“Very well,” Alain said reluctantly. “You will have all of the support and
protection we can give you, up to sending men outside the walls. They’ve been kicked in the teeth enough and I’ll not order them to suicide.”
“No need,” Gabriel said. “Allie. How’s the charging?”
“Less than a minute before we can send you on your way,” the hologram replied.
There was a sense of frustration from the copy in his head, as if she’d been trying to answer but the original had gotten to it first. It was a surprisingly human emotion, something he would not have expected from a computer, even one as sophisticated as Allie.
“Good,” Gabriel said. “Where’s the nearest console connected to the
mainframe?”
Allie pointed to a small workstation just outside of the door leading into the black fang of the control tower. Gabriel thought it might have once served as a security checkpoint on those entering the tower.
“Great. What do I have to do?”
Chapter 34: Gate Jump
“Stand there and touch nothing,” Allie said in stereo, the one in Gabriel’s head a split second slower, and he could feel her frustration over it.
Folding his arms, Gabriel watched and waited, feeling Sam’s eyes trying to drill holes in him. She could glare all she wanted to. She was not going with him.
Crowding in with keen interest, Alain watched the console closely as Allie’s
holographic hand moved over it. Gabriel could understand his wanting to know how a legend worked. There was something strange in his eyes though, an emptiness that spoke of the lights being on, but no one being home. His recent ordeals seemed to have taken a lot out of him.
“The keyboard can sense the touch of a hologram,” Allie explained in his ear.
“That is how I— she—can use it.”
Suddenly at his side, Sam clamped onto his arm with both hands.
“Here we go,” the hologram pointed to a clear area just outside the tower.
A blinding flash of light caused Gabriel to squint as a bolt of lightning seven feet high formed, crackling and spitting sparks. Splitting vertically, the lightning rapidly formed into a doorframe. The framed space looked almost like a reflective heat haze.
Nearby soldiers backed away in surprise, bringing their weapons around to bear on the Gate with uneasy shouts until Alain raised a hand and waved them away.
Gesturing to the shimmering patch framed by lightning Allie bowed deeply like a stage performer.
“Step through and next stop, six hundred years ago. You should arrive shortly before activation. There will then be thirty minutes until the black hole is created.”
Nodding, Gabriel stepped toward the gateway, but Sam held him.
“Don’t go. I’ll never see you again!”
“I have to,” Gabriel pried her hands from his arm, keenly aware of how many
people were watching.
Looking up at him, Sam seemed on the verge of tears. Her ears were laid back, and her lip trembled as anguish churned across her features.
“You’re never coming back. I know it!”
Turning, she tried to run, but he caught her arm and pulled her against him,
putting his arms around her. Struggling, she cursed and tried to knee him in the groin.
With a hand under her chin, he jerked her face upward and kissed her roughly. Her struggling weakened and she leaned into him. He could feel her trembling.
Gabriel thought that if he could live in this one moment for the rest of his life, he’d found what heaven was like. He didn’t want to leave her. He just wanted to be with her, to feel the heat of her body against his, to have the smell of her in his nose. But he had to go, because he was the only one that could, and he had almost lost her once. He couldn’t stand to see her in danger again.
Stepping away from Sam, Gabriel left her swaying. A shiver ran through her
right to the tip of her tail and she looked at him with a forlorn expression. Tears began leaking from the corners of her eyes and she made no move to wipe them away.
“I’ll come back to you. There’s nothing that can keep me from coming back to
you. I promise. Understand?”
Nodding, Sam stepped back, scrubbing tears from her eyes.
“I promise,” Gabriel repeated as he walked toward the gate.
“You might want to draw your pistol,” Allie said in his ear. “Who knows where you might come out.”
Too late. The second his hand brushed against the surface of the lightning-framed shimmer, he was sucked in. Everything went dark and bright flashes of color beat at him as he fell dizzily through nothing, feeling as though he’d fallen into icy water.
Consciousness was ripped brutally away from him and everything faded away into distant darkness.
*****
Leaning against the railing atop the wall with her back to the Apostle’s army, Kari watched as Gabriel kissed Sam within an inch of her life. Sighing, she turned away, unable to watch anymore. As a child she’d often fantasized about what it would be like to meet the perfect man with her adopted sister Mera. Gabriel even looked like what she imagined her future husband would. It was almost as though he’d stepped right out of her fantasies to sweep some other girl off her feet to a picture perfect happily ever after, leaving Kari behind to stew in jealousy.
A hand fell heavily on her shoulder and she looked up to see Jonathan smiling
insolently.
“Any more sighs outta you and I’d almost begin to think you’re in love,” he
laughed.
With a sniff, Kari turned away, his comment hitting too close for comfort.
“What’s wrong,” Jonathan’s grin slipped audibly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kari leaned against the railing with her back to Gabriel and Sam, looking out into the flat, sandy wasteland. Her tails hung over the rail into open space.
“If you say so,” he shrugged, joining her in watching the approaching army.
“What are those things?”
Scanning the cloud of dust, Kari occasionally made out the malformed shape of
something that didn’t even vaguely resemble any living thing that she’d ever seen. They would soon be fighting monsters most horrible.
“These people call them mutations caused by radiation in the air, but I don’t think that’s the only cause,” Kari answered. “It seems more like something is intentionally rewriting genetic coding to force those creatures into existence. If what Gabriel says about a paradox having already started in the distant past, perhaps it is actively twisting the people of this world as it tries to rewrite history.”
“I can sense the Apostle. She’s right up front and center.”
“What do you feel for her? And is it going to make you hesitate?”
Frowning, Jonathan folded his arms and looked away from her.
“Pity mostly. I think something horrible happened to her, and the reason she
wants to travel through time is to prevent it.”
“Cain is clearly exploiting her desires,” Kari sighed. “This is very bad.
Everything depends on stopping her.”
“So you said,” Jonathan nodded. “You’re too smart for your own good, little
sister.”
“You could be smart too if you weren’t so lazy,” Kari grinned at him.
He grinned back. “But why would I want to give up my lazy ways when I have
you to take care of me?”
Kari looked at her feet.
“I’ve known you all your life,” Jonathan placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hell, who do you think named you? That was all me, thank you very much. I know when something’s bothering you. Come on, sis, spill it.”