*
General Wertz flinched as steam shot out of the vents of the ascending elevator. The elevator jerked, stopped, and he threw open the gate. Fixing his uniform, he scanned the murky corridor leading to the cafeteria, med-lab, and jump room further back. A queer expression suddenly came over him when he spotted an unconscious soldier at the foot of the elevator. He reached for his sidearm at the same moment a clenched fist broke across his jaw. Taylor charged at him, forcing him back into the elevator and wrapping his fingers around the general's throat.
"Where's Lanza? What the fuck have you done with him?"
Wertz fought against the hold, despite the pain from his fractured jaw.
"Where is he?" Taylor repeated, squeezing harder. His other arm, his right, was adorned with the cumbersome golden torch, which hung limply at his side.
"The 33rd floor!" Taylor growled back at the elevator panel. "Take me down there now!"
"Sample required," replied an officious voice from an overhead speaker.
Wertz spit a mouthful of blood into Taylor's eyes then raised a knee into his groin. "There's your sample," he heaved, rubbing his inflamed throat.
Taylor dropped to the floor, hands gripping his testicles.
"Dirty bastard," he groaned, waiting out the pain.
Wertz looked numb as he dabbed at the blood pouring from his mouth. "Every fight is dirty. I was coming to kill you." Taylor heard him gulping blood. "Those ghouls below wanted to keep you around but this base isn't big enough for the both of us."
Wertz crushed Taylor's fingers with his bootheel, then kicked Taylor in the side of the head. Crumpled, battered and bloody, Taylor tried to remain conscious as Wertz jammed the barrel of a gun behind his left ear.
"Don't hurt him!" shrieked a red headed boy from the corridor. Michael Hopkins, the orphaned survivor, along with 24 of his friends sprinted from the cafeteria and mobbed Wertz in the elevator. They screamed, pulled and reached for the general's gun. "Get out!" Wertz roared, unsure how to respond.
"Leave him alone!" they cried, tugging his badges and belt. Taylor crawled to a corner, picking himself up as Wertz fired two rounds into the ceiling. The roar of the gun sent the kids fleeing down the corridor, but their efforts were enough to give Taylor the time he needed. He bashed Wertz in the face with the five pound torch, eliciting a sickening crunch.
"33rd floor!" Taylor panted at the panel. "You hear me? 33rd floor, bitch!"
A short needle extended from the panel. "Sample required."
Wertz chuckled through a mouthful of broken teeth. "Nowhere to go, Taylor! You need authorised blood, and you ain’t authorised!"
"But you are!" Taylor growled.
Grabbing Wertz by the hair, he rammed his face into the needle. Wertz twitched and slumped while his blood ran down the intercom. Taylor threw across the gate and collected the gun as the dripping needle receded back into the panel.
"Sample approved. Sterilization complete."
Apprentices in black reached greedily for Lanza's wrists and stretched him out before the fireplace. At his head, a naked and glistening Christian pressed his plump hands over Lanza's ears, holding his head in place. Beside Christian was his skeletal spouse, exposing her serrated smile and stroking a dagger across Lanza's forehead.
"We have offered our tongues!" slurred Christian, barely discernible. "We offer our master a brain! One of our very finest!"
"KING'S MIGHT, GLORIOUS LIGHT!"
Lanza closed his eyes and readied himself for the end as the old witch pressed her dagger against his head.
BANG!
The Pride convulsed at the gunshot. Mrs. Christian's head snapped back and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. Lanza opened his eyes and exhaled; Christian meanwhile scrutinized the gaping hole through his wife's head, and Hamilton Taylor holding the smoking gun.
"Back off you sick fucks!"
Taylor trained the gun over the majority in black but they remained staunch, unmoving and unafraid.
"This is bigger than you, Taylor!" Christian said, pulling the dagger from his dead wife's hand. "Bigger than us, bigger than the world!"
Taylor held the gun straight yet those in black moved in. "Stay back!" he barked, letting them all have a share of the barrel. "You bastards, I fucking mean it!"
"Death is only the beginning!" Christian roared over The Pride's frenzied response.
"KING'S MIGHT, GLORIOUS LIGHT!"
"Taylor we are all willing to die for our master! His might and his light, oh we are all willing to die!"
"Prove it!" Taylor returned. He aimed the gun at Christian's heart and pulled the trigger. The click of an empty magazine caused the perverse Pride to howl with laughter. They advanced, and a petrified Taylor stepped back.
"Don't worry Karl! I'll think of something! There's always a way out!"
Strung up and at the point of Christian's dagger, tears flowed down Lanza's face as he confessed: "Hamilton, it's not a comet. It's not a com - "
Lanza writhed as the fat man stabbed him in the forehead. Taylor's legs buckled and he covered his eyes from the horror. Christian stabbed again, then again and again. Panting and with an erect penis, Christian rubbed Lanza's blood over his bloated belly before tossing his brilliant mind into the fire.
"The jump room," Taylor hissed, wobbling as he stood. Turning to run for the curtain, a familiar voice cried out.
"Ham!"
Taylor experienced a painful wrench in his stomach, a sensation that stopped him in his tracks. Only one person left in the world called him Ham. The ache consumed him as he turned to face The Pride and the source of the voice. He prayed it wasn't, but he knew it was - there was no mistaking it.
"Donald," he whispered.
Donald threw back the hood of his black cloak and raised his hand, gesturing his brethren back while he stepped forward. "Ham," he begged, clasping his hands together. "It's a long story. This was an offering, that's all. Honestly I,"
Beside Donald, Sylvia flung back her cloak and snatched her husband's hand.
"He's not your family, Donald. Not anymore."
Taylor withdrew, shaking his head, incredulous. He had no words.
"Your brother is one of us!" declared Christian, raising his bloody hands in the air. "It is never too late, Taylor! We want you with us!"
A pitiful looking Donald outstretched his hand to his older brother. "Ham, just do what they want, okay? Life will be so much easier if you just do what you're told."
"This is a nightmare," Taylor mumbled, still shaking his head. "This has to be changed. I have to stop this."
Taylor turned, taking off through the billowing curtain.
"Stop him!" Christian shrieked. "He can't make it to the machine!"
Pure adrenaline pushed Taylor through the smoky den, down the gloomy cavern corridor and towards the elevator. He didn't look back and didn't need to. He could hear their howls and stomping feet gaining on him.
Entering the elevator, he threw across the gate as fingers fumbled through the gaps. He couldn't see if Donald was among the hissing and screaming throng. He would deal with that later, if there was a later.
Wertz groaned at Taylor's feet as the elevator began to rise. Steam shot from the vents but Taylor, lost in thought, did not flinch. A startling red light flashed throughout and a piercing alarm wailed like an air raid siren. His hair was wet with sweat and his pounding heart felt like it could burst from his chest at any moment.
When the elevator reached his desired floor, Taylor threw the gate aside and darted down the hallway in a race for his time machine.
Under a disorientating strobe light and the whining alarm, Taylor put his shoulder into the Janitor's office door. He wiped his face and gazed at the console covered in levers, switches and flashing lights.
"Fuck it!"
He threw down levers and slammed switches, acting on pure instinct, until he achieved his goal, until the machine stirred.
Golden lights flashed
and a rumbling charge built within the copper ellipsoid. Taylor yanked down another lever and the turbines roared into life. He then bashed his fist on the largest switch on the console, kickstarting the jump room with a brilliant surge of light.
He grinned like a madman at the power rumbling underneath him, power enough to pierce the very fabric of space and time.
After several turns of the squeaking wheel, he pulled open the hatch and ducked inside the jump room, slamming the hatch shut with the sound of clanging steel.
The golden ellipsoid's electro-magnetic forces caused the hair on his head to stand on end. Sliding to the centre of the chamber, Taylor stopped over the red circle. Before he could secure the harnesses to his wrists, he was blasted back by the first wave of intense energy. Spinning like a top, he grunted and grasped his stomach as exotic radiation coursed through his flesh. The torch's power gauge rose from 0% to 25%, and while the second wave built in the vents, Taylor crawled one hand at a time toward the red circle, skin glowing like a malfunctioning flashlight, fingertips sparking like a Tesla coil. He wore the pain on his contorting face but there was no going back.
At the observation window, a blood soaked and naked R.C. Christian, along with his fellow Pride members, arrived to yell and pound on the glass. Taylor squinted at their furious faces and inaudible curses as a guilt ridden Donald joined them. The glass bounced back their fists and with no weapon to hand, a frustrated Christian threw a chair at the unbreakable glass.
Taylor reached out to the harness as the second wave struck him. Stronger and brighter, it flung him into the observation window, leaving a bloodied smudge on the glass. In the janitor’s office, members of The Pride ran their eyes over the displays, hoping to see Taylor's dead body. Donald ran to the hatch and put all his strength into cranking the wheel, but the pressure inside was too great. The hatch would not budge. The process could not be stopped.
The torch read 50%. Battered and blazing with an internal light, Taylor inched towards the centre of the crimson circle. Screaming all the way, he snagged the harness belts and wrapped them around both wrists. As the third wave hit, it's burst of energy revealed Taylor's skeleton stretched out in mid-air while he clung to the harnesses. The torch shone like a bright new sun, causing the observers at the window to recoil from it's ethereal light.
Taylor landed face down as the fourth and final wave made ready to fire. Somehow, inexplicably, still conscious, he was no longer made of flesh and bone, but of light.
The torch read 75%. Taylor glanced weakly at Christian, Donald and The Pride. Lifting his left hand, he smiled, extending his middle finger moments before the final blast of energy struck him.
The flash was over as soon as it had arrived. The generators settled, the turbines died, and the jump room was left in darkness. Crossed over the red circle were the two straps of limp harness, and nothing else.
— CHAPTER TEN —