Time Throws Fire | Volume Two | Chapter Twenty
volume two of the second story in The Foundry series
Time Throws Fire | Volume Two
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One - Cosmonaut | ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE
Part Two - Holy Fire Priestess | SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT | NINE | TEN
Part Three - Get the Guts | ELEVEN | TWELVE | THIRTEEN |
Part Four - Demon | FOURTEEN |
Part Five - Synecdoche’s Synapse | FIFTEEN | SIXTEEN |
Part Six - Viscera Rising | SEVENTEEN |
Part Seven - Exile | EIGHTEEN | NINETEEN |
Part Eight - Semblance
Part Nine - Threnody of Lojack
Part Ten - Time Throws Fire
PART SEVEN | EXILE
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Lojack! Somebody!”
Elliot was naked, running through a central terminal of cross-decks, grasping a graphite pipe with both hands, but nobody was around. People were hiding. He’d seen a novelty food source shuddered, and a timid fellow peeking through its windows.
It was mid-cycle — everything should’ve been open.
His pipe had proven less durable than imagined when pounding that glass. The refusal to stop, taken by forces within, would enrage the man to feel himself a god. Eventually that shopkeeper had just looked sad, and Elliot saw himself off immediately.
The Empress wasn’t responding. Dia hadn’t either. Lojack was nowhere.
Those empty hallways had spoken of some sign — he was exiled aboard his own ship. The place hadn’t ever been his. He’d made way directly for Glowing Tree. It was that only spot he’d find himself some peaceful rest.
His feet were rolling, heel to toe, matching speeds never achieved before while racing Lojack down those passages, Elliot’s bare soles gripping so tightly upon the marble.
Eventually he’d seen someone, after rounding a corner. He’d wanted to show them all he had, so Elliot wrangled a bit more speed from his legs, wriggled the worst of his tightest muscles free, and jangled his bouncing junk wildly, as he barreled directly towards her.
That woman was Synecdoche and he’d not realized it once.
Elliot Harper was furious, maddened, incensed when he’d come upon the sight. He’d been running for such time with no mark for his pipe’s rage to reign over, nothing to bang, and he wasn’t getting an answer from Lojack. Nothing seemed right except his choice to run so free of spirit.
To witness his dead body just passed the corner had brought him to stop. They’d been eviscerated at the sacrum, split in two, parts of both ends intact, some great piece missing.
He’d tracked eyes past the destruction to find them. A whole row of pipes like his, except gigantic, of such girth, lying beneath their deepest tip-indentations mottled along the far wall at nearly spaced, almost perfectly even heights.
Each of those rails would be graced with gore, at different lengths between his corpse and that dispensed, cruelest ammunition which had torn them down, leavings in trails behind to answer his seeking for the missing portion.
Peaking around the corner had been of need to his rationality. Even beyond how broken of mind he was, he’d needed to see. What was there would haunt him.
There were dozens of him, nearly, covering that path towards Glowing Tree. All of them had been cut down into a blood-messed heaps. Nothing made any sense to Elliot. It seemed as if it never would.
Synecdoche had repositioned knowing he’d see that-last-one.
Another few Elliots later had proven one fortuitous. He saw someone on the route to his war room. That woman played it off so coolly that he would use her presence for forging denial about what his heart knew, allowing him to make his destination without being stricken by panic.
He’d been dying a lot, and recently. The emptiness of those hallways surely had to do with it. Inside he found a disturbance which would not be tolerated. Someone had befouled his space most completed, they’d smashed every monitor.
“What the fuck—Lojack!” Elliot screamed, still not understanding how, why, or what reason could be remotely fathomable for his oldest friend to have not reached out since waking up.
“Where the hell are you, man? I need you—dude!”
He was crying before long. He’d gotten into a habit, before meeting Dia, that he could only break in her presence. Elliot talked to himself. He heard voices inside, something was shattered within. His personality was fractured, disoriented, and always changing into more of what he’d set his intention towards — the most valiant warrior Elaria would ever raise in its ranks.
He’d earn his honor. Still, he hurt inside.
“Why won’t he talk to me?” Elliot asked.
“I need somebody. Why don’t I have anybody?
“He wasn’t even ever real—dude. It’s not fair—man. I fucking hate my wife.”
Elliot Harper’s heart felt as if it wouldn’t stop screaming since he’d awoken. Nothing would seem truly okay until he saw Lojack, knew what happened, or made things right.
Two previously opened messages from himself had been unsurprising to how he’d already felt. The data streaming in from his connection reborn to the security phase-link proved despicable forces at work. It led him to commit an atrocity he’d not before, and another upon himself that he would’ve never imagined doing at all.
He’d woken up a second, and a third, and a fourth at once.
Then he’d done it. That hardest thing he ever would. No matter why, it was spoken by some authority within, as if written, and he’d abide.
Elliot Harper deleted Threnody of Lojack from his drives.
Two were left, and Synecdoche had been present-in-real for such lengths that she’d become literally-hungry for a first time in her reborn or past life as projected visage. It was the best pilaf she’d ever had, nothing would ever taste better to that echoed soul of Ecatosh’s now entirely rogue visage — having severed from Echo of The Foundry outright upon Elliot’s first death, but more specifically seeing Rory’s intent to cut her down within their eyes.
Lugging her burdeness had been the need which soured that woman’s stomach. It was heavy and she’d held it too long.
Life was of abundant witness in the oceanic tunnel. Rory had been seeking traversal to some place afar. They’d been claiming territories everywhere. They made sure no one knew of The Empress’s death. It felt right to own them all from the shadows.
Lips were hooked and the first man they’d seen was slung round by arm into a launch over his nearby bartop, the outer-installation of Leftovers — upper crusts of class found home in that club so apparently still occupied and operating openly.
“Why?” Rory could’ve sworn to hear that man grumble.
They weren’t able to withstand a person knowing what they were up to.
Everything they’d done was of motive for that seat in monarchy they would use to reclaim their home; The Foundry needed taking back from Echo and her maddened lies, that violence she wielded was unacceptable no matter its making or purpose. It would need to be dealt with by forceful justice in Rory’s estimation.
They’d wished for someone else to do it for them.
Elliot Harper’s Elaria had been her choice for taking that right. His loss was only some speck in a heartless void crafted from all they’d come back to do.
“I hate this.” They definitely heard the man say as he was rising.
If it hadn’t of happened right then, Rory didn’t know what they would’ve done.
His body propelled into the side wall of that encompassing aquarium-thick plexi. Its impact was too strong. The boy had rattled, bounced, shattered again, and again for such lengths. They were hurled from the blast. They’d never rise. It would keep them down for good.
Rory wasn’t excited when Elliot’s bravado spoke of heroism for his efforts. It felt in retrospect as some telling notion of the boy’s spirit which hadn’t been lost to the woman inside Rory.
Death’s Kiss would drop another.
Elliot Harper had gotten loose. That dent in Blackhawk couldn’t be unwrought, but the choice to make it fly had been his right as pilot.
He’d realized what he was to do.
Those facets of him sacrificed were each willing, having caused havoc, united for drawing all away. That woman and her rifle who was stalking him had only taken his final other in that last moment before liftoff, port-arms left connected, torn, draped and hanging from its sides to be carried out into space.
Some way to break through, somehow, he’d speak with courage of stillness. Elliot would talk to the people of The Foundry and make it right. He would apologize. Lojack was there.
He hadn’t acknowledged his data. They’d had him a long time. Nothing was stopping Lojack from messaging. He’d just chosen not to.
“Hey—this is Elliot Harper.” His voice cleared to speak. To get it off his chest would be an endeavor.
“Is there anybody there who can talk?”
Tearing off, away from Exile was the strangest feeling he’d ever known. Something knew he wasn’t going back to wake there again. Elliot found the right path at last. He was going to make up for what he’d done. He’d just stopped repressing the flowing of truth as best he might. Elliot would speak like he had to those copies of himself.
Nobody responded.
“Anybody? Hey—I’m sorry. Is there somebody who will talk to me there?”
There was nothing.
These people weren’t his own. He made a fool of himself more than once. Yet he was better — at the moment — he’d thought.
“Please?”
Elliot was starting to cry. He didn’t want to fight anymore. He’d not wanted to go stealth and hide in the darkness alone.
“Now y’all—please. Somebody needs to talk to me. I’m trying to save my life. I messed up.”
Elliot finally just asked.
“Is Lojack there? He knows me—dude.”
Nothing would break through his transceiver. Every moment, each try, those efforts poured into, it made him turn mad.
“Now-dudes. Now.”
He was going to a place deeper inside than he’d ever been, locked in some dreadful repetition, Elliot Harper’s mind was dying.
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now—dude.”
“Now—dudes—come on.”
“Help me!”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
“Now.”
He’d stopped. Elliot Harper was done.
He hadn’t the will to continue anymore. Nobody cared. His life was a lie. There’d be absolutely no reason to go on. He couldn’t be alone. He’d never really wanted Dia.
Atreya looked beautiful.
No matter her personal reasoning. Nor how hard he’d fought. Elliot Harper’s heart confirmed it to Synecdoche after she’d torn through him with an energy saber he’d stowed in his personal cabin.
Reprojecting was easy for the woman when not needing to bring her favorite toy. She knew there wasn’t a chance he could take her by hand, let alone with a blade in one of her own. She’d not used more than a single stab to his heart by the end. It was only getting there which proved some struggle.
His heart told her true before he’d bled out.
You’re my hero.
