So I've been inspired to write this story. It marks some firsts for me, mainly that it's the first to seriously incorporate swearing and cursing. The setting of the story also fascinates me, mainly because I believe it's a coincidental take on a idea that I am sitting on and should realize its full potential. Anyways, you can access the story here on Google Docs if you prefer, especially recommended if you want to comment on a specific part.
The story is split into three parts for a total of 16 Google Docs pages. Without further ado...
Daphne
THE GAMBIT
I slowly opened my eyes, before stretching my arms as much as I could. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that I was alone in bed, instead opting to head for the coffee maker at the other end of the dark blue bedroom. The wardrobe was left open, with women’s attire and underwear chaotically thrown in front of it.
Once the drink was prepared, I headed to the messy as hell communications room, full to the brim with all kinds of junk and spare parts for planes, as well as dust. The desk right next to the window had more of them as well, but it had a very old computer monitor sitting on it, with the PC itself below it. I sat down, taking a sip of my coffee as I turned the screen on. My heart sank once the screen lit up to life.
My eyes darted to my right hand, which was bandaged. A knife wound. I definitely didn't want another one today. I looked behind me towards the clock at the other end, which said it was noon. Hard to ignore was the stickered photo next to the clock, which had a young girl with a man behind her, his neck struck through with red ink. Peeking through the shutters, the sun was shining down on the dusty runaway with brilliant radiance. I looked back at the clock, and then outside again, and then at the screen. I wasn't ready for what else she had coming for me. I immediately set up the display to turn on when the process was complete and then shut it off.
I froze once I heard the sound of a loud plane engine. I looked through the shutters again, finding the Metastunt, a stolen stunt plane fitted with missiles and machine guns. Meta's owner set foot on the dusty ground, her black hair and brown jacket and pants shining brilliantly in the searing heat. I saw her walking over to the bottom of the two-floor communications building. I was dazzled by her beauty so much that I forgot I was supposed to be buying time!
While she navigated the first floor, I quickly opened the window to its maximum, pulled a letter I had prepared for just this situation out of my pocket and placed it on the desk, and immediately hid behind some of the junk, minimizing my presence as much as I could.
“Danny?” She spoke as she twisted the handle and came in. “Where are - oh.” She walked over to the letter, with every single one of her footsteps raising my hair and giving me goosebumps. She picked it up, unfolded it, and started reading it in a low, sickly sweet voice. “The Capitol is coming for us. Please run away as soon as possible. Dan.” She crumpled the letter and dropped it on the ground. “But Danny, the Capitol would never leave this letter intact.” She walked over to the desk, picking up the coffee cup. “That window was closed when I came in. And your coffee's warm as all hell.”
She tapped her foot impatiently for a few seconds. Even without looking at her, I could feel her gaze scanning the room. She walked towards the middle of the room. “So show yourself you fucking imbecile!”
She closed in to the junk I was hiding behind, and slapped some of them away, before taking her baton off her belt and violently hitting me with it, knocking me on to the ground. She got up on me, trying to crush my body against the hot, dusty floor as her face was mere inches before mine. “You thought Daphne of all people couldn't hear your breathing, you fucking moron? Out with it!” She emphasized her familiarity with me by stressing her name. Her pitch black eyes gazed into mine, which froze my body as if I was petrified by a Medusa.
“The computer is still trying to brute force valid credentials from the Capitol's systems!” I panicked. Her eyes shifted towards my right hand.
“Your new knife wound is fucking pathetic.” Her hand darted for her breast pocket, pulling out a revolver. “So you need a bullet wound!” She aimed the gun at my head. I closed my eyes reflexively as the sound of the shot echoed across the room. I was surprisingly able to open my eyes five seconds later, with only my left ear deafened. She lowered her head to my right, her hair getting in my eyes and mouth as she whispered to me. “I've had enough waiting, Danny.” She said softly and sweetly. “Another day of waiting, and I'll claw your throat out with only my nails.” She got up, finally relieving my body, and extended a hand towards me. Of course, I accepted it - I was around Daphne for long enough to know that refusing anything she offered me, even if it hurt me, was suicidal.
I wasted no time in exclaiming “Oh, the credentials!” when I noticed the computer screen becoming alive. She got there first, with me slumping before her.
“Let's see. Rosy Barnabas. Her password...” She sighed, “pillowfight? She’s 27, older than you, and you're already a child.” She sat on my chair before handling the mouse.
“I thought you wanted to infiltrate their system!” I gently protested.
“Good point, maggot. Let's see if this kiddo can access any gigs.” She masterfully navigated through the unintuitive interface of the Capitol's Trade Ministry system, going through window after window, but forced to stop when a loading screen appeared. This was the same person who threatened to claw my neck to death because brute forcing took a long time to give any results.
I reminded myself yet again that she was insane. She perfectly understood how inefficient brute forcing was, and yet I still had to bank on the hope she was bluffing about the threat, just like with the bullet wound. She paid me really good money as her assistant - enough to make me overlook the fact that the Capitol said she was a wanted criminal - but it was pointless when I was always expected to be available at her whims without exception. She let me sleep under her roof, but she would never stop abusing me. She paid for or stole our food, but if I hated the dish, she would always figure out a way to force me to eat. I secretly hoped I wasn't allergic to something.
Daphne snapped her fingers in front of me. “Stop fantasizing you damned pervert! Look!”
She had managed to access the trade logs of the Trade Ministry. If anyone wanted a summary on what the American Capitol was buying and selling to enforce its oppressive regime over half the world, the logs had it. Sales of duds to weapon dealers who then sold them to the Korona Movement, an ill-equipped anti-Capitol resistance group. Meat exports to other countries at ridiculously high prices. Security cameras from Sector 222, a Capitol controlled country once known as Japan. Imports of fish from Sector 647, once known as Puerto Rico.
But nothing mattered to Daphne. Except for one entry. Her eyes looked at it in extreme fascination. “From Main Capitol to North Sentinel Island. Time machine. Worth $500,000,000,000.”
I gulped at the mere thought of Sentinel Island. Knowledge that was expunged by the Capitol spoke of the Indian island as home to a tribe that was disconnected from the rest of the world and killed the many intruders who chose to ignore the island's known history. But during the Capitol's rule, the previous life was eroded as a white building with an accompanying airport was built. Daphne knew a lot about the Capitol, it's allies and enemies, but not of the mystery behind the Island.
I knew she would quickly grip my wrist tightly with an innocent-looking smile on her head. “I know what you're going to say, Danny. You want to weasel out of this, you always do. But please, come with me for this once. In fact!” She held the barrel of her gun against my forehead. “If you have any objections, let me know.”
I wanted to ask her why would she want to steal a time machine, considering she was wealthy enough to own an airstrip, several planes - and fuelling them - and experimental technology, but not with a gun against my head.
“Good! Eat, prep up and get your ass moving by 3PM. The transaction takes place at 9PM, and if the machine makes it to the island before we do, I will cut off your precious dick.”
Oh great. The madwoman was going to drag me along into a suicide mission. Perhaps I should have let her blow my brains out.
EN ROUTE
We obtained more information on the time machine. We found that it was being moved via cargo ship, its defensive measures consisting of two anti-aircraft missile launchers, two mounted guns and several guards. Pretty modest for a high value transaction. Naturally, this made Daphne burst into laughter. The Capitol were thinking far too highly of themselves as usual. They hadn't bothered to tighten up their defenses for the last couple years, with the flawed thought that no enemies outside of the powerless Korona Movement existed, and if their equipment failed them, the Capitol needed not improve, for they were at the top of the foodchain. We would soon prove them wrong.
When Daphne finally stopped laughing, she looked at me seriously. “Danny, you know the thing about being discreet?” She referred to the Capitol’s main weakness. They had less incentive to strengthen their defenses if it wasn’t obvious what was damaged. “We’ll never be discreet this time. Win or lose, everything will change.” She was right. I could get away with brute forcing because I was quiet about it. The Capitol banked on the fact that few were able to own a computer, let alone be authorized access to the internet, and even less to understand the older-than-time technique. If I were to format their systems, they would patch it up, and then, as Daphne had once said, “shit will be more useful than you, Dan.”
"We're going in thirty minutes. You will helm the Chaotic Crane, and I will pilot the Graceless Assassination." She stood up and walked behind me while looking at the airstrip. It was full of all kinds of aircrafts and a few odd jeeps. She placed her hands on my shoulders and grinned. "Danny, I love you, but you know the price of failure, right?" Her eyes crept to my left hip.
"You'll blow my ass to smithereens." I said, attempting to mimic her tone as best as I could. She pulled out her ancient smartphone and immediately showed me her remote detonation application.
It was a reminder that she had injected a remote bomb into my left hip.
Each time I stared helplessly at the app, I knew that no matter what I did and would do for her sake, I would be always one of the buttons she could select and tap. No matter how much she might end up loving me, she held the keys to my life, and just as easily, she could discard them.
Daphne treated me like a pet, but I was her property. She was never the kind of person who could grow attached to anything. Every single time I was reminded of this fact struck more fear into my being than the last.
She closed the app and opened another, fiddling with it before showing the screen to me. “Now for the usual. Replace our comms, I’ll fuck you hard if you mutter our real names instead of the codenames, fly low, you know all that.” The codenames were displayed on screen.
Daphne was Anaconda.
I was Mousetrap. Par for the course.
The ship was Corpse.
The time machine was Grandfather.
At 1500 hours, we had left the airstrip, located in the south of what was once known as Egypt - its government and military decimated by the Capitol as a display of power and a warning to its opponents - and headed towards the ship.
There was no better example of how low and expendable I was than the Chaotic Crane, an old military grade cargo chopper with a crane and one machine gun. On the other hand, Daphne’s Graceless Assassination was high and mighty. Graceless was a modern attack chopper with a machine gun, several homing missiles and flares, as well as an experimental barrier generator from the Capitol that she modded into the plane. She was leading the charge, with me following.
At 1912 hours, the comms blared. "Mousetrap, respond."
"Mousetrap responding here." I spoke back.
"Are you out of your fucking mind? Make sure you know who you're responding to you pig!" I could feel the intensity of Daphne's anger. It felt as if the Crane's dashboards were possessed by her spirit.
"Umm uhh, who are you?" I quickly attempted to save face.
"Anaconda speaking, you shithead. We'll approach Corpse in 15 minutes, and the wind is too strong for sniping targets. I will take out the anti-aircraft missile launchers."
"...and what do I do?” I asked, unsure of what to do.
"Oh, you will do nothing and watch me shoot Corpse up." She said, "Also, if you do watch me, make sure to focus on my cockpit. You'll see me setting your bomb off."
I wanted to respond with something to the effect of “yeah, I’ll stop them with my crane” but all I managed was a frantic “Alright, alright! I get it, I'll shoot them out with the gun."
“Don’t damage Grandfather. Now don’t sleep on my fucking signal, and stay low!” The ship had appeared on the horizon as she said that.
A minute later, an unidentified object appeared on my radar, coming in our direction. It took me a second to realize what it was and shout “Missile!” to the comms before veering upwards. Daphne didn’t even move, but the missile’s altitude dropped thanks to a flare.
"You thought Anaconda wouldn't know what a missile was?" She emphasized Anaconda, reminding me that she, Daphne, had piloted aircrafts for longer than I did. "We're engaged with the fuckers now. Avoid all missiles."
Needless to say, a bunch of other missiles followed. Daphne distracted them with flares, but she occasionally had to veer in all manners of directions to lose them. Some of them went for me. I took advantage of the fact that the Graceless Assassination was suffering from the whole lot, and the few that came for me were easily manipulated into flying in a straight line towards me and shooting them out.
"Mousetrap, I can see the anti-aircraft units. I have marked them on your radar. Can you screw them hard?" We were closer to the ship, so it was easy to see where the missiles were coming from. I quickly moved the machine gun to point at them on the front.
The ship had the two anti-aircraft missile launchers we read about, one at the back and the other at the front. They were great, as they were a grid of 2x2 launchers. The problem was how they loaded the missiles for launch. Their tips protruded for two seconds before being launched proper. Damaging the missiles from the tips in this small window of time could take out an entire launcher. The problem was aiming at that weakness!
If we didn't sink the ship before the Capitol inevitably retrieved it, they would learn from this design flaw and future anti-air systems would be less vulnerable. I never thought of telling her about sinking the ship.
"Barrier hit! 60% strength left! Don’t make me blow your fucking copter off!" I quickly shot the gun without regard for aiming, hoping my mostly stray bullets would tear through the missiles. After struggling to steady my aim, I finally destroyed the front launcher, going out in explosions.
"Target down!" I shouted happily while the other launcher went up in blazes.
"The other target down. Take out all troops on board and the remaining machine guns." Only when she mentioned the guns did I notice them in the middle of the deck, beating down on her barrier. "Barrier steadily weakening!"
I immediately aimed at the guns, recalling as I shot them down that if Daphne died, everything she owned would follow. Before her airstrip would blow up, and who knows what else she had, I would be the first to explode violently, since I was the nearest to her. Her heart just has to cease beating for a full minute. Not enough time to salvage anything, let alone myself!
It was evident from my shooting that gunning down the guns was futile. "I can't disable them, shoot them with your missiles!" She shot a couple of missiles halfway through my shout, wiping out the guns.
"Then focus on the fucktards!" We were so close to the ship now that I could aim my gun at the troops and shoot them out. They quickly slumped to the ground without any resistance. Their stream of bullets were negligible unless they hit the glass, but it was bulletproof and required a full minute of non-stop shooting to shatter it. However, it turned out there were troopers with rocket launchers. Regular ones at that, with flares unable to distract them! I raised my altitude, barely missing one of the rockets.
Despite that, the sound of the explosion from behind me meant the rocket didn't miss Daphne..
"Barrier down, barrier down!" She shouted frantically. "Do something Danny!" The fact she broke her own rule and mentioned my name woke me up to the gravity of the situation.
I had the rocket trooper shot down, and another one that was readying for fire. Troops came in surging from the lower decks, but they were quickly shot down.
Eventually, we made it a full minute without a shot fired. "All clear." Daphne said. One would normally expect that there would be more troops, a chopper or two, maybe even a jet fighter. But I sighed in relief, knowing that the Capitol was a bloated organization, so drunk on its own power that it thought nobody would be able to match it even with the most modest of defenses. "Can you detect where our machine is, Mousetrap?"
I flew to the front of the ship, activating my X-ray scanner. "You called me by name earlier on the comms." I began sweeping towards the back.
"I..." she paused. I chuckled. Nothing was more satisfying than confronting my owner with her own mistakes. "Fine, Danny. Just find the damn thing already."
After a short sweep, I found..."Nothing on the deck."
"Get down and sweep the second deck. Know I am not covering your ass." She said. I lowered towards the helipad.
"But I'm looking for the machine for you!" I protested.
“You should be covering my ass. I don't cover anyone else's. Get moving.” I landed and set foot with my handheld scanner in one hand, and machine gun in the other. “Thanks for being a great help,” I whispered.
I descended into the second deck, and immediately found a few guards crouching around a container. It was covered in chains and sat on top of a metal platform, which the chains connected to. The chains had a hook at the top. I immediately knew I had walked into where I needed to be. I quickly strafed for cover while spraying fire, taking out two of them before the others returned fire. There were four left, I was only one. And Daphne was probably just listening to Killer Queen once again. I opened my comms telling her to "Help me out!" and waited for her response. God...she was actually listening to it. She literally didn't care about me.
I threw the comms at the guards. She was essentially unavailable to me, so might as well take them by surprise with it. They would think it was a new kind of a grenade. Indeed they did, as they ran away from the old Queen hit as far as possible, allowing me to gun down two more in their desperate retreat. Two versus one. One of them started unleashing fire on me, before the fire stream stopped. I exposed myself for a second, landing a headshot on the other guy as a single bullet from him grazed the left of my head. I was reminded of earlier in the day, when she almost shot me.
Just as I shot the last guy, he landed a bullet in my left shoulder. I collapsed in agony, screaming. I wasn't used to being shot at. All I got for weapons training was practice in an AR theater back in Section 13, which wasn't far from the Main Capitol. Section 13. That's where I met her. No, not anybody. In my mind, the pronoun "her" was, is and would always refer to Daphne. Just Daphne.
Daphne. I once thought her to be a beacon of light in the darkness of the Capitol. She watched me from afar, working whatever and wherever I could to save up for a computer - even a weak one would have made the difference. But my wages were barely able to feed me, and the rent was only going up. Didn’t help that I had no idea where my parents were, or what had happened to them. At the peak of my hopelessness, Daphne appeared. She looked like my savior, her constant swearing and cursing aside. But she was a devil. She gave me a new life, if living in Hell fit the definition of life. Scars from her scratching and knife abuse were left on my body. She enjoyed threatening me with exploding me, knowing I could never even think of killing her and escaping. After all, she got her airstrip from another criminal pilot. She was his assistant, she respected him, but she instantly killed him the moment he mentioned the Capitol had almost caught him. Daphne was smart. She would never let me do the same thing she did to him, not unless I went down with her and her legacy. Besides, I wasn’t another Daphne.
No. No no no. Daphne was great. I wanted Her to let me live another day. Life with Her was Hell, but She had given me a new life, and I loved Her for that. I slowly stood, and headed towards the container. If this had the time machine, then I would be rewarded another day with my beautiful master. Better Her than the Capitol. They wouldn’t let me see anybody, and they would torture me until I’d spill the beans, but She would detonate me first. Better Her than the Korona, who would lock me up if I refused to join their fight against the Capitol, though She would never let them keep me alive anyway.
When I found a lever near the container, I wondered why She would want the time machine. I thought of what I wanted in life. I always dreamed of being with a girl who valued and loved me for who I was, not as a pet or as property, but She convinced me that there were no other girls or women apart from Daphne Iredet, and even if I found one, She would kill them or me. She would torture me if She heard me talking about another woman - who knows what She would have done if I became friends with one?
I held the lever with all my might, flipping it with what was left of my strength. The hatch right above the container opened when the song ended. "It took you the entire song to finish?" She asked quizzically as she took over the comms.
I picked up the comms and slumped my way to the helipad. "I'll get into the chopper and carry that container. Guards. They were protecting it."
Her heli flew over it, as if sweeping it. "Lots of metal under that container. Grab it, and-” she paused. “Why are you clutching your shoulder? Ugh.” She stabilized the heli as low as she could, before lowering the roped ladder, with herself latched onto the lowest rungs. She ran towards me, right next to the Chaotic Crane’s door. “Seriously? You got shot by Capitol troopers? You are my fucking property you fucking amateur!” She ended her berating me with opening my chopper’s door, “Sit down, and take off your shirt.”
I did as she ordered. I was happy to see her pull out some cotton and a bandage wrap. I expected her to recklessly apply the bandage over the wound and hurt me more with her help, she always did that, but instead, she carefully set the cotton against the wound before slowly and carefully wrapping my shoulder with the bandage. “That’s the best I can do for now. Hurry, hook the container up, it won’t be long before the Sentinel choppers fuck everything up.” She started towards her chopper.
“Um, Daphne?” she stopped in her tracks, turning to me. “Can we...sink the ship?”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Did you really think I’d wait idly for your slow ass? The ship’s already rigged, boyo.” She continued rushing towards Graceless. Maybe, just maybe, She was the best I had.
ESCAPE
I got the Chaotic Crane to hook with the time machine, after first making sure there weren’t any tracking devices attached to anything. I wasn’t as stellar with piloting choppers as Daphne was, which meant the extra load made helming the aircraft ludicrously strenuous. Of course, even though she bandaged the wound herself, Daphne wasn’t going to be any more lenient.
“Move it, loser!” She shouted into the comms a minute after the ship went up in blazes and started its descent into the harsh depths of the ocean. Of course I had to move it, since not only were we running away from the Capitol or whatever organization that had taken residence on Sentinel Island, but she was also flying behind me. Daphne constantly complained about resisting her urges to stab everyone who was slowing her down in sidewalks or metro platforms.
Tonight, I would probably hear her complain about resisting her urges to bomb me. While letting me sleep in her bed no less. Couldn’t help but feel smug at the thought.
My smugness was quickly cut short by the radar showing an unidentified object following the Graceless Assassination. It stopped moving after appearing, but I had already lunged my copter forwards as much as my load would have allowed me. “Enemy choppers!” The comms shouted at me. “Keep going and don’t turn back! I repeat, keep going and don’t turn back!”
“Return the container!” The comms blared with a deep male voice, undoubtedly belonging to the enemy.
Given her order, the choppers did come from Sentinel Island. I obeyed her, not even looking back. All I had to go by was her shouting, and the sound of missiles flying by and exploding, as well as the guns. As the pilot of a cargo chopper, I had limited control of the gun, as I couldn’t see my back, meaning that I couldn’t help her out of the pinch. “How many choppers are there?!” I yelled back.
“Six! Six!” She shouted in panic. “One down!”
“Do you have any plans?” I responded.
“I...I...” she paused. “Okay. Pay attention.” I was about to let out a “Huh?” before her voice boomed with even more intensity.
“Listen you dipshits! I have a proposal for all of you!” It was then that I heard the missiles and guns stop. Only the sound of our rotors remained in the air. “If you assholes really care about the machine, you will not shoot down either one of us.” The comms quieted down. “Stop you motherfucker!” I quickly stopped the heli.
A deadly silence befell the air. It wasn’t until a few seconds later when the comms quietly revived, with Daphne telling me to “turn around when I start talking.”
“If you want your machine back...” I turned around on her request, “...you must pay me six hundred billion dollars, and not a single fucking cent less!” The enemy copters came into view. They were an incredibly sterile white, some equipped with missiles, others with guns. I was surprised they didn’t wipe Daphne out of the air - but quickly remembered they wanted the time machine intact. One of the copters had a large, adjustable metal claw and a missile launcher. Of the four remaining offensive ones, one was smoking. Graceless had lost its machine gun. All the copters had “Sentinel Island Corp.” written on their side in big, black letters.
I quickly opened the Crane’s built-in laptop, searching for any exposed attack vectors in the enemy systems, but found nothing to breach. Whatever this Corp. was, they took security more seriously than the Capitol did. I would do my best to get the time machine working and send us both into the past, but it was impossible with no way to remotely access it, no way to actually use it physically, and it was dangerous without reading its documentation! Daphne probably had a plan. I hoped it didn’t involve us surrendering the time machine.
A helpless silence befell us, broken once again by Daphne. “If you piss off any one of us, I’ll blow up the time machine before you know it!” She threatened. “What’s the hold up?”
The male voice came into the comms again. “We accept your offer. SI8 Claw, retrieve the machine.” The claw copter started flying towards me.
“No, wait you smartasses.” Daphne broke in. “Where’s the money?” The claw pilot was fast approaching. It was only then that I remembered my own machine gun from earlier. Crap! And my windshield was bulletproof!
“SI8 Claw here. Please lower the crane.” The pilot spoke as he stopped right in front of me.
“As you wish.” I began to very slowly lower the crane. The claw copter wasn’t far away from me. I could easily see that its windshield was cracked from the side, possibly due to her gunning.
“You will receive your money on Sentinel Island.” The thought hit me. If I could open my left door and aim towards the claw guy with my gun, I could have him go down, and then hopefully… two choppers would fall by surprise.
“What do you mean!?” She angrily shouted over the comms. “Are you setting us up you fuckers!?” I had then reached for the door with my right hand, and holding the gun with my left, making sure to resist the pain from my shoulder.
“Oh, Capitol President Markus’s order. He wants to pay you personally, Mrs. Daphne Iredet.” Hearing the enemy say her real name and the president’s on the same line only strengthened my resolve.
“Stop lowering the crane.” The claw pilot ordered me. He began manipulating his claw to obtain the container. When I saw he was busy with the controls, I opened the door, trying to resist the turbulence as I held on to the chopper’s interior. I took the gun out, and aimed. Just as the pilot left the controls in surprise, I held the trigger, emptying the gun’s clip all over the enemy’s windshield. Fortunately, one of the bullets hit the pilot in the head!
I rushed to the controls, flying back from the now suspended claw chopper. Two missiles from Daphne took one of the good choppers by surprise. I focused my heli’s fire on an incoming missile, before moving on to the chopper that launched the missile. I focused my firing on the tail, damaging its rotors and causing it to lose control and swerve into the dark ocean.
Daphne took out the second-to-last copter herself, but Graceless was smoking. And the next second, it was going out of control.
“Jump and hang to the crane!” I shouted to her comms. The last remaining enemy was the smoking one, who I would have got down easily, if it weren’t for the missile coming towards… my chopper. Oh dear.
I couldn’t shoot the missile out. No sooner had I heard the warning systems go out than the heli had violently jerked from the explosion. Before I could assess what had happened, I unloaded the rest of my gun’s bullets into the enemy’s missile launcher. It blew up along the rest of the chopper.
Looking at the dashboard, the missile bore a large hole into the area below the cabin. Any higher and I could have been blown up. And I couldn’t think of switching over to the still suspended claw chopper, lest their tracking help the enemy find us.
Blown up… Daphne! “Daphne, where are you!?” I shouted into the comms. Only then did I realize. The Graceless Assassination was gone. Oh… dear. She was...
“If only you would raise the container, you fucking shithead!” my personal comms startled me. I did just as was ordered. “Lower the ladder from the cargo room!” I followed through with that. “Now, stop, turn to the direction of the wind and steady yourself!”
After nearly a minute, the door leading to the cabin from the cargo room was opened. Immediately, Daphne collapsed into the chair beside me. Her hair was messy, the color drained from her face, and she was sweaty. She was breathing laboriously. “Fucking...move it.” she said between her breaths.
I turned the Crane to the direction of our airstrip and lunged forward. When I looked at her again, her right hand was under her jacket. She was scratching herself again.
“Daphne...please stop. You have enough scars there.” I gently held her right arm. She didn’t push me away like she would normally do.
“It won’t make me look any worse. Don’t worry.” She said. “Danny. I fucking hate saying this, but...” she kissed me on my cheek, “thank you.” She immediately collapsed onto her seat. I was too stunned to ask her how she had gotten so tired.
The heli was less stable against the wind, but the rest of the trip went without a hitch, thankfully. I couldn’t hope to defend Daphne by myself, and not with a damaged chopper. I was used to the other way around!
Last night felt more like a distant memory, as Daphne returned to her usual self, with me having no choice but to go along with her constant demands.
We finally got to opening the container, safe in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be chased by those Sentinel Island Corp. people. A mass of metal parts, pipes, and among other things, a glass tube fitting a large person and a dashboard was revealed to the searing heat of the Sahara Desert. Attached to the dashboard was the documentation of the machine.
She grabbed the documentation and quickly skimmed through its pages, eyeing some of them a little longer. She headed back into the communications building for some reason. I wasn’t thrilled when she came back with a small, black metal disc in her hands, as well as a small plastic bag on her left wrist. She was going to plant a remote bomb.
“No, Daphne, this is a bad idea!” I stood firm, with as much courage as I could amass.
“Really, Danny boy?” She tapped her boots against the dusty ground. “After all this time with me?”
“But Daphne, this is a time machine. This is the last thing you’d want to tamper with. We don’t even know how it’s built!” I looked back at the machine, which still looked alien compared to all the aircrafts around us.
“The fact that it’s my time machine means I want it rigged even more!” She pushed me out of the way. “Do you even fucking know why I wanted it?” She stood high above me, her eyes piercing mine.
“For the money?” Immediately her left foot landed on my chest. I let out a cry of pain, as she bent the rest of her body and put her arms on her left leg, resting her head on top. I wanted to tell her to mind my shoulder injury, but I preferred she’d forget about it entirely than have her hurting me there.
“No you dumbfuck. I want to travel to the past.” She smiled innocently at me. I still had no idea what she was going at.
“Why do you wa-” She cut me short by crushing me harder.
“You don’t remember? I want to claw the throat of that scumbag who got to be my father.”
I remembered the photo that was stickered next to the clock in the building. The girl with the man behind her, with his neck crossed through. I should have seen it coming from afar, but I was busy thinking about the machine’s price, or simply about its parts.
“But...if you claw him in the past, you won’t have a reason to go after the time machine in the present! We have no idea what will happen!” I struggled to get the words out.
“The machine creates alternate timelines that won’t affect ours. Documentation’s words, not mine.” She smiled.
“You won’t kill your father in this timeline!”
“That’s not the end goal, my dear Danny.” She said sweetly, not in a mocking way, but in a serene way. “If I get to kill that shitstain for leaving my mother to the Capitol’s guns and letting them throw me into Adoption Care, it won’t even matter if he stays alive in this timeline. I was going to give up finding him sooner or later anyway. If I can do it, I’ll be eternally happy.”
As part of a secret but routine population-weeding policy, the Capitol took her father to work for them and damned the Iredet family. Since nobody adopted her, and adoption policies were stringent, only few people were graced with at most one adoption, If Daphne didn’t escape, or if she didn’t die from her caretakers’ abuse, she would’ve been subject to Poor Adoption Termination, ending her life routinely and secretly.
She made it out of the adoption facility only after distracting the caretakers by stabbing a young girl. Where other people would want to live a life of peace as far away from the Capitol as possible, Daphne was too crazy to think of an easy life. She fought hard to get near her father, just to kill him for not fighting.
“Danny. I know what I’m doing. I’ve rigged planes that even the Capitol itself didn’t understand! So shut the fuck up.” She let go, relieving me. She instantly went over to the machine, starting work on binding her dream to her lifeline.
She eventually finished, and successfully added the bomb into her favorite app. “See? All is fine. Besides, I switched it off. My death won’t-” she was interrupted. Not by the Capitol suddenly appearing. Not by the sound of a hurricane. No, by the time machine itself whirring to life. “What the fu-”
The open glass tube was filled with light, which immediately broke out and headed straight for Daphne, surrounding her in dazzling light. When the light dispersed, nothing was left. Nothing was left.
My heart sank. Daphne was gone.
Without her, nothing was going to be left after a minute. I had warned her. She chose to ignore me and act on her tendencies, her “either I own it or nobody else does” mentality. I cursed myself for giving up my life to a psychopath.
With so much time left on my clock, I ran over to the building, trying to find my machine gun from yesterday. With ten seconds left, I found it. I preferred having to blow up my brains rather than my body exploding violently.
I laughed. Thank you, Daphne. For reviving me, and then killing me again.
It was now or never. I held the machine gun’s barrel against my head, and with all confidence, I held the trigger.
Only to realize that I hadn’t changed the emptied clip from last night.
I closed my eyes at the one second mark.
...
Twenty seconds had passed since the explosion had ought to occur. A minute. Twenty minutes. An hour.
What was the last thing she said again?
“See? All is fine. Besides, I switched it off. My death won’t-” The words echoed in my head.
“Besides, I switched it off.”
“My death won’t-”
I replayed them in my head again, and again. Until the words finally clicked in with me. She… had turned off her lifeline detonation. She turned it off right before she was sucked in to the depths of time, or so I had hoped.
Daphne had granted me life once again. She could have left the lifeline detonation on without the slightest hint of worry. She had chosen not to, and right before the incident at that.
If I wanted to not worry about her, I had to start somewhere, with the documentation. I doubted she wanted to do much with the machine without reading it proper. I took it upon myself to study the machine as best as possible, without tampering it.
I would grant my owner a way to return here.
FIN
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