THE SLIDE | part 4
Chapter 41: Mayhem Red Herrings
Fiction: Running for Cover
Warning a brief scene of violence and rape
Recap
Zed was on top of her, in the pocket dimension he created, raping her. She pleaded with him to stop and screamed at him to stop.
He was flung across the room like a rag doll crashing into Q and A who had huddled more closely together. They were rendered unconscious.
“I had nothing to do with it,” Marie said holding up her hands, gently shaking her head “no” and looking down. Zed called for help.
Two medics and two guards entered.
A bright yellow light filled the room and blinded everyone. When it dissipated Marie was gone but in her stead was Ra.
“Guards, shackle him and take him to the dark cell before he does something crazy,” Zed commanded. Q and A had awakened and were refusing further medical attention.
“What happened to General Bissett?” A asked.
“Ask Ra,” Zed pointed at Ra.
“What did you do with General Bissett?” A asked.
“She is safe,” he responded. The guards shackled him and led him away.
After the guards left with Ra, Q asked Zed, “Does this mean that we failed to keep Ra in the Prison of No Escape?”
Zed chuckled. “The only way that Ra could have escaped was with help. There was only one person who could have helped him. And even though she is not imprisoned, we can put her in the prison he escaped from any time we wish.”
“And who is she? General Bissett?” Q asked.
“No. She in question is Farha,” A answered.
“Leave and attend to your duties,” Zed ordered.
Q and A left for A’s private office.
“So, what’s that important that we need privacy?”
“I think Zed is no longer in charge, and he may never have been in charge of this faction of black ops for our SS,” A said right after he turned up his music and pulled Q close.
Report from The Ninkla Scientists
Petra dimmed the lights as all the scientists, cartographers, astronomers, technicians, administrators, and some SS agents crowded into the viewing room.
“What you are about to see are a few stills from air balloons, a glider, and long-range video from the ground, courtesy of the Ninkla people’s scientists of the observatory near the city Matta Pita. They have an advanced team as close to the south pole epicenter as is possible.”
The huge monitor lit up.
The first twenty stills showed trees, foliage, boulders, and soil being ripped from the ground by the gravitational shear of the near stationary vortex-cyclone overhead in the vacuum of space. Not all of the land-space was barren, just in pieces and sections. Forty-five seconds of a video feed of a glider descending showed patches of barren ground before the glider disintegrated in its descent.
The screen went dark. There was a hushed silence. Everyone began talking at once.
Ra and the Ch-Cha-Cha
“I need to talk for a second,” the taller guard said to the shorter guard walking ahead of Ra.
“How are we to watch and guard him while we talk?” the shorter guard asked.
“Give me the pole-clamp,” the taller guard said. After a minute, the tall guard had attached a collar to Ra’s neck which was locked into the pivot on the telescoping pole with a maximum length of 9 feet. He only needed six.
“Have we been down this tunnel before, like a few minutes ago?” the tall one whispered to the short one, while the short one glanced at Ra and back at his friend.
“Um, I-I-I don’t know.”
“Concentrate, remember, look at where we are,” the frustration in the tall one was increasing.
The short guard looked at where they have come from and where they were about to go.
Ra fast-forwarded their steps towards the dark chamber below the dungeon. He was with the two guards as they chained him to the wall and X slithered and enveloped him in X’s darkness. Then back to the present. The two guards were still whispering. Ra repeated the time-forwarded motion. This time the guards pushed him freed of shackles into the dark chamber where X swallowed him whole. In the present Ra used his spirit arms to clear off the goo. He revealed the passageway that was the direct route to the dark chamber and let the guards be enticed towards it.
“What about this way,” the short guard said pointing.
“Where?”
“Behind you.”
“That looks right.” They both sighed and moved Ra down the narrow passage.
At the end just before the metal door into the dark chamber, Ra turned up his light, and all three vanished from the space.
An Hour Before
Marie Bissett walked through the cave where Hrez was meditating, only to him she appeared as a blur. Her wake caused turbulence in his stillness and he was brought up to her speed, forward through the mountain. The two blurs went to where the Slide once was and oscillated it back into existence. Her forward motion was so fast that when she came into the underground sanctuary formed by Ivanovich time stopped. Marie literately hit a wall and fell over into the current time in the past. Experienced, Hrez stopped before he hit the wall and remained conscious while the meditation flowed through him.
“What was that?” Louie asked Ivanovich.
“Something very familiar,” he responded.
“In the underground sanctuary?” Louie hesitantly suggested.
“Yup,” and they both jogged off.
Hrez helped Marie up. He introduced himself.
“I am confused,” she said.
Louie and Ivanovich breached the second chamber with flourishes of surprise where the two interlopers stood. Ivanovich stopped short, pressed his palms together, and said:
“Oh Spirits, it’s her, my Maria.”
Marie turned and faced him. He was crushed, it wasn’t his wife, Maria, though the resemblance from her back was identical. Everyone introduced themselves to one another.
A ghost image of tall, slender white barked trees with symmetrical green leaves hummed and twittered in a breeze. Two of the three tall men with green clothing and green skin moved: one in a counterclockwise circle and the other in a clockwise circle. The third man was still. He alternately looked skyward and across the veil into the chamber. An older woman appeared and looked into Ivanovich’s eyes and whispered his name in a hush –
“Oh Nikos, my beloved, I have missed you so.”
Ivanovich’s heart melted into his true identity as Nikos for a few moments.
“Come, Marie, you will be safe here,” Maria spoke into Marie’s heart and was pulled quickly in a blur into the ghost image, which faded quickly from view. And yet its image lingered in the minds of Ivanovich, Louie, and Hrez. Ivanovich/Nikos watched as Maria, his wife and beloved escorted Marie through the grove of trees into a fog that lingered in the wood.
Previous Chapter, 40: Zed Questions Marie
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I appreciate your continuing readership and applaud you that you take the time to read this longer work in an era of shorter stories. Bravo!
Rebecca Romanelli | Blaine Coleman | Spyder | DL Nemeril | May More | David Price | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Melanie J. | Joseph Lieungh | Camille Grady | madmess’s thoughts | Orla K. | Ravyne Hawke | Winston | Margie Willis | Noorain Ali | Lee David Tyrrell | Libby Shively McAvoy | Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi | Ilis Trudie Palmer
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