The Drive

“The Drive, Jack, where is it?” came the mechanical growl of Solomon as the armour plated man landed another heavy blow in Plisken’s sides, the frail old man barely staying alive as he swung from a set of chains that suspended him from the ceiling.
Plisken spat on the ground, the floor a bed for a mix of blood and sweat, and looked Solomon in the eye. “I told you, I lost it.”
“Are you expecting me to believe that you ‘lost’ one of the most important and powerful devices in history? No, no,” Solomon replied, giving Plisken another punch to the stomach, Plisken recoiling violently.
“And I told you,” wheezed Plisken, “Don’t call me Jack.”
“Why?” asked Solomon as he began to pace the room, letting his cybernetically enhanced arms rest for while before the onslaught recommenced. “Is it because it bears too many horrors of your past, Jack?” Plisken tried to form a sentence but his mind was addled by pain and exhaustion, barely able to keep him conscious. “About how our home was lost?” Solomon said, accenting his words with another punch, this time in Plisken’s back.
“You- you are making a mistake, Sol,” whispered Plisken as his breath tumbled through words, “There shouldn’t be more of us.”
“But we are not making more of us, Jack,” Josef whispered from the shadows, his small white dots of eyes watching intently as Solomon beat Plisken to a red stain.
“What then? I saw the tank, quite familiar technology.”
“Yes, your meeting with Species 229, or the Monee Frogks as you called them, was not… planed…”
“We needed someone to test our technology without gaining suspicion from Greyman, and 229 seemed like the perfect subjects,” Solomon said, standing face to face with Plisken, his green glows piercing Plisken’s grey eye.
Plisken raised his head, attempting to say something. “Do – do- Do cyborgs need food?”
“What?” asked Solomon and Josef simultaneously
“You see,” explained Plisken, “I pretty sure they don’t.”
“It depends on the cyborg, whether the cybernetics have removed the muscles or are directly supporting them,” Josef said and the trio almost completely forgot where they were, transported back to their childhood, on the rainy streets of November City-Josef with his messy mop of light brown hair, Solomon with his freckled face and Plisken with his green scarf.
“So not all cyborgs need food?” asked Solomon.
“They will need support of some kind, though that can be as simple as charging fuel cells,” Josef expanded, his words hissing from his mouth but without the sense of malice and deviancy before, “But more often than not, cyborgs still require some form of substance, be that proper food or simple nutrient paste.”
“I see,” said Plisken, his eye wandering to the sky, thinking, “So, if I were to transport 500 to a ship with a supply deficiency, would that be bad?”
“How exactly would you transport 500 of them anyway?” asked Solomon.
“Simple mass blanket teleportation script that locks onto targets within parameters,” Josef explained again, clearly his knowledge had expanded beyond that of his designation in medical science, “A network would be needed for planet wide teleportation, something that produces the same wavelengths and frequencies across the globe.”
“Where would -?” began Solomon, this clearly beyond him, and Plisken only just grasping it despite the fact he had done it a mere day or two ago, but was interrupted by the entrance of a new face, destroying the childlike relapse and the sullen and dark sense of adulthood, and a terrifyingly dark and violent adulthood, was restored.
“Found it yet?” asked Emily, the dull light catching the shaven sides of her head and illuminating her tattoos.
“We are getting there,” said Solomon, hurriedly standing up from the wall he had been casually leaning on.
Emily wrinkled her nose as the foul stench of torture entered her nostrils. “Well, we need it if we are going to be able to do this. Greyman must be stopped before it is too late,” Emily said, her eyes lingering on Plisken for her final words, their soft glow bearing down on Plisken’s remaining eye.
“Delete the AI,” ordered Emily, taking control over the situation, “Unless he decides to talk.”
“Hey-“ began Solomon, stepping up to try and take control over the situation again. Josef shrank back into the shadows, his keen eyes watching and waiting to see who would win.
“Emily,” Plisken said, interrupting Solomon, “Why are you doing this?”
“Because, Jack, because it is too dangerous to let Greyman find you.”
“So you plan to destroy him? Is that it? Is that your plan?”
Emily’s eyes lingered with Plisken for a short while before she snapped them back to focus of the situation. “Delete the AI.”
“No, damn it Emily, not GARNET!” Plisken growled from his chains. Josef, sticking to the sanctuary provided by the shadows cast by the dim light, floated over to the control panel mounted on the wall, his movements light and quick. His thin gloved fingers danced over the keys and the display blurted a selection of colours, none of which Plisken’s could make out, though they defiantly showed a deletion process, he knew that much.
“Dan?” came a gritty and distorted voice from the panel.
“Oh, she calls you Dan, does she?” mocked Emily.
“Garnet?” called Plisken into the air.
“Don’t give in, Dan,” said Garnet, her voice broken and layered with static, “I’d rather die than let these bast-“ The voice went dead.
Emily leaned in to Plisken, her face not far from the old man’s nose and her breath tickled his grey beard. “Do you want to know who else we can make disappear from here?” she whispered, though her words retained an edge that cut into Plisken’s mind, “How many more that will die before you tell us where the Time Drive is?”
Plisken kept his stern gaze on Emily, his face deadly serious and the wait of many lives rested heavily on his shoulders. And then he burst into laughter. “I actually have no idea were it is! It might be on Alex’s new ship for all I know. Hell, maybe the STCP came and took it from me, what with Time Travel being the only within the purview of certain influential peoples.”
“God damn it, Jack, do you know what we are trying to do here? We are trying to save people here!”
“Well GOD DAMNIT MAYBE THAT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN!” Plisken cried.
Solomon and Josef looked on from the side lines as Emily and Plisken entered another contest of steel, each refusing to break gaze first.
“Where. Is. It. Jack?” Emily said through gritted teeth as she drew a small blade from a sheath on her thigh.
“Strawberry Fields?” She pushed the blade into Plisken’s naked torso a little, a bead of blood running down the cool metal. His expression faltered slightly but he kept it up. “Penny Lane?” Emily pushed the blade in a little deeper, the side of Plisken’s chest beginning to burn like a bad memory. “Did I leave it with the Fool on the Hill? Maybe the Magical Mystery Tour can ge-“ The blade plunged hilt deep in the old man’s frame, his breath punched from his lungs. Emily stood there, her hand grasped around the knife and her glowing eyes showing no remorse.
“So…” said Plisken though the pain, barely able to raise his head, “What do you call yourselves?”
“We are Time With No Boundaries,” Solomon said proudly, striding forward.
“It was his idea,” Emily whispered.
“I can tell,” Plisken whispered back, the old friendship briefly resurfacing again.
Emily pulled the knife from the Plisken, a gush of blood pouring from the wound. <OOC – I guess that’s how knife wounds work?>
“Get the Medi-Droids in here,” Emily ordered, “Clean this old man up.”