Elevators Through Time - Book 1

Part 24: Defrosted

Part 24: Defrosted

Year: 1990

Time: 11:24am

Location: Unknown Cave, Nearby Uncharted Island, Sydney Coastal Region, NSW, Australia.

Level: Ground

While the three of us were travelling around town, Kepler and Deune had been recovering elsewhere...

"Deune? Hey, are you okay? You're jaw must be aching bad now." Kepler said as she helped Deune back into sync with current time.

"It hurts just to talk. Holding a single breath and action for extended time is painful." Deune replied, exercising his jaw hydraulics and actuators. He still couldn't move his legs but above his torso his head and shoulders were movable. He could move his arms but that didn't help in moving around.

Kepler had managed to cool her skeleton with the water in the Quay and intravenously fed Deune while he was still frozen despite being taken away from the null space distortion. Kepler's slender frame was scorched by the intense electrical surge but the sudden heat dispersal wrecked and contorted her arms a fair bit and she needed emergency restructuring as soon as she could get some.

"What was that you were feeding me? Was it coleslaw?"

"Well KFC Coleslaw and a little gravy."

"I didn't know you could get liquid coleslaw." Deune coughed.

"My own special blend. I love it! Plus it has certain chemicals that deal with speeding up your system response and keeping you from permanently freezing."

"You and I have different tastes, Kep,"

"That's because you don't have taste, D," Kepler replied with a smirk.

        Their back and forth banter of a married couple was fun, even if they weren't married. Kepler did have a man back in the city, but he was a rich, lousy snob. She only loved his couch and his wallet. She argued with him a lot and would regularly fight with him. But with Deune she was on fair ground. She was even starting to have earnest feelings for him, but she never let on.

After both checking their systems were still functioning and making some field repairs, Kepler and Deune reevaluated their strategy.

"Wow, that time-freeze gets to your head." Deune complained, rubbing his temples.

"We were warned about that staff being noted as a weapon. We just didn't know why."

"Well, next time we are certainly not taking the Team-Rocket approach."

Kepler laughed. "Are you still watching that retro tv cartoon?"

"Hey, it's hillarious. The main kid's voice get worse every episode. Could somebody pass him some vapour rub?"

"Ahaha, yeah well, that staff may have more tricks so we should take care of that and the bodyguard first." Kepler rubbed her shoulders, "I still get a bad tingle when I twist my arm this way."

"Well he certainly didn't give you a good tingle." Deune dropped an innuendo and laughed.

"Ugh, you are so-" Kepler playfully slapped his shoulder but laughed along with him.

"Well, we originally intended to just knock him out and take him back. We still can do that but we will try this another way," Deune said, flexing the actuators and carbon-tendons in his arm and fist.

"So, how are you planning on stopping sparky?" Kepler asked. "I'm fast but not as fast as lightening."

"I don't know. Let's see... what if we get a little friendly fire going? I'm sure the Doc isn't trained in combat so he might accidentally freeze sparky in the same way he did to me." Deune chuckled, "or maybe we could ever get him to walk into one of his null space spheres, haha."

"Those Illuminati definitely gave us a real tough job here. 'Get the guy, no matter what'. Well, we have troubles with just that."

Just then their communicator rang.

"Yeah it's me, what's the hold up? Time waits for no one."

Kepler responded with a bit of annoyance, "Yeah, we've run into some difficulties. He's tough by himself and now he's got friends defending him."

"Just do what you need to, and keep him in your sights if you need time. I'm out," the comm cut out.

"We've got time," Kepler said after a moment. Both laughed.

The bottle of intravenous food and fluid was half empty, but Deune was starting to be able to move his torso. He tried lifting his right leg and then his left. He moved in shudders rather than smooth movements.

"There's still a delay. You're still lagging, haha." Kepler joked.

"Must be a bad service provider. Darn 5G network." Deune laughed, picking up his phone and holding it up.

Kepler imitated an Indian tech help voice and said, "Have you tried powering it off and powering it on?"

They both laughed while looking out over the water. The place that Kepler got them to stay was modest and hidden, but still had a great view of the water. There was a temporal gate back home so they didn't have any obligations to their location just as long as they had a link back. They could pursue their quarry without need for a place to settle down permanently. It was the perfect predator and prey setup.

Or was it?