Meeting the Enemy, Part 2

Continued from this post.

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It was surprising, how normal the interior that building looked. Walked out of the maintenance room, and found ourselves in a bland looking hallway, same as you’d find in any generic office building.

330 led the way down the hall. Wasn’t anyone else around; in hindsight, I should have been wondering about that. First room we reached was a cafeteria. Again, no people. Trays with half eaten meals were still on the tables, and suitcases were left scattered on the ground, but apart from that… emptiness. 330 inspected the food on one of the trays.

“Still warm,” she said, “they couldn’t have left that long ago.”

We left the cafeteria, and continued to walk through the halls. Still no one. There was a large open space filled with cubicles, but each was empty. Most of the computers had been left on; 330 quickly scrolled through what was on the screen of one, but didn’t appear interested in the contents.
“Nothing here. Keep moving.”

Followed her up the stairwell. Initially thought we were just going up to the next story, but 330 kept going up, and up, and up….. I was panting by the time we reached the very top. Hasn’t she heard of elevators?

No cubicles there on the top floor. This was a place of office suites. Or rather, one very large office suite. The kind you expect to see evil corporate overlords and wealthy mob bosses plotting in. Huge windows with the view of a forest covering an entire wall, priceless looking paintings on the elaborately wallpapered walls, and a largw wooden desk predominating in the center. A laptop, screen facing us, was lying on top of the desk. On it was a middle aged man with slicked back blond hair.

“Hello, I-330. Take a seat.” The man on the screen said. 330 slowly sat down in a chair by the desk. I looked around the room, but there weren’t any other seats, so I kept standing.

“You were expecting us.” 330 said.
“Well, yes, of course. You honestly believe we wouldn’t be monitoring a tunnel leading into this building?”
“Stills seems a bit unorthodox way to greet me. If you knew we were coming, you could have just had guards waiting for us when we came out.”
“Yes, but I wanted a chance to speak with the Great I-330 before her death. I’ve read quite a lot about you. Do you realize how large a file we had on you? When I took over this organization, I found that my predecessor had left five whole cabinets filled with details on your activities. It was quite the fascinating read, even though most has likely been horrendously exaggerated. I mean,” he held up a manila envelope, “a fist fight with the Archangel in Nazi occupied Poland? Really? This reads like one of those horrendously written blogs that have been popping up ever since someone had a security leak. I’d begun to think that my predecessors had just been labeling anything they couldn’t explain as ‘I-330 did it,’ at least, until you actually showed up in the flesh and wiped out three of my kill squads. I’m still a bit sore about that, you know. Good kill squads are surprisingly difficult to come by.”

“You’re the one who sent those people to kill us!” That was me. The man glared at me, and I quickly shut up.

He returned his attention to 330. “I should introduce myself. My name is Lupine Wonse. I took over the CIA’s Paranormal Control branch after the discharge of Jacob Marchetti. I feel you should know that things have changed since Marchetti’s joke of a reign. While he may have been content to let someone like you run around unchecked, I personally feel that there is only one proper response for us when we find an apparently ageless humanoid who has shown itself to be hostile to our plans.”

The door was thrown open, and a dozen men with guns stormed inside the room, leveling the guns at 330 and me. She didn’t move from her chair.

“You have no idea who the hell you’re fucking with, do you?” She said.
“I believe, in a few moments, it won’t matter. Gentlemen, you may fire.”

I closed my eyes, expecting to be shot… but nothing happened. Opened them, and saw the men looking as confused as I was.

“Next time you send people to kill me,” 330 said as she stood from her chair, “make sure to give them guns with firing pins in them, ‘kay?” She opened her coat and several small pieces of metal fell out.

“How the hell did you-“ Lupine began, but 330 cut him off.
“No time for explanations! Come, Lisa!” She wrapped her arm around mine. “Let us be off!”

We walked, casually, as if in a friggin’ park or something, past the armed men who just stared at us with faces of utter confusion likely matching my own. Once the two of us reached the stairwell, 330 paused.

“Alright. Now…. We run.”
“What?”
“RUN!”

Still holding my arm, she dragged me back down the stairs. Halfway to the bottom, I heard what I thought sounded like a fire alarm going off. Once we were at the bottom, and had left the stairwell, I saw that, yes, it was the fire alarm, and all the sprinklers on the floor were going off. There was another group of those soldiers on that floor as well, but they looked caught off guard by the sudden rain, and didn’t notice either 330 or me until we were already running past them. Before they could shoot us, the lights went out. I heard gunfire, but nothing came near us.

In a pitch black building, completely blind to where I was going except for 330 pulling me along, bullets flying around the place, water soaking me, I’m scared out of my mind, panicking more than I ever think I have before, and 330 was laughing the entire time.

The lights came back on as the front entrance was coming into sight. Cannot describe how happy I was to see it. Before we could reach it, a soldier stepped in front of us and aimed his gun towards us. Then… and I swear, this is what actually happened… another 330 jumped out of nowhere and punched the man in the face. This… double or something then picked up his gun, pointed at it, and shouted, “See?” at me. Then she was gone.

I thought I was dreaming. I thought I’d gone crazy. I don’t know what I was thinking, except that there was no way what I’d just seen happen had actually happened. I had an overpowering urge to stand where I was with my jaw on the floor, but 330 (the one who had been pulling me along, not the fucking appearing and vanishing other one) pulled me out the door and why was our car right by the door to this building?

Got in, 330 slammed on the gas pedal, and we sped away. Now, at last, I had to ask the question that had been pricking at my mind the entire time.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?”

330 glanced at me, and sighed. “Dammit Lisa, I was hoping you’d have figured this out by now! I’m a time traveler!”

….What?

“I thought it was obvious! I mean, come on, the whole Doctor Who thing should have been a big enough hint!”

What.

“I know that Peter showed you his photo album, that should have been another hint!”

WHAT.

“Have you even been reading my posts on the blog? Or what about that one post at the very start of the blog? You know, the one which is as explicitly about time travel as you can get without actually saying time travel?”

WHAT.

“Look, I’ll just show you.”

She pulled over, and got out of the car.
“Observe.”
Then she was gone. No flashy lights, no sound effects, just one moment where 330 was standing next to the car, and then another moment where she wasn’t. She reappeared a few seconds later, holding a gun.
“Ta-da. One M16A4, courtesy of that dude who tried to stop us by the exit. Now do you believe me?”

No idea how I answered. Or if I even did answer. All I remember is a feeling like my brain had melted.

Then it’s a bit of a blur after that, with 330 driving and me trying to gather my thoughts. Didn’t notice anything around me, until I heard the car radio saying,
“Police are investigating reports of gunshots at the residence of Jacob Marchetti, in….”

Thought the car was going to flip over, the way 330 slammed on the brakes and turned it around. I’d thought she’d been driving fast before. That was nothing compared to how fast she was taking it then. I didn’t even dare look at the speedometer; all I knew was that everything was blurring around us and that we were breaking probably every single traffic law in existence.

Jacob’s house was surrounded by police when we arrived. 330 jumped out of the car before waiting for it to stop, and started to run towards it. She stopped when we saw two body bags being carried out on stretchers.

A man in a suit and sunglasses had been standing at the edges of the police line. He walked over to us, and said, “Mr. Wonse hopes you take his message to heart. He-“

Don’t know what else the man was going to say, because 330 and I had to run away pretty quick. Turns out, the police don’t like it when a girl punches a government man in the face so hard his teeth fly out right in front of them.

-Lisa