CHAPTER TEN: THE CONQUEROR OF CIVILIZATIONS
Every day we’d practice. I wasn’t an expert shooter by any stretch but I had spent enough time around guns at this point that I could get her competent enough to survive with one. I was gonna rely much more on my physical skills. I was on my toes as well because we didn’t know if another agent would catch up to us during this time either. My jumping to 2226 would have surely thrown them off as well. But we were never attacked, not even by agents from the other Tet, so we had to assume he never caught on to the fact we broke into his dorm. Finally, the day came when she put the finishing touches on a Sequence Bracer of her own and we were ready to go face this menace head on. I was sad to leave the 2220s behind. They had actually been really good to me. Cinema once spoke of the melancholy of the 1990s, well now I felt the melancholy of the 2220s. Solving a grand mystery, preparing for an ultimate showdown and fucking each other silly in between.
The two of us set our Sequencers to the same time lane, my Alpha and her Beta, circa 1994. The plan was to drop into the command center relatively unnoticed. That probably wouldn’t last long considering I’d have someone with me, wearing a Bracer, that no one would recognize. But we would make our way to one of the computer terminals and Cinema would insert a device into it that would send a virus into their network to destroy all the collected data. She warned that this wouldn’t completely eliminate it because the data saved on all of the agents' Bracers could still be mined to recover most of it. There was also the matter of dealing with Tet and his underlings. I told her I would take care of him once I got her to a terminal.
Without further ado, we entered the Dark Space and activated our Sequencers. The pink light over took us and next thing you knew we were back in my original timeline. The Alpha point. We walked through the cave out of the Dark Space as the pink aura around us dissipated. At the center of the room were about a dozen agents and aides walking around or sitting at computers entering data. Tet was nowhere around. It had been nearly three weeks since I left this place, so I was unsure if the assassin that came after me was sent by now, or at a later point when they realized I wasn’t coming back. We picked up our pace a little in an attempt to get Cinema to a terminal quickly but Brittany noticed us. She said, “Guy, you decided to come back. And who’s this with you?”
I didn’t answer her question, I just plowed on to the nearest unmanned terminal, pulled out my pistol and shot the first guard dead that reached for his gun after noticing Brittany unable to stop me. A second guard reached for his gun as well, but Cinema fired first, hitting him and taking him down. The whole room turned into a scramble with aides ducking behind tables and desks. Several other personnel drew weapons and took up positions against us while we ducked behind the terminal we were attempting to hack into. A firefight broke out as I apologized to Cinema for not giving her enough time to do her task.
Before anything brash was done, a voice shouted out from the reaches of the darkness surrounding the command center, “Enough! Hold fire!” it said.
It was Mr. Tet, emerging from the darkness behind Brittany and the other cowering aides that were being protected by the guards standing behind the breach of large desks between us and them. He was clapping and mockingly congratulated me by saying, “Excellent work Guy. This is precisely the type of skill I was looking for when I chose you. You somehow even managed to recruit my old teacher, Miss Zang, who admittedly I owe a lot of my work to.”
“It’s over Tet,” I yelled, pistol drawn on him, “I’m not leaving until your research is destroyed.”
“That’s the spirit right there dear boy,” he complimented, “Though I must confess, it was difficult for me to agree to recruit you having known it was you that destroyed me in the tunnels at my tomb in the Red Sea. Luckily someone more special to me than you convinced me to.
Neffy, come on in now.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about but the sound of heels clacking could be heard emerging from the darkness. Out of the shadows came a tall, slender, beautifully dark skinned woman wearing a black suit with a white undershirt, unbuttoned just enough to reveal a robust cleavage. It was the same woman as before! The agent Tet was speaking to that day, and the one in the picture with young Tet in the future.
“I want to introduce you to someone, Guy,” said Tet, “This is my daughter, Nefratara. I had her after I traveled back into ancient times with her mother, the Queen Consort who, rest in peace, died in childbirth. You see, when I discovered time travel, I went far back into the ancient past and used technology and my knowledge to conquer the scattered collections of human civilization. They quite literally thought of me as a god. And with my rule, the sorcerers and conjurers of my kingdom sought out power from every corner of the known world to render it unto me. But there was one problem. Even though I became a living god, the limits of my power manifested through age, and I had become a slave to the power of death. My body was preserved and laid dormant until a time where technology could help me surpass death. That technology did not exist even in my time and since I couldn’t use the Sequencer to travel beyond the point of its creation, where biological immortality may exist, my only choice was to collect everything I could to have it before meeting an untimely demise. My daughter, Nefratara, took my Sequencer after my death in the old world that would eventually be destroyed by the ice age. She used it to visit my younger self in the future. She told me all about what I had achieved and what I could achieve if I were able to receive eternal life. She asked my younger self to help her uncover my body so that she could find a way to revive it. But alas, they were saddened to find out that sometime in the late 20th century, my body had been exhumed from the tomb and destroyed by you. She hated you for it, so… ”
“Father,” the woman interrupted, “Let me tell the rest of it.”
Tet smiled at her and said, “Of course my dear.”
Nefratara raised her hands by the side of her head and walked somewhat closer to our position. She said, “It’s true. I hated you. All I knew of you was that you would be the man who would prematurely awaken my father and destroy him after all that he had built. So, I tried to stop you. I traveled back to the time and place that you and he did battle and from the shadows I watched. But as the battle raged on, it was no longer hatred I felt for you. It was love. The vulgar display of power I witnessed as you were the only one capable of defeating my father, King Anucktet, made me fall in love with you. I could have killed you when you were wounded from the fight and barely making your way to the surface of the island. But instead, I helped you. And soon, my love would not be one sided. You came to love me as well.”
I decided to interject, “Well then why didn’t you leave things alone and stay in your own time lane?”
Nefratara had sadness wash over her face.
Tet replied for her, “Because five years later, you would be killed in battle by an even greater threat. Nefratara survived and returned to our kingdom, in a time before the ravages of old age defeated me. That’s when we planned all that you see before you. But I’ve known for some time that I would still likely not survive long enough to achieve the goal for myself. So, my goal shifted to achieving it for the two of you. Even though I despised you, I knew that she loved you. So, I wanted to secure my dynasty and grant the two of you immortality so that you may rule time and space itself, forevermore. I even eliminated the fiend that killed you here in this timeline so that it would be of no concern for you. So, I implore you, Guy, lay down your arms, and come to your Queen and the rightful place under my tutelage.”
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I looked down at Cinema by my side, who still had her gun trained on the guards and I looked at Tet, who was just smiling. Then I looked over to the sexy Princess Nefratara who was standing with arms wide open waiting for me. My pistol was trained on Tet but with my left arm, I snagged Cinema up to her feet next to me, leaned over and open mouth kissed her in plain view of everyone. Disgust fell upon Nefratara’s face and her arms lowered. But Tet continued to smile.
“Is that a clear enough answer for you?” I shouted.
Tet looked down in front of himself and chuckled, “Unfortunate, but I was afraid that might be the case.”
Then suddenly, his body transformed. His clothes burst at the seams and his skin turned blue. The muscles on his arms, legs, and shoulders tripled in size. His eyes began to glow yellow and his teeth pointed. He not only resembled the mummy I had battled before, but he far surpassed him in scale. This was no reanimated corpse. He was a warrior, not far past his prime, Amrah Anucktet, the conqueror of civilizations. Even worse, he had become Omni-Tet.
Before anyone could react, he swiped his enormous arm across the array of tables in front of him, knocking them and several of his own men across the room. He bolted in an olympic charge directly towards me. Both me and Cinema opened fire as Nefratara leapt behind a table to shield herself. Brittany and the remaining aides scrambled in fear and ran off into every direction disappearing into the Dark Spaces with no coordinates and likely to their own doom. Cinema shot the last guard dead as I flanked away from her position to draw Tet away from her. When my gun ran out of ammo I tossed it aside and prepared for a melee fight.
Nefratara emerged from behind her defense point with the gun from a fallen agent and began a shootout with Cinema. Her father reached my location and swung mightily but I was able to dodge. Each one of those blows would have felt like a garbage truck hitting me, I’m sure. I could feel the wind rush off of them. I sprang upwards and returned some hits to his face that didn’t seem to faze him much before rolling out of the way of his grasp behind a computer terminal. With another awesome swipe, he began clearing the room of tables and desks, trashing everything in his sight to get to me. I crawled around on all fours for a while until there was no more cover. That’s when I decided to run out into the Dark Space myself. It was probably suicidal, but potentially better than what was pursuing me.
Cinema and Nefratara traded shots with each other for a while until they both ran out of ammo. Nefratara then ran out from behind her position and made a diving tackle against Cinema. The two rolled around on the ground bashing each other's heads mercilessly against the rocky floor.
Meanwhile, I ran off into a random Dark Space in the hopes of it leading me to a place of advantage in my fight against Tet. I didn’t have time to chart a destination. As I ran into the darkness, I could hear Tet stomping after me but he was just out of my view when I looked behind. Next thing I knew, I was standing in a child's bedroom. I had just run out of his closet.
The kid shouted, “Mom! Dad! I told you there was a man in my closet!”
I tried to shush him, but his parents came barging in, “Johnny for the last time, there's no such thing as monsters…”
The dad paused as he locked eyes with me. Then the contents of the closet and its surrounding door frame burst outward as Tet reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders. Quickly I slipped in between his legs and back into the Dark Space within the closet. He turned and continued to pursue me while the family stood there with shock on their faces.
I found myself running again back down the Dark Space towards where the destroyed control room was. I could hear Nefratara and Cinema fighting but my concern was Tet. I knew my only choice was to stand and fight. As he emerged from the darkness once again, I reared back a powerful White Lightning punch directly to his chest. The blow did some damage for sure, but it was easily as strong as the one I defeated him with before in our last battle. Though this Tet’s younger and superb body took it with more resilience. Again, I hit him, not with as much force but he felt it. Then I attempted a third time, but he caught me by my forearm mid swing and slammed me to the ground. Had I not been wearing the Sequence Bracer, he might have broken my arm. I fought him as hard as I could from laying on the ground but he just hand over fist pummeled me. My shirt was torn off and my face was bloody. It seemed like this was finally the end. But then a voice called out from behind us.
“Hey John!” the voice said, “did you forget your trash?”
It was Cinema! She was holding Nefratara from behind with a pistol to her head. Blood was streaming from both of Nefratara’s nostrils.
Tet stood over me, now facing towards the girls. He let out a roar, so I did the only thing I could think of. I concentrated a White Lightning onto the top of my foot and delivered a kick straight to Tet’s undercarriage. His roar turned into a wail, and he dropped to one knee, grabbing his junk. I stumbled up to my feet and walked over to hit him as hard as I could in his back. He looked up to the sky shouting out in pain and tried to turn to me before I sent one last White Lightning punch across his face. He fell to one side and reverted to his normal self.
I signaled Cinema to bring Nefratara over to us. She dragged her over, gun in one hand and a handful of hair in the other. When she released her, she crawled over to grasp her father in her arms.
I said, “It’s time to end this once and for all. Cinema, give me the gun.” She handed it to me, and I aimed down at the head of Tet.
“Wait, please,” Nefratara pleaded, “We’ll leave! We’ll go back to our own time and never return. The ice age will destroy us, and you’ll never have to worry about us again!”
“Yeah right, what’s to stop you from traveling back through time and ambushing us someday?” I suggested.
Tet mumbled as he regained consciousness, his head in his daughter's lap, “We’ll, destroy our Bracers…you can…follow us back and make sure we do it…”
I kept the gun trained on his head but looked over at Cinema. She gave me no indication what she thought I should do. I looked back at Nefratara and said, “Fine, but we’re doing it now before either of you can come up with anymore tricks.”
They agreed to our terms. The four of us synchronized our Sequence Bracers and set them back for the ancient world to a Dark Space just outside of Tet’s kingdom. With both Cinema and I pointing guns at Tet and his daughter, they removed their Bracers and placed them on the ground for us to shoot. Cinema gathered the broken pieces so we could take them with us and the Pharaoh leaned against his daughter as the two turned and marched back home.
Cinema holstered her pistol and came up to me and fell into my arms. The two of us traveled back to the future at her Alpha Origin point and spent the night together. The next day, we had a hard conversation.
“I’m afraid I’ve made a decision that you’re not going to like,” I said to her cautiously. “What do you mean?” she replied, fearfully.
“I’m going to have to go back, Cinema. This era is not right for me. I like it here, but I don’t fit in.”
“Guy, no! Please don’t leave!” she pleaded with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not finished adventuring yet. When I set out, I did so with no destination in mind. I never intended on settling down until I was sure it was the right time.”
“But why can’t it be the right time now?”
“Because time travel is fun, but it complicates things that should be left alone. This entire escapade was a massive diversion to the direction my natural life was heading in.”
Cinema continued crying and tried turning to look away from me and said, “How do you know your fate wasn’t trying to bring you here?”
“Maybe it is,” I comforted her, “but not yet. When I return to my time, I’ll store my Bracer in a safe place that only I can access. Then, when the time is right, I’ll come see you again.”
“I’m just afraid that you’ll forget all about me,” she sniffled.
“I won’t, you’ll see. This is the way things need to be for now.”
The two of us embraced before I entered in a coordinate to find a nearby Dark Space.