The Time Stone (41 page)

“
So what can we do with
this?” Asked James.

“
Well, we can set it to
take us anywhere within distance of its programmed range, usually
one hundred miles or so.” Responded Drax. He steps towards the
pedestal and climbs the stairs onto the platform with the pod and
he steps into it.

“
Wait, what about us?”
Asks Mercedes.

“
Just do what I do.” Drax
said. He pressed a series of buttons on the command console inside
the pod. A series of keys connected to a small display that blinked
on and read out a code sequence in strange symbols. He pressed the
main switch, a red button in the center and the pod covered with
dead leaves and dirt began to spin around him and the lights
converged on it forming around him but then stopped and the
spinning also stopped. The lights ceased and did not even turn on
above them anymore. Drax stepped out with a disappointed
grin.

“
What happened?” Asked
James.

“
I think it’s
broken.”

“
You broke it?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
No, the power source was
almost depleted and my use finished draining the battery as it was
clearly not enough to fulfill one cycle, let alone three.” “So much
for that plan” adds James.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside the cabin, Tina awakens to
staring at a large figure with long hollow wings and eyes and face
like a fly, curved and hairy black arms and legs with the torso of
a well-developed muscular man. The fly creature stood eight feet
upright in the cabin wearing animal skin pants and shoes. The
creature made a noise like a fly and flapped its wings
gently.

“
Oh my God” said Tina as
she stared at him in the center of the room. A series of candles
were lit in the far end of the room by the window and surrounding
them, gold artifacts and figurines of various cultures adorned the
walls and falling apart wooden furniture in the quaint cabin
environment. Tina got up and pushed up the sleeves of her
sweatshirt.

“
Don’t be alarmed my
child” said an elderly man. Tina turned and saw a seated man with a
long grey beard, mustache, and silky but dirty white long hair, his
smile one of innocence as he calmly gripped his walking stick
before him. “Hello. I am Howard Kowolski, physicist and scientist
extraordinaire.” He spoke with an increasing voice of confidence
and ineptness.

“
Hi,” said Tina with a
crinkle in her voice as she approached him but keeping her eye on
the fly creature behind her as she found herself between the
two.

“
I know this must be
difficult for you to understand but we are not your enemies. We
know all about you Tina Prescott and we know you have travelled a
very long distance to be here.”

“
How did you know who I
am?” she asked.

“
We met before… but from
your perspective, it has not happened yet and from my perspective
it was several decades ago.” “Here” Kowalski reached for a piece of
paper in an old cabinet, retrieved an even older letter, and handed
it to Tina.

“
What is this?” she opened
up the yellow decayed piece of paper with barely legible faded
writing. She squinted and saw a map of the area, including the dark
woods, something she saw called the cavern of lights, and the great
island all identified in plain English.

“
You need to get up to the
cavern of lights. To fly is the only way. There are a lot of
mysterious creatures there.”

“
Why are you giving this
to me?”

“
I have thought a lot
about various things since we last met …let’s just say I was
inspired by our last conversation.”

“
The one I haven’t had
yet?”

“
Exactly child, you must
begin to think fourth dimensionally about everything. Einstein
himself said the greatest experiences we can have experienced in
life are the ones with the mysterious and then there are more
mysteries in the world yet to be uncovered. I devoted my life to
concept of time and finding the time stone. I believe the world may
change for the better if not in the future then in the past, after
all you have discovered the time stone, a legend in and of
itself.”

“
What do you know about
the time stone?” she asked.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“
Mr. Drax, what exactly
does the Time Stone have to do with all these beasts?” Asked
Mercedes as the trio walked through the dark woods.

“
Well it’s very
complicated but it was part of a very big and very secretive
project.”

“
A project of the
Machination?” Asked James.

“
Yes. We were trying to
harness energy from what is called the Spatial-Temporal EM
anion-axis grid. It is kind of an invisible energy surge that
surrounds the planet at all times and is basically responsible for
keeping things in harmony and it often times develops gaps that can
be plugged into with various frequencies like a radio. In ancient
times, this grid was personified as the Gods of various cultures
and we figured out that it’s more of a living thing and that the
planet draws power from it that is directly influenced by the sun.”
Drax said.

“
Cool, tell us more OK?”
Asked Mercedes.

“
Yeah, you don’t really
know the half of it. So anyway we were able to build a device to
achieve the energy conversion particles similar to the
teleportation mechanism in that pad, like the one we had in our own
time and which we believe existed in the past from an advanced
civilization, probably the creators of the Time Stone itself. This
device punctured a hole in the space-time continuum and let loose
the first beast, a multithreaded dragon-like creature that
identified herself as the guardian and told us that we have
awakened them. These beasts are unfeeling for the most part and
attack without provocation. They lack all humanity because they are
not human, or at least it is what I thought. Anyway, this hole was
actually a conduit, a bridge to another universe, part of a
multiverse. The beasts’ hole was never investigated to find out
where they originated but their beast universe kept sending more
and more until it was out of control and soon they were flooding
the lab. The only way was to use the ancient relic we discovered in
Brazil representing the ancient Sunstone of the Mesoamerican
cultures and the Time Stone itself to send them off into the void
but I don’t think we realized the drastic effect it would have on
each time they landed in. It was reckless plus I noticed some of
the beasts show human qualities like compassion, love, and
generosity. They are not all bad. I learned that labeling them as
such was wrong. That is why I could not withstand the Machination
much longer. They had an inner corruption to destroy what doesn’t
agree with their collective wisdom. They steal ideas and salvage
technology for their own benefit.”

“
Wow” said
Mercedes.

“
So what now?” Asked
James.

“
We try to get back to our
own time, to 2012 and stop what we know will happen as evidenced by
your vision confirming the disasters we saw here assuming the
explosion in James’ vision is linked to the Machination experiment.
It is a good assumption.” Said Drax to James.

“
Indeed” James and
Mercedes nodded in agreement to him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tina apprehensively backed away in awe
from Kowolski and the fly creature. Separated from her friends, she
felt anxious in the surroundings of people who claimed to know her
but whom she never met.

“
Kowolski?”

“
Yes, my child. The time
stone is something I have been looking into pretty much all my
life. I know that you have been using the time stone and what I
know is apparently a lot. I have found out a great deal. What I
have found is astonishing. Basically the time stone emits quantum
kapto metaphasic kinetic energy and exists in each time period as a
focal point. The time stone stores this energy in each time forming
a parallax and a continuum links them. They in turn harmonize the
elements in the infinity domain between worlds of our metaverse. In
the wrong hands, you are looking at a very powerful weapon capable
of causing a catastrophic chain reaction throughout all of space
time. While I still don’t understand the mechanism that this energy
uses to open the temporal wormhole or cause its other attributes….”
Kowolski stopped suddenly looking at Tina’s dumbfounded expression
on her face. “That is the light bearing traversable conduit you use
to travel in between time periods.”

“
Ah” she nodded in
understanding.

“
I am certain of this: you
must be very careful as thought and energy are one in the vortex
and once you pass the event horizon, you are reorganized from
matter to energy.”

“
You know a
lot.”

“
I know I have used it
from time to time and seen it in others, including you.”

“
Huh?”

Kowolski broke out in a horrific mix
of loud coughs and delirious laughter. “Another time paradox
indeed.”

“Senile old man” Tina whispered to
herself shaking her head. “And we met!?!Who are you guys, really?”
Asked Tina looking towards the large winged creature.

“
We are the Protectors.”
Said Kowolski as the large fly creature stood at attention without
uttering a sound.

“
Huh?”

“
Well, there are those who
focus on righting wrongs as they see them. Have you ever wondered
why the world appears so random and how events always work out? It
has been by design. I lead a group of beasts like this young one
who have decided long ago that it is best to do right and act
chivalrous and true above all else otherwise there really is no
point of living is there?”

“
But sometimes you have to
do what may not seem right to overcome something of great
necessity” said Tina choosing her words carefully in the
philosophical.

“
That is your belief. Not
ours. We would rather die than surrender our beliefs in acting
righteous and without hesitation even in the face of insurmountable
odds.”

“
And this group, they have
always existed?” Tina asked.

“
As far back as time and
memory can take us! They were cloaked in legend and myth once upon
a time, revered as titans of fear and ridicule, changing over time
to be more melodramatic, demigods if you will from various cultures
across the globe and then remained in secret societies for several
centuries. There are plagues and curses by those in the prophetic
community linking references to various external sources such as
the book of exodus, the I-Ching, the ancient Mayan codex, etc, etc.
Organizations hidden in secrecy like the Illuminati, the Council of
12, the Knights Templar, the Armageddon ones, the legends go on and
on but none compare in secret to those hidden in time that battle
the forces of darkness both destined to rise again. But they
remained by one name and one name only, the Retribution.
Ultimately, they rested here after the great conflict they were
forced out and fought alongside the allied forces but now there are
none left, only the evil ones that the central apex who await the
slaughter of the Retribution beasts and the rest of
humanity.”

“
You seem to want me to
believe that there exists a very real group of legendary and
mythical entities that seek to save individuals from their worst
fears while simultaneously covering up the truth of their
existence?”

“
That’s right! For the
protection of the world and freedom. “

“
Wow!”

“
So we know you are going
after the Dark Star and we will assist you.” Kowolski
said.

“
How?” Tina
asked.

“
The only way to the
cavern of lights is to soar above the clouds. The winds are far too
arduous for straight passage up the mountainside.” Kowolski
finished his thought and then the fly creature flapped its wings in
multiple directions making a faint buzzing sound growing louder and
louder as he hovered off of the ground and flew around in spirals
above the wooden floor of the small room. “Remember, we live in the
present only a short time and dream of what the future has in store
for us but we ultimately learn our most eternal and wisest truths
not from the future but from our past. Let the past guide you on
this journey into it.” Said Kowolski as the fly man grabbed Tina by
the waist with both hands outstretched.

“
Whoa, wait” said
Tina.

“
There is no time. You
must act now or the prophecies will not be complete and all is
lost. Go now” said Kowolski as the creature lifted Tina up into the
air.

“
What about you?” Screamed
Tina as the creature lifted her upward.

“
Take this” said Kowolski
throwing up a small handheld device with a screen. “Alvin will take
you as far as the entranceway.” Yelled Kowolski. Tina caught it and
tucked it in her pants. “Good luck” yelled Kowolski as the fly
creature Alvin and Tina flew off out of the smoke stacked chimney
of the old cabin and into the night dark forest sky.