The Avestan Viewer -- A Wolf Love Story

Chapter 27 -- Timothy

I felt a growing shadow presence which was making me uneasy. I knew what it was and needed to talk to Stephen about it. Timothy. I had watched the man, I worked with him in the lab- and became uneasy with his enthusiasm. How the scientist in him embraced this new energy, how he spent endless hours with Professor Meriwether and his family. We couldn't guarantee the professor's safety if he moved back to Alaska, so the professor made a temporary home in Hoodsport near our facilities. The professor never knew of us, but he was not stupid either and knew he was guarded. And he and Timothy had forged a friendship based on a shared enemy and a shared interest in anti-gravity.

It sounded preposterous to me. But I had seen part of the Avestan machine with my own eyes. I saw that melted plastic box sitting in the lab, the small device that made time not exactly stand still- but warp around us. Zeke could make a field where he could stop time itself for a short span. Timothy and a few of his engineers spend weeks reviewing and taking the machine apart. They could not make sense of it.

Until I touched it. The machine woke up a little and sputtered as it tried to work. I dropped it back onto the foam pad and went silent and still again. I reached out to touch it and it tried to work. Timothy hooked up some detectors and recorded the activity. I spent hours in the lab, and Timothy watched me the entire time, he was near me at all times in a slightly creepy way. The machine and the parts were almost an obsession and I was wary, it reminded me of Zeke.

One time we were working and I realized no one else was in the room with us. Timothy put an electrode on my arm and then rubbed it absently as he checked the monitors. I deliberately reached up and stilled his hand as it rubbed back and forth.

I looked directly at him and said, "You know we have to destroy this."

He jerked his hand away and shot me a look of pure venom before composing his face. "Of course Luna," he said then walked away to check on his video feeds. I made sure to always bring a warrior with me after that, and decided to start training again. In my limited free time I often stood and looked at the black plastic box. It was about nine inches square when assembled, and about five inches high. And it was often in pieces on foam in a special sealed chamber. I could go anywhere, I had the highest clearances and went to stare at it, I wondered if it was trying to call to me.

Death was near this, I could feel the black sticky tendrils of it and finally admitted it to myself. This box, this part was designed to be part of the Avestan fusion reactor using the silver energy that I generated. The part came to 'life' when I touched it.

"What is it love?" Stephen said from behind me. He could sense my growing disquiet. "Elise said you've been coming here a lot."

I didn't turn around and reached again for the box. When I touched it the entire box quivered, and when I took my hand away it stilled.

"Death is here with this box." I then turned to him and my expression was sad, "And Death wants nothing more than to kill us all." I sighed and walked past Stephen and waited for him in the hall outside the room. Stephen stood and looked at the box, trying to decide if he felt anything. He didn't, but I could feel him scanning my emotions now. He knew I could sense it, and he shivered slightly at our shared memory of Death.

He walked out and took my hand, then led me outside to the woods. I could see the trees starting to form buds, I could feel the anticipation of Spring. I could feel the beginning of life returning above ground after it had hibernated during the cold.

I decided to stop going to the room to touch the box, and I decided to make myself stop thinking about it. There was an... aura... that surrounded this part of the whole machine. And I was afraid of the dark forces that surrounded it, and I was afraid for Timothy. This whole thing had changed him, and I wasn't sure he could come back from it, or from the evil pull of the parts. I didn't want to have to kill him in order to save the world, I didn't want to have to make that kind of sacrifice of one of my own.