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Still catching up, but do I notice a lack of shower scenes lately...
He's waiting till Rose Byrne turns up - right canonized?
Owwwww. Of course, how much of that is trustworthy... one can never be too careful around Nia, after all.
Also: Sagrada Familia!
Haha yes , Nia should not be trifled with !
Haha I was very glad you enjoyed it ! Was quite inspired by your post especially the special ring move you did XD
Thank you , sir
Still catching up, but do I notice a lack of shower scenes lately...
Haha , yes I did promise Rose Byrne . And shower scenes , you guys are in for a big surprise XD
So poor who?
Poor Nia for dying?
Poor Antonio for finding out his wife maybe cheated on him just after he killed the only other woman he ever loved?
Poor Isabella for having her husband mistrust her for fake evidence, or for having gone just one step further for Spain?
The possibilities, they are many!
Poor Nia for dying?
Poor Antonio for finding out his wife maybe cheated on him just after he killed the only other woman he ever loved?
Poor Isabella for having her husband mistrust her for fake evidence, or for having gone just one step further for Spain?
The possibilities, they are many!
Avernite, Nia's not dead, only sleeping. The neurotoxin only knocked her out. Otherwise, the entry in the preceding chapter that she was still an operative in the present time would not make sense.
Unless canonized is planning a cameo by Miracle Max.
Unless canonized is planning a cameo by Miracle Max.
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This AAR is just awesome, congrats!
At least was the first two seasons: I'm "only" at at page 100 after two weeks of addiction (skipped all the interviews though, sorry guys).
Seeing as you like comments on previous chapters (some might say "as you like any comments at all"), here are my 7 cents.
1: the switches between the timelines are brilliantly done, and really helps making it one story rather than two parallel stories.
2: I really appreciate your 'deadpan' style for comic references. I know there is a lot I don't get, but that never makes the story less worthwhile. On the other hand, things can have me nearly falling off my chair - but still don't disrupt the story. Kudos for inserting a horde of easter eggs without relying on them to build a good story.
3: for some reason, my favourite reference in season 1 is the russian commander being "the very figure of a modern Major-General". Mostly because it is so stealthed, but also because it so clashes with the description of him that comes afterwards.
4: there have been a lot of "aha-moments". Such as the graph for the "twins" chapter (yeah, i have studied relativisitic quantum mechanics).
5: my theory on the timepiece: Sometime in the first ten chapters I started getting this meta-gamey feeling that the timepiece somehow _is the EU3 main menu_ or save/load function: you can end the whole timeline, go back to a previous time, or even jump to an alternate histories. A bit too meta maybe, but after all, this *is* an AAR. Not sure what the keys would be in that interpretation though. The 'first and second impact' almost suggests that you at some point restored the game (or patched/upgraded/modded/ whatever).
Btw the quantum/nuclear/cosmology snacks you have tossed out (in the first 100 pages) has all been tasty, no gaping holes and research well done.
6: I love all the catholic imagery. Being a scandinavian protestant, it is a bit of a challenge to follow all the connotations and implications, but it adds so much to the story in every way. (oh, and I sympathise with Tom).
7: going to catch up with you, for sure. I hereby declare myself as a loyal reader and fan of Timelines AAR.
again thanks for great entertainment. Just a shame to put so much else on hold until i catch up...
randomwalker
(forum lurker since EU1)
[enable deep lurking mode] [abort]
[enable surface lurking mode]
This AAR is just awesome, congrats!
At least was the first two seasons: I'm "only" at at page 100 after two weeks of addiction (skipped all the interviews though, sorry guys).
Seeing as you like comments on previous chapters (some might say "as you like any comments at all"), here are my 7 cents.
1: the switches between the timelines are brilliantly done, and really helps making it one story rather than two parallel stories.
2: I really appreciate your 'deadpan' style for comic references. I know there is a lot I don't get, but that never makes the story less worthwhile. On the other hand, things can have me nearly falling off my chair - but still don't disrupt the story. Kudos for inserting a horde of easter eggs without relying on them to build a good story.
3: for some reason, my favourite reference in season 1 is the russian commander being "the very figure of a modern Major-General". Mostly because it is so stealthed, but also because it so clashes with the description of him that comes afterwards.
4: there have been a lot of "aha-moments". Such as the graph for the "twins" chapter (yeah, i have studied relativisitic quantum mechanics).
5: my theory on the timepiece: Sometime in the first ten chapters I started getting this meta-gamey feeling that the timepiece somehow _is the EU3 main menu_ or save/load function: you can end the whole timeline, go back to a previous time, or even jump to an alternate histories. A bit too meta maybe, but after all, this *is* an AAR. Not sure what the keys would be in that interpretation though. The 'first and second impact' almost suggests that you at some point restored the game (or patched/upgraded/modded/ whatever).
Btw the quantum/nuclear/cosmology snacks you have tossed out (in the first 100 pages) has all been tasty, no gaping holes and research well done.
6: I love all the catholic imagery. Being a scandinavian protestant, it is a bit of a challenge to follow all the connotations and implications, but it adds so much to the story in every way. (oh, and I sympathise with Tom).
7: going to catch up with you, for sure. I hereby declare myself as a loyal reader and fan of Timelines AAR.
again thanks for great entertainment. Just a shame to put so much else on hold until i catch up...
randomwalker
(forum lurker since EU1)
[enable deep lurking mode] [abort]
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Very glad to see that you're getting the nuances and implications XD I'm very excited to write the next few updates
This is true , we did see her in the present timeframe . There are some mysterious loops to tie . For example , who is this son who was born in 85 since we know that Rodrigo wasn't born until '90/'91 or so ? What happened to Rodrigo's older brother ?
Also we see the Panzerkardinal in the 80s , but i bet none of you remember that a Cardinal relative of Captain DeWitt was killed in a terrorist attack on the Imperial Palace in Madrid in Season I (around '06) . How these things will work together will be fun for me to weave out for you folks
Huzzah
I'm so very happy to see a new reader ! And I love when lurkers come out , it's always worth a hundred page views to get another active commentator ! So please keep it up . I'll respond individually to the points you make thanks again !Thank you ! i would hope that there would be a rhyming pattern that would occur . Part of inspiration for that was from Dante's Terza Rima style .
Haha , i'm so very glad to hear you've been enjoying the references ! They're always little fun easter eggs that I love putting in there ever now and then . They do get a lot more subtle and overt depending on the chapters later on XD !
I remember I sang that song in middle school . Always stuck with me XD .
Ahhh , yes . the physics of Timelines . You know , ForzaA is always on my case about it since he's a physicist . I'm looking forward to your comments in this department as well
. Thank you !
I'm doing my best to keep the integrity solid . A lot of the stuff will obviously be experimental but hopefully non-contradictory . As for your theory about saved games , it's a clever one I do have to say XD . It may be one ... alternate explanation that I might deploy (if you'll forgive the pun) .Thank you ! and there's definitely a reason why Tom's Protestantism figures heavily in this story . By the end of the tale it'll become thematically clear what his background has to offer to a world which seems to place National Catholicism at the centre of its policies .
7: going to catch up with you, for sure. I hereby declare myself as a loyal reader and fan of Timelines AAR.
again thanks for great entertainment. Just a shame to put so much else on hold until i catch up...
randomwalker
(forum lurker since EU1)
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I thank you deeply for your patronage . Always encourages me whenever I see new readers or simply readers that have stuck it out thus far . I will take your sentiments to the bank and hope to keep that interest of yours growing (oh man , bad puns all around today)
Please drop by again with any more thoughts as you go along !
So sidi, I had enough of these insignificant folk. When do we get back to the real deal, the just Persian liberation of the world from the blight of Spain? They should be storming the walls of Barcelona by now...
There are better walls to storm, if I may suggest some of them.
Haha , I'm sorry , Kurt , but Barcelona must need to be the example to the rest of Europe of how evil the Persian threat is !
Ahhh hubris , so fun to play around with XD
BONUS QUESTION:
This made up Japanese or Chinese character (sloppily written by Madeleine on parchment) is composed of 3 elements. Name at least one of the three elements and what it means. Extra points for the one who names all three.
sorry to bring up the 2 year old quiz, BUT..
1) that's where I am in the story (page 145), and
2) NOONE found out what the third element was! (heart and gate/house were confirmed as the top two)
hmm.. no full match on any 3 or 4 stroke kanji. Madeleine may have been very sloppy, or Renault is a devious cryptographer...
Knowing that Renault invented it to mean "propose marriage", the meaning (bottom to top) should be "knocking on the gates of the heart" or similar: could it be a sloppy variant of kangxi radical 66 ("rap")?
Renault hinting to Madeleine that it is also a hint for finding the timepiece, there must be a second meaning. Reading from top to bottom would give "in the heart of the house of ...rap?", which... um.. obviously is..
if Renault the poet proposed by "planting a rose at the gates of the heart", then the timepiece would be hidden in the house of the Rose
Pretty please, give the answer?
..or will everything be revealed by Madeleine in the story?
The bottom element is radical 34 in the Japanese language, and it's name is Winter. It's the core element of the kanji for winter.sorry to bring up the 2 year old quiz, BUT..
1) that's where I am in the story (page 145), and
2) NOONE found out what the third element was! (heart and gate/house were confirmed as the top two)
hmm.. no full match on any 3 or 4 stroke kanji. Madeleine may have been very sloppy, or Renault is a devious cryptographer...
Knowing that Renault invented it to mean "propose marriage", the meaning (bottom to top) should be "knocking on the gates of the heart" or similar: could it be a sloppy variant of kangxi radical 66 ("rap")?
Renault hinting to Madeleine that it is also a hint for finding the timepiece, there must be a second meaning. Reading from top to bottom would give "in the heart of the house of ...rap?", which... um.. obviously is..
if Renault the poet proposed by "planting a rose at the gates of the heart", then the timepiece would be hidden in the house of the Rose
Pretty please, give the answer?
..or will everything be revealed by Madeleine in the story?
The top element can mean heart, mind, spirit, thought, feeling
The middle element is gate or enclosure
Sooooo.....while I can't find the original citation in the hundreds of pages (!) to get the context in which this was used, possible meanings could be:
- The Spirit of the End of Winter
- The Feeling of the End of Winter
- The Love of Midwinter (winter enclosed equally by days before and after)
- The Wintry Closing of the Heart (to love, affection, etc.)
- The Heart that is Imprisoned in Winter
Just some thoughts! And poor attempts at interpreting non-conventional Chinese characters....
Ahh I'm afraid that's a cornice ahead of where we're heading next XD
sorry to bring up the 2 year old quiz, BUT..
1) that's where I am in the story (page 145), and
2) NOONE found out what the third element was! (heart and gate/house were confirmed as the top two)
hmm.. no full match on any 3 or 4 stroke kanji. Madeleine may have been very sloppy, or Renault is a devious cryptographer...
Knowing that Renault invented it to mean "propose marriage", the meaning (bottom to top) should be "knocking on the gates of the heart" or similar: could it be a sloppy variant of kangxi radical 66 ("rap")?
Renault hinting to Madeleine that it is also a hint for finding the timepiece, there must be a second meaning. Reading from top to bottom would give "in the heart of the house of ...rap?", which... um.. obviously is..
if Renault the poet proposed by "planting a rose at the gates of the heart", then the timepiece would be hidden in the house of the Rose
Pretty please, give the answer?
..or will everything be revealed by Madeleine in the story?
I'll give my explanation in response to Marco's research
The bottom element is radical 34 in the Japanese language, and it's name is Winter. It's the core element of the kanji for winter.
The top element can mean heart, mind, spirit, thought, feeling
The middle element is gate or enclosure
Sooooo.....while I can't find the original citation in the hundreds of pages (!) to get the context in which this was used, possible meanings could be:
- The Spirit of the End of Winter
- The Feeling of the End of Winter
- The Love of Midwinter (winter enclosed equally by days before and after)
- The Wintry Closing of the Heart (to love, affection, etc.)
- The Heart that is Imprisoned in Winter
Just some thoughts! And poor attempts at interpreting non-conventional Chinese characters....
Haha I'm so happy to see interest again in this .
You're close with the interpretation of "Winter" and being radical number 34 . I see the "winter" radical a lot , but during the time of my research , radical 34 also could denote "descend" .
Remember that in order to get into the "Inferno" underneath the Jungle Training School , Madeleine et al realized that there was an enclosed area in the maze of the temple complex . The area enclosed was the cavity you see in the fictional Kanji in the said radical . Thus , "Descend" was a hint as to where the doorway was to get down and one reason how Madeleine figured it out .
Naturally , the radicals themselves don't make up the meaning of characters but rather just give clues as to their origin meaning or pronunciation . Thus , the 'descend' would most likely be Renault's way of denoting a depth of love which marriage would be rather than just something superficial while at the same time providing a clue for our adventurers to find to get down into the Inferno recreation
My spirit is stuck to the pavement?
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy....
Chapter CLVII: Strength/Sloth
12 June 1643 – Somewhere near Oslo
Iñigo slammed the door behind him with a thundering crash that reverberated down the dark rock of the castle hallway. He did not waste a second, but rather kept running down the candlelit corridor with boots tapping against the floor as rapidly as cascading gunshots. His breath quickened as he approached another blackened corner, unsure of what to find on the other side. He held his short sword awkwardly out ahead of him as soon as he turned to his left.
That was when the chill hit him. Like a night's cold condensing into a biting chill along his sweaty back. He turned quickly, holding up his weapon and stopping his breath in anticipation of whatever it was on the other side of the half-lit gap of the corridor. He clutched his weapon with sweaty palms, trembling as if his joints ached of old age. He bit his lip: the figure ahead of him nearly knocked him over just by her presence.
Her face looked at him with a giggle etched on its pale complexion as if the moon had come to earth and was making jokes about him but there was a regal and brooding darkness around her eyes like an Egyptian goddess. She was dressed in an obsidian garb like an apron which contrasted with the snowy brilliance of her skin. The shadow cast behind her was almost like another person in itself, looming deathly behind the hushed glow of mute candlelight flickering a colourless illumination along the sides of the wall. Iñigo felt cold just looking at her... even more so as she slowly approached him.
“You've done enough, Iñigo,” she spoke to him softly, as if she was talking to him from under the earth. “It's alright now... you can rest,” she coaxed him.
“Rest?” he asked as he felt the coldness intensify, his hand slowly losing its grip on his weapon. “But...” he tried to say.
She just smiled at him, a smile that caught his breath. The cold had intensified until it was similar to one of those moments when a freeze felt like a burning hotness. He felt like his skin would crack when the coldness moved further to envelope him.
“Iñigo!” someone yelled out suddenly from behind the wispy figure. “I told you to keep running!” the voice returned before it finally caught the attention of the ethereal woman. “Back you siren!” could be heard, and Iñigo, quickened by the familiar voice of Belmont, recoiled from the now terrifying image in front of him.
The young woman whom he first beheld seemed almost suddenly to stiffen into the figure of an old crone. The strange clothes had now become the blackened, molding, and festering flesh dripping on the floor. The stink nearly made Iñigo vomit, but the apparition completely disappeared only a second later and was replaced by the familiar figures of the company rushing to his side.
“Are you alright?” Lope asked quickly as he held Iñigo up by his arms.
Iñigo could only nod desperately as he looked at the worried stare of his adoptive father. “Yes...” he said quietly.
“I told you to keep running,” Lope reiterated to him, almost scolding him.
“Who was that?” Iñigo asked, still cold.
“A Siren... leading men to crash against rocks instead of sailing home...” Belmont responded mysteriously as he looked about the corridor anxiously.
“A Witch more like it,” Amatallah corrected the Swiss man cynically. “What you saw was a projection of the ruler of this place... the leader of all these minions of the night.”
“But she looked... she looked like the girl we saw earlier--”
“Lilith has many forms granted to her,” Amatallah explained right next to Iñigo with eyes as wide as planets. “Some more pleasing than others... that is why even the most saintly end up paying tribute to this Queen...”
---
The chamber was circular, like a tube which had a great lamp hanging above the centre. Matthijs noticed the round wall which circumscribed the room to be reflecting the light above in fragmented sparkles while the floor below had a star inscribed upon it. At the center of the room stood Matthijs, still heaving as the heavy sword in his hand pulled him down closer to the floor with its weight. Blood filled the center of the star as bodies, attempting to claw their way out of the circular chamber lay dead in sickly poses of their last attempts at escape.
“You're learning,” a voice suddenly trickled into the room like the blood pattering from the sword to the marble-like floor. “Use that strength, Matthijs... cut all the people in this world who should not exist...”
Matthijs looked angrily and severely at the figures he had slain. A strange man in royal garb with a red beard was dead in one corner, so was a boy that had bullied him years ago when he was younger. Prince and pauper were bleeding all over the star-inscribed ground. The soft trickle of blood was joined by the mingling of his tears flowing from his cheek as they leaped onto the floor. The sword dropped from his hands and his body slipped on the blood...
“Is this... real?” Matthijs asked as he felt himself floating once again, “or is this some fantastical illusion?”
A boy's voice seemed to respond to him, but more like a whisper in his mind: it was not anything substantial: You've always been flooded away by the reality that you're trying to forget—that you can't escape, the voice would say. Open your eyes, it commanded.
Matthijs's lids fluttered open, adjusting suddenly to the immense brightness that was coming from above him as he lay flat on some sheen of air. He turned his head curiously and could see, at the eastern edge of his vision, a horizon between the blinding light above and the blackness below as if some vast abyss was at his back. He was about to say something when the voice spoke to him again: Look up to the sky and see...
He adhered to that command and turned his eyes once more to the vast light above him. He felt a sudden pain in his throat, forcing the words out of him: “אלהים"
---
13 June 1643 – Dunkirk
Turenne watched the anxious commanders surrounding his table. All, according to the custom he instituted under his command, remained silent and alert, only deigning to look down at the map laid out before them in nervous bursts of curiosity. The briefing had been short: as was Turenne's style, but even he could sense that these colonels and generals were unsteady under his leadership: that they were worried of the Prince's condition and of the outcome of the upcoming battle. Only that foolhardy and disorganized Dieter seemed to scoff at the odds.
Turenne cleared his throat and put one of his gloves down onto the table. “Gentlemen, although I may be a Frenchman,” he started, “I know full well the importance of the Dutch cause.” He was not unused to giving speeches: but embellishment was the style of the baroque. He was more interested in results, so he tried to cut to the chase succinctly.
“Know that with me, where those commanders before me have failed, I will make right. Although I am a foreigner, I have suffered under the same Imperial yoke as you.” He paused there, as some of the commanders in the tent slowly turned their eyes attentively to him. “I have paid my taxes to Spain—time after time. I've suffered her judgments although I've committed no crime but be a Protestant. It's true that I too have made bad mistakes: yes I have made a few. I've had my share of those dune's outside blowing dust in my face, but I've come through. We will be the champions, my friends, and we will keep on fighting until the very end.”
The officers looked at Turenne questioningly, but their lips quivered with sudden confidence. It was not every day that such a spartan commander as the Vicomte would indulge them with inspirational words, but they found such a concession strangely effective.
“There will be no time for those failures here today,” Turenne's regular rigid discipline returned, “Because today, we will not just be the champions of these blasted Dunes, but the whole world.”
---
The slow howl of the evening wind disturbed the casual interview between Enghien and his commanders. Enghien quietly watched the men talking through the corners of his eyes. Melo, ironically, was quiet. The young Van Der Kooi was speaking on behalf of his master Schenkhuizen finalizing the attack plan for the next day.
“Satisfactory?” Kevin finally addressed Enghien. Melo consciously smarted at the deferred authority though no one paid attention.
“Workable,” Enghien replied. “Everyone should get some sleep before we arrive tomorrow.”
There were nods and the shuffle of boots against grass as men exited the tent. Kevin approached Enghien with a temperate smile. “I'm impressed with the plan and the formation: this army is barely what I remember of it back in Rocroi.”
Enghien nodded, almost gravely. “This part of the war will end soon enough,” Enghien said to him in return.
“Hopefully,” Kevin replied enthusiastically, “I have a wife to get home to. Your Grace is also married, yes?”
Enghien suffered a small, grinning huff from the corner of his mouth before transitioning it into a calm smile. “Yes,” was the answer. Kevin smiled himself, almost instinctively.
“Sir,” someone interrupted the conversation from the entrance of the tent, “Your guard has been formed as you requested, sir,” the lieutenant informed the General.
“Very well,” Enghien replied as he excused himself from Kevin's stare.
“What do you call them?” Kevin interjected as Enghien was beginning to move towards the portal.
“Who?” Enghien paused halfway.
“The little private army you brought along with you,” Kevin clarified with a grin. “My master calls the veterans that have followed him here his Biscuit Eaters: I was wondering if you named yours, too.”
Enghien turned halfway, just enough to see the quirky smile on Kevin's face before turning off without responding into the night air where his guard of nearly a hundred men snapped to salute him. He paced cautiously from one end of the line to the other, inspecting each man. Even Kevin, curious enough at that hour, exited the tent to watch the small event.
“There have been those back home in France who believed that I have risen to this rank because of my father,” Enghien began. “There are those who believed that because I am a nobleman of high birth, I have been given a privilege few men have. True. But who is a commander without his force of men. It's true: I've taken my bows and my curtain calls in this theatre of warfare. But it is you all who have brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. So I thank you all. But it has not some bed of roses or was it a pleasant cruise down the Siene.” There was some laughter in the crowd. Enghien himself cracked a grin as well as he raised his voice. “I consider this all a challenge before the whole human race, and I will not lose!” There were three triumphant, gutteral howls from each man in file which echoed down the rest of the camp.
---
1986 – El Salvador
When Nia woke up, her legs shifted slowly in her bed. The feeling of those cool sheets was returning to her. As her vision focused, she could see in the azure moonlight the shadowy hair of Antonio at the other side of the room. He was sitting on a chair with his head lowered and his forearms connecting with his knees. She pulled herself up so that her back rested against the headboard of her bed. Her arms reached up across the front of her body, warming her in the serene coolness of the mountainside at night which was seeping in through the still open balcony doorway. “I was expecting you to be halfway to San Salvador by now,” she said with parched lips getting used to movement again.
There was no answer from the other side of the room, just the same tired head hanging from depressed shoulders. Antonio himself had been there for hours. There was a freezing immobility that hanged him onto the chair until his body was used to that death-like position. There was nothing in his hands and for the first few hours of waiting, he had merely looked at his palms. He followed the lines on his skin quietly, contemplating those worn and calloused fingers.
He had tried to think about what he had seen. The papers themselves he had, almost beside himself, placed back into the drawer. Even the box that he had come to attain was returned to its place inside the wooden enclosure. The photographs were randomly picked up and dropped back into the dresser as well. As he hung his head during those hours when the sun moved to the other side of the world, his still eyes just kept watching his palms even as they slowly changed hue from the evening red to midnight blue.
It was probably two in the morning when Nia woke up and started to speak to him again. Antonio's stone-like posture was disturbed only by a soft inhale which, on its way out, translated to: “I need... answers.” The statement itself was strangely surreal as if the man was half asleep as he said it. The friction of a dream paced the words.
“I thought what you needed was that box,” Nia retorted, although her coy smirk evoked no movement from the man on the chair. “Especially since you used assassin grade poison this time. Tasteless, odorless, colourless: something only the Room authorized. What was it this time? Iocane? Fex-M3?”
“Apotoxin 4869,” was the response from the other side. It was like Antonio was revealing answers in hypnosis.
“APTX?” Nia grinned, “that one has nasty side effects to it... cellular regression--”
“It doesn't matter: it's not like you were afraid of it,” Antonio cut in. “You've spent the last few years building up an immunity to Iocane, you had surgery to alter your BBB to be energy-neutral so that no one could use thermal mapping to tell if you're lying so Fex-M3 would have been ineffective and APTX only causes death if you were under twelve years old... You wanted me to see those files.”
“It was insurance,” Nia replied.
“No,” Antonio responded while still facing the ground. His voice, however, grew firmer. “It just means they're fake.”
“If they were fake, then why are you still here?” she fired back quickly. There was silence once more from the shadowy figure across the room. “You just have to make sure, don't you?” Nia teased him as she stretched in her bed, relaxing just a little bit. There was still no answer from the other side. “I know what you're thinking: why would I go so 'low' as to fabricate such a thing. Faking the evidence doesn't make any sense, does it?”
“It makes more sense than... than that.”
“Does it? Do you really think the world is as black and white as your Room wants to believe? You can't be that naïve...”
“I'm not naïve,” was Antonio's only response. His insecurity wafted through the air like a dead man's sigh.
“You're just a romantic,” Nia appended with an intense grin. “Fine. Do you really want me to break you? Do you really want to see the proof?”
“If it's more pictures--”
“No,” Nia said quickly as she slipped the blanket off of her skin, “No more pictures. I'll show you the real thing.” The bold proclamation moved Antonio's gaze higher to meet hers. “If you really want to find out the truth, then I'll show you first hand.”
“Just stop...” Antonio said, lowering his head sharply as if to duck.
Nia slipped out of the bed slowly and widened her smile. “Don't stop me now,” she said mocking a tone of admonishment, “and yes, if you were wondering I am having a good time. I don't want to stop at all...”
Interlude
“We can't stop them,” one of the lieutenants complained to DeWitt as they huddled up against the side wall. “They're already through G block and moving into Epsilon unit. It's not just them, but we've got... Wolves.”
“Move your unit to the fifteenth emergency elevator,” DeWitt commanded, “we'll rendezvous there after I retrieve the Timepiece. We'll evac into the sub-pen...”
“Understood,” the lieutenant nodded as he motioned for his team to file down one of the corridors before joining them.
DeWitt quickly turned to Rodrigo who was tendering a small pistol, making sure that the safety was securely disabled. “Are you sure you want to come with me? I can't guarantee--”
“If I'm ever going to take over for my father... I need to be able to do this,” Rodrigo replied quickly. “We don't have much time.”
DeWitt nodded before moving into a hallway that ramped downwards. It took them a few minutes to reach the main access partition. Turning down one of the side passages there, they took a stairwell down onto one of the lower levels before passing through a now empty security checkpoint. Once they reached one of the junctions, the Captain motioned for Rodrigo to stop.
Captain DeWitt listened in to the hallway ahead of them before walking warily down the passage only pausing at a doorway to his left. The lighting was disabled in the area so he pulled his goggles down. For a moment, there was no sound but the sound of his boots. He gripped his Aug A-1, ready, before stopping and pulling back to where Rodrigo was standing.
“What's wrong?” Rodrigo whispered quietly.
“An engineering team—not one of ours... They must have gotten this far down when the MAGI linkup room was compromised... We will need to pass them before we can get to the Terminal...”
“I... understand,” Rodrigo replied anxiously.
“Stay at the end of the corridor and only shoot if you can get a clear shot... I'll try and flank them from the side doorway.” Rodrigo nodded as stiffly as he could. DeWitt looked at him and exhaled slowly. “Are you ready?” he asked calmly, “Are you ready for this?”
“I'm already at the edge of my seat, Captain... asking me isn't going to make it any better... let's just do this.”
DeWitt couldn't help but smile. He took a moment longer to prepare himself before he vaulted to the doorway and let the bullets rip.
Chapter CLVIII: Another One Bites the Dust (Battle of the Dunes) (coming soon)