Just a small short story I was toying with. I hope you enjoy it.
“I promise,” Will continued as he walked through the Sanctuary halls holding his tablet with Abby’s face looking at him from the video call, “Once this is over I’m finding the best restaurant around and taking you for a more romantic date than roaming the halls here with my computer,”
Abby smiled.
“Sounds like a nice…”
An explosion, and subsequent crash of metal on metal down the hall from Will Zimmerman interrupted her. A small plume of smoke trailed out from around the corner ahead as Dr Zimmerman moved the computer screen to see around. He sighed.
“What was that?” Abby asked, curious but not really sounding surprised with how much she knew about the Sanctuary.
“Probably Henry trying to build something again,” Will replied with a roll of his eyes, “I swear, since the country went in to lock-down two weeks ago he’s tried to build every idea he can think of. To be honest I think he’s bored, and if it weren’t for these nightly calls for you I think I’d go crazy,”
“What about Erika?” Abby’s voice said through the tablet speakers.
“Oh they talk,” Will said, “Not for a couple of days because she’s over in England and it sounds like the power’s gone out at the estate where she’s staying. She’ll have her hands full with the new HAP kids they found recently anyway. But I should probably go and see before Henry burns the place down.”
William winked as he finished the sentence, “Talk later,”
“Goodnight,” Abby replied as he clicked end on the call and video screen closed back to the desktop.
William tucked the tablet under his arm, and walked toward the sound of the crash and trailing smoke. It wasn’t overpowering so he knew that there wasn’t a fire at least, and the new Sanctuary fire suppression would have taken effect already if it had.
Unless Henry broke that. He thought to himself briefly.
Rounding the corner, and in through the half open lab door, he saw Henry across the lab behind a smoking pile of machinery. Sat across the other side of the room, in a leather chair and wine bottle on the table beside him, was Nikola Tesla.
“Henry, What are you breaking now?” He asked jokingly keeping a smile on his face so as not to sound to bossy even though Magnus had left him in charge while she focused on some personal things in her study.
“I told you it wasn’t going to work,” Tesla said to Henry smugly.
“Dude, I don’t really need you to sit there and tell me what to do,” Henry replied dryly.
“I swear you two get worse the longer we stay in this lock-down… Does someone want to tell me, what, wasn’t going to work?” Will asked the two men. Looking back and forth and surveying the room analyzing to see what he could discover for himself. The smoke from the pile of machinery was starting to die down which was a relief to not have to worry about. A table near to Henry was indented as if someone had struck it. Tesla’s fingers rapped slowly against his wine glass, an amused grin on his face.
“I was trying to build a prototype of a new EM generator that would give us more control, and security. But I think I overloaded the power capacitors,” Henry muttered.
“I was under impression that the natural lodestone of Hollow Earth around the new Sanctuary already stopped anything from teleporting within our grounds?” Will asked raising an eyebrow at the idea and looking around the room for any further potential damage.
“And it does,” Henry stated, “The minerals in the lodestone stop particles re-combining, which should stop anyone because teleporting in that area would become too dangerous to them surviving,”
“Then why do we need a new EM generator?”
“Something Magnus asked for before we got quarantined from the the pandemic virus,”
“She was worried about something teleporting in?”
“I’m guessing that would be more, some one,” Tesla interjected and swigged the remaining glass of wine before re-filling” But as I said, you didn’t to compensate for the random fluctuations of the natural lodestone before turning the device on. Therefore, kaboom…” He told Henry making the, boom, gesture with one hand.
“I told you, I did compensate for it,” Henry replied half snapping at the vampire.
“Alright, let’s not place blame here right now. Henry, can you clean this…”
A bleep came from his tablet, and he glanced at the instant message that just popped up.
RED LIST: TONIGHT. 7PM. DOCKS.
A second message bleeped through after he read that one. It was shorter, but William got the point, It’s O’Donnell. The second text read.
“Ok, new plan,” Will said looking up from the new information, “Tesla, We got a red list dealer coming to the dockyards at 7pm. I need you to take Henry and go check it out,”
Nikola reacted with disgust, and Will wasn’t sure whether it was the thought of the grunt work or taking Henry with him, “I’m pretty sure wolfboy can handle this on his own,”
“Dude,” Henry reacted sharply. William shushed them both.
“Look, Magnus already established both of your abnormal abilities kept you immune to the virus. It’s currently only you that can do this. Plus, it’s to do with O’Connell. He’s the primary redlist dealer running right now, this is the closest we’ve ever gotten to his activities, and it will give Magnus’ wine cellar a break.” William turned to leave. He took a step, and turned his head,
“Besides, it will give you guys some good bonding time,” He said with a laugh. Both men pouted and began to move reluctantly.
“Stay on radio”
William walked from the room. He was about to head to his when he figured he should check on Helen. After all, it had been a few days since he’d seen her. She had locked herself away in her office for some peace after Henry and himself decided that it would be a good idea to upgrade the alarm system. In hindsight, Will knew that was a bad idea after it detected a rodent crawling into the building from the caves outside and they couldn’t shut off the sirens for two days. Even a full power cycle didn’t do it because of the way the new sirens were wired to the system, and pulling it from natural resources.
Once they shut them up, they all decided the older system was good enough. But Helen had been in her office since.
He reached the door, and knocked.
No answer.
Will knocked again, slightly louder.
“Yes, who is it?” Helen’s voice responded her voice sounding tired and he wondered how well she’d been sleeping.
“It’s Will,” He said, “Can I come in?”
“Very well, Enter”
Dr Zimmerman pushed the door open and entered the room, closing it behind. Helen Magnus was sat behind her desk, an old, large, Victorian wood desk they had moved from the old Sanctuary before they destroyed it, like a lot of the pieces in Helen’s office. She liked a certain style to her office.
“Yes, William,” She asked politely, but with a tone that Will thought he’d interrupted something.
“Just thought you should know, that we caught wind of O’Donnell coming in at the docks tonight,” He replied directly, “I’ve sent Tesla and Henry to check it out seeing as they’re not affected by the virus,”
“That sounds good, Will. Keep me apprised of the situation,”
William sensed something wrong, but even with all they had been through he didn’t know if he should ask, but decided to anyway.
“Are you okay, Magnus?”
Helen smiled, sort of, “I’m fine, William. Just a few things on my mind is all. Nothing to worry about. Just need some quiet time to myself,”
“Here if you need anything, Magnus,”
“Thank you, William,”
He started to walk back towards the door, when Helen’s voice called back, “By the way, what was that explosion I heard before?”
Will stopped, “Oh right,” He exclaimed, “It’s nothing. Just another of Henry’s experiments with an EM shield prototype he said you requested before we went into lock-down?” He said leaving it as a question and kind of hoping Magnus would fill in the blanks.
“Oh, Very good. Let me know how he gets on with that as well,” Magnus replied but not really saying anything more.
“Sure, thing, Magnus,”
He continued toward the door, and walked through, pulling it shut behind him again. Helen was by herself once more, which to be honest she preferred.
Helen looked down at the pile of papers on her desk, and the books stacked 3 high. She’d been studying these for so long, it felt like forever. Following every thread of teleportation as the technology evolved on her second run through life. Her side project on her journey through history—her history. From research papers by Einstein, to quantum physics lectures and lessons from other great scientists, she knew what she needed to do. When she went back it was the one thing she knew. She had to be ready when it came to it.
And she was.
At least for the first part. The second stage was going to be hard… is harder.
Helen looked over to her computer screen, and clicked the mouse. The display changed to camera footage of a hospital looking room in the new Sanctuary, but this room is one only she knew about. She couldn’t risk telling anyone just yet. If it didn’t work, she would deal with that burden alone. But Helen was not ready to give up yet. She couldn’t. After all this was her daughter.
A click of the mouse brought the camera in closer, and a body lay against the table in the center.
Ashley.
Unconscious.
Dreaming Screenwriter 