Time Spent (31 page)

Harold put a hand to his chin. "Why? What
does he have trouble with?"

"Science, mostly. I think he lacks
motivation," she said. "He just doesn't seem interested. To be
honest," she added in a conspiratorial whisper, "he seems more
interested in...sports."

"Sports?" Harold's eyes widened. "Oh no. No.
Not my Simon."

"I feel the same way, believe me. All the
hitting and kicking, kids get hurt, sometimes permanently. It's
just so...physical..." her voice trailed away strangely.

Harold cleared his throat. "Yes, well, I
shall see to it that it is clear to Simon that he must focus on his
studies."

"Here," she held out a book. "I thought this
might help. It's full of fun information and projects for kids. He
could use it to enter the Science Fair." The book had a colorful
cover with the words WONDERS OF SCIENCE at the top.

"Thank you." Harold took the book and
perused it. "That is most thoughtful of you. If more teachers
should take such a personal interest in their students, American
education would be on much more solid ground."

"Oh, I do what I can," she said with a
smile.

Harold turned to go.

"Education is important, Mr. Chu," she
called after him. "It's what separates us from savages."

______________________

Gwendolyn raged, but her howls were lost in
the void as the rift closed and form was once again denied her.
NO!! Her body, her precious body, dissolved away and she was again
shapeless, a cascade of energy lost in an endless void.

All was not lost, however. She could still
see the cracks in the barrier, time fractured beyond repair, space
and reality holding together by the thinnest of threads. She could
slip a measure of her power through the cracks, reaching into their
world to find the tools she needed to destroy her enemy.

First, she knew, she needed study. For so
long her only enemy had been the Tyrant, the master of time and
space who had sent her to the void and locked her out of his
universe so very long ago. The Tyrant had taken her world from her
and consigned her to eternity as one of The Lost. Now she had a new
enemy, and she knew she had to understand him if she were to bring
about his destruction.

She peered through the cracks in time,
examining the life of Kevin Lloyd.

______________________

From somewhere to Ryan's right, a spotlight
activated. Kevin and Becca turned toward it, covering their eyes.
Ryan tried, but couldn't turn his head.

A shot rang out, and Becca fell, her head a
ruined red mess on the pavement.

The green eyes vanished from Ryan's eyes,
and he fell to the ground.

"Stop!" Kevin cried. "Why are you doing
this?"

Ryan lifted his head, his exhausted muscles
in agony. Until now, he hadn't realized how hard his body had been
fighting itself. He could barely move.

A second shot rang out, and Ryan thought he
saw Kevin's head flinch, but he was unharmed.

"Why?" Kevin shouted again.

A third shot rang out, and then a fourth,
and fifth, Kevin flinching each time. Shots rang out faster and
faster, like microwave popcorn cooking to a crescendo. Bullets slid
off Kevin's body, riddling the car, the motorcycle, the bridge
itself.

Kevin closed his eyes, and was gone.

Ryan turned his eyes toward the spotlight
now, blinded, terrified, and his vocal chords finally, finally
began to obey him.

"Nnng. Nunngghh! NNNN!! NOOOOOO!!"

A final shot sounded.

Ryan felt as though a bowling ball had
struck his chest. He looked down to see blood welling from a hole
dead center. He looked up in disbelief, mouth open.
That
red-haired bitch, oh god, what was her name? WHAT WAS HER
NAME?

As his head fell back, one final word slid
from his mouth.

"Gweeeeennnndolynnnnn...."

"Run the plates on the car and motorcycle,"
said a man in a white lab coat. Soldiers responded, moving in on
the two vehicles. "Get those bodies loaded in the truck. Take them
back to the base, I need them in my lab."

"Sir," One of the soldiers stopped cold.
"One of the bodies...it's gone!"

"What do you mean gone?"

______________________

The rain and wind came harder now. Gwendolyn
threw out her arms and twirled, lost in the sensation. "It's so
lovely, isn't it? To feel the rain on your skin, to feel it soak
your clothes. Hot, sticky, moist. To dance with the wind. I wonder
if lightning will strike me? That would be magnificent."

Brandon looked around at the others. They
looked just as confused by her behavior as he did, with the
exception of Carl. He had locked eyes on Gwendolyn from the moment
she arrived and had not looked away since. Brandon wasn't even sure
he was blinking.

"Bard!" She held out a hand. "Dance with
your Queen!"

They looked at each other uncertainly.

Gwendolyn laughed. "Tyler Chambers, you are
the entertainer are you not? The man whose body and voice are his
art? Dance with me."

"I don't...I mean, you want me to...dance
with you? Why?"

"Why?" Gwendolyn tilted her head to the
side. "This is a strange question from a dancer. Why does one ever
dance? Because it's expressive, it's moving, it's pleasurable."

"I guess..." Tyler stepped forward.

Gwendolyn threw her arms around him and
pulled him into the circle's center. "You have never been shy with
women. Don't start now."

Tyler slipped his arm around her back, the
other holding her outstretched hand. He led her in a simple box
step, turning her in a circle. "I'm not entirely sure you're a
woman at all," he said.

"Don't be rude," she said with a smirk.
"It's true for billions of your years I left my physical form
behind, but I assure you," she delivered a playful nibble to the
tip of his nose, "I was a woman, and I have done nothing for all
those years but dream of being one again."

"But you weren't...human. You aren't
human."

Gwendolyn released him, pushing him away.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Tyler. Remember that."

______________________

Almost there,
Marcus thought, turning
the wrench again. A few more turns and he'd have the lamp
secured.

"Marcus," a voice called.

"Yeah."

"Need your help here."

"Okay just a minute, almost finished."

He turned the wrench, tightening the nut.
Finally he could turn it no farther. "Okay, job done. On my
way."

He walked out through the backstage
doors.

Once the stage was empty, Gwendolyn
appeared. She approached the lamp, fingering the bolts that held it
in place.

______________________

"What about them?" Heather gestured to Katie
and the others, still standing mute in a ring around them all.
"What have you done to them? Why aren't they acting like
themselves?"

"The Mirror is concerned for those around
her." Gwendolyn smiled. "Not unexpected, for without her subjects,
who is she?"

"I know who I am," Heather said.

"Do you?" Gwendolyn raised her chin, casting
an appraising glance upon her. "Gratifying to know. Who are you,
then, my Mirror? Daughter of Sarah, friend of Katie, lover of
Simon. Without them, who are you?"

"I am not nothing," Heather said. "No matter
what you try to make me think, I am not nothing."

"Try to make you-" Gwendolyn's eyes turned
sorrowful. "The wind rises, and you threaten to blow away. What you
think has nothing to do with me."

Heather balled her fists defiantly, but said
nothing.

"As to your question, my Emissaries
understand what must be done." Her eyes flared. "They know their
place."

______________________

"That scotch ain't gonna drink itself, ya
know."

Sarah McDonnell looked up from her glass,
the same glass she had been staring at for a half an hour. A red
haired woman sat on the stool next to her. She wore a tight black
shirt and blue jeans, with a black Harley Davidson belt.

Sarah tried to smile, but couldn't. "I know,
I'm just...I don't know what I'm doing here."

"Gettin' your drink on, looks like!" The
woman laughed. "Call me Gwendolyn," she said, extending a hand.

Sarah shook it gingerly. "Sarah."

"So Sarah, let's get this party started!"
She waved to the bartender. "Gimme two of whatever this wild woman
is having."

"I'm not...I don't know if I'm drinking
it."

"Well you're not painting your house with
it, girl." She lifted her glass. "I say we get trashed and find us
some boy toys!"

This did make Sarah laugh, but bitterly.
There wasn't a man in the bar she hadn't let pick her up at one
time or another. "I just had an argument with my daughter is all. I
probably shouldn't even be here."

"Kids," Gwendolyn said. "I got a couple
thousand of 'em. Always think they know better than you."

A couple thousand?
"Well, she
just...she's too much like me, I think. That's the problem, too
much like me."

"What's wrong with being like you? You're
too down on yourself, Sarah. You're fine just the way you are."

"You don't know."

"I know your kid managed to get inside your
head and make you doubt yourself. That's what they do. But you're
the parent. You tell
her
what to do, not vice versa.
Right?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe nothin'. HELL yeah. And you can start
right here. Don't let someone else tell you who you are or what you
did wrong. Seize the god damn day, you know what I mean?" She held
up her glass again.

Sarah put her hand on the glass, but didn't
lift it.

"Don't leave me hangin', Sarah! Let's
go!"

Sarah lifted the glass, and clinked hers to
Gwendolyn.

"That's my girl! You got this!"

They drank their shots together, and
Gwendolyn slid the second shot in front of her.

______________________

She knew she could not simply kill her enemy
in his past. She had encountered him at full power, to destroy him
in the past might unravel her own existence. Additionally, this
Kevin Lloyd had been part of one of her failed experiments to
create a rift. His "school bus" had been the first to pass through
such a rift. But he and his other fellow primitives had not tapped
into the energies of the void, or so she thought. How had this one
come to be in another reality?

Looking along his timeline, she saw the
answer. Something had snatched him from his world while the rift
was open a second time and exchanged him for the Kevin who belonged
to this reality.

Had she lips in the formless void, Gwendolyn
would have smiled. This was the key to her victory. She would
become the cause of this exchange! She reached through the cracks
with what energy she could, stretching into the past and using her
power to frighten the other Kevin, goad him into using his new
power. Untrained as he was, his power snapped too far, sending him
into the void and pulling his alternate self away from home. The
other Kevin landed in his world, ensuring that he and Gwendolyn
would eventually meet, and at the same time giving her a pawn to
use against him.

Victory was hers, and it had begun before
the insect even knew she existed.

______________________

Ryan opened his eyes, or what passed for
eyes. He was floating, suspended in a place that wasn't really a
place at all. Blackness surrounded him, directionless, no up or
down, and suspended in the blackness beside him was a coruscating
form of red energy. It pulsed and glowed, and seemed to be coiling
around him.

Even stranger, he was no longer himself.
Looking at himself, he found that his body appeared as a milky
white cloud.

What's happening? Oh god I'm dead! I'm
dead!

OH NO, RYAN. YOU'RE NOT DEAD. I PROMISED
YOU, REMEMBER?

That voice.
He looked at the red
energy, and as he watched it coalesced and became the red-haired
woman he had met at the club, or someone very similar. This version
radiated energy and had bright, glowing red eyes.
Am I dreaming?
This can't be real.

Her eyes twinkled.
IT MAY SEEM SO. BUT
THOUGH I HAVE NO TRUE FORM HERE AND AM MERELY AN IMAGE, THIS IS
BETTER THAN A DREAM. WHEN I'M FINISHED YOU'LL HAVE THE POWER TO
HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT. I TOLD YOU, YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE SERVING
ME. NOW I MUST FOCUS. UNLIKE THOSE WHO CROSSED THE VOID BY
ACCIDENT, I WILL GUIDE THE ENERGIES YOUR BODY ABSORBS. I MUST GUIDE
THEM JUST RIGHT, OR YOUR POWER WILL BE AS USELESS AGAINST HIM AS
MINE.

Power? What do you mean? I don't know what's
going on.

SHHHHH. HUSH NOW, RYAN. THINK ON THOSE WHO
WRONGED YOU. THINK ON THE BLONDE GIRL.

Ryan remembered the helpless feeling as the
blonde girl had invaded his mind. The awful things she had made him
do, the pain, the humiliation.
That fucking bitch.

THAT'S IT. FOSTER THAT ANGER, NURTURE IT
UNTIL IT IS WHITE HOT INSIDE YOU. SOON YOU WILL HAVE THE POWER TO
DESTROY ALL THOSE WHO WRONGED YOU, TAKE WHATEVER YOU DESIRE FROM
ANYONE WHO WOULD KEEP IT FROM YOU. YOU'D LIKE THAT, WOULDN'T
YOU?

Take whatever he wanted? Ryan liked the
sound of that.

YES. YESSSSSSS. TAKE IT, FORCE IT, SEIZE IT,
PUNISH THEM. PUNISH THEM ALL.

Energy, guided by Gwendolyn and pulled by
his desire, flooded into him.

CLAIM YOUR POWER, MY SERVANT, AND TAKE YOUR
PLACE AMONG THE LOST.

______________________

Becca looked at Carl. He had started to
tremble, very slightly at first, but was now visibly shaking. He
continued to stare at Gwendolyn, his eyes unmoving.

WWHAT ARE YOU DOINGG?

He made no reply.