Fools of us All - Chapter 14

I knew I should be scared. I could tell by how Caz was reacting. Her breathing had become shallow and her eyes were darting nervously back and forth. "What are mercs?" I asked, whispering to match her tone. I glanced around the corner carefully, watching as the two men standing by the desk questioned the admitting nurse.

The question seemed to startle Caz, forcing her to focus in order to answer. "M.E.R.C.s," she said, taking a deep breath, "are the counter-revolutionary force organised to, well, counter any revolution that may rise up. It stands for the Marshal Elimination of Revolution Corps. When things really started to hit the fan there was rioting in the streets. The M.E.R.C.s were formed to put down those riots, and they just stuck around to keep anything from happening again. They are absolutely brutal. There is no judge or jury with them - only the executioner. The last time I saw them they were shooting the hell out of the people working the time machine."

I nodded, the gravity of the situation becoming clear. "I'm just going to guess that they are rather high-tech, even in your time."

She looked at me with fear in her eyes. "In my time, a squad of twenty could make a dent against a normal army of hundreds, even thousands. The only advantage we had was that they were unable to find us. That changed the day I came back." I could hear a note of panic start to creep into her voice. "If they are here then all is lost."

My mind worked furiously. A quick peek around the corner and then I ducked back. We had some advantage. First, they didn't know where we were. It was quite possible, maybe even likely, that they didn't know what I looked like. Caz sure hadn't, so maybe these guys were equally clueless. Also, for all of their high tech gadgetry, they didn't know the area or the time. I, on the other hand, had grown up around Moose Jaw and I knew the terrain quite well. Plus this was my time, so I would be able to blend in, making discovery at least slightly harder. It wasn't much, but it was something. Plus, at least we knew the time machine was still working. Gently I grabbed Caz by the arms and looked her square in the eye. "Listen, we still have a shot. If we want to get out of this then we have to stay calm. Based on what you know, how many of them do you think there are?"

I could see that she was drawing strength from me, which terrified me because I didn't really have a clue what I was doing. But that didn't matter right now. We didn't have much time (that seemed ironic to me every time I thought about it) so I just had to keep acting like I knew what was going on."

I wasn't big on the intelligence side of the organisation, but I do know that the time machine takes great power and that the M.E.R.C.s are a very confident bunch." She thought for a moment. "I can't see there being more than three of them here, and it may be that the two we saw are the only ones here. They will rely on their advanced technology to try and flush us out, figuring that we will be easy to defeat."

"No, not we. You. I don't think they would know I am with you. All of the information that they can have is that you were in the hospital and you escaped."

"But they came from my time. Surely they could just look back in their archives and know it all."

I pondered this for a moment and then shook my head. "I don't think so. We aren't at a point in society where our every movement is monitored, and no one knows that I am worth watching yet. That means no records of any kind, and definitely nothing to tie me to you." Quietly we crept back down the hall, away from the main lobby. We would have to find another way to leave the hospital. Surely this place had a back door.

Sometimes I wonder at how much difference a second could make. If we had waited just a moment longer before going around that particular corner would things have worked out differently? I may never know. I do know I should have been more aware of my surroundings instead of lost in thought. The glimmerings of a plan were starting to form in my mind, but all such thoughts were thrown out of my mind when I heard a triumphant shout from the other end of the hall.

"Aha, I knew I'd find you punks. You aren't getting away from me this time!" A shot echoed in the hallway and I could feel the passage of the bullet zip by my face, his haste causing him to miss with his first shot. Without a thought I threw myself back around the corner and started running, hearing the slap of Caz's feet on the floor as she joined me. This was a bad situation. There wasn't anywhere to go but out into the lobby - straight into the teeth of the devil.

With a sigh I barrelled around the corner. "Run, girl," I shouted, not wanting to use her name around the M.E.R.C.s, who looked up with startled expressions on their faces. As she had guessed there were three of them. Two were standing at the desk, looming over the admitting nurse, trying to get info out of her. The third was against the wall, obviously watching to make sure they weren't taken by surprise. Perhaps he should have been looking harder.

On instinct I grabbed that one by the arms and shouted at him "You've got to help us, there's a crazy guy talking about time travel chasing us!" and then hurried on my way without daring to look back, following behind Caz who had passed me when I stopped.

Against all odds all three men snapped around, pulling out futuristic looking weapons, but not so futuristic that their deadly purpose was unrecognisable. I heard a surprised yelp behind me, followed by the sound of three weapons firing simultaneously. The sound faded behind me as I pushed through the automatic doors at the front, nearly bowling over Caz who was standing with her hands up.

Another M.E.R.C was standing about five feet away, his weapon held with a casual deadliness that a small part of my brain admired. He was raising one wrist to his mouth, likely to call his friends to join the party. "Wait," I said desperately, working on instinct. "You don't want to do that."

He cocked his head to the side. I wished I could see his face, but he was wearing some sort of helmet. The outside of the helmet was smooth and featureless, save for darkened slit where the eyes were no doubt watching me closely. His uniform was an odd mixture of extremely futuristic arcane. He was wearing boots that went halfway up his calves, and heavy leather pants were tucked into them. A separate chest plate, also of leather, covered his torso. He was wearing a shirt underneath the chest plate that ended in a turtleneck-like top which completely covered his neck. For some reason his arms were completely bare down to below his elbows where a pair of gauntlets started, covering his hands. Some gadgets were on the gloves, I could tell, though what they did I could not say. A belt with various pouches was around the waist. There were enough small lights that I could tell there was serious power behind the old-style look. The eeriest part was that it was all black, the deepest black I had ever seen.

His wrist stopped and slowly lowered. "All right, I'll bite." Even through the electronic filtering that his voice was going through I could tell that he was amused. "Why do I not want to contact the others?"

Surreptitiously I slipped the globe out of Caz's pocket. "Because of this!" In a smooth motion I flicked the globe just to his left, distracting him for only a moment, but a moment was long enough. His head moved that direction and at the same time Caz and I launched at him, covering the few feet before he could react. I hit him high and she hit him low. He went down like a sack of potatoes. I ripped off his helmet and punched him a couple of times, enough to knock him out. Quickly retrieving the globe we started running.

"Hey, stop!" I glanced behind me to see that the first three guys had come out. Putting on a burst of speed we headed around the corner of the building. I didn't know what to do now besides run. Suddenly another M.E.R.C. appeared in front of us, his weapon raised. We dived to the side, rolling through some bushes and coming out in the parking lot. The crackle of some high energy weapons was followed by a small explosion of dirt in the bushes, which quickly caught fire. Another shot rang out, hitting a car to our left."

I don't think they care if we come back alive," I gasped. Grabbing her arm I pulled her between a large truck and a white Firefly. I had noticed another M.E.R.C. at the other end of the parking lot. "I think they brought more than three guys."

She nodded, obviously having noticed the same thing. We were trapped.

I peeked around the bumper of the Firefly and noticed three M.E.R.C.s standing at the end of the row. They were putting together what looked like a large gun. A long tube was put together by threading one shorter tube onto another. It was mounted on a tripod. A blast shield was placed in front of the gunner's seat. Two metal pipes were inserted horizontally from the tube, just in front of the blast shield. Each tube ended in a padded square about two feet wide and four feet high. Two of the men seemed to hide behind these squares. A small slot on the blast shield opened. "Come out and you probably won't get hurt," came a voice. "If you don't come out, we'll blast you out...like this!" With that the gun swung around, aiming near our position, but not close enough to hit. The sound of a battery powering up could be heard. A sudden flash of light shot out of the tube, blinding me so I couldn't see what happened next. When my vision cleared, I could see that the loud crashing sounds I had heard had been a new Ford diesel truck being utterly destroyed. It was split in two, and those two pieces had flown through the air, landing on vehicles at opposite ends of the parking lot. "Whoops, forgot that it was on low mode. Next shot gets set onhigh."
I looked at Caz with despair. I couldn't see how we could get out of this. Except....

"I'd be more scared if you didn't look like you dressed in the dark. Is that what clowns look like in the future?" A few shots from the hand guns rang out, followed by another explosion from the gun. I glanced out and saw it had moved back a couple of feet. I understood what the squares were for - the gun had to be braced by the other two men.

"What are you doing?" Caz was still whispering, but she was doing it forcefully. I whispered in her ear for a moment and then looked at her in silence. She sighed. "This is the worst plan ever."

I shrugged. "It's also the only chance we have."

"But what if it doesn't work."

"Then we probably die. But if we don't try, then we definitely die." We stared at each other for a moment, and then she rolled her eyes."

I suppose we can't just keep throwing this stupid globe around." A small smile played around the edges of her lips, and her eyes danced with resigned glee. God she was pretty.

I banished the thought from my mind and took a deep breath. "Look," I shouted at the men in black. "I have plans tonight with your mom, so why don't we cut the chatter so I can make sure I'm not late. I'm going to go ahead and accept your surrender now."

An angry laugh answered my taunting. "I don't think you are in any position to be talking so tough, boy."

"Ooh, good comeback. You even used words with more than one syllable. I'd be more impressed but I find it hard to be scared pansies who are so insecure about their manhood that they need a large gun to compensate. I bet the women are all over you and your 'big gun', or do you have to give that back when you go off duty?"

Another pair of cars disintegrated in reply. I looked at Caz who merely raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes.

"Look," I said, taking a deep breath. "We'll come out if you promise not to shoot."

Silence.

"I may even apologize about the gun remark."Finally an answer. "Come out slowly, hands where we can see them. I promise no harm will come to you.

"Raising our hands above our heads we slowly rose to our feet and stepped into the open. I glanced at Caz and nodded before looking at the barrel of the large gun facing me. A helmeted head peered around the blast shield. "Oh, silly me," came the voice. "I lied." The sound of the battery charging up came through the clear morning air loud and clear. My heart leapt in my throat.

Beside me I could feel Caz tense up. As the battery reached full charge, she yelled out "Now!

"Three things happened all at once: Caz and I dropped to our knees, our arms covering our heads; we each slapped the button on the recall device that we had each placed on our wrist; and the man behind the gun loosed the round that was meant to wipe us from the face of the earth. It sped towards us faster than I thought possible. Pain like I had never felt before enveloped me, drawing me into a weird sort of darkness, and then I knew no more.