Chapter Twenty


I was being held by two military men, each of my arms pinned, with an enemy from my dark past in front of me. It had only been a day since I'd been in a similar situation. Possibly less. But this time the stakes were much higher, the confrontation far more serious. I called up, only halfheartedly, to the giant woman in the room. "Tamyra," I called. "Help me!"

Because of the way my captors were holding me, I was unable to look up at the black girl. I just stared at her big, smooth feet. They were gorgeous, curvy things with long toes and an elegantly sloping bridge. Such evil inside the attractive shell. Appearances can be deceiving.

"'Fraid I can't do that." Was the thunderous reply from above.

"She's working for you," I said to Peter. He merely smirked. Then I called up, "But what about Sarah? How can you betray her like this?"

Tamyra leaned over to reply, giving me a view of her ample bust, as opposed to her face. "I've got some bad news for you, Eric. This isn't the first time I've betrayed Sarah."

It didn't take much to put two and two together. "You left those plans out in the open on purpose!"

"More than that," Tamyra said with a dry chuckle. "I've been watching her ever since she joined us. It was my assignment. Us being friends only made that easier."

I wanted to scream and curse at her, expose her for the traitorous bitch she was. But that wouldn't solve anything. So I figured I'd just continue the questions. "But why work for them?" I said, tipping my head at Peter.

"Oh, she's being quite well compensated for her work," said Peter lazily. "I believe we promised you, what, half of North America?"

Tamyra nodded, giving me a partial view of her chin. "My own personal... stomping grounds, let's call it."

My brain reeled at what was being said before me. This made absolutely no sense. "Why would you do that, Peter? What the hell are you thinking?"

"After today," said Peter confidently, "We won't need it."

"Wait," I said, still angry and uncomprehending. "Forgetting even the cost in innocent lives, since when do we not 'need' half of our continent?"

Peter spread his arms in an expansive gesture, taking in the whole room. "We have more than enough space. We could fit three times the world's populace here."

"What?!" I shouted, then my voice immediately broke. "You can't be serious. You can't mean this..."

"We are standing, now, at the beginning of a new era for all humanity." Peter was speaking in a loud, brazen voice. He wasn't talking to me alone, but to everyone assembled there. "This is the day that we leave our tiny world, and embrace what is ours. The land that destiny hath promised us. And now we strike the first blow."

He motioned to two other men nearby, who quickly moved the warhead to the front of the room and began busying themselves affixing it to the base of the reactor.

"You're insane," I yelled. "Their reactors are linked on this world. Do you have any idea how much damage this will do?"

"Enough to cripple their government, and make way for the first wave."

"Cripple their government my ass. It isn't their government you have to worry about. One of their average humans can kill ten of ours in an instant. How do you hope to subjugate a race of beings sixty times your size?!" I ranted.

"I believe you are already intimately familiar with our ways and means, Eric," said Peter slowly, relishing the menace in his words. He pulled out one of the shock devices. "The giants will accept their domination quickly enough. Barring a few initial casualties, of course."

"You're not just talking about taking over this world, you're talking about enslavement..." I looked at Peter with renewed horror. I was dealing with a madman.

"Not just that, but resource harvesting, strip mining, oil extraction. The works. But this has been the plan all along, decided well before we came here. Even before you joined us in the bunker."

"But how did you know -?"

"About this world? Think about it, Eric, you always were so fucking bright." Peter moved very close to me, locking eyes with mine. "We had access to your lab, genius boy. Since you left to fight Vanessa. That's how we knew about the reactor, how we made our deal with your girlfriend's traitor. You were too slow, Eric, and too late. And now, we take this world for our own."

For the first time, I struggled. I kicked and screamed, howled with rage against the folly of my captors. Mutually assured destruction, I thought. An old Cold War catchphrase it seemed the government was itching to realize. They were going to try and nuke all the giantesses on our world, then colonize this one. But all they were doing was ensuring everyone's doom. One of my guards quickly hit me in the gut, and the fight left me.

The two men who had been working on setting up the nuke finished, and came over to Peter. "What should we set the timer to, Sir?"

"Hmm... I want to make sure our friend Eric is here to see the show. Let's say... five minutes?" He signaled the two men holding me to tie me up. They quickly and efficiently did so, using the climbing ropes and tying a triple slipknot. I wouldn't be able to slip my bonds anytime soon.

There was a loud beep from just behind me to my left. The bomb was set. Five minutes until mass destruction. Five minutes until the end of Sarah's world. Five minutes for me to pray.

A loud, blaring noise filled the room, causing everyone to raise their hands to their ears, all except me. Then gunshots rang out.

There was a tremendous impact shock right next to me, and I managed to crane my head to my right. All I saw was a mass of tremendous black hairs, slick with gel. So much for Tamyra. I had to say that I felt very little pity for the traitorous woman.

There were giant guards pouring into the room. Seeing the beings on the floor, they began to fire wildly, instead of doing the sensible thing and stepping on the bastards. I figured it was shock.

Bullets were whizzing through the air, each the size of a cruise missile, as the guards quickly ran towards us. My former team mates scattered, forgetting to use their instant triggers.

The instant triggers! In the chaos since we had found the reactor, I had completely forgotten about mine. I fumbled, trying to maneuver my hand into a position to use it... Just a press of the button and I could be home.

But I couldn't do that. Sarah's world was in danger, and I was the only one in any position to help. I had three minutes to save possibly millions of lives. How could I sacrifice them for my own well being? How could I let the land of the woman I loved fall under my government's control?

I couldn't. So instead, I gauged the paths of the bullets flying around me, and waited until I saw a likely candidate.

Then I triggered Sess. The world went into slow motion. Coming directly towards me was a massive piece of lead three times the length of my body. Even with my raised reaction speeds, it was still moving as fast as a well-pitched baseball. Timing would be everything. If I moved too soon, I risked losing my line of sight. This could cause me to misguess, and lose a limb or possibly my life. But if I moved too late, death was assured...

I waited until the bullet was just ten feet away. Then I twisted my entire body to the left, straining as hard as I could against the ropes. The bullet impacted, sending shockwaves through my whole body as well as the structure I was tied to.

I fell to the ground, the ropes binding me cut. Slowly, I raised myself to my feet, checked to make sure I wasn't missing anything. No, I was whole. So far so good. Now for the hard part.

I first scanned the area to make sure there were no immediate threats. The guards had calmed down, and were now methodically searching out my former comrades, crushing them underfoot once found. There were already many grisly spots of gore on the shining white plastic floor.

Dashing to the warhead, I checked the timer. Two minutes until detonation. I'd have to work as fast as I could. Quickly I whipped out my tool belt, examining the screws on the cover plate of the timing mechanism. A Shlips 2 cm would do the trick. I quickly whipped it out, and began unscrewing the bolts, struggling to keep my hand from shaking. Time was of the essence.

The bolts were off, and I quickly removed the cover. A mess of differently colored wiring lay before me, at least thirty different inch-thick plastic tubes. How could I tell what was what?

I struggled to focus. Look at the timer, I told myself. Just six wires coming out of there. Blue, Orange, Red, Green, White and Black. At least one was a dummy wire, which would cause immediate detonation. At least one would go towards disarming the bomb. One in six odds. Did I care to gamble with my life?

I wiped the sweat off my brow and checked the clock. Just one minute left. The decision had to be made fast. I tugged on each of the wires first. Tugging on black, white and red caused the timer to beep, which I immediately assumed to be bad. Nix those three.

Forty-five seconds. I had to start cutting wires. So I raised my combat knife to the blue wire, and carefully, delicately, made the incision, slicing evenly through.

The timer didn't stop. But the bomb didn't explode either. I released my breath. Thirty seconds. I quickly cut green. Still no change. Orange was next. But still the timer didn't stop.

I had fifteen seconds, and no more options.

Red, white and black. Three choices, all of them bad. Fourteen seconds. What could I do? Millions of lives riding on me. The fate of this dimension, possibly. Twelve seconds. Red, white or black. Which one could I cut? They had all beeped, they were all wrong... Damn it all! Ten seconds. Do or die. I had to make a choice.

Eight. Seven. I raised the knife to a wire, I couldn't even see which one. Hysterical blindness.

Six. Five. Just cut it, you have no choice.

Four. Three. I can't do this. There's no way.

Two.

I pushed my instant teleport trigger. I was gone before the timer hit one.