Time Flux: Welcome to the New World

Clock Unpinned

The pain was excruciating. The blade which had pierced straight through Clock's shoulder and lodged a few inches into the wall behind him showed an almost superhuman level of power and precision on the part of One. But this was not the cause of the most pain. Clocks pride had taken the biggest beating. As he stood there up against the wall, hardly able to keep himself up to avoid the blade doing any more damage, he wondered how exactly he has been able to get himself in such a position in this time. Clock is a highly skilled and scientifically augmented soldier from the future and he had been thoroughly bested by a freaky, Charlie Chaplin look-alike.

"James... please..." Hannah's voice came into focus

She had been calling out almost religiously to James since One left the room. He had been so deep in his own misery he hadn't heard her for a while, the pool of blood on the floor beneath him had almost quadrupled in size.

"James!" Hannah cried

"It's usually under better circumstances that women scream my name like that ya know" Clock responded through blooded coughs

"You have lost a lot of blood!"

"Not really going to matter when those explosives go off"

"James..."

James finally looked up to see her crying, bloodshot eyes. The fear in them may as well have been written in bold lettering.

"I don't want to die..."

Before James could think about responding a sharp pain struck his heads left side. A loud static sound pierced his ear drums and then silence.

"Jesus... What the fu..." James is interrupted by a familiar voice

"Clock, Clock!"
"God damn it Oz, isn't it enough that I'm skewered, I have to be deaf as well! Shit."

"Skewered? What are you talking about"

"Forget it, are you still in the room I left you?"

"No, we managed to find our way through the ventilation shafts, according to the Tech-Man we are almost directly above you. Can you see a vent in the ceiling?"
"Yes, there's one in the corner across from us"

"Us? Is Hannah with you? Is she okay?"

"She's with me, yeah"

"Can you go over and take the panel off of the vent?"
"Ummm, not right now, i'm sort of pinned."

"Okay, well I have more good news"

"Good news?"

"We have live explosives all around us. The Tech-Man can sense the incendiaries"

"You really need to work on your vocal sarcasm skills ya know that"

"Sorry, you don't seem shocked"
"A little gift from One, we've had a little chat"
"Did you kill him?"

"Not exactly..."

"Hold on..."

After three quick and heavy bangs the vent on the cieling smashed to the floor and Oz jumped down. His eyes turned directly to the ever increasing blood pool under a stricken James Clock.

"Oh my god..." Oz said, mouth gaping

"Help him! Please!" Hannah said

Oz still assessing the damage to Clocks shoulder taps some information into the Tech-Man. He looks at his Tech-Mans display and rubs his hands through his hair.

"Well, good news. The blade didn't hit any major organs" Oz says

"Bad news?"

"The blade has shattered two ribs and has completely demolished your left Scapula bone"

"Gibberish, can you get me out?"

"First thing I'm going to do is cut through the blade to get you off of the wall. Then we are going to need to get the hell out of here. We can deal with the extraction after we survive this hellish place"

"Do it. Now"

Oz brings the Tech-Man up to the hilt of the sword and cuts through it using a green coloured laser beam from the Tech-Man's underside. James, even in the state he was in, still was in complete awe at how much this little device was capable of.

The hilt smashed to the floor after the cut had been made. James looked at the now severed edge of the blade, no more than 4 inches from the surface of his chest and then back at Oz.

"Right, now I'm going to cut around the back of it to get you unpinned from the wall, okay?" Oz says

"Oz, as fun as walking around this shit heap with a sword in my chest sounds, I'm not really feeling it" James replies

"What do you mean?"

"I'm guessing that laser is some super hot light thing, right?"

"Uhh, yeah..."
"Good.."

James moved the palms of his hands onto the surface of the wall behind him. He closed his eyes for a split second to prepare himself for what was to come and pushed with all of his remaining venom. He quickly slid off of the blade, blood spitting in all directions. The team had never heard Clock scream in agony, until now. The blood-curdling sound of him wail as the blade left his body they will never forget.

Clock hit the ground and placed his hands over the hole on his chest. He grabbed hold of Oz's hand as he shot to the floor to help him.

"Close it!" James shouted

"What the heck are you doing you idiot!?" Oz exclaims

"Close it you prick!"

Oz taps some information into the Tech-Man, he widens the localisation of the laser and begins to trace the hole on Clocks shoulder. The agonising screams return, ringing around the room and probably the whole complex, if it weren't for the fact they were already evacuating the place, they would have found them in a second. Clock eventually passed out from the pain, it took him much longer to do so than the average man but contrary to popular belief, he was not superhuman.

As Clock slipped off into a deep pain induced sleep, he was greeted by a dream that he was more than familiar with. He was sat inside of a large room within what was obviously an old storage container that had been repurposed into a horrifically small living space. He was sat on an old arm chair looking out of a grinder cut hole in the container which can only be described as a window. A figure of a woman, long flowing blonde hair walks in front of the harsh light coming through the window, her face isn't visible but she is very familiar to Clock.

"One day we are getting outta here, I promise..." Clock says

"No James..." The feminine figure says
"What..?"
"We have been over this many times, you left here a long time ago"

"But, I don't understand"

"You have a new life now. A new family to take care of"

"I remember now... I... I failed you"

"You did, but that's not the end of your story, your redemption isn't yet achieved"

"I feel like I'm dying?"

"You are close, but today is not your last, James"

"What should I do?"
"Protect them, Save them, show them how to get back to what they know..."
"What they know?"

"It's time to go..."

"No, I'm not ready. I want to stay here... with you..."
"Our time is over, in your world and in this."

"Please, no!"

"Goodbye..."