Chapter Five

Chapter Five

 

It had been another two hours or so when Jace groaned and handed $1200 in play money to Lance, who was grinning like the Cheshire cat. 

 

“Come on, man, you’re letting him win!” Irin groaned at him.

 

“Oh, yes, I intended to land on his hotel,” Jace responded sarcastically as he handed her the dice. 

 

She was just about to roll them when three simultaneous alarms sounded throughout the room, causing them all to freeze.  “I thought we weren’t on call until tomorrow?” Irin asked in confusion. 

 

Lance looked down at his watch and let out a low whistle.  “It’s a quarter to one.  It is tomorrow.” 

 

“Let’s go, guys,” Jace ordered, and he and Lance headed for the door.  “We’ll meet you at the elevator,” he called out as the door shut behind them. 

 

Irin shoved the Monopoly board to the side and headed for the closet, changing quickly into her cargo pants and fitted tee.  Strapping on her sword and utility belt and grabbing her bag, she headed out the door toward the elevator.  Jace and Lance came out of their room as she passed it, and they entered the elevator together.  Lance pushed the button for the top floor while Irin took the time to tie up her hair with the elastic band on her wrist. 

 

They stepped out of the elevator on a floor full of activity and looked around for the Commander’s telltale figure.  They spotted him coming out of his office, file folder in hand, but instead of waving them over to the War Room, he indicated the Weave Bay.  They hurried to meet up with him. 

 

“It seems our friends are going to keep us busy tonight,” the Commander said by way of greeting when they were within earshot.  “They’ve opened a rift to 27 May 247BCE Saudi Arabia, and the ripple is going to manifest any minute now.  We’ve had almost no warning on this one, so you guys are going in there blind.  All I can tell you is to expect three hostiles.  You need to leave immediately, and best of luck,” he said and stepped back so they could get to the Bay door. 

 

“Thank you, sir,” they all said as Irin laid her hand on the gel pad and was beeped in.  Jace and Lance followed in quick succession, and they all filed onto the platform.  When they faced the monitors, though, Scotty wasn’t looking down on them.  Instead it was Jason, one of the other Bay operators. 

 

“Alright, I’ve given you coordinates as close to the epicenter as I could manage.  Other than that, I don’t have any information on the area.  Sorry guys,” he told them.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Irin said and turned to her brothers, clasping each of their arms and issuing words of safety.  Then she brought up her hands to start a much more intricate Weave than the one to get to Ireland; this one had to cover thousands of years.  However, she was barely over a minute when she drew her hands apart and disappeared in a flash of light.

 

Jace and Lance didn’t wait for the end of her Weave started their own.  In a move the techs always found interesting, the twins finished their webs and disappeared simultaneously. 

 

They were momentarily stunned when they landed at their location.  It was some sort of street filled with people and overwhelmed by sounds.  Glancing around frantically, Jace spotted Irin in a doorway on the right side of the street, and they made their way over to her. 

 

“What the f**k is going on?” Lance growled.  Crowds of that size were going to make getting around exponentially harder, and they didn’t have much time. 

 

“Can you tell what they’re chanting?” Jace asked while pulling out his touchscreen scanner. 

 

“I’m sorry.  I’m a little rusty on my Ancient Arabic,” Irin bit back sarcastically.  Jace looked at Lance expectantly.

 

“Don’t look at me!” he cried.  “I can do Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, even Old English and Latin, but Ancient Arabic is not one of my languages.”

 

“Guess we’re just going to have to wing it and hope we don’t step into some religious ritual and get mobbed,” Irin shrugged, watching as Jace tapped keys at an alarming rate. 

 

“Alright, I’ve got it,” Jace said after a minute.  “The trajectory ends about a half mile northwest of our position.  We need to move now.  We only have minutes.”  They slipped in their earpieces on automatic mode and filed out of the doorway at a run.  It was laughable how far discretion had been thrown out of the window from the get-go on this mission.  They went barreling down the street, cutting sharp corners and taking alleys where they could find them.

 

“S**t!” Irin cursed as they turned down their second dead end in as many minutes. 

 

“We’re almost there, about 100 yards just on the other side of these buildings,” Jace read off his scanner.  Lance led the way back down the street to a turn they had passed up originally, and they continued their run.  They zigzagged through three more side streets before they burst onto a main thoroughfare.  “It just manifested!” Jace yelled.  “Straight ahead, follow me and keep your eyes open!”  None of them bothered to pull a weapon in a crowd like this as they sprinted down the street. 

 

“Over there!” Irin pointed to a furry shape disappearing into a building thirty yards away.  She burst through the doorway, weapon drawn, and saw what they had feared.  Three hostiles had already found the ripple and had it surrounded, wands drawn.  She double tapped her trigger, but the noise of her slamming open the door had given the enemy enough warning to duck.  They all rounded on her simultaneously. 

 

“I’ve got left!” Jace called, racing past her with his blade already drawn. 

 

“Going right!” Lance cried, leaving Irin the menacing character in the middle. 

 

She holstered her weapon and drew her sword as she squared off with her opponent.  “Bring it on,” she whispered to herself, and he lunged at her forcefully.  She barely stepped back in time, and cursed the fact she hadn’t really been off her butt in days.  She met his thrust and allowed her arms to absorb the vibrations of the impact.  He met her blow for blow, but he wasn’t very inventive.  Irin used this to her advantage and began to predict his movements, so she was able to drive him where she wanted �" straight into the corner. 

 

She almost had him trapped when he executed a difficult spin and thrust for which she wasn’t prepared, and she had to twist deftly out the back door of the building to avoid being struck.  She squinted as her eyes were assaulted by the bright sunlight after being indoors and raised her arms to meet his next attack.  They traded blows back and forth, and she tried find anything in her surroundings which could help.  He had forced her into some sort of deserted alley, so there wasn’t a lot to work with. 

 

She had guided him back a few feet when she finally spotted something: there was a deep gouge in the packed dirt not twenty yards away.  Picking up her offensive attack speed, she drove him steadily backward, not giving him any time between thrusts to take in where he was headed.  She was breathing heavily by the time they were there, so it was a satisfying relief to see him lose his footing when he went to take a step back and the ground wasn’t where he expected it to be.  Instinctually, his arms went out a little to balance himself, and she took advantage of the opening by kicking him solidly in the chest.  That momentum combined with his instability left him flailing as he fell to the ground.  

 

“Don’t move,” she ground out, and her opponent froze when he noticed the tip of her blade was pointed directly at his throat.  Her blade’s aim didn’t waiver as she walked toward his sword arm and kicked the weapon out of his hand forcefully.  They both heard it clatter to a stop a couple of yards away while she switched her sword from her right to her left hand.  Then, before he even knew what was happening, she withdrew the blade and pulsed one shot into his prone body.  All of his muscles flexed instantaneously and then relaxed, leaving him thoroughly unconscious. 

 

She sheathed her sword before spinning around and running back to the building her brothers were in.  Jace had just knocked his opponent’s weapon out of his hand, but Lance was still battling away.  He was closer to the wall with his hostile between him and Irin, but they were dancing rapidly, and it could change at any second. 

 

“Lance, I’m at you’re 11 o’clock,” she whispered, knowing their earpieces would easily pick it up.  “On the count of three, dive to your right to give me a shot.”  She raised her weapon to eyelevel. 

 

“K,” was his curt reply. 

 

“One, two, three!” she whispered forcefully, and he immediately leapt away from his enemy, leaving a wide open shot.  She didn’t even bother to appreciate the hostile’s confused face as she pulled the trigger.  A second later a puff of dust rose into the air as his gargantuan mass struck the dirt floor. 

 

A moment of overwhelming silence settled over the room before anyone moved.  “Thanks for the assist,” Lance spoke, sheathing his sword and wiping a hand across his sweaty brow. 

 

“Any time,” Irin replied as she replaced her weapon on her belt. 

 

“Is everything taken care of?”  The question applied to both of them, but Jace looked at her meaningfully. 

 

Irin hated that he felt compelled to check up on whether or not she was doing her job properly.  “Yeah, we’re good.  I’m going back outside to cuff my guy and bring him in.  See you on the other side,” she said as she headed for the backdoor. 

 

“See you,” they both wished. 

 

This time when she entered the alley, she was prepared for the intense sunlight and didn’t feel blinded as she made her way to her prone opponent.  She bent over his form to search for his wand and almost gagged at the smell emanating from him.  Holding her breath, she reached a hand under one of his furs and withdrew the object in question.  Once it was safely stowed in her pocket, she used his arm to pull him over and onto his stomach so she could use the zip cuffs to secure his hands behind his back. 

 

She was just wiping off her hands on her pants and observing her handiwork when movement in a doorway a few feet down the alley caught her attention.  She turned her head to get a better look and froze in shock.  It was the stranger from Ireland, and he was staring back, just as frozen as she was!  Her lungs forgot how to work as her mind raced, wondering what she should do.  The decision was made for her when he broke their connection and turned to flee. 

 

“Oh no you don’t!” Irin muttered to herself and took off after him.  “Hey, wait!” she called out as she ran into the building he had entered, but he was already on the other side, exiting onto the street.  She burst through the door onto the thoroughfare, almost losing him in the crowd, but his height helped her track him.  As she chased him, her mind was working overtime to read the web tendrils around her �" he was not going to Weave away from her again! 

 

They had only gone a block when she noticed it: on the edge of her mind, strands were being interlaced at an impossibly fast rate.  It was all she could do to Weave fast enough to keep up while making sure she didn’t run into a person or building.  Luckily, it was a complicated web that took more time to make, so she was able to complete a latching web to jump his Weave.  Then, when she saw his strands fluoresce, she drew her hands apart and tightened her own web, disappearing along with him. 

-.-

Lance had just finished cuffing his captive when Irin’s voice came over his earpiece, and he looked at his twin in alarm.  The emotions that were communicated in that brief look transcended words, and they both dropped whatever they were doing and sprinted into the back alley toward the body some yards away.  Panic began to grip them when Irin was nowhere to be seen. 

 

“Where the hell is she?” Lance yelled while Jace whipped out his scanner to read her fading trail.

 

“She went this way!” Jace replied, running into the building the stranger had used as a hiding place.  “Something’s wrong.  Her energy is mixed with something I’ve never seen before.  I can’t get a clear read on what it is.”  The worry in his voice was palpable, but he continued to follow the trail into the street.  Neither of them bothered to apologize as they pushed through the crowd trying to find their baby sister. 

 

“S**t!” Jace bit off and came to a halt. 

 

“What?  What happened?” Lance demanded.

 

“She Wove away,” Jace responded, stabbing furiously at the touchscreen. 

 

“Well, where did she go?” Lance asked condescendingly, as if the question weren’t already plaguing his brother.

 

“Her trail is too hazy for me to get a lock.  Whatever it’s mixed with is making it unreadable.”  Lance came to look at the screen over Jace’s left shoulder as his fingers flew over the keys, bringing up various maps, plots and numbers.  His hands froze when he pulled up a 3D energy density plot. 

 

“What the hell is that?”  Two clusters could be seen on the screen, side by side.  The one on the left had a purplish hue to the white coloring, but it was dwarfed by greenish hued cluster next to it.

 

“That,” Jace said weakly, pointing to the smaller cluster, “is Irin’s Weave.” 

 

“Then what is that thing?”

 

Jace paused before answering, wondering how to say what the screen was telling him.  “That’s another Weave,” he said finally and met his brother’s disbelieving eyes. 

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Positive.  I’ve never seen anything like it before, but it’s definitely some kind of Weave.”  Neither one said anything as that fact sank in. 

 

“We need to get back,” Lance broke the silence, “now.”  They both turned around and ran back to the building where they had first located the hostiles.  They wordlessly stepped over their captives and started the webs that would take them home �" they needed to speak with the Commander.

 

© 2012 Padfoot101