Until Time Stands Still (17 page)

            The entire team sat in the waiting room of the infirmary waiting to hear the news about Isabelle. Mykel sat at the end of the line of chairs staring at the wall. He was still covered in gore and congealed blood. He didn’t notice. The only thing on his mind was her, and the time they had spent together. His mind went over and over the first time he saw her, the look of relief in her eyes when she had first seen him and knew she would be safe, how she had kept up with him in the woods. That first night in the tent, and all the times he had loved her since. Each time more amazing than before. The simple joy he felt coming home to her each night, eating meals together, playing chess, and reading together. The despair he felt when she left him, and the fear when he realized she had been taken again. The rage at her being shot. Despair again.

            Someone handed Mykel a cup of coffee, but he had forgotten he was even holding it, and it had grown cold long ago. He sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall for the hundredth time that hour.

            “Alright. Enough of this.” Graham said standing. “I’m ordering all of you to shower, get some chow and meet back here in an hour. I’ll stay here until you all get back, and then I’ll do the same.”

            “No.” Mykel said. It was the first word he spoke in the last four hours.

            “Not negotiable. You especially need a shower.” Graham said. “When the doctor comes out to tell us she’s going to be fine, you’ll want to go see her. They won’t let you, looking like that.” He pointed out.

            “Fine.” Mykel stood. The others followed after him silently down to the decontamination showers. By the time he peeled off his body armour, his clothes underneath stuck to him like tar. He peeled the sticky cloth from his body and Johnny had to help him scrub the sticky fluids from his back.

            Ten minutes later, he was back in the waiting room, with a fresh cup of coffee.  He had forgone the food. He had no appetite anyway. The General was waiting for him with Graham.

            “She’s dead.” The General said. “The doctor said she’s just lost too much blood. They tried the best they could.” There wasn’t a hint of compassion in the man’s voice.

            “No.” Mykel breathed. “She can’t be.” He shook his head. “You’re lying.”

            “I’m sorry, Mykel.” Graham said, coming up behind him.

            “We are here for you man.” Bryant said.

            “Mykel…” Johnny had unshed tears in his eyes. “I tried so hard to save her. I’m so sorry I couldn’t.”

            He didn’t even hear them. No one stopped him when he shoved Graham away. Screaming, he turned and walked away, and finally let the tears fall unchecked down his face.

*******************

            For the next six months, he was barely functioning. In the place where his heart had been, was something else. A darkness that made him not quite alive, that made him compassionless and dead inside. On missions, he was efficient, like an unfeeling, mechanical robot. He moved methodically, but with no real purpose. He kept his distance from the others, the ice in his heart, the darkness in his mind an effective barrier from connecting with anyone or anything ever again. Only one time in his life he had ever felt so utterly lost and dead inside. The day his parents and his baby brother had died. He had begged them, for hours, not to leave him alone in the world. But they did. He was only twelve at the time. He had thought he could never go on, but he had. Somehow. Being pulled through time kicked in his survival instincts enough to will him to live, but his world had been clouds and shadows, barely existing from one moment to the next, no matter what time he had been pulled to. Until he saw her. Isabelle had been his sunshine. The warmth of her in his life, turned his existence into a passable resemblance of a real life. For a few short weeks, he had known love again. The fickle bitch, Fate, tore that from him yet again, and this time, this time, he sworn never to go there again. His heart was shredded, grief tearing at his soul like a wild, terrible hurricane, sucking away anything good in him. He was an ice cold killing machine, primitive, emotionless and utterly merciless against the enemies he came across on their missions.

            The morning of her funeral, all the guys came by his house. He hadn’t showered or eaten in days, and just sat staring off into space, time slipping away unnoticed. He slept, or drank the pain away until he was blissfully numb and just passed out. That morning, Graham put him in a headlock and threw his ass in the shower, ordering him to wash up, while the other guys found his best clothes and made sure they were clean.

            They held the funeral in the small chapel on the base. Mykel walked in stiffly and went right up to the casket and tried to lift the lid. It was sealed. He looked up sharply at Graham and the rest of his team. “Why is this sealed? I want to see her.” He said gruffly.

            “I don’t know.” Graham said.

He glanced at the Chaplin who shrugged. “The General ordered it closed.”

            Mykel frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, unless…” A dark seed of a thought formed in his mind. “Can you excuse us please?” He dismissed the Chaplin.

“She’s not dead.” He said, turning to the rest of them. “She’s alive.”

            “Come on man. We all know you wish that. We all do.” Bryant said. “But why would anyone let us all believe she was dead?”

            “She’s alive.” He said stubbornly.

            “The baby.” Johnny said suddenly.

Mykel looked at him sharply. “What?”

“The whole point of going into her time was to bring women back here. Some of us have. There are a bunch of women here now, but Isabelle was the first. She’s the first to get pregnant too. I believe you.” Johnny said. “I couldn’t understand how she could have died from that wound. She was pretty stable by the time we brought her home, with a strong heartbeat and steady pressure. We’ve all taken hits more serious and lived through it. Especially with the nanites helping us heal. Didn’t they tell you she had a better than average ability to heal?” He pointed out. “So what if the General has some other motive for keeping her from you? I think he wants the baby. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“How do we prove it?” Bryant asked.

“We find her.” Mykel said. “And when we do, I’m taking her back to her time and neither of us are coming back here. You guys should come with us…because once I leave with her, the heat will be on you. The General will just do the same to your women.”

Graham went over to the casket and laid his hand on it. “I don’t know who is in here, but we need to bury it as if it’s her. No one, especially the General, can know what we suspect.”

********************

Isabelle woke to the sounds of a machine beeping. She cracked open her eyes and was immediately blinded by glaring lights. She was a in a small room with no windows. The walls were made of glass, and she could tell instantly that it was some sort of observation cell. There was a guard on duty behind a desk, monitoring a computer.

“Hey!” She called, her voice hoarse. “Where am I?”

“Good. You’re awake.” A disembodied voice came over the speakers in her room.

“Where am I?” She demanded, sitting up.

“You’ve been in a coma for several weeks, Isabelle, but you and your baby are safe now.” The woman’s voice said.

“Baby?” She stilled, her hand going immediately to her stomach. It was fairly rounded out. “I’m pregnant?” She remembered wondering if she had been, and then she had run away, and got shot. She remembered the pain and then feeling so cold.

“You’re nearly four months along now.” The voice said.

“Where is Mykel? Does he know?” She demanded.

“He knows.” The voice said soothingly. “But for the safety of your baby, we can’t allow him to see you right now. He was exposed to some toxins on his last mission. That’s why you are in isolation.”

“He’s sick?” She gasped.

“It’s best to keep you apart from him until after the baby is born and develops an immune system of his or her own.”

“How sick is he? Is he going to be okay?” She demanded, standing up.

“He’s going to be fine.” The voice said soothingly. “Don’t allow yourself to get upset dear. The baby needs you to be calm. The stress isn’t good for either of you.”

“I can’t just stay here!” She said, her voice cracking. “He needs me.”

“He wants you to be healthy, and keep the baby protected.” The woman said. “It was his idea to keep you in isolation.”

Isabelle stayed silent. She knew in her heart, right at that moment that she was being lied to. No matter what, she knew he would never agree to be apart from her for any length of time. Not after the things he had last said to her. She thought back to that day at the warehouse, when he had asked her to marry him. She hadn’t been able to give him an answer.

“Please tell him, the answer is yes.” She said finally, tears pooling in her eyes. She sat back down on the bed and closed her eyes against the bright lights. She was in another cage, and this time they wanted her to believe Mykel of all people, put her there. They must have really thought she was that much of a fool. She wondered what lies Mykel had been told about her, and if he had really been told about the baby. She wondered if he believed them. No matter what, she was determined to break out of this glass box and find him, before her baby was born. She didn’t want him to miss that. She settled her hand on her stomach and smiled.

Their baby. 

**********************

            The guys spent the last few months training a replacement for Jacob. The General had insisted, and while they were resistant to the idea, they knew they couldn’t object too much. The new kid was as green as could be, but he was a brilliant technical analyst. Will Rawlins fit into the group easily, but while they never let on, they never really accepted him as one of them. Mykel suspected he was a spy sent to watch them and the timing seemed suspicious to the others as well.

            While they weren’t training or going on missions, they were covertly sneaking back to Isabelle’s time. Mykel had already purchased a home in another state, deep in the mountains, in a valley between two large hills. He chose the place because it messed up their instruments there. The nanites could not be tracked in the mountains, which meant they would be safe. No one would be able to find them. Assuming they could find her and get her back. That was the plan, so far. If they were right about Isabelle being alive. In his time, they systematically searched around the base looking for any clue as to where Isabelle had been taken. After months they had come up with nothing. Some of the guys had begun to wonder if she really wasn’t alive and Mykel was just clinging to a desperate hope as a way to not deal with his grief. Bryant was convinced he was completely cracking up. No one really disagreed with him.

Tonight, they would break into the Generals home, to find out if there was any information on his personal computer. If they didn’t find anything, they really had no clue where to look next. Graham had told Mykel that if they came up empty handed, the search was off.