I’m Nine Again - Chapter 23 Meeting

[22/01/2008 12:05]

Reaching the main street, there was a moment. A moment where no one had seen us. A moment where everything just carried on as it normally would have. People were running to catch their tram, heading back to work from their lunch break. The sounds of the firefight from the other side of the block had eluded most of the people here. That was until the screaming started.

“THEY’VE GOT GUNS!” yelled a man who pointed towards us. People in the immediate area started to turn around and stare. The sight that would behold them, seven people standing at the exit of an alleyway. Two teenagers covered with blood and wielding automatic weapons. There was a lull as if everything around us had stopped. I almost convinced myself that I’d accidentally used my time stop powers.
for visiting.

The pause in time was ended by a young woman standing not far from us, who dropped the coffee she was carrying in her hands and started to run. Like a perfect group think experiment, another person started to run as well. Then everybody started to act, people starting to scurry away in all different directions. A few of those much closer to us had dropped to their knees with their hands raised above their head.

“Screw stealing a car!” I said to Alice, “Run with the crowd.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, “Someone might jump on us.”

Julia tugged at my arm as she pointed down the street. Two more people wielding assault rifles were running up the street towards us. Alice noticed and raised her weapon. I quickly put my hand on the barrel and pushed it back down.

“We are not shooting off rounds in a crowded city street!” I said. I looked around for another option, but one didn’t present itself to me. The men got closer to us and started to raise their rifles.

“What are we going to do Sean!?” Alice asked frantically backing up into the alley. We all pushed back into the alley to gain a semblance of cover from the approaching enemy.

“I’ve got an idea!” I said.

“Yure velenis?” Alice asked.

“I’m going to run out,” I said, scrapping the idea together sloppily in my head as I was expressing it aloud, “Wait ten seconds before following me and trust me, I think I’ve got this.”

“You think you’ve got this!?” Alice asked.

“We have no other option here Alice!” I said.

I looked down at my weapon to check it was loaded fully and the safety was off. Even though I had known that everything was all in check, I had to double-check and triple-check.

“Okay,” I said.

I kicked out from the alleyway and started running out into the middle of the street, jumping up onto the roof of a car and then launching my self as high into the air as I could, facing the two men who were running up the street towards us.

“TIME SLOW!” I yelled.

Whether or not I yelled what I was doing, my abilities would activate, but yelling them out served as something of a focus for me. By calling out what I had named then, my powers were able to incarnate more rapidly.

Launching my self into the air, time slowed down to a snail’s pace as I looked directly at one of the men in front of me. His rifle was slowly rising to his shoulder as he began to take aim at me. I was also slowly aiming my rifle at him, the snails’ pace that time crawled along at made it easier for me to take in a lot of information. I lowered my head to the sights of my rifle which felt like 30 seconds. By the time my eyes had come into place and were looking in the sights of the rifle, I could already see his right leg through my aim.

‘If I start pulling the trigger when the sights are aiming at his chest, then by the time the trigger is fully pulled back, my sights should be on his head,” I thought. Making pseudo calculations on the trajectory of my sights. Slowly the sights moved up along his body, to his waist, then his stomach. I must adjust my aim before my sights come fully off his body. I tried as hard as I could to shift my rifle back towards the right side of his body and watched slowly as the sights of the rifle followed suit, slowly changing direction as they traveled up his body. The second my sights were on his chest, I started pulling back on my trigger. The anxiety of being able to feel how far I’m pulling the trigger back and not knowing when the shot was going to come from within the rifle, scared me to the point where I was almost frozen in the motion, but time moved on, slowly, but moving. Up past his neck, and then to the bottom of his chin.

I could see all the details on his face, his five o’clock shadow of stubble that was growing over his aged face, the left eye beginning to squint and his face slowly scrunching up as he prepared to fire his own weapon. His top lip snarled to once side, and he swallowed whatever excess saliva he’s had stored in his mouth.

*Click* schfoooo BANG!

The slow sound of the firing pin striking against the bullet and the gunpowder igniting was a long and loud audio. The sights continued moving up towards the center of his face and by the time the sights were hanging just under his left eye, I saw the bullet emerge through from the chamber, traveling at rapid speed. It was slow for a bullet, but even in the slowed down time, it travelled at an anxiously fast pace. I saw the muzzle flash from his own weapon, then another slow, loud explosion as the bullet left the barrel of his rifle.

I watched as the two bullets passed by each other. With time traveling so slowly I could tell that his bullet would not hit me. It would miss its target. I had the advantage of perfect accuracy with my mind working faster than time itself. The bullet pierced through his left eye and he started to collapse to the ground, his feet falling out from underneath him from the impact and a few more bullets firing out of his gun as he fell to the ground. The first bullet went wide, a few meters to the side of me. The other bullets firing up into the air.

I can do this! I will do this!

I ended my time slow and as time resumed, I landed hard onto the roof of the car and quickly spun around to face the other man. His weapon was raised and aimed right at me.

“TIME STOP!” I yelled.

I could feel it earlier, and every time I’ve used this ability before. I knew that I wasn’t stopping time for objects. I was stopping the time-space of an area. If I imagine a small area in front of me and Time stop that area, then that should mean-.

Ratatatatatatat!

The man started to fire his weapon at me. One by one the bullets stopped just a meter away from my face, suspended in the air within the area I’d created my time stop. I was right, I wasn’t just stopping time, I was stopping the time-space.

Ratatatat!

The man continued to fire his weapon until his magazine ran out of ammo. Left in the wake of his empty magazine, 30 bullets suspended in the middle of the air, hanging in front of me. The man had good aim. Looking at the bullets that lay before me, I could derive that at least 20 of those bullets would have hit me. It was a shame that someone so skilled was working for the enemy. But now, he had to die.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I dropped the time stop and all 30 bullets fell to the ground in front of me as I raised my weapon. TIME SLOW. There were still many innocent civilians running around the area. I had to make it accurate. The sights of my weapon rose across his body, unlike the last time, this one was an easy target. I wasn’t high in the air, and he wasn’t moving fast. I saw his face turn from anger to confusion, and then to fear as the sights of my rifle centered in between his eyes.

*Click* schfoooo BANG!

I pulled the trigger and ended my time slow. With a single bullet, the man jumped himself backward as the bullet shot right between his eyes. I stood on the car breathing heavily, looking at the two bodies of the men I had unfairly, advantageously killed. Men who really stood no chance against me, not with the abilities I have.

I have gotten much better at controlling my abilities over the past few days than I had in the years of training. No matter what these men did today, the fact that they came out to fight me, was signing their own death warrant. There was no other way today would have played out. I would live, and they would die.

“Sean!” Alice called. She ran out into the streets, followed quickly Julia, her parents, June and Anthony. She raised her weapon to the window of the car that I was standing on top of.

“GET OUT OF THE CAR!” she yelled with the most aggressive face I have ever seen her make, “GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW!”

Two doors opened quickly, and two men jumped out of either side of the car and falling to the asphalt road below them.

“Everyone pile in!” she said, “Sean can you drive it?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Can you drive the car Sean!?” Alice snapped.

“Yeah, Yeah I can.”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Alice started, “You got to snap out of it. It can wait until we’re safe!”

“Yeah,” I said jumping off the roof and hopping into the drivers’ side of the car, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Everyone started to jump into the car, Julia sitting on her parents’ laps and June, sitting on the lap of Anthony, all of who were in the back seat. Alice jumped into the front passenger seat.

“Just pull the car onto the tram tracks and speed straight down to the river,” Alice said.

“Yeah, I got it!” I said.

I took my mind away from the unfair reality faced by anyone who would try to challenge me in a fight for our lives and put the car into gear, slamming down on the accelerator. The tires screeched for a moment before the car started to drive forward. I pulled over onto the tram tracks and started traveling at top stop speed. It has been years since I’ve driven a car. Now driving again, I realized that I missed the power that comes with controlling a heavy, powerful chunk of metal.

We traveled through an intersection and the car started to get hammered with bullets.

Ting ti-ti-Ting! Ting!

“WHAT WAS THAT!?” June cried.

Alice turned around to see who was shooting at us.

“It’s the Police!” she yelled.

“THE POLICE!?” I repeated.

Of course, it would be. I’d spent so long thinking about our other enemies that I didn’t even stop to consider the fact that the police would get involved with something like this. To them, this is just a gunfight between two unknown groups. They don’t know the nuances of what is happening in the world right now. They are just trying to protect the public.

“GET DOWN!” Alice yelled.

Everyone in the back seat lowered their heads behind the seats and the sound of more bullets hitting the car, echoed throughout.

“AGGGHA!” Alice cried.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’ve been shot!” she said.

I looked over to her and saw the blood running from her shoulder. REWIND!

The car traveled backward for a few seconds. When my rewind had ended, I grabbed Alice and pulled her further down away from the window as the bullets started to hit the car. The car swerved for the moment I took my eyes off the road.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Time rewind!” I said, “You were shot!”

“I guess I owe you then,” Alice said, not quite remembering being shot but taking Sean’s word for it.

We continued driving down the road, the police not able to keep up with us. The river wasn’t far away. I pulled the car off the road and we started driving through the park towards the speedboat ramp.

“LETS’S GO!” I yelled.

We all jumped out of the car and ran over to the speedboat ramp where a man who was waiting for us, saw the situation and quickly rushed over to the boat to start it up.

“Are you guy’s from Grey’s lot?” he asked.

“Yeah, we are,” I said, “When are you from?” I asked.

Every one started jumping into the speed boat and buckling them selves in.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Never mind,” I said, “Do you know the plan?”

“Looks like the plan has changed kid,” he said, “I’ll be taking you all to St’Kilda and then that’s the end of it.”

“Didn’t you have a deal with Grey!?” I asked.

“Grey didn’t tell me that the situation was going to go tit’s up like this,” the owner of the speed boat said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I said.

“Also, you’ve got too many,” he said, “Ditch two here.”

“Are you for real?” I asked.

“I’m for real.”

The father of Mei Lui stood up, “I can not find a seat,” he said in broken English and in panic.

“Quickly, you two with me,” I said pointing to Mei’s parents, “We’ll take this boat over here!” I lied, pointing to a boat that was close by.

I nodded to the speed boat driver and he hopped into his boat and revved up the engine. The parents of Mei Liu hopped out of the boat and started running to the next boat. I hopped into the speed boat and Mei’s parents turned around to see us at the last moment before the man driving the speed boat took off at top speed down the river.

“MEI!” her mother cried.

“WHAT YOU DOING WITH OUR DAUGHTER!” her father yelled after us.

“MEI!” her mother cried again as we were getting further away from the docks.

They both dropped to their knees and continued crying out their daughters’ name in desperation as if that would somehow change the situation.

“That was cruel!” June said, “Why would you do that!?”

“They were in the way,” Julia said.

“How could you say that about your parents!?” June asked.

“You are not from the future, are you?” Julia asked.

“The future?” June repeated in a confused tone.

“Then you are also in the way,” Julia said, “I don’t know what this Sean has planned, but it involves us and not you. Be thankful he chose to save you.”

We continued to speed out towards the bay and broke out into the open ocean.

“We have a bit of a problem!” the driver called.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He pointed out to a spot in front of him, “I don’t exactly know how to describe the problem,” he said, “but there is one.

In front of the boat, about a hundred meters away there was a man. A man walking on the open ocean. He was walking on the water directly towards us.

“What the fuck is that!?” Alice yelled.

As we got closer, we could see the man more clearly. He wore perfectly polished shoes and steam pressed suit with a red tie. Shoulder length white hair dropped past his neck as he looked up towards us and smiled. The water around us started to erupt into the sky like geysers, shaking the boat back and forth as we narrowly avoided them.