Darkest Before the Dawn...

[Bonnie Blue]

Dethfort Castle

Denmark

16.4.17

03:22:41

A fetid, charnel-house stench clung in a thick miasma to the deeps and hollows of the decaying landscape; wafted over the row upon row of perfectly regimented tents that spread so far in either direction that the encampment seemed to have no end. Surrounded by a wide clearing amid the city of tents was a command post, bigger than the rest; imposing, reassuring, stalwart. Inside, a handful of officers clustered around a monitor that displayed a topographical layout of the immediate area, deep in discussion. Now and again, one of them would cast a glance toward a pretty blonde, engrossed in a chaotic mess of hardware and wiring. She seemed out of place -- too young, too pure for the company gathered here, or the endeavor at hand -- but nobody dared give voice to their objections. The Commander wasn't given to flights of whimsy, and if the girl was there, he had his reasons.


For her part, the young blonde observed the planning session without comment, absorbing every word as she carefully applied a soldering iron to a nanochip. After a time, the officers left, and Bonnie Blue found herself once again alone with him; Johnny Rabid -- Sir John Rabid, now, she reminded herself. It was a situation she had tried assiduously to avoid, but the events of the last forty-eight hours had thrust them into a proximity with which neither was wholly comfortable. "Surreal" didn't even begin to describe the experience.


"Somethin' I still don't understand," Bonnie ventured, tucking a tangle of wires into a cylindrical housing. "Mexico. 1he wav3. Exile to a tangent reality. Why?"


Rabid raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up from the file he was perusing.


"Yours is not to reason why, Bonnie," he paraphrased, leaving the rest unspoken.


"Don't quote Tennyson at me. We ain't the Light Brigade, an' I ain't plannin' on dyin' today."


"I should think not," he remarked.


"Right. I forgot. You don't do straight answers. Don't reckon it matters. I'm better off there."


Better off, she thought, because of you, ironically. What cruel hand has twisted the threads of our lives so inextricably together? This universe, or the other, no matter how I try to outrun it... the favor of one, the enmity of another; and yet both the same man, more or less.


The young woman sealed shut the last panel on the alloy tube and held it up to the light for closer inspection. Just a little over six inches in length, slim and comfortable in the palm of her hand, and lightweight; the multipurpose tool was a simple in design as it was functional. A recessed button and the black rubber grip were all that marred the smooth, coppery finish. The tip was surmounted by a small crystalline globe gripped in a steel claw, which gave off a subtle luminescence of its own at her touch. Satisfied, she got up and presented the object to Rabid, who looked it over curiously.


"Telepathic interface," Bonnie explained, "and isomorphic control. Keyed to recognize only your DNA signature. Exactly to your specifications."


He nodded and tucked the tool away in a pocket.


"Listen, in case things go badly... I just wanted to say...." The Daughter of Time hesitated, struggling to find the words, warring with her own fierce pride. "It was wrong of me to antagonize ya the way I did, Mr. Rabid, an' I'm sorry for that."


Rabid was silent for what seemed an eternity, gazing speculatively at the young woman.


"This new maturity suits you, Bonnie," he said at last.


"Damn well better, considerin' what it cost me."


Without further comment, the young woman slipped past him and out of the command tent, fishing a blunt from the pocket of the sapphire-hued jumpsuit she wore. A triangle-shaped patch on her right shoulder marked her as a Pantheon soldier, the elite of the elite, and gave her access to the most restricted areas of the encampment; nobody would even think to hinder her. What she wanted just now, however, was distance, a moment or two of peace before the shit hit the fan. She found a spot in a stand of alder trees not yet touched by the blight spreading across the land, perched on an empty ammunitions crate, and sparked up.


The first lungful of soothing smoke eased her soul; a second relieved the tumult of conflicting thoughts in her mind. Coming back had been more overwhelming than she'd expected. Her conversation with Frank replayed itself in her mind; what was a nice girl like Bonnie doing in a place like this? Part of her had initially wanted to refuse, but when the Serpent calls -- you don't ignore that. In truth, the Daughter of Time would likely have come running the instant she'd heard that anything was wrong; not simply from an inborn sense of altruism, nor because she felt she owed it to Corey Black or anyone else on this side of things. Those were factors, certainly, but her motives held an aspect of selfishness.


Simply put: she wanted to show up, kick ass, save the day -- and prove to them that they hadn't beaten her.


Bonnie's first encounter with the undead had allayed any further thoughts of flamboyant heroism. Nothing she had been through in the other reality had prepared her for this. It wasn't like the movies -- it was worse, far worse, because you couldn't always tell them from the living. There was a hesitant jerkiness to their movements, like marionettes controlled by an inexpert hand; but unlike the films, rotting, scabrous limbs didn't fall off at opportune moments, nor did the creatures shamble along in a mindless search for human flesh. Their movements were ordered, purposeful, and when they killed, it was with precision.


She sucked in another breath of cannabis and held it until her lungs threatened to burst, then released it slowly, watching the faint vapor dissipate on the early morning air. A fraction of her awareness drifted, making contact with something unseen, invisible to anyone but herself -- so far as Bonnie could tell, anyway. There were four of them, loyal pets she had dispatched as scouts: two to observe the environs of Dethfort, one watching over the camp, and the last sent to keep an eye on the Russian fleet gathering in the bay. True to Rabid's prediction, a bustle of activity had begun there already.


Somewhere in the darkness behind her, a twig snapped, breaking Bonnie's concentration as she whirled around to face whomever was approaching. Light from the camp reached dimly into the little grove, picking out familiar features highlighted by the glint of metal and the greenish glow of an artificial eye. The young woman grinned as she recognized her old friend, all her fear flooding away.


"Hank! You ol' cybernetic son of a bitch! Nobody told me you was here!" she said, moving forward to give him a hug -- then stopped abruptly.


Light fell fully on CyberHank's face and revealed the ruined mess. The metal skull was dented, frayed cables sparked, and half of his upper lip and cheek had been torn away to expose the flesh beneath. A rattling sound halfway between a snarl and a chuckle escaped what had once been his lips as he stalked closer.


The solid right he threw at her caught Bonnie by surprise and nearly knocked her to the ground. She recovered quickly and leveled a low kick at his knee, which bent backward but failed utterly to drop him. He crept toward her, the injury righting itself even as she watched.


"Time," hissed the thing in a voice that wasn't Hank's. "Time is entropy."


Bonnie backed up, her mind trying to process too much information at once. It was a shock to see the cyborg version of Hank Brown again, let alone like this.


"Entropy is Death," it rasped, launching itself at her with a surprising quickness.


The young woman's subconscious anticipated the attack, her reflexes twisted her body out of the way just in time to avoid direct contact, and instinct guided her hands into a defensive position that blocked a follow-up blow. She countered with a knee to the groin -- which had absolutely no effect on the undead creature. What remained of its lip curled up in a sneer.


"The Daughter of Time will serve -- "


A European uppercut, reinforced with time-enhanced speed, shut the cyborg's mouth and sent it sprawling to the ground. Bonnie dropped a knee in the middle of Hank's chest and hammered at him with her fists.


"The Hell, I will!"


An instant later, she was thrown off as Hank gave her a powerful shove. The young woman landed on her feet and promptly charged toward Hank, moving with a speed no human eye could track; but this Hank was half machine, and his cybernetic eye easily followed her. His arm shot out, clotheslining her to the ground.


"The Daughter of Time," the reanimated corpse said again, reaching down to grasp a dazed Bonnie Blue by her throat, "will serve Death."


The young blonde felt herself hoisted into the air, even as the viselike grip tightened, his other hand on her hip for added support. There was no time for final thoughts. A single name, like a subtle whisper, flitted through her mind so quickly that she failed, at first, to recognize it; and when she did, it roused a fiercer instinct that prompted her to redouble her efforts. Bonnie Blue fought her way free of the zombie-cyborg's grip and dodged a haymaker that would have probably decapitated her. She popped up and rammed her forearm into his throat; he caught her around the waist and tilt-a-whirl slammed her onto the unyielding ground.


Before she could recover, CyberHank leveled two fingers at the young woman; a pair of leads shot forward and buried themselves in her chest, delivering a stunning fifty-thousand volt shock. He knelt in the leaf litter beside Bonnie and raised a hand to deliver the coup de grace -- when all at once, the steel tip of a sabre burst from Hank's chest in a spurt of orangeish-red hydraulic fluid and black ichor. His body pitched to one side as the blade was withdrawn, and at the other end of the sword, John Rabid extended a hand to help her to her feet.


Immediately, the area was a hive of activity. People in biohazard suits swarmed the disabled Hank Brown and strapped him onto a stretcher, while soldiers combed the vicinity for signs of other intrusion. Bonnie waved off an over-eager medic and hurried to join Rabid on the fringes of the bustle, observing in silence. Abruptly, a hollow laugh burst from CyberHank's ruined lips, rose to a maniacal crescendo, and then silenced just as suddenly. Hank's head turned to fix the pair of them with a burning stare.


"Ten," it said in a matter-of-fact tone.


Somewhere in Hank's artificial guts, an urgent beeping started.


"Nine."


Puzzled, one of the soldiers moved closer to scan the cyborg with a handheld instrument.


"Eight," Hank told them.


The soldier paled at the information displayed on the readout.


"Radiation levels are rising!" the man reported. "He's getting hot!"


"Seven," said Hank, unconcerned.


Bonnie gasped as she realized what was going on. Hank had been equipped with a small, onboard nuclear generator as a backup power source; and now he was overloading it, trying to cause a core meltdown.


"He's gonna self-destruct and take us with him!"


"Six."


"How do we stop it?" Rabid asked.


"Easy," Bonnie replied. "Still got that thing I gave you?"


"Five," interjected Hank.


Everyone ignored him. Rabid pulled the cylindrical device from his pocket and gave the blonde a questioning glance. She grinned.


"Reverse the polarity of the -- " Bonnie began.


" -- the neutron flow," Rabid finished. "Of course."


He pointed the device at the cyborg. It emitted a high-pitched whirr; the tip glowed dimly with an inner light, then flared for a brief instant.


"Fffooourrrr.... " protested the undead thing as, at last, it shut down.


Under Bonnie's supervision, the soldiers found and removed the nuclear battery, then hurried to get the creature into a quarantine cell, where it could be dissected and studied. As Hank was carried off, she turned to find Rabid engaged in an urgent, hushed conversation with a low-ranking soldier. With a snappy salute, the young soldier -- no older than Bonnie herself, if that -- dashed off to fulfill his orders. The Daughter of Time didn't have to ask.


"Suit up," Rabid told her. "It's starting."