroom of death one at a time, fingers at the ready, the Zenociders only make it to three this time before their numbers run dry. It’s mostly an educated guess on my part but I’m pretty sure their backup has expired; at least for this floor. Three isn’t so bad. I think we can take them. No, B.S., I’m sure we can take them, and, Sammi does. Take them I mean. Another blast from her hand cannon and the scope of our exit is clear. Excellent!

“Now!” I rush for the door. Sammi follows. I bounce off of it. Locked! I shoot the vicinity I think the locking mechanism to be in and try again. This time the door flies wide to expose the stairwell. We venture cautiously onto the landing.

“Down,” I suggest and feed the Colt a fresh clip.

“Down,” Sammi agrees and flips the lever on her cannon back down.

Down it is. We hit the stairs, two, three at a time. Every floor comprises two landings, which our feet barely touch. For the first three floors, we’re lucky, no opposition. Then it hits the fan. Zenociders, and lots of them. Fingerfire flashes past our heads, singeing the walls above us. We’ve got the high ground though. They don’t stand a chance.

We make it another three floors before running into the next batch. This time there’s more of them, and they’re better prepared. The Zenociders actually force us back up two floors. Sammi, it seems, doesn’t like to lose ground. She produces some sort of grenade from the folds of her swaddles and drops it down the stairwell. The concussion is deafening but it does the trick, the way is clear once more.

Rushing through the smoke and debris we regain the two floors we’d just lost and make another five before the next encounter. Only three this time. Sammi switches the lever and her cannon makes short work of them with one shot. Down, down, down, donward and downward we go.

We’ve got nine more floors to go. Zenociders bombard us on nearly every landing now, growing thicker in numbers as we fight our way down. Trying to conserve my dwindling supply of ammo I let Sammi and her hand cannon do most of the work. Along with a handful of her grenades we persevere, finally, and tiredly, clearing the way and making it into the DTA building’s basement levels.

Once on the proper floor we cautiously leave the stairwell, reentering the hallways. Dark, dingy, damp hallways, they remind me of the sewers surrounding Cocoon Town. These halls are wider, taller than the ones in the upper levels so I holster the Colt and bring the AR into play. I’ve only got five clips left. I pray they’ll be enough to overcome whatever obstacles Ras throws in our way.

Sammi and I advance down the hall. Everything’s quiet, a little too quiet. I don’t like it. After all we’ve fought through to get this far, to suddenly face no one, it smells like herring left out for a week in the sun. Despite my misgivings we make it down the hall unscathed and unchallenged. I feel even more wary because of this but there’s little help for it. We’ve come too far to give up now, we must press on, shut down the Zenociders and stop Ras!

There’s a large steel door set into the brick at the end of the hall. We reach it and I see a brass plaque riveted to its center that reads ‘THE CHRONICLER’.

“This is it, we’ve finally made it,” Sammi whispers.

“We’re not out of the frying pan yet,” I tell her. “Let’s get this over with.”

Next to the door is a small keypad. I approach it thoughtfully. The door needs a code to open. Drat! I pound the wall with my fist.

“The door needs a code!” I hit the wall again. “We can’t get in. What are we going to do now?”

Sammi puts her hand on my shoulder. “Here, Davey, maybe this will help.”

I look at her. She’s got that incredible smile on her lips and a little, black book in her