Running after an old foe

From Blogger’s side: I apologize for such a late post.

Recap: Assuming the scientist to be dead, Sergei prepared to move towards Dome city. However, his assumption was wrong. The scientist decimated his gang rather violently.

Continued from before….

I jumped inside the Beast but not before destroying the bunker Minerva was in. I had searched before bombing the place in the hope to find something that could be of some use. Weirdly, there was absolutely nothing which meant this place was of no use to me. There were two floors below the surface, all empty except for some emergency supplies. I took them and levelled the place down. I didn’t have much time to lose.

I called Husky who was still busy with one of goons who had lost too much blood to even cry in pain. He ran back to me reluctantly. I cleaned his face and jumped inside the car along with him. Sergei had a head start of about an hour. Given the size of his vehicle, I could safely assume he had to take a longer route if he wanted to cross the ocean. I was yet unsure what to do with him or Minerva after I stopped them.

It didn’t matter, I needed to stop them first. I plotted a course for the nearest point on solid ground with the required deviation. I wish I had wireless communication so that the guys at home could prepare the defences. I took a note to work on the communication part as soon as the present situation was sorted out. I had two options, one, intercepting them just after crossing the ocean and two, meeting them near the city. The first option had a major issue, I didn’t know if their path would coincide with mine. I chose the second option and decided to wait a few kilometres ahead of the dome. I drove as fast as I could with our safety in mind. I could not afford to take a break as time as of essence. When I needed some rest I put the car on autodrive but even that was not for more than 3 to 4 hours. I could never trust a computer to do its job properly. I reached the outskirts of my city much sooner than one could expect and decided to wait a few kilometres from the entrance. I had also employed a few drones which patrolled from a distance.

I waited for a long time but nothing happened. No one turned up to besiege the city and neither did the drones report any kind of movement. It was unnerving. What were they waiting for? I decided to wait for a few more hours. They didn’t turn up. I was disappointed and frustrated. I was hoping for a small battle to calm my nerves and satiate my anger. Rather I was even more furious. No one makes me wait. I had to sit on it for the time being. I had neither the energy nor the resources to search for them. I returned back to the city and instructed the department of security to keep up the defences. The drones were also kept on regular patrol to detect any kind of movement outside the city.

I needed good amount of rest to calm myself. I was totally disarrayed, I was angry, frustrated, depressed, confused all at the same time. I was angry because I was betrayed by someone who gained my utmost trust and care. I was depressed because I got attached to the wrong person. I was confused because this was the first time after a long period that I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Was there going to be an attack tomorrow or the day after? I had absolutely no idea. I didn’t know when I fell asleep.

23rd June 2355

The blare of alarm woke me up. I went downstairs to check the intercom, my presence was requested urgently at the Centre. I moved out with nervous thoughts transgressing my mind. I reached the centre as soon as I could. No, the city was not under siege. However, the reported incident was a matter of grave concern. Sometime back, we had established an unmanned outpost in a war torn building a few kilometres from the city towards the south. We stopped receiving signals about an hour back. When a drone was sent to check it out, it was found that the building had vanished, rather sucked into the ground. There was a deep hole in the ground resembling the base of the building with the supporting beams standing up. Even I had not seen anything like this before. We decided to analyze the images of the site before physical investigation.

The results were absurd. The sides of the sinkhole were smooth which meant the incident didn’t happen overnight and the contours suggested the building was brought down from below. We received the information so late because the transmitter was placed at the top of the building and it was destroyed in the end. This gave rise to a few questions.

1. Who or what did this?

2. Why?

3. How?

4. Why didn’t the transmitter report any kind of anomalous movement before?

None of the questions could have been answered without physical investigation. As per protocol the UPV was sent to the site first. It reached in almost no time. It couldn’t find anything that we hadn’t already seen in the images. The UPV gathered some samples from the site which included the adjacent soil, remains of the building etcetera to be brought back at the centre and returned back. Then we saw it, something we had not anticipated before. When the junior researchers approached the vehicle for acquiring the samples, they found the wheels had been damaged badly. The lining had been eroded by some kind of organic acid whose residue was further eating it’s way in. The wheels were removed immediately and sent to the laboratory for further study.

I couldn’t understand whether to be worried or to be glad that this incident took place. I was in no way prepared to spend my time alone at home. Every corner of that place reminded me of that wretch. While waiting for the results from the laboratory, I decided to catch up with some work. In the meantime I brought Husky to my office. I knew he was sad and needed me.

I sat down with my long ignored project, travelling through time. No one knew about it other than Husky. I couldn’t risk telling about it and being ridiculed by the people with lesser intellect. My point was simple, everyone moves through time at a constant pace. The only thing we don’t know is how to change the pace. I started working on it during my stay in the vault. The development was extremely slow as I didn’t have any precedence to work on it. Eventually it was time to move out of the vault and that meant building another abode above the surface. It took a long time to build and settle in the Dome. Later, I could never find enough time to ponder over my theory. Now, I was depressed and I needed something to keep my mind busy.

The first question was to how to measure the speed of time. Normally speed was measured with respect to time but rate of change of time couldn’t be measured with respect to time. A different dimension was needed and I didn’t know what. I had studied in depth regarding the motion of photons and how flow of time slowed as one approached the speed of light. But according to the theory of relativity a particle’s mass approached infinity as it approached the speed of light. The major point of all, it didn’t ensure moving back in time. I was engrossed in deriving equations when the reports came in.

To be continued…