Hey once again. Since recieving 1 message after posting the first
two parts yesterday, I've decided to. . . . post the rest series! Anyway
thanks to David J. and Kim for sending they're comments. And to the
rest of ya reading this. . . . enjoy [grin]!
Timelords
Part 3: The Scent Strengthens
"Okay Tracer. Now strike!" a man with graying light brown
hair who looked about thirty was holding a metal staff beckoning
a some unseen foe out in a field full of tall green spring
grass. Suddenly a young man who looked to be in his mid teens
leaped from the protection of the tall grass at the older man
with a broadsword. The older man repelled the young man's
strikes with a good amount of effort. Finally the two got into
a stalemate when the older man's hands got a faint red glow.
The dark haired young man unexpectedly fell backwards to the
ground and the older man held the staff at the fallen one's
throat.
"Good you're getting better. Now I can't defeat you as easily,
an achievement of its own." said the older man, "You have the
promise to be the best timelord that I ever trained."
"Thank you headmaster Halebit." said the young black haired
boy respectfully as his sensei helped him to his feet.
"Oh forget the formalities, you'll soon earn the status of
timelord in just a few weeks. Call me Halebit." the older man
said as he put his hand on the younger man's shoulders, "We've
known each other for a long time and you're not always this
pensive."
The boys face softened up to a smile and he chuckled, "Well
you're right. I'm actually feeling elated right now. I'm going
to be a timelord and I'm going to help get rid of those Society
scums."
Halebit's expression changed for a moment to one of
disapprovement, but then changed to a smile, "Yes, yes you will."
There was a moment of silence and then Halebit subtly changed
the subject. With a trance of intrigue in his voice he said,
"You know Tracer you've been a son to me, even though your real
father is somewhere hiding from his responsibilities."
Tracer's smile quickly diminished and looked down at his feet
feeling the emotional scars of past. While Tracer looked down,
Halebit's smile broadened and he said tenderly, "Once I found
out, I promised myself I'd take care of you. I'm going to make
sure that facet of your life won't come back to haunt you."
Tracer awoke suddenly from his dream and jumped up out of his
narrow cot. He shook his head, why was he dreaming about his
memories of his training and his old teacher? Then Tracer
wondered what ever happened to Halebit.
"He's probably still training some timelords somewhere in the
wheat fields." Tracer answered himself.
"What Tracer?" said a disembodied voice from a screen over a
desk.
"Oh, nothing, Avex." Tracer answered sleepily, "Did I get a
reply from Giro?"
"Yes, he says that he'll meet you at his quarters, he'll talk
to you further there." the monotone voice replied.
Tracer picked up a black trenchcoat from a floating chair,
"Just like him to be paranoid."
Tracer walked to a blank wall which created a frame door frame
and opened. As he was leaving he saw the sword lying next to
the desk. It was glowing pretty brightly which lead Tracer to
comment, "Strange, very strange. I think I'll let Avex do a
scan of the thing when I get back."
Tracer finally reached Giro's quarters easily spotting all the
'no trespassing' signs around his door. Tracer knocked on the
blank wall in front of him in a certain pattern and a door frame
appeared and let Tracer in. There at a desk similar to Tracer's
was a man with short radiant gray hair. He was wearing light
armor and aggressively tapping away at a floating keyboard with
a screen floating just above it. Both were absent of any
physical hardware. A square would light up under his fingers as
they flew around at a high rate of speed on the flat keyboard.
"You always spend your time being this eccentric?" Tracer
asked amused.
"No I do have a life outside conspiracy theories." the man
replied.
"But, Giro, I haven't seen you out doing anything in God knows
how long around here." Tracer responded curiously.
Giro grinned a little as he stopped tapping on the floating
keyboard, "Not in here, but out there."
Tracer was surprised as the gray haired man continued, "I met
an ex-timelord outside of the Community, and she is one hell of
a hacker."
"Oh so you have a mate now." Tracer chuckled at which Giro
made a sneer and continued ignoring his last comment.
"Well I'm glad you believe me about that thing I was telling
you about. The others thought I was disturbed." Giro hissed
that last part out as he turned back to his screen and resumed
his tapping, "And you better thank that ex-timelord for getting
you access to this archive."
"Ok, tell her I am." Tracer said as he walked over to the
screen that Giro had working. Giro was the only timelord who
didn't have an AI because he suspected that the Counsule was
using them as a tool to spy on the timelords, but of course that
was Giro's perception about everyday things. Most of the
timelords just thought he was eccentric and over reactive so no
one really paid any attention about what he had to say.
"It's all yours, just touch the screen and you're in." Giro
tapped his last strokes on the flat keyboard and made his way to
the door, "You have 5 minutes and then disconnect or they'll
trace the link back to here."
"Wait aren't you going to stay here and help me?" Tracer asked
confused.
"I would, but that fake code I got, didn't come free." Giro
said with a sly grin.
"Hold on. What could you possibly give someone who doesn't
need credits to time travel and has more inside info than you?"
Tracer asked as he now was even more confused.
"I just do." Giro said quickly as he exited with the door
sliding closed and the door frame disappearing.
Tracer thought for a moment and realized that Giro's
correspondent was female. "Oh, I don't think I want to know."
Tracer turned back to the screen and touched it. Suddenly the
screen was full of writing concerning many different subjects, a
lot more than originally anticipated, "Crap! They have an
entire great library of info."
Tracer scrolled down the long list of subjects and found the
file he was looking for, Xendyte's. Tracer was a little
disappointed that most of her bio info was virtually the same as
the public archive. It was the same until Tracer got to the
details of her death. Tracer found that her family was hunted
and killed by a group of timelords not Nomads. The reason for
this, her father was an accused Society member. According to
the file the timelords were in turn ambushed by a platoon of
Society soldiers and driven back. All the more confirming their
suspicions. Unfortunately Xendyte was considered dead anyway,
but this time they didn't have confirmation on her body.
"Bingo." Tracer whispered to himself.
Tracer closed her file and then got curious about the subjects
of all the other files. Tracer randomly got a file from the
list and looked at it. It was blueprints of a newest defensive
weapon that was being developed in secret in one of the
restricted dimensions. It detailed on how the population there
was being used as manual labor and how resources from other
dimensions were being transported in. Then Tracer picked
another file that detailed the conditions of the dimensions
personalized to fit the pleasure of each Counsule member.
"This is a total breaching of their own decree. They can't do
that." Tracer said to himself memorized. The decree being
breached was ironically the Passive Travel Decree.
Then Tracer closed that file and randomly picked another, a
list of names of suspected Society members. The message was
detailing on how most on the list were 'resolved' accordingly.
"They were orchestrating a witch hunt for Society members all
this time." Tracer whispered hoarsely to himself.
Then Tracer picked another random file. It was more recent.
It was a communiqu, from Nairb to the other Counsule members.
Tracer read the short message:
Head Counsule Member Nairb to fellow members;
Naes, Anna Esor, Fej, and Lehcar:
Tracer must never know what really happened to his father.
For it is in our best interests.
End message
Tracer was now very bitter by all of this new information.
Finally Tracer thought that he should see the file about his
father to put his suspicions to rest about his father really
being the leader of the Society. Tracer was searching through
the files when suddenly the screen switched off. Tracer was
surprised at first until he realized that his five minutes were
up and they had successfully traced the line back. Tracer
quickly got up and went to the wall, but it wouldn't open.
Tracer relaxed his right arm and a his skin on his lower arm
turned silver and expanded to his finger tips. The tips of his
fingers kept on expanding until they were sharp pointy tips.
Tracer punctured the wall with his claw and tore a hole just big
enough for him to jump through. Tracer got a running start and
dove through the hole. Tracer successfully cleared it and
crashed into the opposing wall with his shoulder. Quickly
getting up, Tracer ran out of the complex of quarters.
'This can't be true,' Tracer thought to himself desperately as
he ran down the hall.
Timelords
Part 4: The Lone Wolf
Tracer walked down the alleyways of the Community once more,
but with a little more caution put into each step. It had been
a few weeks after he had discovered the sea of secret
information the Counsule had hidden in their own personal
archive. The shock had worn away by now but Tracer decided to
lay low for awhile away from the Community. During his hiatus
Tracer did some thinking and decided he was going to find out
about this Society alone. Tracer had gone to spots where he
knew Society members hung around from time to time. Tracer had
his traveller tracker with him to detect any temporal
disturbances indicating a traveller had arrived. Tracer waited
for awhile until finally he found a group of travellers at a bar
in Chicago during the late 19th century. Tracer fought not to
act on instinct to attack or he would risk attracting attention
from the Counsule. Doing some eaves dropping Tracer found that,
as he had hoped, some in the group were Society members. They
were trying to recruit the others and told them of a meeting to
go to if they wanted to attend. They gave them the location and
time that Tracer noted before discretely leaving without them
noticing his presence. Tracer now had a location where at
least some Society members would be, but he couldn't go in
without risk of being identified. Explaining why Tracer came
back to the Community to go pick up something at Headquarters
of the timelords situated right next to the Counsule Building.
Tracer made it a point not to look in the direction of the
Counsule Building as he approached the blank wall and voice from
a comlink greeted him;
"Please identify." the voice of the female seemed to be quite
friendly, yet stern.
Tracer responded distractedly, "Timelord Tracer, 10578."
The next response was an outline of a door framed appeared
opening up to Tracer. Tracer walked into the spacious
Headquarters as compared to the Counsule Building's small
tunnels. It was obviously in the simple style of late 20th
century Earth architecture where one could see the muti-levels
from the main entrance. Tracer walked towards his destination
near on the other side of the main entrance, the technology
supply division, or what all the timelords called, 'the armory.'
This was were all the newest devices and weapons that the
timelords could use were kept there ready to use. Tracer
entered the division through another set of doors and approached
a man behind a steel cage window with a small slit at the bottom
just big enough for a medium sized item to go through. Tracer
approached the man behind the cage.
"Did you get my order?" Tracer asking in a rather distant tone.
The man looked at him questionably and looked at a screen which
was floating next to him, "Sorry but I will need a name."
Tracer now annoyed once again rattled off his identification,
but the once more asked to do it again citing that the audio
wasn't picked up. Tracer now in an even more annoyed tone
rattled off his identification one last time.
The man nervously grinned as he turned around making his way to
the back, "I'm sorry but these damn machines haven't been
updated in a long time. Infact just about everything around
here needs updating."
The man came to a square metal panel in the wall which had a
pad with buttons on the right of it. The man pushed a sequence
of buttons and waited and then hit it a few times and the metal
panel opened up to reveal a small package wrapped in a type of
plastic covering. The man brought the package over to Tracer
who was looking around cautiously as he took it and hastily
left. When Tracer was making his way down one of the main
alleyways a hand grabbed him and pulled him into one the
deserted narrow side alleyways. Tracer immediately found
himself face to face with a very dirty, very nervous, and very
mad Giro.
"I should kill you right now!" he exclaimed under horse
whispers, "I came home one day and I found a whole troop of
timelords around my complex. I'm now officially excommunicated
and wanted dead thanks to you."
"Hey I'm sorry I didn't mean for you to get caught." Tracer
was taken off guard by him but still was rather distant in his
tone.
"Sorry doesn't cut it. I told you five minutes, but you had to
stay longer and let me take the fall." Giro was holding Tracer
against the filthy, damp alley wall, "Do you know how it feels
to sneak around in the filth of the Community hiding from search
patrols of timelords? Do you?"
"Why didn't you just tell them you were not in the Community, I
mean the temporal network over the Community would prove that."
Tracer offered.
"Oh that'll come over well, seeing that if someone who could
break into the heavily protected files couldn't also find a way
to alter the records of the comings and goings through the
network." Giro reprimanded harshly, "It doesn't work that way!
I'm already guilty!"
Suddenly sounds were heard from around the corner nearby and
Giro let go of Tracer. Giro looked in the vicinity of the noise
nervously and started to run off in the opposite direction.
Giro had a few parting words for Tracer as he ran, "Pray that I
don't run into you outside the Community."
Tracer entered his quarters wearily as he saw his sword lying
next to his desk as it was the last time he was there. Tracer
threw the plastic wrapped package on his desk and turned on Avex
as he plopped down in his antigrav chair.
"It has been awhile Tracer. There have been several messages
from the Counsule wanting to speak with you." the AI informed.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." all the traveling Tracer had already done
made him feel weak, but hearing the news that the Counsule
wanted him made him feel sick.
Tracer got up from the chair and ripped the plastic wrapped
cover off the package. Tracer took out several items and
Tracer thought about his game plan. Tracer was going to the
location of the recruiting meeting he got from the Society
members earlier. He would gain access posing as a recruitee.
To do that he needed a disguise thus the reason for the package,
a false identity kit. Then Tracer was going to get all the
information he could and maybe even infiltrating further into
the Society. Then something occurred to Tracer.
"Avex call up the image of the aged Xendyte and photocopy it."
Tracer commanded as he laid out the items from the kit onto his
desk.
One of the items fell off the side and Tracer picked it up and
saw the sword. Picking the sword up he told himself, "I have a
feeling I might need you."
"Back to this city again." a white haired but oddly young
looking man whispered to himself as he walked across the dark
and empty parking lot outside an old rundown warehouse.
The white haired man looked towards the bright lights of the
tall buildings towering over the decaying warehouse, stood out
against the humid Houston night. It was a sight he was familiar
with. The white haired man shook his head as he grumbled, "Is
the Society fond of Houston or something?"
The white haired man adjusted his white jacket and gray pants,
and rubbed his clean shaven face. He finally checked his
brilliant sword with a crystal blade and wooden hilt hung from
the side of his pants finishing his proper image. As the man
got closer to the run down warehouse he saw the faded name
painted on the wall, El Mercado. As the man got to the entrance
of the El Mercado he pulled the skin on his face a little.
'Man I hope this disguise holds up or they'll know who I am,'
he thought. The white haired man walked further, but ran into
an invisible barrier. A man in heavy armor carrying a large gun
appeared in front of him on the other side of the barrier.
"Who are you?" the guard asked in a suspicious tone.
The white haired man paused a moment and finally in a heavy
accent he answered innocently, "I kompt fuer dee Zoziety
recruiting meetung."
The guard's eyebrow raised, and the white haired man
reverberated, "I vas em-s Deustchland, ahh, Germany recently."
"It was how do you say, meinen bruder ga-borts-tag, ahhh." he
paused to translate in his head and went on, "My brother's
birthday. He has become zehr old and they may always be his
last."
The white haired man gave out long and deep laughs, thinking
himself clever.
The guard looked at him for a minute and smiled as he reached
over to the wall on his left and pushed a switch. With that the
invisible barrier disappeared and let the white haired man
through.
"Danskst du." the white haired man said passing the guard.
'This was too easy,' the man thought to himself as he passed a
few more guards dressed in heavy armor, 'Or maybe they just are
going to keep a close eye on us.'
The white haired man made his way through the inside of the
warehouse which was busy with activity. The guards were
walking up and down the catwalk keeping an ever vigilant eye on
the group standing in the middle of the open warehouse. The
group composed of about 20 people of various physical features
and wardrobe, and all were chatting nervously as they kept their
eyes on the guards on the catwalks above. Only one didn't
interact with the rest, he wore a large overcoat that covered
entire upper body easily and just scanned his surroundings
intricately, Tracer felt that this man was acting too much like
a timelord plant. He gave all the signs of one, and even
following some timelord procedures; not too much interaction,
cautious, and scoping the area. To Tracer he was the
suspicious one.
When the white haired man finally made his way to the group and
settled in, a group of guards escorted them into one of the
offices on the main floor. In the spacious office a blonde
woman was standing in front of an old and rotting desk that was
pushed against the wall looking over what looked to be blue
prints of some kind. She had long hair that was tied in a pony
tail behind her head, was also dressed in armor but it was
lighter than the guards lurking in the warehouse, her wide eyes
were a dark blue, and oddly she was wearing a big smile on her
face in comparison to the serious expressions on the guards
faces. The white haired man reached in his jacket pocket and
took out a photo of a blonde haired girl with short hair but
looked uncannily like the woman sitting on the desk in front of
him. The only difference was the face, in the photo she looked
very friendly and cheerful, and the face in front of him was
also cheerful and friendly, yet it had signs of weariness and
stress upon it. All in all though the woman struck the white
haired man as very beautiful and attractive. The man shook his
head at the thought, 'Come on Tracer you're here to capture and
terminate her. There is no gain in having an infatuation with
her.'
The blonde woman smiled at the group and spoke cheerfully,
"Hello everyone! It's nice to know that others feel the
Counsule's corruptness has proven them inefficient leaders. I
thank you for coming."
Her cheery attitude drained to a serious one, "Now let's get
down to business. All of us have a reason for being here."
Then her serious attitude changed to one darker and pained as
she spoke slowly, "Me. . . my family and I were ambushed and
destroyed by a group those blood thirsty timelords."
Xendyte paused as she caught herself staring intently at her
clenched fists. She quickly put her hands in her lap and
immediately smiled to hide the fact that she was blushing, "Um,
and since the Society tried valiantly to save their lives, I am
forever indebted to them."
The entire group was taken back by such an unusual and
emotional telling of her story. The white haired man's eyes
softened, 'Her story seems so different from her bio for some
reason.'
For once Tracer saw Xendyte's pain, and she wasn't just another
target, she was a living being who was lonely, wanting to fill
her emptiness, like his. . . .
'No, Tracer. There's no room for sympathy for the Society.
They are trying to rebel against the order the Counsule keeps.'
he thought to himself.
Then Tracer remembered sea of secret files telling of all the
information and technology the Counsule was hoarding.
Information and technology that would help out the people
suffering in the Community. Next he remembered all the
injustice they were spreading. Finally he remembered the short
communique from Nairb;
"Tracer must never know what happened what happened to his
father. For it's in our best interest."
'In their best interest, not mine.' Tracer thought. Then
Tracer was left facing a question he didn't want to face, what
was he fighting for?
Tracer's thought process was interrupted by the questioning
voiced of a woman, "You! What's your name?"
The blonde woman was pointing at the white haired man who
coughed nervously, "My name. . . is, uh iz Hans."
The blonde woman looked at him curiously and then gave a
playful smile, entertained by his heavy accent, "Now that we've
all been introduced, let me show you all around."
The guards helped in the movement of the crowd of recruitees.
The blonde woman was leading the group across the main area
towards a set of stairs leading into the large basement area
below.
From a catwalk overlooking the group on the floor was a huge
metal monstrosity. The monstrosity had shoulders flaring out
passed the head, a left hand controlling a claw, the other
controlling a devastating charge cannon that clung to its arm,
and a face seen only through a thick visor. The face in the
visor glanced off into the shadows nearby;
"General, the recruits are going to see the machine. What's
our next move?" the face asked the darkness formally.
"We wait for the timelords to make their next move," a voice
from the shadows replied, "One is probably amongst the recruits.
"
A red aura came from the shadows as the voice paused and
noticed something, "That sword, on that recruit, its familiar. .
. its. ."
The monstrosity searched the group and found a white haired man
with a sword hanging from his belt. The voice trailed off as it
pondered the familiarity of the sword and called out to the
metal suit, "Malance bring that recruit to me. I must find out
how he got possession of that sword."
@@@@@@@@@@@
Thanks for reading my story, if you want the first two parts just
e-mail me at bdaly@cois.com, and I'll fulfill you request without
hesitation. Any comments will be welcomed with open arms, and will
not go unnoticed. I shall post again soon (hopefully).
Oh, and all characters in this story are mine (brian daly (c) 1997)
just to clarify myself, have a nice life!
the brain