The Path We Chose

The Path We Choose

I was twenty years old the day the palace burned. February 12, 3035, that fire started the war that ended everything. Tension was high between the kingdom of Europa, and the republic of Coldwater. They say Coldwater sent an assassin to kill princess Adeline, and he burned the palace to hide the evidence. That is why Europa sent the first bomb. The destruction caused hardship on the world, so everyone joined the fight, utill there was nothing left to destroy.

My family survived the bombing to be murdered by Raiders two years later. I spent the following year exterminating those rats with no mercy. The Brotherhood of Future Protection found me on my war path. I had just decimated a camp of fifteen Raiders, when General Caesar approached me. He was smart, and clearly not a raider, so I heard him out. Caesar explained the Brotherhoods plan to save the world, and I knew I had to help. I have been with the Brotherhood ever since.

Pre-war, Caesar was the lead scientist for Europa’s Time Intelligence Unit (TIU). Of course at that time you had to have a level 12 clearance to even know the name. The TIU was studying physics, and the laws of time. Sometime in early 3030 Caesar and his partner Orwell Brahms cracked the code on time travel, and began construction on a time gate.

When the war started Caesar morphed his colleges into the Brotherhood. Brahms for unknown, reasons took the nuclear reactor, and left the group, before Caesar could send someone back to save us. After Brahms left, The Brotherhood set out to find the reactor, or the components to create a new one.

Over the years Caesar has lost many people to the cause, but he has also recruited many like me. I have been with the Brotherhood for two years now. Back when I was a recruit I met my best friend, Maven. Maven is the closest thing I’ve had to family since the Raiders took mine from me.

Caesar believes that if we can construct a nuclear conductor, it will allow the smaller nuclear reactor from a plasma rifle to power the time gate. Today I lead Maven, and a team of recruits to a pre-war military bunker. Caesar thinks, if the place is undisturbed, we will find the last pieces needed to create the conductor. We have been on missions like this before. I keep hope that one day we will find Brahms murdered by Raiders with the nuclear reactor carelessly left at his feet. However, its always the same. Kill the Raiders, then gather weapons, ammunition, food, and any other useful supplies.

We have been traveling for a week now, so when we find that the base is occupied by Raiders we set up camp close enough to gather Intel. This group of Raiders rotates runners in groups of three. Runners go out to collect supplies. Along with the runners this group has a day, and night guard keeping the base protected at all times. These Raiders are armed more heavily with plasma weapons than any group I’ve encountered.

We have been camped here for two days. This morning the runners switched rotation. We decide tonight will be the best opportunity to attack. Fires are a normal thing for Raiders. I think they have them for the comfort. In this hell we call Earth comfort is hard to come by. Most of the night guards sit around the fire. I send the recruits to the unfocused guards by the fire, while me and Maven take the two flanking the bunkers entrance. We make short work of the guards, and thanks to my training we pull it off silently. Executing the day guards will be easier if they remain asleep.

Upon entrance, as expected there is a guard posted in the main room, luckily the night guards tend to fall asleep. We hide his body in the shadows. The guard was asleep at a work bench that is littered with papers. They appear to be an inventory log. These raiders are very organized. The inventory log shows everything they have, including the supplies brought by the runners this morning. The logs inform us that this group is over capacity, and looking for ideas to fix their supply demand.

Based on the logs found we know there will be more activity in the base than we had planned for. However, we press on. We go down a dark hallway. As we round a corner, we run into two guards. They are sitting on opposite sides of the hallway, closer to us than the doors they guard. We melt into the shadows. This part has to be handled correctly, or we will ruin our shot of ending the Raiders in their sleep. We know the sleeping Raiders lie behind one of those two doors.

One of the guards stands up, and kicks his comrade.

“Wake up!” the kicker exclaims.

“What the hell man!” our snoozer replies.

The kicker responds, “You know we are over capacity. The boss is looking for a way to save the camp. Releasing the slackers might be his decision. I don’t want to see you let go, cause you are never awake. Go trade out with Lex. Warm your blood by that fire, and get some air.”

We back around the corner, and take out the guard, as he rounds the corner. Killing his friend pains me a little. He was loyal, under different circumstances he would make a good recruit; however, I can’t chance him waking the day guards, so I do what needs to be done. As expected those two were guarding the day guards. Those guards never opened their eyes again.

Maven, and I decide to take Santiago, our top recruit, down the another hallway. We leave the rest at the front to guard. It’s best to not get caught down a hallway. I lead our small group, Maven follows at my left, and Santiago at my right. After a distance I hear the shot, before I see anything. I instantly roll to my right. I feel the heat from the plasma, as it passes by my shoulder. I return fire on the guards, taking them both out with ease.

When I turn to my comrades, I am horrified to see that the blast meant for me struck Maven. His face is no longer recognizable. Santiago hovers over him white as a ghost. I drop to my knees. I can’t breath. My best friend, my brother, no longer recognizable lies in front of me, dead. I am still processing the sight in front of me when I hear a voice.

“John Anthony Lewis, we need to talk.”

I turn around to find Orwell Brahms plasma pistol pointed at my chest. I stand, defeated, and fallow Brahms into the room. Santiago attempts to follow, but Brahms quickly shuts that down, informing Santiago that if we fail to cooperate I will die. Brahms instructs me to shut the door behind us. I do as commanded, then take the seat I am ushered to. Brahms sits across from me, and begins.

“John, before you ask how I know your name, you need to understand that Ronald, or Caesar as you know him refused to hear me out. He insisted that traveling back was the best way to save us from this hell…”

Hell came out a gurgle, as the heat seeking needle struck Brahms throat. I watched the light leave his eyes while he fell to the floor. I don’t know how I missed it, but Santiago, that stupid genius, set a heat seeking needle to Brahms heat signature, and clipped it to my shirt collar.

Part of me is relieved I didn’t get to hear what Brahms had to say. I don’t know, that his words would allow me to go on with the mission as normal. We wasted time in clearing the bunker. Santiago found a lockbox, that had the nuclear reactor, and a locket in it. We don’t have the man power to take everything with us, so we fill the lock box with the remaining Items. Then we burry them, so they can’t be used. After burying the dead in a mass grave, and burning Maven with a traditional Brotherhood send off, we set out to return to base.

I’ve had three days to rest, while Caesar put in the reactor. I stand ready at the gate, Caesar and Santiago my witnesses.

“Today, August twenty-sixth, 3040 you, John Anthony Lewis, rewrite history. Today you save the world. Good luck my friend.” Caesar says in farewell.

“Find me, and Maven when you fix everything. Make something up, and let’s catch a game.” Santiago says.

“Goodbye Santiago. Goodbye Ronald.” I say as I walk through the Gate.

As planned I emerge on the other side of the time gate, at one AM on February 12, 3035. We planned for me to come out at one, so I could slip out of the bunker without detection. Caesar and I had gone over this plan almost daily, since I joined the brotherhood. I made short work of getting out.

I emerge from the bunker around two in the morning. I have fifteen hours, before I need to stop the assassin, so I head to a hotel. I feel like I might have died and gone to heaven. I got a warm shower, a good meal, a soft bed, and a TV show to top it off. I fell asleep before the first commercial break. I had the best sleep I can remember.

I snuck into the palace with a tour group, and slipped away about an hour ago. According to calculations I have thirty minuets before the attack, but haven’t seen any signs of an assassin. I skip to plan C and run towards the princesse’s bed chamber. I have to save her, no matter the cost.

I enter her room, and before catching my breath exclaim, “Adeline, there is an assassin in the palace, and I am here to save you!”

she screams for her guards, and throws something that shatters against the wall behind me. I hear the plasma riffle, and roll to my right, as the plasma screams past. I turn and fire at the attacker. That’s when I realize what I’ve done.

I fall to my knees next to her lifeless body. Once again staring into an unrecognizable face, mangled by the shot meant for me. What ever she threw started a fire, and flames are quickly over taking the room. I scrawl a quick note and shove it into her locket.

“I did this. I brought hell to us all. I killed Adeline.”

With that realization, I cry and let the flames consume me.

~

Santiago

After John left nothing changed. The world was still a mess, and we were still here. Caesar was furious. He was locked up in his quarters pouring over possibilities when I set out with a group to retrieve the supplies John and I left buried. We got here this morning, and now I know why nothing changed.

When we got here I headed straight for that heart shaped locket. I knew I’d seen it before, and now that I’m holding it open I know why. This is the locket princess Adeline was identified by. I should have opened it before reporting it as some locket to John. If I had, I would have got his note, and who knows where we’d be. I look at it one more time tears in my eyes.

We found our fate on the path we took to avoid it!

John Anthony Lewis