No Romance Chapter 14

Chapter 14, “Respawn”

            So it’s a good thing their lives are perfectly and always in the hands of the gods, the only beings truly powerful enough to both give and take life. Or rather, to allow life to be both given and taken.
            Jack and Annie were thrust back into the moment the motorcycle turned off the road. Both were a little confused.
            “What happened? WHAT JUST HAPPENED?” Annie yelled in a remarkably low voice, more characteristic of her anger than her fear.
            Jack had no time to think of how to respond; the motorcycle was again speeding over the bumpy terrain, heading straight for the cliff. Once he regained control of the motorcycle, as well as an awareness of his surroundings, he told Annie what was on his mind.
            “It’s a respawn,” he said over his shoulder, just barely loud enough for Annie to hear. “I’ve never experienced it, but I’ve heard of it. We have another chance.”
            “What are we supposed to do different?” she yelled (way too loudly, in comparison) in his ear.
            “I DON’T KNOW!” he shouted back.
            The gorge was getting nearer and nearer, a crack in the earth that seemed to delve all the way down into hell, but was really just a gaping maw in the earth. But this time something new caught Jack’s eye. It may not really have been new, but it was new to Jack: a long green tendril hanging down from a tree branch. Jack prepared to make the leap over the gorge again, only this time ready to break away from the motorcycle.
            “You’d better hang on, honey!” he yelled as the motorcycle left solid ground.
            Annie tightened her grip around Jack’s middle as Jack reached out to the dangling vine---only to find that it was not a vine, but a snake.
            It fell with them, finding the time to lash out at Jack’s face as together they all plummeted into the gorge again.
            And they respawned back where they were before. At the turn-off. Gorge in sight.
            This time Jack wasn’t afraid. He was angry. And Angry Jack was not a quick thinker. Rage propelled him to accelerate towards the gorge, Annie’s screams rising impressively in pitch, but this time with words, though words so high-pitched they can’t really be understood, let alone transcribed.

At the last second Jack skidded to a stop, spinning the back half of the motorcycle around until he faced the oncoming jeep.

            Jack stood on the bike, raised Wrench to arm’s height, and aimed carefully. Then he fired.
            Another click!
            “Out of ammo? AGAIN?”
            He threw the gun at the jeep as he saw a flower of flames spurt from the machine gun, then immediately got sucked back.
            On the bike again, making the turn. This time he wasn’t worried about anything else, not the gorge, not the machine gun, not even Annie. He needed find the answer.

“What’s the problem? What’s the problem here?” he said, repeating the question to himself. “What do I need to fix, where do I need to go? Damb it, I can hardly think. I feel like something is pressing down on me closing converging clamping down on me I can’t think what is going I FOUND IT, DAMB IT, I FOUND IT.”

            Like before he skidded to a stop, but didn’t bring out his gun at all this time.
            “Annie. Give me the jacket,” he said in a quick but soft voice.
            She gasped a little “oh!” and shed the jacket immediately. He managed to get his arms through it just as the pursuer fired the machine gun again. Nothing hit home, and it was not due to the bumpiness. Noting hit home from the machine gun, anyway.
            Wrench, now that Jack was wearing the jacket, discharged three bullets in three seconds. One hit the right front tire of the jeep. One hit the left front tire of the jeep. One---

---

Mortimer never solved the Case of the Hero and the Faux Assassin, as it would come to later be called by the gods of detective fiction. (They’ve compiled a HUGE compendium of cases.) But he was able to solve a different mystery. The one that had been so much greater, so much grander, the one that pecks at every living, thinking, self-questioning soul.

            Mortimer died that day, that morning. A single bullet from the hero’s gun pierced his spine, paralyzing him from the neck down for the last few seconds of his life. But as the jeep careened over the gorge’s edge, Mortimer smiled to himself. Giddily.
            I’m really going to know now, he said as he fell into his doom. The greatest mystery of them all. What a good day this has turned out to be.

---

As the jeep came at them, Jack maneuvered the motorcycle into and through the trees, as motorcycles were capable of doing. They found their way back to the road, noted the cables still lining one side, and continued on their journey.

Once more Annie clutched Jack’s middle as they rode on the motorcycle, the wind passing through their hair and drying off all the sweat they had accumulated over the past hour.  Annie was still upset, though silent about it. It took her awhile to make sense of it all. She had just experienced some weird and traumatic things, as I’m sure you understand. She was about to open her mouth to yell some snappy retort to Jack’s silence when they heard a crackle from the motorcycle’s radio, and then a gruff raspy voice.

            “Moon Base to lowly shuttle mechanics: I have awakened from my winter’s nap, and I now sound the retreat. We are canceling the Windswept Colony experiment and are calling all personnel home. Repeat, all personnel at the Windswept Colony, return to Moon Base. And if you happen to find Crewman North, please bring him home. He hasn’t been seen in a couple of days. SCRAMBLE, kkkhh. Message to Shuttle Crewman Blake: contact me on Channel 7ZYThirty-seven17. Special Mission to discuss.”
            The radio went silent for a moment. Then it came back.
            “You hear that, idiots? Come back to the Bay! Jackie, Jaclyn, whoever you are, make sure that happens.” And it died once again.
            The motorcycle continued speeding down the road, and the whole world fell silent.

But just for a moment.

            “Wait, was that me?” Jack said suddenly after piecing some things together. “Was he talking about me?”

“I don’t know,” said Annie, who also seemed confused.

“He just woke up from some kind of coma, right? So he’s up, but his already-addled mind is addled some more. He’s got to be still waking up. Still trying to figure out what reality is. You know, I’ve wondered a few times over the past couple of days if any of that stuff he told me was true. About my mother. About how they met. How the hell could something as cliche as me come from such a bizarre story like that? I just don’t understand it.”

“I don’t know,” Annie said. Annie hadn’t been told the things Jack heard that night, but was equally confused and still upset. It should be noted that both of our primary players were really thinking only about themselves. A quarter-hour of silence passed before anyone said anything again. When she did, it was more calmly than she herself thought it would be.

            “What did we gain from that whole thing?” she said to Jack over his shoulder.
            “You mean the encampment and all?”
            “Yeah.”
            Jack took a deep breath and mentally adjusted.
            “Well, we learned where the treasure might actually be,” he said over his shoulder. “I got to know Amon Dem a little better---he’s a fine fellow, by the way, very kind---and I got to know you a little better, too. Oh, and we got a motorcycle.”
            “And we’re just going to leave Hilti behind?”
            “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He hasn’t finished his arc yet.”
            “His arc?”
            “I’m sorry. I mean, he hasn’t completed his journey. He has a reason for being on this island and he hasn’t consummated that reason.”
            “What if he did that after escaping that chase?”
            “No, he has to do it while in our presence or it’s like it didn’t happen at all. Don’t worry about him, chick. He’ll be fine, wherever he is.”
            “And what about Carl Sagan?”
            “He’s a giant tiger that’s impervious to everything.”
            “No, I mean will we ever see him again?”
            “Probably. You worry too much, Annie. You’re with me. You’re going to be fine.”
            “I just died three times, Jack! In less than two minutes!”
            “And you lived to tell the tale! Proof that the gods are watching over us. Especially now that I have my jacket, I guarantee you we’ll be safe.”
            “Then what’s that up ahead?”
            “That looks like a fallen tree, blocking off the road.”
            “And why aren’t we slowing down?”
            “Because the gods just did something with the motorcycle so the brakes stopped working.”
            “Oh. But doesn’t that---”
            “Spread your wings, honey. You’re about to fly.”
            Jack, who we know to be a former stuntman and professional survivor, braced himself, and felt Annie’s fingers dig into his ribs. The jacket, marvelous as it was, couldn’t protect him from that and he squirmed, right before the motorcycle hit the tree-barricade.
            Jack and Annie flew. In mid-air Jack spun and wrapped his arms around Annie. The momentum of the spin carried him to a position where he could hit the ground, thirty feet away, with his shoulder. Upon contact with the dirt he continued the spin in the form of a roll, subsequently absorbing the worst of the impact and leaving the two of them with a few scratches and scrapes but very much okay. Annie rolled off of him like a scroll and they lay next to each other in the dirt, gasping for breath.
            After several seconds they were approached by four silent men. They all held projectile weapons in their hands.