Something Anomalous

Once at the small privately owned field that also doubled as an airstrip, they ditched the much-damaged Hilux beneath a tree so it wouldn’t be easily seen from above. Ed hadn’t ever thought that he would be returning to North Africa, and even less so that his stay wouldn’t last longer than a few days though he was glad that he would be leaving sooner rather than later. The last thing he needed was his past to come and bite him in the ass, again.

            Jandre had been waiting for them a few feet away from his small four-man airplane, which he had told Ed all about once a few years back though Ed could not for the love of him and everything he held dear remember what it was called. He helped them load the bit of things that they had brought along, including their various weapons – something Jandre had only looked at skeptically, but hadn’t said a word about. He also mentioned in passing that he would have lost his license had the authorities found out what he was doing below the radar.

            “They feel strange,” Elizabeth said once they were in the air. Ed had been holding one of his arrows, looking at it thoughtfully. He knew that Elizabeth didn’t mean the feeling of the crystallite substance that he had managed to attached and fuse together with the compound material of the arrows, but rather that it really did feel…eerie in a way. As if the frequency of the crystal seemed to be altering.

            Having used the crystallite for a while now, Ed had grown used to the properties of the arrows. Just as the crystal had embedded itself into the arrow, a part of him also embedded itself in the crystal – something fancy the Red Arrow had spoken of back in the day. Ian wouldn’t have liked that particular discussion much at the time, but he knew that Ian would eventually come to respect Ed’s choices.

            “So what’s the actual destination?” Jandre asked, first speaking in Afrikaans, but after he got no reply from either Safu or Liz, asked the question again in English. Safu looked at Ed, who still lay back, looking at the arrow he held in his hands, and turned his attention to the girl.

            “Rome, Vatican City.”

            “I will be dead long before they take my license away,” mumbled Jandre as he adjusted a bunch of dials and wrote something down on his kneeboard. “Something’s wrong.”

            “Don’t say that now,” Ed said, sitting up and leaning forward. It was then that Liz noticed he hadn’t worn his headset fully, which could have been why it seemed that Ed had ignored them all this time.

            “What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked, also leaning forward. Safu merely sat in silence, trying his best to occupy the girl.

            “I don’t know. I’m losing altitude…”

            “So pull up!”

            “I can’t, hold on!”

            They hadn’t reached a high enough altitude for the plane to make it over much of Cairo. Jandre pulled away which caused the plane to swerve quite fast in the opposite direction of the oncoming group of travelers and their camels on a dune right outside of the Egyptian city.

            “Wait, it’s all fixed now.”

            “What, all of a sudden?” Ed replied, falling back in his seat and wiping his hand through his hair.

            “Seems like it…” Jandre said, relief clear in his voice.

            It was then that Ed had realized that the arrow he was holding had lost its eerie feeling. Ed immediately thought of how a notification would pop up on his phone’s status-bar, temporarily disrupting him from whatever he was doing on the device, then how it would go away and be stored in the notification center for later viewing.

They arrived on Jandre’s privately owned farm a few kilometers from the city of Rome in the early morning of the following day. Jandre had offered to get them settled at first, but Ed insisted that they move out to the stronghold as soon as possible – Safu agreed.

            Jandre took them into the City and as close to the Vatican as possible, then greeted and drove back. The Vatican, being only about 1 Kilometre in length, had little space for vehicular transport and would take them longer to get to their destination than on foot anyway.

            “Welcome to Stronghold Romulus,” Ed announced as he used a large rustic key to open a huge door which they had to walk through The Apostolic Palace – Something Elizabeth loved - to get to. The Mansion was located somewhere below St. Peter’s Square, which is why the Others had such a hard time looking for it in the past. The only reason they had managed to get past some of the Vatican Guard was because Ed still had his Vatican credentials, stored in the form of a tattoo on the inside of his right bicep – something only high-ranking officials had done back in the day.

            “It’s rather homey,” Elizabeth said as she inspected the inside. A number of small rectangular holes lined the upper corners of the Stronghold so that fresh air and light could come in. The noise of the tourists’ footsteps and banter had been completely drowned out. Except for the Vatican bell that had just rung, the Stronghold seemed like a dead building.

            “Welcome back, Commander,” came a voice from an unknown location as Ed put his hand on one of the ancient books that lined the walls.

            Safu paid it no mind as he tried to find a comfortable spot for the girl, who was fast asleep in his arms. Elizabeth let out a slight squeak and moved closer to Ed, which he found hilarious.

            “CNet. Alive and well?”

            “Running at optimum performance as always.”

            At the last word, CNet seemed to stutter slightly, which was expected, having nothing but a single generator to work off of for about eight years.

            “How is the reserves?”

            “Reserves are well looked after,” –another stutter- “Detecting anomalous entities hall I dispose of,” –yet another stutter- “anomalous presences?”

            Ed’s eyes shot wide open as he realized CNet was releasing gas from the corners of the room, even before he had given any order. “Get down! Safu?”

            Safu had already covered the girl’s face and got down on the floor. Ed then turned his attention back to Liz, who had been rolled up against one of the massive pillars in the room. Ed then rolled into another room, which had been completely emptied out, stood up and sprinted toward the end of the room which looked like it had once been a massive dining room. He felt underneath the fireplace’s wooden bar and flicked an old iron switch. When nothing happened, he pressed it again while swearing under his breath. He could smell the gas reaching him already.

            “Open up, damn it!” He yelled as he ran toward the opposite wall and pressed against it. The wall gave way and shifted slightly, leaving a small gap for Ed to go through. He had reached the generator, which was practically running on fumes, and attempted to shut it down. After nothing happened, Ed pulled out his firearm, stood as close to the gap in the wall as he could and fired as many times as he could before pulling himself out to the other side. A small shock could be felt running through the floor and dark smoke came from the room right before the wall shifted back into place, making it seem as if nothing had ever been opened there.

            Ed got up from the floor and ran back to the others, where all three of them were as safe as can be, after almost being paralyzed. He helped them up and spent the next few hours having them settle in in any of the rooms that place had to offer. He then went back to the generator and started on fixing it up – this time having gotten one of the failsafe VI’s from the armory to replace the destroyed CNet core with. The VI had given a bit of trouble at first, again in conjunction with Ed’s arrows that suddenly made him feel weirded out, but returned to normal in a few seconds.