Blackstone

A Wild Ride

"Carrie, get us out of here!" I shouted.

Carrie jammed the throttle forward and the motorboat leaped ahead.

The Nessie jabbed its head at us in a stabbing bite. Thomas and I ducked as the giant head came within a few feet of biting our heads off.

 "Thomas, you better get that thing working!" I said, as I crawled back towards him.

"Almost got it." Thomas said as he fiddled with knobs and buttons. The readout display fluctuated wildly and then went dead. Thomas looked up at me. "Uh, oh."

"How's it going back there?!" Carrie shouted, careening the motorboat all over the loch as the Nessie gave chase.

"Terrible. The Quantum Actual is down." I shouted back.

Carrie looked back and yanked the wheel to the left. Thomas and I flew to the side of the boat, piling up into a mess of lifejackets. Behind us the Nessie bore down, propelling itself through the water like a deadly torpedo, gaining ground on us with every second that passed.

"Iv'e got it!" Thomas shouted and raised the Quantum Actual high. Its readout displayed full power. "I'm setting it for a two minute countdown," Thomas said as he fiddled with the knobs.

 "No, wait," I rushed to his side.

 Behind us the Nessie flipped upside down and dove deep into the waters  of the loch.

 Without thinking I grabbed the Quantum Actual from Thomas and cradled it under my shoulder.

 Thomas looked over the side. "It's gone deep."

 I looked at my razor phone. The sonar display read the Nessies's signature coming straight at us.

 "Carrie! It's coming up right underneath us!"

Carrie twisted the wheel right. The Nessie erupted out of the water like a breaching whale, a hellish image from the Jurrasic period.

I glanced at the Quantum Actual. The countdown read only 90 seconds left.

Without thinking, I grabbed my Etheric Knife and shot a grappling line at the Nessie. The line slapped into the thick gray hide. The Nessie roared and fell back into the water.

I watched the grappling line shoot out, racing past my hands at an enormous speed.

I ran to the rear of the motorboat, turned and grinned at an astonished Thomas and Carrie. "I'll see you guys, around," I said and shot over the side of the boat.

The freezing water of the loch stung my exposed skin like a thousand prickling needles. Thank God for the Blackstone Jumpsuit which instantly heated up to compensate for the temperature drop in the water.

I clung to my Etheric Knife as the Nessie plunged deep in the murky loch. The gigantic beast twisted and turned trying to shake off the intruder.

I knew I couldn't go much deeper so I released the grappling line and kicked for the surface. I didn't really know what my plan was other than to get the Quantum Actual out of the boat so that Thomas, Carrie, and I weren't sucked back in time. The readout was counting down below thirty seconds as I broke the surface.

I sputtered and sprayed water out of my nose, clutching the Quantum Actual and treading water. I looked around the loch and saw Carrie steering the motorboat back towards me.  I glanced at the readout on the Quantum Actual and saw it read 20 seconds.

Water swelled under me and I was tossed aside as the Nessie erupted from the depths.  The Nessie roared with anger when it saw me treading water.

I threw the Quantum Actual at it, shot my grappling line at the speeding boat and raced off just in time to avoid the Plesiosaur's lethal bite.

I skimmed over the surface of the lake and turned around to the watch the show.

The Quantum Actual dazzled and ripped open a rainbow whirlpool of energy that sucked the startled dinosaur inside the swirling wormhole.

I released my grappling line and treaded water while waiting for Carrie and Thomas to pick me up in the motorboat.

The wormhole collapsed and sealed itself in an instant and it was once again a hazy spring afternoon on Loch Ness.

The motorboat pulled up beside me and Thomas leaned over to pull me up. "Hey, look what I've caught, Carrie. I wonder how much this one weighs?"

"Very funny, wiseguy," I said, punching him in the arm as I climbed into the boat.

"Bloody hell, Eliza. I've got to say that was amazing." Thomas said with an awestruck look on his face.

Carrie came back to greet me and wrapped a blanket around me. Despite the warmth of the jumpsuit, my teeth were still chattering. I thanked Carrie and sank down onto the deck.

"That was very impressive. We surely will get points for style..." Carrie said and gazed out across the surface of the loch.

"What's wrong, Carrie?" I asked.

"Something has felt wrong on this entire mission. Surely you've noticed. It should not have been this difficult to restore an errant dinosaur to its proper timestream." Carrie said, sitting down on the pile of lifejackets.

"I'll say something went wrong. We almost got bite in two by that dino, but I thought it was just because of the auditory recording. You know, defending its territory and all that." Thomas said.

"No, this was more than a wild animal defending its territory, my friends. I felt the presence of another mind at work. Someone, a gifted psionic, was trying to sabotage our mission." Carrie said, standing up and returning to the motorboat's controls.

"Probably the same Psionic that tried to kill me while I slept," I said.

"Well, I don't know who this bloke is but he's got no courage at all. Twice now, and he won't reveal his face. Shame on him." Thomas said.

"What makes you think it's a man, Thomas. Sixty percent of all psionics are women," I said, "Isn't that right, Carrie."

 Carrie nodded solemnly. "That is true."

"When we get back to Blackstone, let's make sure this is reported to Colonel Nash as soon as possible." I said, getting to my feet.

Suddenly, with a whip crackle of energy, a familiar black beamship decloaked off our starboard bow and floated towards us. The driver's side window rolled down and Nicole leaned out.

"All right, worms. This exercise is successfully completed. Congratulations, you probably took longer than any first team in history to restore a stupid dinosaur to its proper timestream," she softly laughed to herself and pointed at our motorboat, "Get that leaky contraption back to wherever you borrowed it from and meet up with me and Agent Ross at 1500 hours."

She rolled her window up and the beamship streaked off across the lake.

Thomas turned to me and pointed after the departing beamship. "Maybe it's her."

Carrie pushed the throttle forward and the motorboat powered back to shore.

"Thomas, Agent Heidegger isn't a hybrid. She's a pure a Ranger, not a psionic," she said.

"How do we know that, Carrie? Just because she says so." I pointed out.

"Yeah, she could be a psionic on the side working with the Grimm all this time." Thomas exclaimed.

"Thomas, do you know how ridiculous that sounds. Agent Heidegger never would have become a recruiter without Blackstone knowing everything about her." Carrie said, brushing her hair out of her face.

"I don't know, Carrie. I think there's more to Nicole Heidegger than meets the eye. We'll just have to wait and find out." I said as the motor boat approached shore.

To Be Continued

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