Voynich Shift - Season One (COMPLETED)

Leonis, 1:1, 2:11 - Part VII - Legends and Laxarians

6:15 PM

Terrence held the ignition wires together between his fingers and twisted. The pair of copper strands ripped from below the Ford's dashboard were now connected, all ready to start the car. "Hit it!" he said between gritted teeth.

"I'm trying!" Parker replied giving the crank a turn. The engine roared to life.

"Look out! Negexis!" Terrence yelled.

Parker ducked just as a massive fist sailed through the air above him narrowly missing his face. The wide swing left the would-be killer's head momentarily exposed. Parker bolted to the right, jumping at this split-second vulnerability, and swung the bar, bringing the metal engine crank crashing across his attacker's chiseled face. With a loud crack, blood and teeth erupted from the impact of the metal on the man's skull. The massive body spun to the left, following the same direction as its unconscious, bloody head and collapsed like a fallen tree in the middle of the dirt road.

"Come on, get in!"

Parker dove in through the open passenger window as the Ford's spinning tires dug for traction. "So, they aren't invincible!" he said, positioning himself upright in the seat.

The V-8 engine roared as Terrence stepped on the accelerator. He spun the steering wheel to the right as the car bounced up onto the main road. Grasping the wheel even tighter, the Laxarian expertly calmed the fish-tailing machine, sending the car screaming forward like a controlled explosion down the highway and toward the south.

"Where are we headed?" Parker asked over the sound of the wind whipping noisily in through the vehicle's open windows.

"Somerton."

Parker narrowed his eyes at Terrence. "What's in Somerton?"

"A place we can hide out. I know someone there."

"Who?"

"A woman. She's a..."

"Watch it!" Parker yelled, pointing toward something in front of them.

Terrence yanked the steering wheel to the left, narrowly avoiding an old man on a tractor crawling out onto the road. The car skidded off the edge of the dirt highway generating a large plume of dust and grass, but within seconds, the machine was cruising along just as before.

"Maybe you should slow down," Parker said, looking through the automobile's rear window at the billowing cloud of dust rising into the air behind them. "I don't think they are attempting to follow us."

"Then they probably have a tracker somewhere on the car," Terrence said flatly. "We'll have to ditch the vehicle once we get close to the coast."

Parker relaxed and slid down into the seat. He shook his head, removing Horo from his pocket. "Everywhere I go, it's always some kind of bullshit...I hate this damn thing. I wish I never found it."

Terrence extracted his own copied version of Parker's Horologium and presented it to him. "Looks just like yours, right down to the scratches, don't it?"

Parker glanced down at the two devices, bouncing each one in a hand. "How?"

"I'm not sure, but somehow the Builders were able to copy it when you shifted into a reality occupied by the Ferramortium."

Parker was confused. "That's the second time I've heard that crazy word today and for the life of me I have no clue what the hell it even means."

"Trust me, if you ever saw it, you would know what it was. Damn terrifying the first time you see it..."

Parker handed Terrence's Horologium back to him. "You know, with that thing, you don't have to be a slave. You could use it to leave this place...go looking for your brother."

"Honestly, Parker. I have no idea where to start, but if you know where I might find something called the manuscript, I might have a chance."

Parker sat up. "What manuscript are you talking about?"

"You don't know? Yeah, several years ago, some asshole stole and then destroyed Geniel's very own Multiverse guide. The stories say it was a confidant of Geniel's that turned on him when he found out that Geniel was up to no good. At any rate, this same traitor had one of Geniel's own scribes make a handwritten copy of it before torching the original. Regardless, no one knows where that reproduction or the guy who made it went. Some say this book holds the key to the location of the Core itself...maybe even the original timeline that spawned it."

"Core?"

Terrence slowed the vehicle to take a sharp left turn onto a paved road. "Yeah, that's the name of the first Universe."

"What if we worked together?" Parker asked, now staring intently at Terrence's face, almost as if he could read the man's mind. "I think we could help each other."

"I hate to tell you, Parker, my friend, it's only a legend. A story told to keep people amused, entertained, maybe...or even give them false hope that there exists one place in the Multiverses safe from the Flood of Darkness that's consuming everything anyone holds dear."

"But what if it wasn't."

"Wasn't a legend?"

"Yeah."

"What do you mean?"

"I could be wrong, but it's something that my grandfather was working on. What if I told you where I came from, anyone with a home computer could look at this manuscript and even download copies of it?"

Terrence nearly slammed on brakes in the middle of the road. "Then, that's where we're going. What's the address?"

"I don't know," Parker said looking down at his hands in embarrassment. "I thought I had it all figured out, but...well, I was stupid. I didn't memorize it."

"Damn, you had my hopes up, Parker," Terrence said with his shoulders slumping. He guided the car through a right fork that appeared in the road ahead. "...you had my hopes up."