“Can you reach it?”
Colin stretched and contorted his arms and hands towards his back. The rope cut into his wrists, rubbing them near-raw. His fingers brushed the top of the phone and he tapped it, trying to almost claw it out with his fingers.
After a couple of minutes, the phone fell out with a triumphant clunk that sounded way too loud in the quiet warehouse.
They were still as corpses for a few seconds, but nothing happened. The aliens hadn’t heard.
Rachel managed to crane her neck, stretch her hands and touch the screen and it beeped into life. She pressed the call icon, a set of numbers appeared and she attempted to memorise a very long number. She got it wrong the first couple of times.
There was much hushed swearing and she said, “Calling someone on a different planet is bloody ridiculous.”
On the third time, however, a quiet dial tone played, and they both grinned.
“Hello?”
Way too loud. Colin forgot it was on speaker.
“Jeff,” said Rachel is a desperately worried hiss. “Keep your voice down. Open a wormhole to-“
The door handle to the far room jiggled and turned. The door swung open. They had heard.
Zacharias stepped out and saw the phone on the floor.
“You little shits!”
“Brookbug’s Warehouse!” Rachel yelled. “Wormhole! Now!”
Zacharias sprinted across towards them reaching into his pocket with his good hand and pulling out the gun that was magnificently alien and deadly, loading it ready to shoot.
He stood furiously in front of them both, raising his gun. He shot it, twice, at the phone on the floor, with bullets that appeared as flashes of brilliant white light. It scorched both Colin and Rachel’s hands, and they yelled when glistening red marks, that were less like burns and more like a shredding away of flesh, appeared on their fingers. Colin had never felt pain as intense as this.
The phone had disappeared entirely, leaving a small hole in the floor surrounded by a black burn and smoke.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” he spat at them and pointed his ghastly steam-punk hand at them.
Another shot rang out- it was an Earthly gun, and a metal bullet flew from the left and hit Zacharias’ metal hand square in the palm. It ripped right through the cogs and the pipes and the hand stopped moving and spewing smoke.
“I have no idea what they’ve done,” said a voice. Colin and Rachel both looked round to see a smiling man, roughly in his thirties, clutching a smoking handgun and emerging from a wormhole. “But I would be grateful if you informed me.”
Claw yelled, not with pain as the hand had no nerve endings, but with frustration. He whipped around to look at the man with rage.
“You filthy little-“ he slurred his words and ended with a frustrated grunt.
The man winked at him and made a cheeky clicking sound with his tongue.
Zacharias raised his hand and gun, but too late. The man thrust out a hand forwards and slightly upwards. – the ground shook and erupted with rock that flew upwards to trap Claw’s hand. It was now imprisoned in a pillar of rough stone and concrete and he shook and struggled to no avail.
An Earth Elemental.
Vector, clearly hearing the commotion swung open the door and raised a gun of his own. Too late. The man thrust his hand at Vector and a piece of rock flew towards him. It split into two and hit both his hands, throwing him to the wall. The rock shifted and hardened, sticking him there.
“You’re Colin, right?” said the man, pointing at him.
Colin nodded.
“Woo-boy,” the man grinned. “Now we’re in trouble.”
“Untie us Jeff!” Rachel yelled. Courtesies were unimportant. “Now!”
The man named Jeff sprinted towards them and attacked the rope. He produced a sharp “knife” of rock with his hands and sawed at it with all his might, as Zacharias yelled and screamed at him with rage.
When the rope was free, Colin and Rachel jumped to their feet, rubbing their sore wrists.
They leaped through the wormhole, Jeff pausing only to flip Zacharias the finger.
Zacharias narrowed his eyes and hissed.
“You. Are. History.”
**
Colin and Rachel materialised through the wormhole in a clearing of a dense looking forest. It was thick with a multitude of luscious green trees that grew close together to form barriers of wide, rough branches and huge clumps of leaves; the light of early morning shined through the thin areas to create spotlights on the humid soil, and the whole area glowed with a sea-like green.
A large African man with a purple suit and bushy moustache stood in the clearing with his arms crossed and face all frown.
Jeff stumbled from the wormhole, started to grin and then him.
“Ah,” he said. “You found out.”
“What the hell do you think you were doing?” said the man, in a deep, gravelly voice.
Jeff paused.
“Saving them.”
He pointed to Colin and Rachel. Rachel smiled sheepishly and Colin raised a hand and grimaced.
“Without consulting the council first?” said the man.
“Zacharias-“
“Zacharias is not to be contacted by you. You cannot see him. You cannot speak to him. You cannot attack him!”
The last sentence was bellowed so loud, Jeff flinched.
“Curtis, I swear. I went in, I went out. Nothing happened and-“
“How do I know that?” Curtis said. “How do I know you didn’t kill him, for God’s sake?”
“He’s alive.” Jeff smiled. “For now.”
Curtis flexed his arm out to the side and hard rock covered his arm right down to his hand, encrusting it in rough stone. Colin watched in terror as the arm rose up and grabbed Jeff’s neck. He knew that his neck could be crushed with ease. He backed away warily.
“You’re naïve enough to think that I have forgiven you,” Curtis’ voice had dropped to barely a whisper. Jeff strained to breath as Curtis brought him higher and higher. “I have never- never- forgiven you for what you did.”
Jeff flailed his legs and tried desperately to prise the hand of stone of his neck as he started to gurgle, flecks of saliva forming in the corners of his mouth.
“We should have killed you,” Curtis continued, unfazed by Jeff’s weak attempts at struggling. “Do you know how much that-“Curtis strained his words. “-accident cost us?”
Jeff continued to struggle.
“DO YOU KNOW?” Curtis’ face contorted with rage. Colin wondered what the accident he was speaking of was, and if he’d ever find out.
Jeff nodded and Curtis released his hand and the rock flowed from his hand, up to his shoulder and disappeared. Jeff fell to his knees and gasped for well-needed air.
“You’re an inconvenience, Jeff,” Curtis said. He straightened a gold tie. “An inconvenience. And nothing more.”
He stamped his foot on the ground a platform of rock erupted from the earth below Curtis’ feet, catapulting him into the air. The ground rippled and it was so sudden, Colin found it hard to keep his balance; his knees shook, and he stared in awe as Curtis disappeared through the leaves.
Colin could just make out the purple figure of Curtis land and leap again in the far distance. The rock from the ground delved slowly downwards, leaving cracks in the earth.
“Show off,” muttered Jeff, getting to his feet again.
Colin gaped.
“I want to go home.”
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