Causality: Part Four
2012
Stef closed his eyes, fighting back the momentary dizziness as he reemerged into normal space. Not as bad as the last time-- But when he opened them again and took in his surroundings, he was hard-pressed to bite back a curse. Damn it! All the relief he'd felt to know that his program was still in operation and he wasn't stranded in the past dissolved into angry frustration as he realized where he was.
Gritting his teeth, he turned away from the interface terminal beside him and slipped down the narrow, cramped corridor, following the markings on the bulkheads. He'd studied the schematics of the XSE command ship extensively when this nexus window had still been on the list, and thankfully, his memory was excellent.
The deck was vibrating beneath his feet and a low, pervasive hum filled the air. The command ship's engines were running at maximum, he knew, carrying it towards Akkaba to stop the Sons of the Morning Fire from raising Apocalypse's fortress.
And he couldn't do a damned thing to stop it. The original approach he'd planned for this nexus window had involved a certain computer disk, containing a nasty little computer virus. The virus had been specifically designed to get around thirty year-old security systems and cause a massive systems failure. The command ship would have crashed before reaching Akkaba.
But he hadn't planned to be here, so of course he hadn't brought the disk. This was a total waste of his time, Stef thought, seething, and further proof that his dear uncle Nathan had done something in 2016, interfered somehow to cause the program to--mutate like this.
Stef gave a soft, bitter laugh at his own choice of words. Well, he'd have to make do. He'd stay moving, keep out of sight until the nexus window closed--it was only a matter of several minutes. The next stop had to be more fruitful. True, there were other rejected nexus windows whose coordinates had been programmed into the Tinex, but all of them were beyond 2016--
Was THAT the key? Stef thought suddenly, frowning. He'd been bounced back, farther into the past, by whatever Nathan had done--was the program adapting after all, trying to get him back into the proper temporal loop? He didn't even know if that was possible. The crash course in temporal physics he'd put himself through hadn't been nearly detailed enough.
Afterwards, he wasn't sure what made him pause, whether he'd heard something or had just felt the tell-tale breeze of movement behind him. Either way, he'd only begun to turn in that direction when something smashed into him, knocking him to the deck. His shield blunted the impact, but not enough.
Stunned, Stef tried to crawl out of the way, looking back over his shoulder to see the identity of his attacker. It really didn't come as much of a surprise. Nate stood above him, holding a forearm-long piece of metal--a brace off a plasma conduit? Stef thought wildly, and just barely managed to roll out of the way as Nate brought it down again.
Flat his back, he pulled his gun, and Nate actually hesitated. Only for a moment, though.
"Don't be stupid," Nate grated an instant later, and knocked the gun out of his hand with a telekinetic slap. It clattered and slid across the deck, and Stef jerked with pain as something tore in his mind.
His shields, he thought. Uncle Nathan had been far more deft than his namesake, but the sensation was basically the same. Panic gave Stef a surge of adrenalin, and he did the first thing that came to mind.
He kicked Nate's legs out from under him. There must have been enough of his shields left to hide his intent, because Nate's reaction came nowhere near in time. He fell, and Stef rolled, coming up into a crouch and launching himself at Nate, pinning his 'cousin' to the deck with the body-shield between them. It flared and crackled, reflecting Nate's telekinesis right back at him.
"I'm sick of this," Stef snarled, fury surging inside him. A scorched smell was filling the air, and Nate's expression as he strained to push him off was twisted with pain as much as with effort. Because of the feedback, probably - he was still trying to use his telekinesis, Stef could feel it pushing at him feebly - but mostly likely from physical pain, too, as the shield burned through his body armor.
Stef didn't care. "I'm sick of this, Guthrie, and I'm SICK OF YOU!"
Nate was no different from the rest of them. The thought crystallized in his mind with perfect clarity. He could have been. Stef wanted him to have been different. But Nate had made his choice, judged him like they had. Thrown him aside, just like they had. He'd sided with them, with Clare--
Burned his bridges. So be it. Stef lashed out, putting everything he was feeling, all the sudden, burning hate in his soul, behind that one punch. Nate's head actually bounced off the deck, and his body went limp. Stef hauled himself back to his feet, anger mingling with a strange, bitter pain as he stared down at Nate.
"Damn you," he said roughly, clenching shaking hands into fists at his sides. "I never wanted--but you got in my way, Nate. This is your own damned fault, you stupid bastard."
His head ached with the same sort of fiery pain that had troubled him for weeks after the telepath had built the shields into his mind. Enough pain to tell him that there was definitely something wrong. For all he knew, the shields were compromised completely, leaving him helpless against telepaths.
He couldn't take any chances, then. Couldn't afford to leave a telepath following his trail. Stef strode over to where his gun was still lying on the deck and bent to pick it up. It was a cold, hard weight in his hand, a reminder that he'd chosen to take this drastic action. If he really wanted to change the future, he had to be willing to do--whatever was necessary.
This was necessary. Stef swallowed, willing his hand to stop shaking. Maybe Nate would have even understood. XSE officers were taught all about necessity--it was their excuse for doing whatever the hell they wanted.
If he changed the future, he changed Nate's future, too. Maybe in a different world, Nate would have been different, would never have thought of doing this to him--
What he did to this Nate, here and now, hardly mattered, did it? Stef straightened, and pulled the trigger.
And the shot ricocheted, bouncing off a TK shield that hadn't been there an instant before and hitting the opposite wall instead. It burned right through the armor plating of the bulkhead and blew open a plasma conduit.
The explosion threw him to the deck, his shield fizzling and beginning to shimmer dangerously. Before it could fail completely, Stef felt himself being pulled back into the timestream, to safety.
*
Maybe playing dead hadn't been such a great idea after all--especially as it hadn't been entirely an act. But it had been the only way Nate had been able to think of to get Stef to back off for long enough to give him another shot at cracking those shields. He hadn't anticipated this. Stunned by the blow and the explosion both, Nate dimly sensed Stef vanish--timeripping out? It didn't matter; he had more pressing concerns at the moment.
Fighting to keep the TK shield around him intact, he crawled out of range of the leaking conduit as the warning klaxon shrilled in his ears and plasma fire licked at his shield. He had to move before the safety forcefields kicked in to contain the fire. If he got caught between them, he'd suffocate.
He made it out, barely, and allowed himself a second to catch his breath before he pulled himself to his feet and started down the corridor again, half-running, half-staggering. There'd be repair crews here any minute. He couldn't be seen, and he wasn't sure that he was capable of masking himself telepathically, not when he was having this much trouble just staying upright--
Turning the corner into another corridor, Nate nearly ran right over his mother.
She reached out and steadied him as he lost his balance. "I'm supposed to be waiting in a briefing room on deck seven," Mom said rapidly, worried eyes locked on his face. "Can you take the image from my mind and teleport us there?"
Nate blinked down at her, at a total loss for words. Why was she--HOW was she--
"Trust me," Mom said firmly, and Nate's eyes widened as he felt her reach out along the telempathic link they'd shared since he was a boy.
She knew. "Dad--shouldn't have told you," he said weakly, but managed, as his knees started to buckle, to pluck the image from her mind and teleport them both.
*
Dana gasped as they materialized in the briefing room and Nate crumpled, as if his legs had abruptly refused to hold him. His collapse was so sudden that she didn't even have time to try and slow his descent a little. Kneeling down beside him, she bit her lip as she took in his obvious injuries.
"It's okay," she said. The words didn't sound convincing, even to herself. "See? Nice, safe, empty briefing room. Everything'll be fine."
Breathing heavily, clearly in pain, he leaned back against the wall. Dana hesitated for a moment, shaking her head. It was--so strange to see him like this. She'd just kissed his younger self goodbye, a few hours ago. But Sam had told her what had happened at the new headquarters site last year, so she'd understood what was happening when she'd sensed that flash of pain and fear a few minutes ago. She'd even made the connection to the stranger she'd seen in the infirmary seven years ago.
It wasn't hard to see the resemblance, now that she had a little time to appreciate it. He had Sam's eyes.
Dana smiled a little shakily as those blue, blue eyes focused somewhat hazily on her. "I still can't believe it," she whispered, tears blurring her vision despite her best effort to stay calm. "Look at you--you look older than me!" Now she really knew how Scott and Jean had felt, with Nathan.
"You shouldn't--" Nate started, and winced as she forced herself to return to the matter at hand and started to tug determinedly at the warped and melted buckles on his body armor. "Mom--ow! Would you quit that for a minute and listen to me?"
"You talk, I'll listen," she said briskly. Inwardly, she was shivering at the turmoil she was sensing in him. His physical injuries seemed to be limited to burns and bruises, thankfully - and maybe a concussion, she thought, taking a closer look at his eyes - but emotionally speaking, he was bleeding to death. There was plenty of determination there, the sort of focus that frightened her, but all it was doing was making the conflict deep within him worse.
What on earth could be happening? Sam hadn't given her very much in the way of details--well, he hadn't know them himself, to be fair. Nate apparently hadn't been very forthcoming. She knew enough about time-traveling and temporal paradox to understand why, but that didn't mean she was going to put up with it.
"Mom, look. You shouldn't be doing this--"
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"
"Mom!" Nate's features hardened into a stubborn expression. It made his resemblance to Sam so overwhelming for a moment that Dana gave a nervous little laugh. "This is serious," he insisted. Not smiling. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised.
Dana nodded hastily. "I know," she said "I know, Nate. But listen to me for a second," she said as soothingly as she could, very carefully pulling away the front of his armor and the shirt beneath. He flinched again, a small sound of pain escaping him, but she bit her lip and kept working. If she was going to heal these burns, there couldn't be any foreign material in the way. "The only reason I'm here is in case we have any serious injuries after we get to Akkaba."
Not precisely true, she had to admit. If it came to a battle, she'd do what she could to help, but her real motivations for coming along in the first place had been to help Domino express to Nathan, when they found him, just how idiotic it had been for him to run off to Akkaba on his own. Just because this particular heavily-armed doomsday cult happened to worship Apocalypse didn't make it Nathan's sole responsibility to deal with them. Then again, he'd always had trouble with concepts like that.
"We're still three hours out," she continued, "and I've got absolutely nothing to do. I've been sitting in here watching the clock since I boarded this ship--well," she corrected herself hastily, "until I sensed you. But I certainly wasn't doing anything critical to the timeline--"
"Mom, you don't know that--"
"Sweetheart, shut up and hold still, would you?" She closed her eyes and concentrated on his injuries. It didn't take long to heal them, and the worried knot in her chest eased a little as she finished and opened her eyes again, managing a smile at the resigned look he was giving her. His gaze seemed a lot clearer, and she wasn't sensing any more pain from him--at least, none of the physical sort. "There," she said, a little unnecessarily. "Better?"
"Better. Thank you," Nate said quietly.
Dana leaned back, instinctively giving him some space. He was still incredibly tense. She could see that just by looking at him. No empathy required. "You need a new shirt," she observed, her voice shaking a little. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"
Nate sighed, shifting into a more comfortable position. "If Dad told you what happened back at the Tower, you know I can't give you any details." He reached out and took her hand, and Dana bit her lip at the bleakness in his eyes. "I wish I could, Mom," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. Their link vibrated, almost mournfully.
"Something about it's hurting you," Dana said softly, squeezing his hand tightly. "I can tell that much." He nodded jerkily, and she watched him wistfully, her heart nearly breaking at the misery she could feel him trying to control. "I hate this, you know," she murmured faintly. "Seeing you like this, not being able to help--"
Nate gave a small, strained laugh. "It's--just one of those situations, Mom."
"Which?"
"The sort of situation where the right thing to do is so wrong." He swallowed visibly, his eyes moving away from hers as he fiddled restlessly with his ruined shirt, as if he was trying to straighten it, to put it back in order somehow. "It's really--stupid, you know. I've had to do things I wish I hadn't. I've killed people in combat--" Dana flinched at his words, but he continued, apparently too lost in his own thoughts to notice, "--but this is different. I don't know how to do this, Mom. The longer this goes on, the more obvious it is that I can't save--" He bit off whatever he'd been about to say, his gaze curiously defensive as he looked back at her.
Dana didn't say anything for a moment. "Can't save who?" she finally asked, very softly, and then shook her head. "No, let me guess. That's one of those details you can't give me, isn't it?" He nodded slowly, and Dana sighed again, reaching out to take his other hand, holding both his hands in hers.
Such strong hands. Such strength in him--even in the middle of all of this, she could sense that. "I want you to know something," she said, as firmly and as gently as she could manage. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling you that I don't care what's going on. I'm getting the definite impression that you're worried about more than possible damage to the timeline, if you tell me what's going on--"
The way he jumped at her words confirmed her guess instantly. "Mom--"
"No, let me finish," Dana said insistently, holding his eyes with hers, willing him to listen, projecting sincerity with everything she had. He had to believe her. "I may not know what's happening, and I may have a pretty good idea that I'm not going to like it when I find out somewhere down the road, but I want you to know that I trust you. I know that whatever choices you make are going to be the right ones." Before he could say anything in response, she reached out and hugged him tightly. "But I am going to find out, you know," she muttered fiercely as he, after a moment, hugged her back. "I will. This is your mother speaking, Nathan Thomas Guthrie. You are going to tell me every single detail."
"Ask me again in twenty-nine years. I'll tell you everything, I promise," he murmured shakily.
"I'll hold you to that," she said softly, and then gasped as he vanished, right out of her embrace.
2041
"Got him," Clare murmured, smoothing out the slight distortion and moving Nate from one point along the timestream to the next, careful to place him in the same sanctuary point that Stefano had just entered. She took a deep breath and leaned back against Harry's supporting arm, keeping her eyes closed. "I wish I could just grab DaCosta," she said, rubbing at her temples. The headache had died down a little; it was just plain bad, now, rather than horrific enough to make her worry about whether or not her head was about to explode.
"Why don't you, then?" Harry murmured. Clare shifted irritably, knowing that he wasn't really questioning her. It was just his way of making sure she looked at all the alternatives.
Nick answered before she could. "Feedback," he said succinctly. "Two frequencies of chronokinetic energy conflicting with each other." Clare opened her eyes, and he gave her a faint smile from where he stood leaning against the console. "Yes, I have occasionally listened to my mother's lectures."
"You could still maybe grab him," Zara said, with what could only be termed as a bloodthirsty look. She had that unnerving gleam in her eyes again. "It would hurt like hell, but you'd survive. You'd probably smear DaCosta all over the timestream, but it doesn't matter, does it? He's dead already."
Clare felt a sudden surge of sadness from Harry along their link, and looked sideways to meet those unhappy dark eyes. #She's right, you know,# she sent to him softly. #Unless his lawyers are clever enough to get him life in prison, instead.# The penalties for what Stefano had done were laid out very clearly.
"Better than dead," Harry said in a low voice.
"You're too soft sometimes, Harry," Zara said with a martyred sigh.
Nick gave her an evil look. "And you're too psychotic sometimes, in case I haven't mentioned it today."
Zara made a face at her brother and then turned back to Clare. "Is Nate okay?" she asked, much more seriously.
Clare shook her head. "I wish I could tell," she said, fighting back a wave of guilt as she closed her eyes again to focus on the timestream.
2022
The transition was more protracted this time, longer than any since that first jump back from 2041. The images that cascaded through his mind this time were cast in softer, hazier hues, not nearly so vivid as the last time--but somehow, they seemed just as solid. Just as real. In one, he sat cross-legged across from Clare, who smiled enigmatically as she dangled a crystal pendant in the sunlight. In another, he was in the Command Information Center in the Tower, watching a space battle in the holotank. In another, he saw Uncle Nathan and Aunt Dom's house in Eastport burning.
And then the images stopped as the image of the timestream shattered around him, dumping him back out into the middle of hell. Everything happened too quickly. He rematerialized, took in his surroundings, processed the fact that he was standing in a Prime Sentinel hive--and nearly killed himself on the spot by giving in to pure instinct and starting to throw up a TK shield.
Nate caught himself just in time, and took several deep breaths, wondering a little wildly if he had a concussion that his mother had missed healing, or something like that. Sure, pop into a Sentinel hive and immediately start using your powers--I can't have that much of a deathwish, can I?
The surge of adrenalin faded somewhat as he studied his surroundings uneasily. Classic hive structure, from the look of it; semi-organic construction, narrow corridors lined with stasis capsules, each holding what looked to be a human being but which Nate knew were anything but. He could place the day sometime after 2019, just by the look of the place; the Sentinels hadn't incorporated Phalanx techno-organics until then, and he was clearly seeing that influence here in this hive.
The new and improved breed-- The 'upgrade' had changed the core programming of the Sentinels, altering their imperatives to include the propagation of their own 'species', not just the eradication of mutants. Not long after that, the first hostilities had broken out, and the Sentinel War had raged for years. He'd made the transition from childhood to adulthood during those years. Even now, he could feel a trace of the same visceral fear that had haunted him and his whole generation.
Starting down the corridor, careful not to touch any of the capsules - or anything else for that matter - Nate strengthened his shields and carefully generated a psionic pulse to mask his own power signature. It was a trick they taught all psis at the Academy, and he'd been in enough covert situations to perfect it.
So long as he didn't reveal himself by doing anything that constituted a threat, the Sentinels wouldn't react. Even a light telepathic scan would set them off, but that didn't mean he was flying blind. If Stef was here, he'd be somewhere in the central spaces of the hive. Part of the genius of the hive construction was that no real damage could be done in the outer areas; a few drones would be lost, the outer wall might even be breached, but if you wanted to hurt them, you had to strike at the heart of the hive, at the core systems and the 'royalty'.
It was also where you had to go if you wanted to talk to them. Nate gritted his teeth. He didn't want to entertain that possibility, but it made more sense than any of the other options he could see. Simply damaging a hive certainly couldn't be in Stef's interest, not unless he'd found something in his temporal analysis that was simply too obscure for Nate to see. He couldn't overlook that possibility, but neither could he discount the chance that the simplest explanation was the right one.
It did have potential, from Stef's point of view. Coming from the future, Stef was privy to all sorts of information that the hive didn't have, knowledge that they could use to do enormous damage to the XSE. He'd even know where the wartime command bunkers were, Nate thought, fighting back a mixture of anger and alarm. Everything like that was an open book in 2041, at least to someone of Stef's resources.
Was that his plan here, then? The hive would speak to him, since he was a baseline human. They might try and incorporate him, but Stef wouldn't have walked in here unless he thought he could protect himself. Did he have that much faith in that damned body-shield of his? Either way, the Sentinels wouldn't see him as a threat. They'd probably even accept it as normal that a human might want to help them in their war against mutants. There'd been plenty of precedent for it in those years--
Damn him. Nate started to move more quickly down the corridor as the alarm he was feeling was gradually and irrevocably eclipsed by the anger. If Stef was intervening with the Sentinels, changing the course of the war in any way, he was threatening not only the XSE but every mutant on the planet--men and women who were only trying to live their lives, who'd never hurt him in any way. Who had no connection at all to those Stef blamed for his situation.
It was too much. Stef wasn't just tinkering with history, he was risking a global holocaust. And he was NOT going to get away with it.
Mom had told him she trusted him to make the right decisions. Maybe it was time he started looking past old affection and childhood loyalties and started to trust himself.
*
The face looking down on him from the tangle of techno-organic fibres hanging from the ceiling of the hive's central chamber looked human enough, Stef thought, hanging on to his composure with all his strength. There was a semblance of a humanoid form somewhere in there, but his eyes were drawn away from it, into the mess of wires and nutrient tubes.
Everything else about the hive's Controller was plainly, obviously, painfully inhuman. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Stef thought almost fearfully. He thought he'd been prepared for this, but--
"State your business," the Controller said, in an atonal voice that, like the face, might have been female once upon a time. "State your business."
Stef swallowed. "I have--information for you," he said, keeping his voice as level as he could. "Tactical data--on the XSE." He extended the disk, no bigger than the circle he could make with his thumb and forefinger, but packed with every bit of detail his research teams had been able to gather about the military situation in 2022. Troop strength statistics, security protocols, locations of command posts--everything that the Sentinels would need to make effective strikes on the XSE.
The Controller didn't move. "State your purpose," it repeated, and for a wild moment, Stef thought he saw suspicion in those blank, glassy eyes.
"To assist you."
"State your purpose!" the Controller insisted, and somehow detached itself from the roof, landing on the floor and slithering towards him so rapidly that he didn't have the chance to do more than take a half-step backwards before it was there, nose-to-nose with him. Its neck, if it could be said to have such a thing, was long and snakelike, letting it move that human-like head around into positions and angles that no human would have been able to manage. "Explain," it hissed at him, techno-organic tendrils reaching out and plucking at his shield, almost warningly.
Stef stiffened. The shield was the only protection he had against the Controller deciding that he would make a worthwhile addition to the hive. They'd adapt to it eventually, of course, figure out its composition and how to get past it. He had to complete this--transaction and get out of here before then.
"Explain your purpose!" the Controller ordered when he didn't respond.
He was beginning to wish this had been one of the nexus windows he'd crossed off the list. Then again, with his luck so far, he'd probably have landed in it anyway. The fact that his program was back on track was a GOOD thing, he reminded himself forcefully.
"I--am trying to assist you in YOUR purpose," Stef said, striving for a crisp tone. "I'm a baseline human. I--know what sort of negative impact mutants can have. Personally, I mean. I--"
"Enough," the Controller said impassively, and withdrew a little. "Your biosigns indicate this is not a fabrication on your part. The information will be scrutinized." A capsule over on the side wall slid open, and a drone stepped out, almost marching towards Stef. "Surrender the information and depart."
Gladly, Stef thought fervently, and passed the disk to the drone.
As soon as he let go of it, it shot out of the drone's hand and straight across the chamber. Whirling, Stef saw it where it hung, frozen in the air, a few inches in front of Nate's face. Staring right back at him steadily, Nate reached up and took it, pocketing it.
He'd used his telekinesis, Stef thought in disbelief. In the middle of a Sentinel hive, knowing what every drone in the place would do as soon as he used his powers, Nate had gone ahead and used his telekinesis. It was tantamount to suicide, for a mutant--
Emitting an atonal scream, the Controller skittered upwards like a spider running for its web. The scream echoed through the very walls of the hive, and stasis capsules started to slide open, drones waking up out of their hibernatory state.
Nate, on the other hand, wasn't reacting. "I suppose getting out of here would be a good idea, wouldn't it?" he said in a voice soft enough that Stef shouldn't have been able to hear it above the growing noise of the hive preparing for battle. "I could teleport out, if I knew where the exit is--but I don't." He gave Stef a strange, crooked smile. "I bet you do, though."
And Stef grabbed at his head with a scream of his own as Nate reached into his mind and tore at his shields. The pain was incredible, like white fire blossoming inside his skull. He was overcome by it, all his self-control shattered. Crumpling to the floor, he fought to stay conscious. Distantly, the tiny part of his mind that was still functioning rationally pointed out that this was mostly likely it. He was going to die. Nate had decided he was tired of the chase--
But then the pain stopped. Suddenly, as if someone had turned off a faucet. Stef laid there, trying desperately to get his body to obey him as he listened to the distant sound of explosions. More screaming, too, clearly not human--dying Sentinels, he thought with a momentary flash of clarity that drove back the lingering haze of pain. But--TOO distant, and that wasn't right--all the screaming should be right here, shouldn't it?
He managed to push himself up to his hands and knees, and saw Nate, already bleeding from at least three minor wounds that Stef could see, but still fighting, holding off at least a dozen Sentinels.
That wasn't where the bulk of the noise was coming from. His head started to clear, and Stef realized that the hive was under attack from outside.
Under attack--but that wasn't possible, the reason he'd picked this hive was because there'd be no fighting here during the nexus window. This wasn't right. Something was wrong--
Nate blasted a dinner plate-sized hole through the chest of one Sentinel and flung the body telekinetically at another, knocking it off its feet. #It's the XSE, Stef. You didn't time this very well, did you?# his voice snarled in Stef's mind.
"No--" Stef muttered. It couldn't be the XSE. The XSE weren't scheduled to attack this hive for another week--
#You've changed things already, Stef! Didn't you take that into your calculations?# Nate sent at him fiercely. #What else did you miscalculate? How long it'll take them to adapt and get past that body-shield of yours, maybe? At least I'm a threat to them, DaCosta. You're just fodder!#
Stef was barely listening to him. Something was WRONG. The program had deposited him in the wrong nexus window, on the wrong day--he shouldn't be here, not in the middle of a battle--
Another explosion shook the hive, and the ceiling of the central chamber started to cave in, just above where Nate was standing. Nate looked upwards, and Stef managed to raise a hand to shield his face as the debris hit, scattering techno-organic shrapnel everywhere.
When the dust cleared, Nate was still standing, his shield glowing so brightly around him that Stef could hardly see him. It faded a little, but then there were Sentinels rushing him again, and Stef could hardly see Nate at all, only the occasional flash of telekinetic energy as Sentinels were flung away, generally in pieces.
Nate was moving, though, falling back the way he had come in--or retreating, Stef couldn't be sure which. "Nate!" he shouted hoarsely, desperately hoping that Nate would hear him over the noise of battle. "NATE! You can't leave me here!" Nate had been chasing him all this time in order to bring him back to face trial, he couldn't be thinking of leaving him here to be incorporated into the hive and turned into a Prime Sentinel--"NATE! Damn you, HELP ME!"
There was no answer, telepathic or otherwise. Seeing the group of Sentinels starting towards him, Stef tried and failed to get back to his feet. All his coordination was gone. Desperately, he started to crawl away, finding strength in panic. He had to get out. It wasn't going to end this way.
It wasn't.
*
This was definitely not going anywhere near how he'd planned, Nate thought, as he found himself helpless to stop the Sentinels from driving him back into the outer areas of the hive. There were just too many. Maybe if he'd had his psimitar, he could have been more effective, but it was all he could do to keep them from overwhelming his defenses. Rotating the composition of his shields, mixing up his tactics--it would get less effective the longer he fought them, he knew that.
He hadn't been able to fight through them and get to Stef. That wasn't good. It sure as hell hadn't been his intention to leave him there. If he was incorporated into the hive--well, one more drone wouldn't make much of a difference, but what the Controller siphoned from Stef's brain about the future would.
I have to get back in there and find him. At least he'd gained himself enough breathing room to get a chance to destroy the disk completely. He could have shattered it instead of grabbing it, back in the central chamber, but he hadn't wanted to leave anything to chance. The possibility that the Controller might have been able to reconstruct some of the data from the fragments hadn't been an appealing one. Getting it out of there and waiting until he had a chance to rip it apart on the molecular level had been much safer--
Clare would have been able to do it instantly, which was yet another reason why she should have found some way to come herself. Nate shook his head angrily. What is, is. But he couldn't help but think how much more--capable she - or Nick or Zara, for that matter - would have been in this situation. Having a personal edge wasn't any damned good if it wound up backfiring--
I'm sick of this, Guthrie, and I'm sick of you!
Nate pushed the memory from his mind with all the force he could. The personal approach hadn't backfired, per se; the problem had been that he hadn't once utilized it effectively. All he'd done was react, become an obstacle to Stef, nothing more.
Reasoning with him was unlikely to work. But he still needed to think of a new approach--
He needed a new tactical approach right this moment, too; this one certainly wasn't working either, he reflected as the Sentinels forced him into retreat, yet again. He was holding his own, but there was no chance he'd be able to fight his way back through the hive. The sheer numbers alone would defeat him if he tried. He had to get out, get back to the central chamber another way.
The east side, Nate told himself. The way the ceiling had collapsed back in the central chamber suggested the hive's internal structure in that area had already been damaged--maybe enough to let him get through. It was worth a shot, at least. Turning away from the group of Sentinels pursuing him, Nate focused his telekinesis at the wall beside him, blowing a hole through to the outside.
It was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Outside, there was madness. Drones fought black-armored XSE troopers as attack craft swooped down from above, firing on the hive. The command ship was a dark shadow high overhead, barely visible among the clouds.
It was pitched battle, in other words. Nate hadn't been able to crack Stef's shields completely--he'd seen the location of the hive, a few other random details, but not the date. He had no idea who was leading this attack, whether it was anyone he could safely go to for help--
No, damn it! There'd been enough of that. God knew he needed help, but he wasn't going to look for it, not when he'd contributed to so much disturbance in the timeline already. Nate gritted his teeth and started scanning for Stef as he fought his way around the hive towards the east side. Masking himself from the XSE troopers as well was an expenditure of energy he couldn't really afford, but he did it anyway.
This was far too complex a situation; Stef couldn't possible have wanted to timerip into the middle of this. A battle was the ultimate chaotic system, nearly impossible to analyse from a temporal standpoint, let alone control.
An energy blast hit his TK shield, and Nate stumbled, struggling to keep it up as the sudden burn of feedback interfered with his concentration. Without a vest on - Should've had Mom borrow me one on the command ship-- - the shield was his only protection. Dodging a Sentinel as it reached out for him, Nate flipped neatly over another, using his telekinesis to extend the move and land out of reach.
And THAT was a whole lot easier when I was twenty-five-- Hell, all of this would have been easier if he hadn't been stupid enough to drop his psimitar to tackle Stef back at the embassy in Washington--but he had, and he had only himself to blame.
Whatever the circumstances behind this particular attack, whoever was leading it, things seemed to be going relatively well for the XSE. Well, because there was more and more damage being done to the hive with each passing minute, and the more damage done to the hive, the better of chances at getting to the Controller.
Relatively, because fighting Prime Sentinels always involved a lot of casualties, on both sides. Nate picked up the pace, blasting Sentinels out of his way and trying desperately to tune out the screams of the wounded. He had to focus on the job, even if it meant not helping where he could. It went against all his training, all of his instincts--but he had to get to Stef. There was no other choice.
Nate swallowed, thinking of how satisfying it had been, just for a moment, to think of Stef incorporated into the hive. It had seemed like poetic justice. Stef's selfishness rewarded by losing his self--
A surge of anger, entirely self-directed, flooded up inside Nate, and he vented it on the nearest Sentinel, doing to its head what he'd done to Stef's disk. What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn't here to play judge, jury and executioner. He was an instrument of the law, not the law itself.
He was supposed to be a peacekeeper, damn it.
When he reached it, the east side of the hive was a mess, most of the superstructure blown away. Thick, viscous fluid leaked from the wounds in the techno-organic inner arches, and there were dead Sentinels everywhere. Nate raced towards the largest of the holes in the inner wall, widening the scope of his scan. Something registered at the edges of his perception, and Nate growled in frustration, trying to chase it down. There was so much chaos in the psychic atmosphere, it was impossible to get a clear lock on anything--
He was almost back into the hive when he heard an all too familiar sound over the noise of battle. Stopping, Nate looked up, searching the sky frantically. He finally spotted his father--and the three Sentinels flying after him, cutting loose with energy blasts as if they were on the firing range. Three of them. All working to adapt to Dad's powers, and they had to know who he was, how to take him down--
And Nate found that he couldn't turn away. Not from this. Hard and fast, then-- Eyes narrowing, he concentrated as hard as he could, compensating with brute strength for the lack of a psimitar, and released a telekinetic shockwave, right at the Sentinels.
He'd meant only to buy his father some breathing room, time enough to counterattack, but his intervention had surprisingly effective results. The Sentinels tumbled limply from the sky, making no effort to avoid the impact with the ground.
They must have been focusing too hard on finding a way around Dad's blast shield, Nate thought, and then swayed as the reaction to all the energy he'd just expended hit him, hard. He'd pushed too far, put too much into that attack--stupid, amateur mistake--
If only he still had his psimitar. Rubbing his eyes frantically, willing his vision to clear, Nate forced himself to straighten and turn to keep staggering towards the hive. No time to rest, not even for a minute.
"Nate!"
He heard his father's shout, but forced himself to ignore it. Shouldn't have intervened, he thought dizzily, and cursed breathlessly as he stumbled. Why couldn't he see straight? Everything was shadows and light, like an afterimage--
"NATE! SHIELD!" his father bellowed.
Shield? He wasn't--
Something struck him in the chest high on the left side, something that felt like a fiery sledgehammer. His legs turned to rubber beneath him and Nate crumpled, unable to do anything to break his fall as the world tilted crazily around him.
On the ground, staring up at a smoke-clouded blue sky, he tried to breathe. It was--so hard, suddenly, as if there was a weight on his chest, crushing him. Blackness pressed in at the edges of his vision, and he coughed weakly, tasting blood at the back of his throat as pain started to replace numbness, like heat flowing into a void.
Shield. He'd lost his shield. No armor, no shield--
It was only then that he realized he'd been shot. He'd been shot, because he'd let his TK shield fall. He'd let his TK shield down, in a Prime Sentinel hive--
Something his father, years ago, had made him promise never to do.
I guess now I know why--
*
"Nate!" Sam shouted in anguish as he saw his son fall. "No!" Every instinct he had screamed for him to go to his son's side, but as he saw the dark-clad figure that had staggered out of the hive and shot Nate take aim to fire again, he held to his course. Not a Sentinel, Sentinels didn't use guns--but it couldn't be an XSE officer--
It wasn't. Sam had a brief impression of dark eyes in a dark face as he slammed into the man at full speed. Something, some sort of energy shield, flared and bounced him back several feet, but it fizzled and died instantly, as if his blast field had shorted it out. Even as it did, Sam was already lunging forward again.
"God damn you!" he snarled, drawing his fist back for a blast field-enhanced, incapacitating blow.
But Sam froze, his blood running cold as he got his first full look at the man who'd just shot his son. Denial and disbelief warred for control of his emotions as he took in the familiar features, the powerful resemblance.
He KNEW that face. It was older, just like Nate's was older, but the sense of recognition was inescapable. Just like with Nate, it was the eyes that gave it away--
They were Roberto's eyes. His best friend's eyes. This wasn't 'Berto, but Sam knew all too well who it was.
"Stefano," Sam breathed in horror, staring strickenly at his godson. "Stef--why?"
Stef gave a wild laugh, wide eyes flickering past Sam to Nate. "It's her fault," he said in a high, strained voice that had very little of sanity in it. "It's her fault for sending him," he went on, swaying on his feet. "I had to finish it before he could--that's what she wanted, don't you understand? I had to do it. It should have been her--"
Sam barely registered the nonsensical words. The other time traveler, the person Nate was after, was Stefano? 'Berto's son was trying to change the future? He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but there were no words. Not for this--
Stef looked straight at him, the look in his eyes still indescribable. "It doesn't matter," he said unevenly. "There's another him--" He shimmered suddenly, like a faulty hologram, and disappeared in a flash of green light.
Sam actually stood there for nearly five full seconds, his mind struggling to process Stef's sudden disappearance. Then he whirled and nearly fell over his own feet getting back to Nate. "Nate!" he said desperately, going to his knees beside him. *God help me,* Sam thought sickly as he saw that Nate hadn't been wearing a protective vest. No-- This wasn't going to happen, he wasn't going to let his son--cursing, Sam fumbled to adjust his headset. "Someone lock onto my signal!" he shouted into it. "Ah need a medic down here!" He ignored the response and reached out with shaking hands to put pressure on the wound.
Nate's eyes fluttered open. "Dad," he breathed, those hazy blue eyes lingering on Sam's face. "Didn't--see him. So sloppy--"
So much blood. Sam had picked up a lot of first aid over the years, but the knowledge of what he was supposed to do in a situation like this kept flitting beyond his grasp. He couldn't think, could barely hear for the roaring of his own pulse in his ears, and all he could see was Nate, his son, struggling to breathe. If only Dana was here--
"You stay awake!" he said sharply as Nate's eyes started to close again. Too loud. He could hear the panic in his own voice, but he couldn't do anything about it. "Stay with me, Nathan--" His voice broke. "Stay with me, please."
"It's--okay, Dad," Nate murmured faintly.
Okay? It was okay? 'Berto's son had just shot him, and Nate was trying to convince him that everything was okay? "Don't--waste your strength talking," Sam said, forcing the words out past the catch in his throat. "Just hold on, Nate. Everything's going to be all right, ah promise--"
"Clare--" Nate breathed, his voice barely audible. "You--need to come g-get me now, Clare--"
His words were answered by a flash of light far brighter than the one that had marked Stef's departure. Sam recoiled, shielding his eyes instinctively.
When the light faded, Nate was gone. "Nate," Sam whispered in anguish, hoping desperately that he'd been pulled somewhere he could get medical attention. "Please, God, let him be okay."
There was blood all over his hands. His son's blood. Sam sat there in numb shock until the medical team arrived, and only roused then to tell them that the blood wasn't his.
2041
Clare gasped as something--deflected Nate's path as she moved him along the timestream. What the hell? she thought wildly, trying to regain control. She'd almost completed the transfer, been only a heartbeat away from setting him down in the nexus window when she'd hit--whatever that was.
Compensating, she thrust him back out of the timestream as rapidly as she could, and withdrew to try and assess how much damage had been done. She heard Harry saying something to her, but ignored it, concentrating intently on the timestream. It wasn't bad, she realized, relieved. Whatever she'd hit hadn't taken Nate off his path completely. He was within the nexus window still, just--off a little, in space. Still in the same vicinity as Stef, but she'd intended to put him closer--
Something had interfered. Protecting her tether to Nate carefully - she wasn't going to risk anything snapping it again - Clare withdrew further and examined the spot along the timestream where it had happened as carefully as she could. There was a suspicious ripple here and there, suggesting that someone else was at work, but nothing to confirm that someone had definitely intervened.
Still, it was the most likely explanation. Whatever that sudden jolt had been, it certainly hadn't been natural. It better have been you or Sulven, Dad, Clare thought, wondering exactly why either of them would have wanted to alter the location where Nate reemerged from the timestream.
Wondering, more than a little fearfully, if she really wanted to know.
to be continued...
alicia's stories | [ARCHIVE] | comicfic.net