Chapter 16 - Part 2

Anthony investigated Ebbe's pale, angular face for any hint she was taking the piss. If she were, it was out of character, and frankly, her face seemed the picture of reason. Her eyes unwavering in their piercing intensity, seemingly boring a hole through the dumbstruck Carter. 

If there were any humour in this scene, it was certainly seeing that fatuous politician reduced to a mumbling fool by this petite framed woman. Anthony saw the switch of power jump like a spark of static electricity. In that split second Carter's shoulders had slumped from being taught and proud, to quivering and frail. Ebbe, in contrast had seemingly grown in stature, commanding the attention of the room like a conductor.

"Let me see," he finally spoke, wanting to understand what had so shaken their esteemed leader. He knew better than to immediately question the frankly bizarre assertion that they were not on the planet earth. That was a tad too much to comprehend, no matter what he had seen of late. Let's peek through this magic telescope of hers before I make myself look stupid, he decided.

Ebbe said nothing, only gesturing to show he was more than welcome to see for himself. Slinging his gun over his shoulder, to rest on his back, he stepped towards the eyepiece with unexpected trepidation. 

Fear no man, fear no beast, fear no unknown, he repeated an mantra his dear old mum had cooed to him as a young boy to allay his concerns about the unseen terrors in the dark recesses of the bedroom at his grandmother's farm. I am fearless leader, he added, which brought forth a little smile to his lips. 

Crouching to squeeze into the sculptured seat, he glanced at his colleagues, all watching him as if he were walking to the gallows, to be strung up by the neck until dead. Their eyes wide, like deer who've just heard the hunter step on a twig. 

His eye wrapped around the black scope and he took a few seconds to adjust to the view. For a moment his brain couldn't discern anything noteworthy. He could see white and grey contours, dappled with black pits. It was only when he pulled his eye away and looked up at the blackness above that he understood it was a portion of the moon within the eyepiece. With renewed understanding he looked back and concentrated on the image. It struck him as odd that Ebbe had focused on a hunk of the moon, and left a portion of black space in the lower left corner. Was it the moon, or the area of space she had been aiming at? What was he missing? Had the scope been adjusted since Carter peered through it and immediately saw something that drained the blood from his smug face?

No, it was no toy telescope that could be bumped by a careless elbow. This beast would only move if its master, Ebbe, commanded. And the master was not one to make careless mistakes. She aimed it where she did for a reason, and it was he, being a layman who could not see the stars for the solar system who was missing what was presumably in front of him.

But wait, there! The segment of space within the viewfinder was not the simple black void he had first imagined. There appeared to be an image, some sort of structure, or design, faint, but definitely discernible. Was it behind the moon? Or opposite? Impossible to tell without understanding the scale, but it appeared to be some sort of honeycomb configuration. The more he stared, the more obvious it became, until the pale white glow of the moon started itself started to look more like a two dimensional overlay upon this structure. 

He forced himself away from the telescope to discover he had begun to shake. He clenched a fist forcefully, physically rejecting the nerves that the unearthly sight had started to instill.

Unearthly, he pondered, staring out at his team through a light, hollow head. Unearthly. That was exactly what Ebbe had said. But what did she mean? Surely there was some other explanation, a space station, or satellite, maybe, yes, maybe an alien craft. Maybe the telescope is simply defective. Surely that was it, the lens was structurally damaged and the honeycombing was being falsely projected back to their ignorant eyes to mis-comprehend.

But Ebbe was no fool. Ebbe would know if it were faulty equipment. That would be the first thing to check. It's what he would do too. 

"Could it be the lens?" he asked, wanting to be sure she had eliminated the obvious.

"First thing I checked," she responded patiently, just as he suspected.

"Why do you say..." he stumbled over his words. It sounded too far fetched to be discussing the concept this was not Earth. Because if it's not Earth, then what in God's name is it?

"Call it an educated guess," Ebbe answered, clearly understanding exactly what he was trying to ask. "The discovery of the control room only further backs up my theory that we are living on an unnatural construct."

"Day to night," Anthony mumbled, marvelling at the thought that buried beneath the English countryside was a machine that could determine the time of day in the sky above, his head giddy with an influx of thoughts, his stomach churning like a raging sea.

"I can't be sure, of course.The technology beneath our feet is beyond all my wildest comprehensions. It's akin to seeking the Holy Grail and instead finding God himself," Ebbe enthused, gesticulating with wild-eyed enthusiasm. 

She enjoys this, Anthony chuckled inwardly, finding the thought somewhat comforting. 

"So, o' fearless leader," he began, forcing himself to make light of the moment, for fear of losing his sanity in an abyss of the unknowns that were encroaching upon him like dark demons, "what do we do now?"

Ebbe's eyes lit up, and her mouth curled into a sly grin, which reminded Anthony of the look a shark gets as it's about to kill. 

"Carter here is going to get me a spaceship," she declared dramatically.

Chapter 16 - Part 1

The observatory was shrouded in darkness, with only small streaks of light penetrating the murk. Plastic sheeting rippled gently, briefly revealing the dated grey computer equipment below. The vast telescope was aimed at the closed ceiling, patiently awaiting a view of the night sky. 

A brilliant white flash illuminated the entire chamber in an instant, before retreating back to a single point in the centre of the room, leaving behind a party of seven. Three of the team, Art, Jake and Krank, immediately stepped forward in three separate directions, guns pointed ahead, primed for any potential ambush. As the trio swept the room, Anthony lit a flare, filling it with a red glow, which threw quivering shadows of Ebbe, Carter and James across the towering walls.

"Hello sweetie," Ebbe cooed gently, as she made her way to the telescope, running a hand lovingly across the eye piece and checking her fingers for dust. "Some white light would be appreciated Gannymede," she shouted to James, who nodded, and scurried across the floor to a side wall, where he flicked a few switches. After a few seconds, several strip lights on the side of the walls started to blink into life, finally bringing a clean white light into the building. 

"Clear," Art yelled from the left. This sentiment was echoed by Jake and Krank, and all three swiftly returned to Anthony's side. 

"A little help?" Ebbe shouted to anyone willing to listen, as she started to pull the plastic sheeting away from the computer panels. Anthony nodded to Art and Jake, who both immediately stepped up and began pulling away the thin sheets and tossing them to one side.

Anthony eyed Carter with suspicion. He didn't like the way he was watching Ebbe, and he didn't like the way he seemed unperturbed by the events that had unfurled in the last few minutes. What reasonable minded man would remain so calm when transported across space and time without a word of warning? Besides, Anthony had an innate distrust of politicians. Especially their esteemed leader, who had surely reached his position by duplicity and corruption. Anthony could tell Ebbe a thing or two about her friend, that was for sure. 

"Secure the room," he barked to James and Krank. James gestured to Krank, who followed, James leading him towards a pair of large metal doors with frosted glass panes. Krank tested the door, and found it was locked. Wordlessly the pair planted small amounts of explosives where the two doors met. Before taking up position, one either side, a few metres from the doorway, guns trained on the entrance.

Anthony acknowledged their confirmation that the only way in was now protected, and started to feel a little more relaxed. He turned his attention back to the prime minister, Hunter, as Ebbe had called him. Carter seemed blissfully unaware Anthony was eyeing him with mistrust as he slowly spun around, taking in the vast chamber that housed the telescope.

"Need any help Ebbe?" Anthony asked. She didn't answer, but he was pretty sure she shook her head. The lady was in her own world now, that was for sure. 

"Pretty cool, eh," he said to Carter, who was staring up at the ceiling in awe. At first he got no reaction, and was about to ask again, when Carter turned and offered a wide smile that Anthony found hard to dismiss as anything other than a politician's mask.

"Spectacular," Carter agreed, "I've often wanted to visit, but the job rarely permits a getaway."

"All those foreign visits," Anthony replied suggestively.

"Quite so," Carter responded bluntly, refusing to rise to Anthony's jab at recent headlines. "Though with Ebbe's box of tricks, I could visit Russia, China and the US in the same day." 

"It's some next level sci-fi shit ain't it!" Anthony enthused. While he had the man engaged on strange phenomena, Anthony thought it was a good chance to check how extensive the lapse of gravity truly was. "It's been a few days of crazy shit, don't you think sir? What with the sun, and the gravity."

Carter nodded thoughtfully.

"It's been the most difficult few days of my term so far," he confirmed. "Ebbe, dear girl, do you need any help?" he then shouted, before turning back to Anthony, "pardon me," he said, before striding off to Ebbe without awaiting a response from either. 

Slimy son of a bitch, Anthony thought. Typical politician, never actually confirmed or denied anything. Look at him, leaning over Ebbe, placing his arm around her shoulder, as if she were a vulnerable waif, in need of his protection. My God, he snorted, she's actually playing into his act. He watched, wide mouthed with incredulity as the hard-edged Ebbe twirled her hair, and even seemed to giggle girlishly at something he whispered into her ear. Is this the same woman who defied his V6 and placed herself in the line of fire? 

"Jealous mate?" Art remarked with a wide grin plastered on his craggly face.

"Fuck off," Anthony spat, "she's playing him like a violin," he countered. 

"Whatever you say," Art grinned.

"At least you talked less when you were in a coma," Anthony joked.

"He doth protesteth too much," Art chuckled. Anthony responded by jabbing him gently in the ribcage with the butt of his gun. "She's an amazing woman," Art added, his grin dropping away.

"No mate," Anthony corrected, "she's so much more than that." 

Art turned to eye Anthony with a lopsided smile. With an amused snort, he returned his attention to Ebbe and Carter.

"I suppose you're right mate," he added, rubbing the back of his head.

Ebbe suddenly stood and gestured dramatically at the ceiling.

"Release the Kraken!" she intoned with mock authority, as a loud hum began to vibrate through the building. A sliver of light peeked through the emerging crack in the ceiling above. The whirring vibrations intensified as the dome split apart and daylight spilled through. The mechanism shuddered to a halt once the roof had opened to the full width of the telescope. A eerie silence fell upon the room, as all the occupants stared up and out at the light blue sky now visible.

"Gentlemen," Ebbe started, "you have all seen recent phenomena that defies your understanding of the world as you know it. Am I correct?" 

Everyone nodded, and mumbled she was correct.

"Sadly, you are all far beyond the curve in this matter. Some, I believe, have been aware of our precarious situation for some time now, but out of ignorance, or fear, or out of greed and malice, they have opted to shield the world from the truth. Now, I fear, it may be too little too late to reveal to all humanity what the few had learned. What do you think, Hunter?" 

"Ebbe?" Carter replied with a frown.

"Your government have had a team protecting that control room for years now, have they not?"

"I, I..." he stuttered, much to the delight of Anthony. Gotcha!

"To be fair, I never expected it to be you who'd order my assassination," Ebbe added bluntly, much to Anthony's surprise. Instinctively he reacted, anger boiling up within. Stepping forward, he aimed the tip of his semi-automatic at Carter with a scowl.

"You son of a bitch," he cursed.

"Ebbe, I can assure you," Carter began to plead.

"Hiring a strike team to attack your own men was a stroke of genius, I must say," Ebbe continued, her steely gaze fixed upon Carter. "Eliminate me, and take control of the cubes below, all under the radar. Tricky tricky." 

Anthony flicked a glance at Ebbe and she nodded back him, her eyes gesturing to Carter. The woman was a natural at this, Anthony thought, before signalling to his team that they should encircle and restrain the prime minister.

Within seconds Carter Huntington was tied up on a swivel chair, his hands behind his back, his feet secured tightly together with a plastic pull-tie. 

"Lucky for you I'm not the vengeful sort," Ebbe glared at Carter, before turning back with a sweep of her hand, to gesture at the sky, "besides, sad to say that I shall be needing your help. And," she paused and turned back to face him, "if you're wondering why you would do any such thing, I shall show you why you have no choice, through the lens of this telescope."

"You'll have to wait until dark to show me a missing moon, and by then my team will have found us, and you and your team will be nothing more than a bad memory for me to digest," Carter scoffed.

"Wrong again," Ebbe smiled, eyes sparkling.

A bright white flash blinded the men, all turning their heads with a shout of surprise. When they turned back to the telescope, Ebbe was absent. 

"What the?" Jake rasped incredulously.

Anthony just watched the area she had been standing only seconds later intently. He was certain she would be back shortly. She had simply returned to the control room. 

"Dear lord," Carter gasped, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. 

Every member of the team slowly followed his line of vision, and all allowed their guns to drop to their sides. Through the wide opening in the roof, the formerly light blue sky had began shimmer, wave and within seconds vanished. In it's place was the night sky. In the time it takes to blink, the mid-morning had jumped to the dead of night. 

Before Anthony had time to process this switch, a blinding flash announced Ebbe's return. 

"Now, Prime Minister," she continued as if nothing had changed, "give me just one minute," she added before taking a seat beneath the telescope and silently adjusting the view-piece. Everyone watched in awed silence, seemingly unwilling to comment on the newest impossibility their minds were having to process.

"There!" Ebbe declared with satisfaction. "You first Hunter," she said, giving a nod to Anthony that his legs could be released. 

Anthony slowly unsheathed his blade and leaned in towards Carter. He held the sharp blade close to the prime minister's nose and let the man catch his own reflection in the weapon, before lowering it to cut the binds. 

"No funny business," Anthony hissed after the cut released Carter's feet. 

Carter opted not to respond, and instead stepped up obediently to the viewing chair, his hands still bound behind his back.

"This is a little awkward," he suggested, shaking his tied arms before he sat.

"Deal with it," Ebbe replied harshly, "now look," she commanded.

Carter exhaled, and shuffled awkwardly into position, grumbling a little as he did. 

"What? What the?" he muttered incredulously. He pulled his eye away from the lens with a heavy brow, his eyes fixing upon Ebbe. "What, what does it mean?"

"I'm not entirely sure we are on planet Earth," Ebbe responded point blank. 

Chapter 15 - Part 2

Carter Huntington gazed out of the large north facing window, swirling a glass of bourbon casually. Outside, the tops of the trees trembled gently and a collection of dark clouds could be seen in the distance. 

Looks like rain, he thought to himself absently. Good, the land is better for a good dousing, it brings the world to life. 

In his left hand he held several sheets of printed paper, all slightly crumpled in the centre due to his firm grip. Taking a sip of the amber liquid, he dropped the papers, letting them randomly drift to the plush carpet.

"Where is she?" he muttered under his breath, staring unblinkingly at the branches of the horse-chestnut tree. He turned and tossed the remaining bourbon down his throat, before dropping the glass to the floor and placing one hand onto the glass pane. 

He stood, gazing at the dark green leaves and small spiked buds emerging, soon to be dropping and releasing their conkers. When he had received the message, the leaves were lighter green, fresh and vibrant, and the buds still months away from appearing. Had he acted too late? Everything took time. Bribes, under-the-table deals, cross agency politics, back-handers and all the while keeping a low profile. Finding out who was going to do what, which agencies were affiliated with whom and getting someone convincing undercover in a short time-frame. It was what he did, but normally you had a year, maybe more, not a few months. 

He removed his palm from the glass, and watched as the imprint swiftly vanished, leaving no obvious mark. That invisible mark, he pondered, is my whole life. Someone could extract a full set of prints from the glass and know everything about me. A whole person, hidden from sight, yet in plain view. That sums me up nicely, he thought, I am in the public eye, yet know one sees me for who I am. 

No one, that is, except her. She was different. What was it she had said when they first met? 

'Why are you here?' she had asked.

He had thought that was an odd question to ask an MP at a political rally. I'm here to support my party, he had told her. No you're not, she had countered bluntly. You look distracted, she had explained. He had tried to argue he was simply new, and a little nervous about having to make a speech. She had told him that was utter nonsense, that he was perfectly capable of talking in public. She suggested he was uncomfortable selecting one set of principles to adhere to, that he was more suited to a more free-form society. She posited a theory that he was only there to please someone else. And then she left to present a speculative theory, something to do with increased UV levels.

He had looked for her after she finished the seminar, but he found no sign of her. She had apparently left immediately after her presentation. Despite efforts on his part, they did not meet again for another year. 

Carter chuckled lightly, his tanned face creasing with fine lines as he smiled, his dark brown eyes thinning. In his career since that day, he had been the one in control, the one pulling the strings on the puppets below. But she, somehow, had a power all of her own. When she said jump, he didn't just ask how high, he asked what direction, when, and who else should jump too. 

He eyed the curved glass his had let tumble to the cream carpet. A few drops of bourbon were still dangling from the side facing the ceiling, threatening to slide down and merge on the other side, but somehow remaining suspended.

He fixated on oak table reflected in the curve on the base of the glass. Even from a few metres away, he could swear the image was shimmering, as if the glass was vibrating. He glanced up at the vast window, squinting unconsciously at the wide panel. But it seemed perfectly stationary, the only discernible movement was wind outside causing a gentle ripple in the trees.

He stepped towards the glass suspiciously, and knelt, hand outstretched tentatively. There! The image was shimmering. His forefinger touched upon the surface of the glass cautiously, but he could sense no actual movement. Yet, even with his hand holding it still, the reflected image continued to shimmy. He released his gentle touch and leaned in closer. Before his curious eyes, he saw the table vanish in a blur, before the image seemed to re-tune, becoming the reflection, not of the library of his rural retreat, but of her, standing with a sideways smile set within a pale face.

Carter stood and whipped around. The library was gone. The window with the view through to tall horse-chestnut trees was gone. All of this was replaced by a room of pure, perfect white, in which stood Ebbe, James, and three other men he did not recognise.

"Don't worry mate," the tallest chap said, stepping forward, hand outstretched, "even if she explains to you what she just did, you won't understand." Carter stared at the man, and at his waiting hand, before grasping it and giving it a vigorous shake.

"Thank you for keeping her safe," Carter said as he released the man's hand and stepped up to Ebbe. Without saying a word, he grabbed her and pulled her into a tight embrace. From the corner of his eye he noticed the tall man glaring in confusion at this action. 

"Ebbe, my dear lady, I had almost given up on you," he enthused after releasing her from his arms. 

"And I you Hunter," she replied, her eyes flicking to the man he presumed was in charge and back again in a split second.

"Have I ever failed you?" he retorted, before continuing without giving her time to reply, "where in God's name are we?" he marvelled, spinning around on the spot.

"Unless you want to hear about quantum whatnots, don't ask such things," the man in charge told him, "Anthony Bishop, and my team, Art and Jake. This is Krank, current guardian of this chapel, and I guess you know the lad," he added.

Carter nodded to each man respectively. 

"So, Prime Minister, er, how do you two know each other?" Anthony added.

Carter smiled flatly. 

"We've got quite a history, Ebbe and I," he responded cryptically, "isn't that right?" he turned to Ebbe with a wink. She sucked in her lips and offered a wry shrug. 

"Well, I presume you didn't bring me here for a cocktail party?" Carter continued, wanting to move the conversation on swiftly, "and I don't want an international incident to be sparked by my absence, so I suppose it is best we proceed."

"Oh don't worry about that, you're not really here," Ebbe responded cryptically. Carter's face crumpled in confusion.

"Quantum whatnots," Anthony reminded him with a grin, tapping his head.

Carter looked at the ragtag group before him, assessing the situation. They all looked worn and tired, all except the man with the pock-marked face, Art, who looked a beacon of health.

"And it's not an international incident we're trying to avoid," Ebbe explained, fixing him with one of her steely gazes that meant only one thing, trouble. "We're trying to avoid a Biotic Crisis," she concluded.

"A what?" Carter repeated, unfamiliar with the term.

"An extinction level event. End of days," she explained bluntly. 

Carter wished he still had the glass of bourbon in his hand. He needed the reality of the smooth burn down his throat to counteract the sheer unreality of this pure white room, and Ebbe standing before him declaring the world was to end, as calmly as if she had just stated she had made roast chicken for dinner.

"Okay Ebbe," he sighed, "convince me."

Chapter 15 - Part 1

A cool breeze whispered though the tall grass, making it sway back and forth gently. Crickets chirped to each other, and the scent of wheat drifted from surrounding fields.

Ebbe and Anthony were sitting in the meadow, their backs to the crashed helicopter, both munching silently on energy bars he had scavenged from the wreckage. To the right of them, Art, Jake, Krank and James had congregated, and were also chewing contentedly on the bars, chatting and joking as they did.

Ebbe gazed up at the sky, purposely trying to clear her mind from the buzz of recent events. The day she had driven home in her Land Rover, to be confronted by a group of armed men, tasked with her, and her loved one's, slaughter, seemed an age ago. It seemed a million more mysteries than she had contemplated had sprung up over night, like a dam being deluged with more water than it was designed to retain, slowly cracking and beginning to leak. That meant the water was certain to burst through shortly, but what that actually meant was still beyond her mental reach.

It doesn't matter, she concluded. Watch the sky Ebbe, watch the sky. That's where the mystery began, and that is where it shall end. 

Clouds had lackadaisically filled up the light blue expanse, leaving only small gaps where pillars of light streamed out, highlighting random patches of countryside like a spotlight. 

"Rays from heaven," Anthony said for no reason, as if sensing what she had been looking at.

Ebbe nodded in agreement, she may not believe in heaven, but the sentiment seemed fitting. Anthony had not yet asked how Moon Face was walking and talking, nor had he asked how they had appeared from thin air. She appreciated that right now. Especially because the desire to know was written all over his face. His green eyes were practically quivering with intrigue every time he looked into her own. He also kept glancing over his shoulder at Moon Face, who was currently laughing raucously with Krank.

"Moon Face," she whispered under breath, thinking maybe she ought to refer to him by his actual name. Though perhaps saving a man's life was enough to allow you to call him whatever you liked. 

"Do we still need to go to this observatory?" Anthony questioned after a long silence. 

Ebbe turned and studied his tired face, wondering how gaunt she must look herself. He had asked a good question. The whole point of going to Keilder was to show what she had learned, but now things were so advanced, it seemed a moot point. But yet, she could not truly explain the phenomena that had filled up their lives with so much recent drama. She could explain what was wrong with the view from that telescope. And ultimately, if a mission to fix the problem was to be arranged, the money men needed to understand how far reaching the issue was. Men of power tended to have isolationist viewpoints that didn't allow for the sort of thinking she would require for her ultimate goal to be realised. Facts that even a layman could understand were needed. She had a team of laymen, ready to have their minds expanded. There was one more man she also needed to convince, and she may now have a way to get him where she needed, without having to send in her new recruits to extract him from his always well-guarded locale.

"We do Anthony," she confirmed, turning her eyes back to the rays of sunlight streaming through the clouds. "Fearless Leader," she added, more to herself, with a little chuckle. She couldn't really remember when she started assigning nicknames to people, rather than use their own. It was just more efficient in her mind. Names were arbitrary, random designations. Her nicknames had reasoning and logic behind them. What did Anthony mean? Beyond being a random collection of vowels and consonants. Fearless Leader was so much more dramatic and descriptive. Gives a man something to aspire to. 

Ebbe turned and surveyed the rest of her team. Grim Reaper, Moon Face, Chum, and young Ganymede. Those names all meant something to her. Jake, Art, Krank and James; they meant nothing, just a sound.

"What's my name?" Ebbe pondered out loud, lying back, crushing the stalks of grass behind her.

Anthony turned and almost looked as if he may lean over her and land a kiss on her lips, their eyes locked in a brief tryst, before he too leaned back and stretched out with a content sigh. 

"Ebbe!" he declared, baffled about having to state the obvious.

"No, I mean, what name would you give me?"

Anthony's thick brows sunk low with confusion.

"I don't get you," he admitted, sliding his left leg up and crossing the right over it.

"You're Fearless Leader, Art is Moon Face, Jake is..."

"Grim Reaper," Anthony chucked, "I remember." He sat back up and studied Ebbe with such intensity she was certain she was starting to blush. 

"I don't know," Anthony said with a sigh, "Brains?" he shrugged in defeat.

"Oh please!" Ebbe grumbled, "be original!" 

Anthony waved his hand, his way of showing he couldn't do any better. Ebbe smiled and also sat back up. She caught him eyeing Moon Face again.

"It was the machine below the house," she decided to offer, "it cured him."

Anthony shook his head vigorously. 

"No," he retorted bluntly.

"No?" Ebbe replied in confusion.

"No! It was you," he explained, fixing his stern green eyes upon hers, "I know it was you. Whatever you may have used, however you may have done it, It was you." The pair allowed the words to linger in the late morning air momentarily. Ebbe found herself unable to respond, taken aback by the sheer earnestness of his declaration. 

"If you say we need to see this observatory I trust you also have a way of getting us there quickly?" he finally continued, as if he had been giving her time to digest his initial statement. Ebbe swallowed, and offered a gentle bob of her head to confirm his assumption.

"In which case, Miss Nystrom, my team is your team," he broke his attention from her, and stood, turning immediately to offer his hand to her. She waved his hand aside and picked herself up. The pair stared out at the countryside.

"It looks so ordinary," Anthony commented. Ebbe agreed with a single nod. "You're wrong you know," he added, causing Ebbe to turn to look up at him, his frame suddenly seeming more impressive and comfortingly muscular. "I'm not Fearless Leader," he paused, his ocean green eyes unblinkingly focused on her, "you are." 

Chapter 14 - Part 2

Anthony's feet landed silently onto the dry earth, protected from the morning dew by the leafy branches he had just clambered back down from. The man above was no longer and threat. Whatever had been started, Anthony had finished. It was obvious the shooter was primed to kill Anthony and only an act of divine intervention had saved his life. But it was not right to leave the man to die slowly, perched in the treetop. A quick blade into the nape of the man's neck had ceased whatever life he had remaining in an instant. 

Maybe not a soldier's death, but better than purgatory.

The question now was whether some form of transport was further down the road, still hidden from sight. Ebbe's Rover had been dropped on its side and destroyed, what were the chances the attacking forces vehicles had also suffered the same fate? That would depend on the extent of the free floating incident. For all he knew, the event could be localised just to the area around the house, or could have extended to the whole country, or beyond. 

Anthony stuck to the treeline, hugging the shadows, keeping his profile hidden. There was no knowing what other delights Atkins had left behind. He broke into a light trot, partly to invigorate his abused muscles, partly to pick up the pace. The sooner he found a way to seek out help, the better. But where to turn? The whole series of events stank of double-crosses, triple-crosses, and cover ups.

Conspiracy theory bullshit, that's what it was, he grumbled, taking a moment to stare up at the blank blue sky, perfect as a painting, before returning his concentration to the road ahead. He sucked in deep breaths as he jogged, filling his lungs with curiously stale air. He'd tasted air like that before. It was office air. Goddamned air-con crap, recycled through the lungs of all of the sickly, pale-faced desk-jockeys that generated the supposed intel that he and his teams turned into missions. He slowed to a walk, eyes surveying the landscape with suspicion. Why did it feel like he was still in that bloody basement, trapped beneath the rubble, sucking in the dwindling air supply? 

Stopping, he spun around, inhaling the dead air through his nostrils, holding it in his lungs, savouring it like you would a cigar, before releasing it, imagining the invisible breath escaping like thick sweet smoke. 

Bad air.

Was it poison? Could all that they had experienced and seen, be part of some sort of mass hallucinogen released into the atmosphere? Was that unnatural blue above simply  manufactured by his mind? Perhaps an image, a photo, or painting he had once seen, retained in the recesses of his mind, and now released falsely to his visual cortex. 

Either that or he truly was still stuck beneath a pile of rubble, sucking up his last few breaths, brain cells dying off by their billions, his mind creating the easy escape, and the impossible sniper in the tree.

That's it, goddamn it, I'm a dying man, living out the fantasy that I escaped. He let out a little chuckle, amused by his own foolishness. 

"I suppose," he gesticulated to the bushes opposite, "I shall turn the corner and and see a fully furnished humvee, keys in the ignition, a dice hanging off the mirror," he chuckled, amusing himself, before his face dropped, his eyes frozen.

"Ebbe," he muttered. Before slapping his own face as hard as he could. "Pull yourself together Anthony," he muttered, "until you breath your last, you keep on acting like a soldier. Enough of this shit."

He turned and unexpectedly let out a thundering shout. 

"I'm not ready yet, you bastard." 

Not caring who had heard, he immediately broke into a run, rounding the corner at full speed. The thin single track road began to widen here, and the high hedges fell away, revealing the tumbling countryside of fields and small intermittent copses that surrounded the area as far as the eye could see.

No humvee, he noted with relief, vindicating his assertion that this was no dying dream. Though, he paused, he may have deleted the idea to self-vindicate and perpetuate the dream. He told himself to fuck off and continued his jog, slowing the pace a litte, eyes peeled for any unfriendlies who may have heard his outburst. 

The coast was clear, the horizon free of choppers heading in as back-up, the landscape free of any obvious sign of surrounding troops. Had Atkins come completely free of any form of back-up? Out of the corner of his eye Anthony spotted a matte black object protruding from behind a grassy knoll to the centre of a wild grass field. Throwing subtly and stealth to hell, Anthony clambered over the dilapidated fence, a piece of which splintered off under his weight, and strode menacingly across the strongly scented grass. He had already floated off the ground, been shot at point blank range, battled three armed men, and been saved from a sniper by the hand of God. These were no longer the times to be shuffling on knees and elbows. Whatever that field contained could watch him goddamn stride toward it.

His boots kicked through the tall, dry grass, breaking stems, and crushing delicate buttercups. But it felt more real than anywhere had for a long time. He could smell the sweet wild flowers gently drifting upwards, he could hear the swish of grass blades against leather, the rattle of seeds being knocked loose. Here, he wasn't being poisoned, or sucking up deep, useless breaths of stale air. 

Or was this the final stage? Was this sweet, clean meadow his walk into the valley of death? 

Something was in the field. It was real. Focus on that Anthony, focus on the object. You're not skipping into heaven, you moron. Life wasn't the fairy tales and bullshit shown in films and books, and neither was death. It was messy, gruesome and sudden. 

Ahead of him the sky finally began to diffuse into orange and yellow, and indistinct white smudges started to drift into view. Anthony paused and watched as a large yellow sun began to shimmer upon the Eastern horizon. The glowing orb breached the horizon and lazily hung just above the distant tree-line, shining warm amber light upon the landscape below. And now, even before he had reached the metallic black object, the orange highlights made it patently obvious what he could see was the landing strut of a stealth helicopter. 

When he reached the mangled wreck, it was clear the vehicle had landed in this dip, dropping off Atkins and his troop, and had suffered the same fate as Ebbe's range rover. As best as Anthony could make out, when the gravity had released its grip upon the machine, it had quickly upended itself and so dropped on its rota blades, when normality was resumed.

An upside-down 'copter was bloody useless to Anthony. 

"Well, shit," Anthony couldn't help but grumble,"now what the fuck do I do?"

"Language Anthony!" scolded an uncannily familiar voice.

He whirled around to see Ebbe, her face lit up by wide smile. Beside her stood Art, scratching his head, a lopsided grin writ upon his bemused face.

"Now I know I'm dreaming," was all Anthony could splutter.  
 

Chapter 14 - Part 1

"Steady now lads," Krank commanded, watching Jake and James carefully position Art's makeshift stretcher, so his head could be slid into the same cube that had just fixed the bone in his arm. "What I think you'll need to do fellas, is keep hold of the tail end, to ensure his head is cubed," he instructed. 

Ebbe had hoped to prop the stretcher between the columns that housed each black cube. But they were too far apart, and Ebbe was convinced the area she wished to heal needed to be contained within the dark space contained within. With no real tools at their disposal, a manual solution was all they could manage.

"You sure you can keep him still?" Ebbe pressed, "I don't know what would happen if he was moved." Before thinking she had no idea what would happen even if he is kept perfectly still.

"We got him," Jake replied bluntly, his steely eyes confirming to Ebbe his resolution more than the words. That was as good as it could be. DIY brain surgery. That's what this was. But Ebbe was defiant in her decision to pursue the idea. The man had had a bullet lodged in his brain for goodness sakes, and since then, he had been bumped and jostled about. His chances, even with immediate medical care, were slim to none. Now, the best anyone could truly hope for was a vegetative state. But maybe, these curious blocks of shimmering black, these cubes absent of light, maybe they could offer an otherworldly cure. Ebbe had reached in and sought out the materials required to fix Krank's arm, and the proof it had worked was right in front of her. What difference was a brain? It's just neural tissue. 

Yes, but, to fix the bone in an arm, she needed bone. Extracting that from the man who had trapped them down here was one thing. To do what she was planning was to condemn another human to death. Could she truly do that? At first, the thrill of thinking she could cure the incurable had been fuel to her fire. The breathtaking complexity at work within the cubes was overpowering, overwhelming, and intoxicating. The moment she had seen Krank flex his arm, she had felt power such as she'd never known, and she wanted more. 

"Ebbe? All ready girl?" Krank beamed, bringing her out of her own thoughts.

"Sorry?" she answered.

"Our man is in position. Time for the magic show," he grinned excitedly, clearly also gripped with the thrill of it all.

Ebbe sucked in a deep breath of still, tasteless air and nodded. Eta and Xi, the Greek letters, were again to be her goal. Most of the cubes had contained different letters, some had been identical pairs, such at the one she was about to insert her shaking hand, and the one Art was placed like a patient getting a CAT scan.

"Eta," she mumbled, staring into the void, her hand hovering over the surface.

"What's that love?" Krank responded uncertainly.

"A metric tensor Chum old boy," she muttered, her eyes fixated on the lifeless black cube, "it's the geometry of spacetime. It's beautiful," she added. 

Krank swayed his head up and down in the approximation of a nod, lips pursed, before turning to Jake and James, and shaking to say he hadn't understood anything she'd just said.

"It's as if I can just reach in here and choose the DNA from any time and space I wish," she marvelled, eyes wide, face frozen.

"Ebbe?" Krank stepped towards her with concern, arm outstretched.

"Don't move," she shouted, waving an arm at him without turning. Krank froze on the spot, face dropping into confusion.

Ebbe ended her hesitation and plunged the tips of her fingers into the inky black. There was the letter, as before, floating, if that was the right term, within the cube. How it appeared as your hand entered the device, and why it was a Greek alphabet, Ebbe didn't really understand. Was it an alien technology? But why the human language?

No time for such musings woman! Focus on the task at hand. 

With a deep inhale, Ebbe focused on Art. 

A surge of electricity coursed through her veins and she found she was inside the sub-atomic particles that were Art. Lightning flashed, once, twice, three times. It didn't just flash, it sought her out, fired through her, seared her. But she became the lightning, until it died out, and it was dark. There was something foreign sitting in the black. The storm still surged far in the distance, snaps of synaptic lightning bolts firing. Bang, snap, crack. Yet, it was fading away, no longer the crack and snap. I need to extract these protons, neutrons and electrons, they aren't us, she thought, as her, as Art, as everything. They are holding the storm at bay. We need the storm to survive. 

Without extracting her left hand, she slid the right into the opposite cube, her eyes looking straight ahead without seeing. The letter was grasped instinctively and the collective her, saw the basement, saw Anthony was no longer there. Two new bodies were lying opposite Shark man. None were Anthony and so she was out of the basement and into the corridor. Another body, not Anthony. She was the house. The house could not see Anthony inside it. But it could see him outside. 

Ebbe was the moist early morning air. Anthony told the air to check the bushes. The air was already rustling the leaves, dancing around their stalks, and sending chills down the neck of the man staring down a sniper rifle at Anthony. The air sank into the man and knew he was preparing to shoot. He was aiming at Anthony, and Anthony was smiling and waving. 

The foreign particles lodged within Art, we don't want them. We need to repair. Replace the neurons.

A finger pressed against a trigger. 

Ebbe felt the ground rumble, begin to shake violently, before the white walls and floor cracked and tumbled away from her. A muzzle flashed and the smell of gunpowder and burning flesh filled her nostrils. A bullet burrowed it's way into the back of her skull and lodged itself in the parietal lobe. Her vision blurred and faded, blood oozing from the back of her skull. She tried to lift a hand a check the entry wound, but her limbs were weighed down by imperceptible bonds. A hazy blackness drifted over her, as she felt her lifeforce ebb away. It was so blank, so meaningless.

Blackness.

Chapter 13 - Part 2

Anthony raised his hands and stepped out from the hatch.

"All right, all right," he spat at an unseen captor, turning his head to look back down into the hole. "I'm going as fast as I can," he grumbled, stumbling over the lip of the opening.

In the few seconds this ruse had afforded him, Anthony had clocked three men in the corridor. Two had been watching as he stepped out, their guns trained on his head the second it was visible. The third seemed to be sitting with his back to the hatch. He suspected his charade had about ten seconds max before they rumbled him. That left the concern of the third person. Dealing with two armed men was possible, but a third man could just shoot him by the time the second man was disarmed. Anthony, in the few seconds he had left, had a snap decision to make; continue with the current plan, or retreat. 

"Okay I'm clear. Let them go," he shouted back into the basement, infusing his voice with a quivering fear. 

The guard to the left of the hatch took the bait and peered down, curious to see what might be happening. 

In a second Anthony had sent an elbow into the nose of the man who had never taken his eyes off him since he'd emerged. Not pausing, he launched his body at the other guard, and winded him with a knee to the stomach. A swift palm to his throat left him incapacitated. Anthony then grabbed at the knife strapped to the guard's combat jacket, and slit the leather gun strap, enabling him to slip the semi-automatic weapon away and turn it to face the third man. Much to Anthony's surprise, he did not appear to have reacted to the commotion behind him. Tentatively Anthony tip-toed up to the man, still wary of who else may be nearby. A gentle prod with the muzzle of the gun on the nape of his neck gained no reaction. Lucky for you, pal, Anthony thought, any wrong move and the trigger would have been pulled. He crept cautiously to the left, keeping his focus directly on the sitting figure, the gun primed to shoot with any untoward movement.

The grotesque face that greeted him confirmed that the third man was no threat. His nose was crushed inward, his right eye socket empty. The upper lip had been ripped away, exposing his upper jaw. Poor sod looked like he'd been dropped from a great height and landed somewhere unfriendly. Probably one of the external guards, that, as Anthony had guessed, had been lifted upwards during the event. 

That's the best bloody news for days, Anthony snorted to himself, if this bugger had gone on a flying trip, so had anyone else outside. Now there was a little time to get sorted, he concluded. Ebbe and the others weren't coming back out from the basement entrance, so that would suffice as a cell for anyone left alive. A quick pat down revealed no evidence of ID or an employer. It was a faint chance, but Anthony never made assumptions. 

After relieving them of their weapons and radios, Anthony unceremoniously dumped the two guards into the hatch, not really caring what damage the fall could do. Work for scum like Atkins and think yourself lucky you're not dead, he figured. 

Now fully armed, Anthony started to feel normal again. I wonder how extensive and powerful the gravity event was, he pondered as he began a security sweep of the farmhouse. Before heading outside, he needed to be sure no bugger would come bursting from the house all guns blazing. With simple efficiency he secured the building within two minutes. Not another soul. Anthony paused in the front room and stared at the monitors, trying to assess the surroundings. One of his questions was answered, the Land Rover was lying on it's side, with what looked like the door twisted underneath. The extent of the damage was difficult to assess via the CCTV, but it confirmed that the event had extended far enough to lift the weighty vehicle from the earth. Anthony wanted Ebbe here now, to coldly explain the cosmological cause of such phenomena. She seemed to understand more about all this shit than anyone. The brass knew something. Whoever had sent Atkins knew something. But if they had understood it the way she did, would they have used her simply as a pawn to get entry into the basement? Probably, Anthony snorted with derision. The guys in chance had a way of misusing their greatest assets, and putting their eggs in the wrong baskets. You didn't get into power by being the smartest, but by being the most ruthless. Smart people had to hide in farmhouses, under threat of imminent assassination. 

Too much thinking buddy, he chastised, wary of time slipping by. Ebbe was somewhere below his feet, and the best he could do for her now was to get back to base and find out who or what was operating the cogs in this particular machine. The sons of bitches clearly came in some sort of transport. Hopefully they didn't all end up on their sides like the old Landy. 

With one semi strapped across his chest, a second grasped in his hands, a pistol strapped to his thigh, and a knife slotted into his sheath, Anthony furrowed his brow with determination and made his way to the front door. 

The CCTV had not revealed any obvious sign of life in the immediate surroundings. That made him nervous. It would be much better to have seen a body or two lying face down, having suffered a similar fate to the guard, still solemnly guarding the basement hatchway. If not that, guards patrolling, or hiding in the shadows. But both were notable by their absence. Anthony feared this meant there were no such guards, but instead snipers who were well out of sight, possibly far away enough to have escaped the weightlessness. Too many damned unknowns were piled up on this balls-up of a mission. Anthony hated being in the dark. It was dangerously close to losing. Anthony didn't like losing.

There was no way around it. He would just exit the building as if he was the boss. His prisoner ruse would fail in the scope of a sniper, primed and ready to splash his brains on the driveway. The ruse now was to be disconcertingly confident. 

The fractured wooden door creaked open and Anthony strode out, back straight, guns at his side casually. His assessment of the exterior via CCTV had already informed his route. He did not show surprise as seeing the toppled Land Rover. He barely gave it a glance. Moreover he looked into a thicketed area to the far right and gave the area a smile and a nod. If there were a sniper, that's where he'd be. There were several trees tall enough to provide a good view of the whole house and driveway. Plus, with the thick foliage, enough cover to hide. Not too close, but close enough that if sniping became impossible, such as a close quarters fight, he could bail on his rifle and get to the fight on foot within minutes. 

That right buddy, Anthony smiled to the potential sniper, I'm the fucking boss and nobody shoots the boss. Something else stirred Anthony's courage further. It was an odd, immeasurable sensation that Ebbe, somehow, was watching. Logic and common sense told him that was ridiculous, yet he couldn't shake the feeling. 

"Ebbe," he said out loud, wanting to externalise his thoughts, "if you're watching, check the bushes at 2 o'clock and sort any son of a bitch who may be about to crack my skull open would ya?" Curling his lips into a foolish smile, he told himself off for letting all the spooky business turn him into a crack pot. A week ago I'd have kicked my own arse for thinking such hippy crap, he cursed. 

No bullet yet. Brain was still intact. Skull was not shattered. Moreover the cool morning air, thick with moisture, was invigorating. What did his mum used to call it? The breath of God? That was it; she used to say God was blowing away the night, and just like when you blow with your lips pursed, the breath was cool. She said, once the darkness had been blown away, God let out a sigh, and warm breath would replace the cool. 

God had done a good job of clearing the night this morning. Anthony could see no apparent clouds in the heavens, only pastel blue from horizon to horizon. He paused in his tracks, staring up, the concerns over the guards, or the sniper temporarily forgotten. His eyes scanned back and forth intently, his face wrought with bemusement. If it was morning, if there were no clouds, where was the sun, peeking over the horizon to the east? Where was orange, red, dark blue, and shades within? There was simply blue. One shade. From east to west, from north to south. The sky was merely a blank canvass this morning, upon which the artist had yet to start.

Ebbe, Ebbe, where are you woman? Nothing makes sense any more. Was it even morning? He had assumed as much only due to the blue sky and the light mist lifting from the surrounding fields, having deposited jewels of dew upon the blades of grass. But the scene was frozen. It was as if he were walking through a paused nature documentary. 

Shaking his head in frustration, effectively trying to fling the bafflement aside, Anthony forced his focus back to the potential, unseen threat he could still be walking towards. The consolation currently, was that every footstep took him closer towards the bushes, theoretically meaning he was one step further from being shot. If he was going to shoot, why not earlier? If he was waiting, it would soon be too late, Anthony would be too close for a rifle shot.

The lack of either surviving members of Atkins' team, or their bodies, was still playing on his mind. Had they simply flown off and never returned? Just what had happened whilst they were duking it out below? Unknowns, and unknown unknowns. All bloody useless. Anthony could extrapolate information from most combat situations. This one was unreadable. As blank and illogical as that stubbornly blue sky above him.

Rather than get concerned about that again he focused on the tree he suspected the sniper would be ensconced. It was a chunky oak with plenty of thick branches to provide support for a man and his weapon. If there were a sun he would be looking out for a glint of glass from the scope. But there was nothing, and wishing for tools you did not possess was not wise.

More steps. Still no bullet. Within a few steps he would be too close for a sniper rifle. 

Three. Two. One. Anthony broke out into the best approximation of a sprint his tired legs would allow. If, for some reason, the sniper had been waiting for him to get closer, Anthony wanted to be upon the tree as swiftly as possible. He had already concluded that the only thing he could expect in this mission, was the unexpected. So although he expected there to be a sniper, what that ultimately led to was hard to quantify. 

Within a minute he reached the gnarled trunk of the oak, half smothered in a creeping vine, slowly extracting the life from the leviathan. 

"Throw down your weapon," Anthony hollered, having already spotted a foot peeking from the undergrowth. No response, no movement, no noise. "I said thrown down your weapon,or I'll shoot," he yelled again. Nothing. "God damn it," he cursed. Why didn't anything work as it should any more? What kind of moron stares at his enemy through a rifle for ten minutes without shooting, then refuses to act when threatened? 

"Fella! This is your final warning." Again, nothing. Anthony raised a gun and primed it to shoot directly into the foliage at the approximate position the sniper's head ought to be, Anthony was not one for idle threats. If he says he will shoot, he'll shoot. 

But the gun was lowered. It wasn't right. It was bloody foolish and Anthony had to check it out. 

"I'm gonna regret this," he told himself, before releasing his weapon and grasping at a low lying branch. With a few grunts, he pulled himself up the tree and peered through the dark green leaves, trying to discern the figure of the man he had partially spotted below. There! A limb resting upon a thick, twisted branch extending towards the drive. Andrew twisted his body and dropped a toe onto the joint, where the branch merged with the trunk. A quick kick to the foot garnered no reaction. 

Jesus, maybe he's only here because he fell here after the gravity returned. Maybe all the bodies he was expecting to see had been dropped into the trees and bushes! Shaking away wild theories that had no evidence to back them up, Andrew carefully stepped further out onto the limb. Wary of toppling over, he balanced on his worse-for-wear legs, and leaned over the torso of a sturdily built man. He could see the man had his fingers grasping a long-range sniping rifle, his face propped against the scope, as if he were about to release a killer shot. Curiosity building up to bursting point, Anthony leaned further forward, straining to see the man's face. 

The face was pale, eyes open, still staring vacantly into the distance. But there seemed to be light in the pale green orbs. These were not the eyes of a dead man. Anthony held a shaky hand close to the sniper's nose, swiftly withdrawing it when he felt a hint of hot breath upon his cold digits. Anthony withdrew and stood to the back of the branch, steadying himself against the rough bark of the trunk. What the hell was going on? He stared at the motionless man, unable to comprehend. His eye was attracted to a dark patch of matted hair in the rear of the skull. With shaking hands he leaned back over and gently rubbed the skull with his thumb. There was a bullet hole! Anthony stood back up with a start, almost toppling from the tree in the process. He turned to looked behind, concerned about another sniper, a rival team perhaps. But all he could see was thick branches and foliage. Nobody could see into the damn tree. And the sniper would have known if someone was in the tree long enough to move away from his gun. Besides the bullet hadn't even passed out of his skull, that was evident from his brief look. Even a stray bullet from another sniper would have torn part of his face out. 

Somehow this highly trained sniper had been victim to an attempted assassination twenty feet in the air, by an invisible assailant, who hadn't bothered to stay and finish the task at hand.

Chapter 13 - Part 1

"It's a goddamned bullet!" Krank's deep guttural voice exclaimed, the bass dampened by the lack of echo.

Ebbe rubbed her head and blinked, trying to adjust to the blinding white light, unable to see where the mountainous man was.

"What is?" she mumbled, her voice sounding coarse and alien.

"Ebbe!" the voice exclaimed, followed seconds later by his beaming face leaning into view, as if he had been right beside her the whole time, somehow masked from view. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you gave us a bloody good scare. How do you feel?" 

Ebbe rubbed her temples and stretched, pulling herself into a siting position. Her instant reaction was to say she felt rough and tired, because somehow that's how she thought she ought to feel. But she felt strong, rested, calm, and confident. It was as if she had a received an injection of adrenaline and endorphins, mixed with a few shots of vodka. A large hand was offered to help her off the slick white floor, but she refused it, and lifted herself off the floor with ease.

"I'm okay," she offered, preferring not to discuss the finer points of her unexpected health. "You were saying?" she asked, opting to deflect the question.

"Yes?" Krank replied blankly.

"Something about a bullet?" she pressed, curious to know what he had been looking at.

"Oh! Hell, it's over here," he gesticulated clumsily to the small black object wedged into the wall, close to where you might expect to see the ceiling in the average house. "It shot out of the bloody cube, and whacked itself into the wall. Whaddya say about that?"

Ebbe didn't say anything. It didn't make sense, but what did these days? For the bullet to have made it's way from the basement, to this room, would involve some sort of space displacement, on a scale that would surely tear the structure apart. It's akin to having a wormhole open up in your living room, simply to use as a waste bin. Yet, what had happened, had clearly happened, evidence of this was embedded in the otherwise pristine wall. 

"James, Jake and Art?" Ebbe suddenly thought to ask. 

"Here!" James piped up, though it was hard to discern from where, when the sound just died at source. Ebbe turned 360 degrees, only to find the trio seemingly right where she had been previously looking. 

"This place," she started.

"We know," Krank replied before she could finish. "Disconcerting ain't it!" He strode over to the cubes and waved his hands over the shimmering black objects, "it's why no one ever stays down here too long, drives you crazy! Bad enough sitting up in the house above it. Something," he paused, pulling his hand away from the cubes suddenly, as if he had burned himself. "Something unnatural". 

Ebbe stared at the shimmering blocks of pure black, hypnotised, her mind calculating furiously. She had seen the Greek letter lambda inside the cube she had used. That had been used to denote many concepts in science, but the one that struck her was a subatomic particle. These were particles smaller even than an atom, at a quantum level, where matter and energy behave very differently. Could it be that these objects were some sort of quantum control panel? If so, what on Earth did they control?

"What on Earth?" she repeated her thought out loud, an idea beginning to form. 

"What's that love?" Krank responded.

"What on Earth? On Earth!" she repeated.

Krank shrugged,  before wincing at the pain this re-ignited in his broken limb. 

"Fuck!" he cursed, "forgot about that bastard."

Ebbe slowly walked up to the furthermost cube and gently waved her hand through the black mass. She took a moment to assess the sensation, before moving on to the next, repeating the same experiment.

"What's she up to?" James asked, pointing Krank to her methodical actions.

"Hey, hey, lady! Last time you did that we all ended up dancing a merry jig on the ceiling! Don't be jabbing any more pretty little hands in to those things!" Krank shouted, trying to sound angry, but actually sounding scared.

Ebbe didn't react, continuing her meticulous, short survey of each cube, one by one. 

"What the hell?" Krank grumbled, as the group watched her vanish from view as she side-stepped to yet another cube. He turned to James, who shrugged, before gesturing to Art, as if saying he had been assigned to protect him, and nothing else. Krank, rolling his eyes, turned to Jake.

"Don't ask me buddy. The bitch is crazy if you ask me," he paused and twisted his face into a smiling grimace,"it's why I like her."

Krank threw his head back in despair, and was about to head in her direction, when her voice seemed to emanate from the walls.

"Come over here," Ebbe gestured to him.

"What?" came Krank's blunt response.

"Just come here man," Ebbe replied irritably, "I want to try something."

"What?" Krank queried suspiciously. 

As abruptly as she'd vanished, her petite frame re-emerged from nothingness deep within the room. With an impatient wave of her hand, she gestured to Krank to head her way. With a heavy sigh he nodded back, before turning to Jake and James.

"Hold on to something fellas. You know, in case she sends us, up," he said with a comical frown, before he turned tail and reluctantly made his way deeper into the room.

"Lady," he boomed as he approached, "this better be good,"

"Oh, I think it is," Ebbe replied, "give me you arm."

Krank eyed her suspiciously. 

"Please tell me you're not going to do what I think you're going to do," he grumbled, refusing to offer either arm.

"I don't think you could even comprehend what I think I'm going to do. Now, stick your arm up here you oaf," she retorted, patting the base under another identical black cube.

"What if I refuse?" Krank asked impudently. 

"Arm," Ebbe replied, jabbing a finger at the white base, above which the shadowless cube hovered.

Rolling his eyes, Krank resignedly offered his right arm, pausing before shoving it directly into the cube. 

"The other arm, idiot," Ebba scolded, shaking her head. "What the hell am I supposed to do with your good arm?" 

"I don't know do I?" Krank grumbled, before grabbing his limp left arm, pausing before daring to lift it, "Ebbe, what are you?" She jabbed her finger at the base, causing him to break his sentence. "This better be bloody worth it," he grumbled, before grasping the broken limb and lifting it onto the based with a strained shout. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed out loud, biting his lip at the pain. 

"Now stay still," Ebbe commanded.

"Really? I was thinking of doing bloody river dance love!" Krank replied sarcastically.

Ebbe didn't hear. She was focused intently on the next cube down. With the care of a surgeon, she slowly slid her left hand into the dusky cloud. Within the murk, she could see the free-floating Greek letter Eta appear, just as it had moments earlier. Focusing hard on Krank's arm in her mind, she grabbed at the letter, just as she had when the base's gravity had vanished. 

Last time, it had been as if she was part of the basement, as if she was all the matter contained within that room. Now, she was inside Krank, in his blood, in his bone, his marrow. It was deeper than that, she was within the atoms that bonded together to make him. This time, there was no danger to distract her, no gun pointed, no bullet. There was flesh and bone. It wasn't that she was within him, she was him. The sensation was impossible to comprehend. Ebbe could no longer sense her own body, even the thoughts that had been her own seemed lost. What had she become Krank for? Why was she here? 

She sensed damage, and she recalled seeing a broken arm. That was it. She was there to repair the snapped bone. But she didn't know if she could. Or How. A transfer of energy. A transfer. That's what she had planned. To fix something you need to replace the damaged parts. 

For a second she released the phantom letter gripped within her left hand, and in the same instance, was pulled out of Krank, and was standing where she had actually been standing all along. Fighting the wave of dizziness that had floored her the first time, she immediately thrust her right hand into the adjoining cube. Another Greek letter, Xi, floated almost imperceptibly into view and once again Ebbe took hold. She needed someone who she didn't care for. All she could think of was Shark man. Immediately she found herself back in the basement. But not as part of it, this time she was within a body, as she had been with Krank. She was bound to the sub-atomic particles that made up this body, and yet she could see through his eyes. They were looking up at Anthony, poised at the top of the basement steps. She sensed that in his hand was a gun, pointed directly at Anthony. 

Wasting no more time, Ebbe slid her left hand back into the first cube and grabbed Eta again. Double concentration was required. Her mind felt as if it were divided perfectly in half. She was no longer Ebbe, but Krank and Shark man. Not their thoughts, nor their motions. She was simply a sub-atomic passenger, unable to influence their actions. 

All she needed to remember was the break. Even at the smallest scale, the snapped bone, the torn flesh within, was identifiable. Now the swap. 

Ebbe couldn't hear if Shark man shouted, swore, or whether he remained conscious. But the micro-second she rended bone and flesh from within him and used it to re-bond the broken radius bone within Krank, she was thrown out from them both, as if she was ejected from both cubes. Stumbling backwards she tumbled to the glossy ivory floor, her head reeling.

"What have you done?" Krank exclaimed out of her sight, "Ebbe? What? How?" 

His towering frame honed into view, and he offered her his left hand, his teeth showing in a wide grin.This time Ebbe opted to accept and allowed herself to be pulled up. But he didn't let go, and pulled her in for a crushing squeeze.

Finally releasing her from his bear hug, he practically dropped her back to the floor, where she landed with a surprised stumble.

"You bloody legend," he beamed, flexing his hand and swinging his arm, testing it out. "How in the bloody name of all things blessed did you do that?"

Ebbe shrugged, unable to offer anything that would even approach Krank's scientific understanding. She stared at the cubes, debating whether she should truly try what she was contemplating. 

"I think," she started, having finally made her decision, "I can save Art."

Chapter 12 - Part 2

Anthony landed back to the scarred earth with an unceremonious smack to the face. An electric shock ran from his head, through his spine and dissipated as it reached his awakening legs. His vision blurred, with white dots flashing in and out, the basement a shapeless mash of grey and brown. Blood oozed from his bruised nose. Nevertheless he forced his pain-racked body to claw itself in what he estimated was the general direction of the stairway.

If whatever had happened down here, had also happened up top, chaos could be reigning, and that would be an opportune moment to make haste his escape. 

Somewhere in this God forsaken room that bastard Atkins was also going to be suffering from a similarly painful fall from the ceiling, albeit without Anthony's previous wounds in addition. But Anthony didn't care to wait for his senses to recover so he could properly check. If luck was on his side, the psychotic bastard had been impaled on some sharp debris. 

Luck. That was never something to rely on in Anthony's experience. It was a nice thought, but he knew that no such thing had happened. The best case scenario was more likely he had temporarily been knocked unconscious by the drop. Right now that was all the damn luck Anthony needed. Whatever had happened to send the pair drifting skyward had been his true saviour. It had briefly evened the battle ground. 

Anthony reached the foot of the stairwell and finally decided it was wise to check his rear for the enemy. His eyesight was starting to clear; the damned stars flashing in and out were still there and his head was throbbing like a son of a bitch, but focus and clarity were returning. 

His instinct had been spot on. To the far right of the room he clocked the crumpled figure of Atkins, face down and lifeless. The light in the room was too dark to discern any more detail. Had he been more physically sound Anthony would have gone over there and finished him off. A swift crack of the neck would do the trick. But right now every vestige of his energy was required to scale the staircase and tackle whatever, or whoever, was at the top. 

The sudden flash of a gun muzzle exploding towards his face, only metres away, made him scramble backwards with a startled shout. 

Realising he had held up his hand in a futile gesture to block the impending bullet that was about to pass through his skull, and splatter his brains against the back of the basement, Anthony lowered it, to face the man who had killed him. But no such man was standing on the stairs. No man, no gun, brains intact.

Sure, sure, my brains haven't been separated from my skull, but something screwy is happening up there. You're seeing things you stupid bastard. Too many knocks to the old noggin has dislodged something. Just what you need. 

There was no time to go crazy. Get up the damn stairs. Get out of this house, and then see if you're losing the plot. 

"Come on legs," he commanded out loud, comforted to hear something as ordinary and every day as his own baritone voice echoing back from the stonework. Much to his delight, his limbs seemed to respond to orders as well as his subordinates, and his knees creaked into action. Shakily he managed to crouch first, then stand tentatively. 

This is a huge improvement, he concluded, standing for the first time in hours. The view from the floor was proving tiresome. Now to get these bastard pins to shift my arse up these steps, before any chance of escape expires. 

Despite the sensation of red hot pins stabbing into his flesh, Anthony forced his unhappy legs to step up, one at a time, each footfall causing a shockwave to shudder up from his calves, past his thighs, and congregate in his groin. 

Each step was excruciating, like experiencing powerful electric shocks every time his soles made contact with the concrete. Focusing on the effort was only making matters worse, so Anthony did what his training told him to do, forget the pain, seek out absolutely anything else to occupy his mind with. 

And all Anthony could think of was Ebbe. Had she got to safety? What had she found hidden in the depths of the earth? But one thought took precedence over all others. Had she saved him? As he trudged up another step, the image of a gun exploding in his face flashed before his eyes again. 

Atkins had shot at him. The gun had fired. The bloody gun had fired at Anthony nearly point blank, just before they had dropped to the floor. Had he escaped death due to the sudden drop? Another footstep, another gun flash. Step, flash. The recurring image was replacing the pain of his body. Again and again he was shot. 

Anthony had to pause and take stock. The image of being shot was almost worse than the searing hot needles bringing his flesh back to life. At least the pain was a reminder he was alive. The gun shot was a reminder that he ought not be. What the bloody hell had happened? 

Ebbe! It was her wasn't it. Anthony tensed up every sinew in his body, clasping and unclasping his fists tightly, forcing the blood the pump a little faster through his veins. I'm alive because of that woman, he told himself. The free floating, the vanishing bullet, all a miracle provided by that infuriating woman who knew too much. 

Seems I should live a little longer then, he chuckled to himself, if only to return the favour, and ask her how the bloody hell she made a bullet vanish. That was it, that was enough to reinvigorate his fatigued muscles. There were a few more steps to go, and Anthony found he had unexpected vigour to stride up these remaining stairs, and reach the exit. 

Anthony ran through a variety of potentials as he stared at the last barrier between this tomb and the outside world. There could be a hundred troops up there, ready to shoot anyone exiting the hatch who wasn't wearing their colours. There could be. But Anthony didn't think there was. Atkins was a man who trusted few people. His team would be no more than twenty. The problem was, Anthony had been unable to do a proper head count down below, so although the team had been depleted, there was likely at least ten men left up above. But, they wouldn't all be poised at the hatch, ready with an itchy trigger finger. There would be others outside, guarding the building, keeping a lookout. There would also be at least two waiting in the vehicle they arrived in. 

Time is wasting away Anthony old man, if the boys upstairs experienced the same crazy shit you did a few minutes ago, those outside may have found themselves drifting towards the stars. The fall back to earth for those outside could have been enough to incapacitate. That could have reduced the threat by about four men. Atkins' men would not be phased enough to stop guarding the hatchway though. Anthony concluded he had two to deal with in the first instance.

Exiting unarmed, the enemy on the high ground, body not in anything approaching top nick. Not good odds. 

I guess there is one way, Anthony mused, a wry smile spreading across his face. 

And with that he pushed the trap door open, letting it swing back with a loud clack.