Second Paradigm (22 page)

She found what she was looking for in his eyes. “I see. Respect and admiration, for his wisdom. That is why you let him go. He has grown, Sensei. He is much stronger than he was when you encountered him. I did not know him, but I can see it clearly in him.”

Arbu shrugged, “Undoubtedly, this is so. But it is you sitting across from me, not him. Does this not make you question this situation? What have you overlooked that he would not come to simply deal with me himself? What are you missing, since he is obviously also much stronger than you, to have suborned you to his cause.”

Wanda blinked in surprise. Finally, she had her answer. “It is because he has another task at this time, which must be completed in conjunction with our subjective times.”

Arbu stood, brushing off his lower legs and stretching as he did so. “You have missed much about this man’s motivations. And his methods. He is a good man, which I do not argue. But you have overlooked much in this time and place. For this reason, amongst others, I cannot acquiesce to your request to hold my course of action. Unless you feel that listening to this old man’s ramblings will perhaps convince you to abstain from your course of action? Though I suspect not, as your husband is the prize in tonight’s match, as are you.”

Wanda frowned, and the sadness touched her eyes as well. “I cannot. I have spent ten years analyzing this and you have not. I will not willingly give up the time I have been gifted. It will sadden me to do this, Sensei, but I must challenge you now.”

Arbu nodded in acknowledgement of her words and shifted into his basic stance. “Let us begin then, child. Show me what you have learned and how you have grown in the time that was stolen for you. The time I hope to reclaim tonight.”

Wanda stood up and took a stance across from her old teacher. She began to circle him, extending her senses to feel for the telltale tingling down her spine that would alert her of a time shift.

What he did caught her completely by surprise. With a snap of his left foot, he pivoted on his toes and kicked at her midriff. Barely spotting the motion, she accelerated time and sidestepped the kick.

Both combatants shifted back to their beginning stances, circling each other and watching for an opening.

Arbu smiled, “I see what you have learned. It is an impressive trick indeed. However, Wanda, I feel it only fair to share with you that I had suspected as much from you. I understand that your husband created a new technology. We saw it in use during his break-in at headquarters. And I came prepared to fight either you or him. Think carefully before acting child.”

Wanda kept moving as she absorbed this. “So you are ready to fight this. I should’ve known.” Wanda did not voice her curiosity of what weapon he held in reserve, to have revealed this knowledge already.

Pushing her personal time stream forward, she accelerated, then duplicated herself, creating a lightning fast simultaneous scissor kick to his knees and the spot that his head would have to be in if he dodged the first attack.

Arbu shifted his weight down, ducking below the second kick and catching the first kick in his arms, deflecting it up over his head and straight into her second kick. While doing this he pushed himself sideways in time, repositioning himself in the air above her second kick.

With a powerful punch downwards, he clipped her blurring leg, then landed in a roll on the ground, dodging a third and fourth kick she had waiting for him and ending up back on his feet in his basic stance once again.

The blur of four Wandas resolved into one woman, massaging her damaged calf, with a look of self-loathing on her face. “I can’t believe I got nailed there. Thank you, Sensei, for reminding me that I am still your student in many ways.”

She straightened and flowed back into a fighting stance, a look of grim determination on her face. Accelerating into her fastest time stretch, she started hopping in phases by a one second interval, until five images of her were simultaneously attacking the man before her.

Arbu smiled at the charge, and danced backwards, parrying the incoming rain of blows, mimicking in the elegance of his movements the dance that he had performed the day before. Images of Arbu phased into and out of existence, moving with a smooth symmetry around, beside, and through each other. Until a blow got through his defense.

Like a sledgehammer, Wanda’s fist crashed into his shoulder, shattering his collarbone and sending him flying backwards. He landed roughly on the concrete; the stars above him spun in place. Catching his breath, he lay there for a moment, then flipped back to his feet, stumbling at a wave of dizziness but regaining his balance.

A few feet away from him, Wanda stood waiting. A look of hurt and painful compassion filled her eyes. “I am truly sorry to have had to do this, Sensei.”

He shifted his feet into a different position and smiled, “You are not the only one that is sorry, child. I do believe it is now appropriate to say that this is hurting me more than it is hurting you.” He chuckled, then motioned that he was ready again.

Wanda threw her next attack, a sweeping backhand aided only by her augmented speed. Arbu parried the attack, redirecting the energy of the attack to slide above him. Tucking his forward knee down, he managed to take the brunt of the hidden kick on his outer thigh, wiry muscle absorbing the impact without damaging him.

Stepping back he looked to her, dodging another punch, then deflecting a follow-up jab she sent at him. “Why do you fight so, child. Pity? Respect? Did I not teach you that such things are only an impediment and will get you killed if you allow them in battle?”

Wanda, breathing with exertion, grimaced at her teacher. “Damn you, Sensei. I fight this way out of love. And damn you twice for forcing me to fight without it.” She squeezed her eyes shut for the briefest of seconds, to blink back tears. She reopened them in time to see the foot coming at her face. Spinning around and ducking, she lashed out behind her with a low sweeping kick but he was already gone.

She thrust her hands together, forming an X below her face, once again barely in time to block a powerful uppercut. The impact, even through her defense, jarred her whole body.

In the moment, she felt that fist brush against her nose, the softest whisper of contact after the shock of blocking; she came to understand that they fought for their beliefs. Her Sensei believed that she had stolen time, and that the theft had hurt the flow of time. He would not stop or hold back now. He could not and still be the man he was. And holding back would only get her killed.

Witnessing the passion that he fought with, and the purity of intent, she realized that Alexander Zarth and Stefan Arbu were very much brothers in the way they viewed the world. She stopped holding back and let raw power rush through her veins.

She accelerated time, stretching the barriers inside her, and then pushing at them till they broke asunder, and started hopping forwards and backwards, raining blows at her mentor.

Thrown on the defensive, Arbu raised his hands, impressed with the skills his former student displayed. He danced, in turn, as he never had before.

Flowing seamlessly between times and stances, precise in every move, he wasted no energy and followed every block with cunning and graceful movements countering her attacks. It was almost as though the fight was a script being enacted upon the stage of the world and Arbu had read ahead. Before Wanda threw strikes he was already there, blocking her movements and dancing out of her range.

There was only one way the fight could end. He had foreseen it, and suspected that she understood this, too. Wanda was younger, in far better shape, and capable of much more than Arbu. Second by second she wore him down, tapping vast reserves of energy to keep him moving and forcing him to use as much energy and more.

He faltered, and she landed a kick in the center of his chest. He flew backwards into a lamppost and she heard a bone break as he landed. Panting, she slowed and walked up to his immobile form. He breathed, though with great effort.

The light on the cracked lamppost blinked out. She knelt beside him and took his hand in her own. “I am sorry, Sensei, to consign you to die in the darkness. I wish that it could have been otherwise.” She looked down into his rich brown eyes and saw tears forming there.

She leaned further down to hear his soft voice as he said, “I wish it could have been otherwise as well, child.” Listening to that whisper, she didn’t hear his past self step out of the shadows behind her.

In one smooth motion, he broke her neck, tears falling from his eyes. He had foreseen this, watching from the shadows, and had acted.

1997 A.D.: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Shadows lurked around the edges of the lot, sneaking into the spaces where the lamplights’ questing auras fell short. Alex stood in the cold embrace offered by the shadow, and watched Lucille Frost die. She was a remarkable woman.

Had he not been forced to leave her in Salem, he might even have changed his life for her. Watching her die, and not acting, was the most difficult thing Alex had ever had to do.

A cough racked his system and he had to clench his throat tight to remain noiseless. Warmth trickled down the edge of his lip, onto his chin. He wiped away the blood as he watched agent Holly vanish into the future, carrying the research dossier and Yuri Yakavich’s body with him.

A second time jump tingled on the edge of his senses, piggyback to the first. Alex strode forward, into the open lot and walked to Lucy’s body. He knew who the second traveler would be.

Without looking up, he acknowledged the other man. “Hello, Stefan. Long time no see.” Alex picked up Lucy’s hand and held it in his, stroking her arm and the back of her hand.

Stefan Arbu breathed, pain coming through in his voice. “Hello, Alex. That is three of us dead now. I have dealt with the woman you gifted more time to. You will take care of Doctor Garret, the husband.”

Alex squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes, I will. There is another. I think he’s hiding eleven centuries upstream from you. His origin is roughly C forty-five. I will have to deal with him as well. It will not be easy. As much as I have gained over recent times, I am also tremendously weakened right now.”

Alex heard his oldest friend ease himself down to a sitting position. “Dying, if I’m any judge of it. You look like hell, Alex. I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be blood coming from your ear. Regardless, I’ll trust you can accomplish this. You are sure he has been here and altered the sequence?”

Alex chuckled, though no humor lay behind it. “Yes, I am sure. He hired me after he failed to manipulate the events here himself. Unlike us he was not so lucky as to find the missing pieces of the paradox. Had we moved forward on our suspicions so many years ago we would surely have failed in the same way he did. And if I leave him alive, he’ll do it again. He’s a jackass, by my estimation.”

Arbu nodded. “You’d be surprised at how much Yuri managed to piece together in the file that he put together. His death was a sad one, but it was also his choice to involve himself in this. It was providence that you managed to arrange for that information to get to me. Our old plan would have failed.”

Alex sighed and opened his eyes again, looking at Arbu. “You will take care of the agent that was here? Through your own internal security?”

“He is young and brash. My choice of him was inspired. If I send him a beacon from here, he will come. And Wanda has effectively killed me. The damage I have taken is lethal if not treated soon in my own era. I will stay here after I kill him and die myself; there is no other way to it. As with your extra problem from C forty-five, I have some cleanup, which I too must do. To ensure no further attempts are made on this era, or its happenings.”

Alex nodded. “Then, old friend, I bid you farewell. It has been a good journey by your side. I hope our paths cross once more in the next world, after we cross the Cinvat Bridge.”

Arbu smiled and clasped his friend’s hand. “Luck to you, my friend. And surely our paths will cross, for the bridge will guide us to meet again. This I know, in my heart, must be the truth.”

The two last living priests of a long dead religion, the only two priests of that religion who had ever gained the ability to travel in time, released each other’s hands and parted for the final time.

Alex walked into the night and shifted forward in time to begin his hunt. He stepped out of the twentieth century and into the compound in the forty-first century. His internal computer began talking to him as he did so.

‘Alex. May I make a query?’

Of course,
he thought, smiling. He had a strong suspicion as to what the computer would to ask him.

‘Your farewells with Director Arbu were very formulaic. They triggered a search chain I had stored in my databanks as relevant.’

Of course they did. As well they should have. Go ahead and ask your question, computer.

‘I see, I believe.’ Said the computer. ‘Your response would indicate that you know what I am going to ask, and in that knowing lies an affirmative answer to my question. You then, are Zarvan. The god of time. Or you have manipulated the past posing as this deity?’

Alex barked out laughter.
No, I am not. I am a servant, in a way. Both Stefan and I were the god’s final two priests. Acting under specific orders, given to us almost eight thousand years ago in the world’s time stream.

‘Again, I believe that I understand. This is the information that you had that I did not. Is this correct?’

Again, you are correct. I will give you the rest of the information you are missing, so that you may better assist me in this task.

‘I have prepared long term storage. Please proceed.’

All right. Firstly, your understanding of time is incorrect. No, not incorrect, rather, it is incomplete. Time is not what most people perceive it to be. It is not a fluid line, it is not a pool. Most definitely it is NOT a four-dimensional sphere or cube moving through itself. This last I believe is your current understanding of time.

‘Correct.’ the computer confirmed for him.