Bent Time

by bloodsword

Fionn ducked behind a corner, his breath ragged. He could hear his pursuers shouting to each just a few yards away as they tried to find him in the maze of alleyways behind the tenements of his home. While he was hidden for now, he knew it was just a matter of time before they found him.

A matter of time: the phrase had more irony to him now than it ever did. It was trying to fool Time that got him into this mess in the first place.

"Wait!" a hard voice hissed in accented English from just around the corner. "I've picked up the bender's trace. This way!"

Fionn gathered himself, quickly checking to see how many of his homemade weapons he still had left. A few, only a pitiful few. He could only hope they were enough to see him back to safe ground. Then he was running as hard as his exhausted legs would carry him down the litter-filled alley. As he did, he thought of the past few hours.

It was several hours previous that Fionn unconsciously hunched his shoulders as the shouting in the alleyway three stories beneath his window exploded into loud banging and the grunts and dull thumps of fist fighting.

This was Hell's Kitchen, New York in 1897, home to poor Irish and Italian immigrants working the Hudson River docks. As well as some of New York's most notorious gangs. No-one in the Kitchen used a spittoon without their permission or paying their due. Violence was a way of life here, a reality most grew hardened to or moved somewhere else.

This was the world 18 year old Fionn O'Malley had been born to. This was the world he was desperate to either change or get away from. Hopefully before it killed him.

Thankfully the young first-generation American of Irish-born parents had seen a way out, due in no small part to Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, and Nicola Tesla, innovators in the new field of electricity. Like Faraday, Fionn had a clever mind despite the lack of formal education, and he found himself absorbing whatever science coming out of each amazing discovery the three men had made. Until his brain felt like it was on fire from the thoughts seething within it.

Incredible devices, both those made by the scientists, and others that he couldn't recognize, filled his dreams at night. And frantic building and experimentation in what little spare time he had, with 'borrowed' materials, made those devices come to life.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" he quietly urged himself. With the worn candle beside him his only light, he was carefully but as quickly as he dared, wrapping copper wire around a rough wooden ring. It was the first part of a small electrical generator he was building.

"Fionn!" a hard voice snarled from just outside his door. "Did you fetch that coal I sent you for? Or are you still fiddlin' with that damn wire contraption of yours?"

"The coal's in the bin downstairs, da," Fionn replied somewhat distractedly, his focus still on the coil. "Someday we won't even need coal, da," the young man went on to say, quickly surveying the parts of his generator by the light of the candle. With the newest coil completed, it had all its parts. Now, all he had to do was assemble it.

"Electricity will give us all the free power we need for everything."

"Aye, maybe," his father grudgingly conceded from the other side of the door with a noncommittal grunt. "But that day ain't today, boy!" Then, with a final bang on the rickety portal, he was gone, stomping down the short hallway that ran down the center of their crowded tenement apartment.

Fionn began to put the device together like he had done a thousand times in his mind. "Coil here, capacitor there, connectors, connectors ..." he mentally recited as he worked, each piece going into place according to his mental diagram, a diagram assembled from the thousands of drawings he had made of the devices he had glimpsed in Tesla's demonstrations downtown.

He had managed to get down every detail before the cops grabbed him. They then hauled him back out of the holes he used to break into the demonstrations, beating him with their clubs until he was nearly unconscious. That done, they had kicked him into the gutters every time to lie bleeding while he deftly ignored the pain to concentrate on committing to memory every little thing he had seen.

The effort to gather that information had nearly prevented him from working in the fish shed down on the docks, so battered from the beatings the cops gave him, he could barely move. But the work in the shed was the only way he could help his father support their family, and keep their account good with the Dead Rabbits, the gang that owned both the tenements they lived in, and the fish shed. So, bruised and aching, he had dragged himself out every morning after to pack fish in salt, or move crates into the back of wagons while he built his machines in his head and vowed to take them to a better place.

With a snuffle of satisfaction, Fionn sat back and looked at the compact generator he had crafted. Small yet powerful, this little generator would be his ticket out of Hell's Kitchen. Because it was the whirring heart of something much more powerful!

Fionn had discovered it quite by accident. He was experimenting with two miniature tesla coils to see if he could harmonize their plasma streams to create a more powerful arc. Instead a faulty capacitor made them generate streams that resonated out of synch with each other.

The coils had discharged, each forming a slightly different arc, over the remains of his dinner. And he watched as the rind of cheese and heel of black bread swiftly molded then fell into dust, as if Time itself moved more rapidly within the resonating arcs.

He had reversed the polarity on the arcs at that point, thinking they had somehow emitted an energy field that broke the food down into dust. Then he had watched as the reversed arcs returned the food to its previous state before taking it back through the stages that he had eaten it in. Until his untouched dinner sat pristine once more on the plate, awaiting his attention.

Again it seemed that the resonating arcs had worked together to alter Time. Further tests with other objects, including his grandfather's pocket watch, confirmed it. Altering the resonating frequency of twin tesla coil arcs created a bubble of malleable time between them. A bubble that he could move forward or backward according to the polarity and resonance of the two arcs.

A machine that could control time was now within his grasp. All he had to do was build one large enough for he and his family to fit inside. Hence the need for the generator. With it in place, he just needed the coils, a task he immediately set himself to do.

With a backpack-style magnetic induction generator sitting nearby along with the rest of the devices he had made, Fionn had the second of the two large tesla coils almost made when there was a loud thump out in the hallway.

Fionn paused to look at the door, a dim rectangle in the candles flickering light. Thinking it was his father, he was about to call out when several more loud and heavy thumps from the hallway made him hold his tongue. Unfortunately this set of sounds he had heard before: bodies hitting a worn, wooden floor.

Thinking it was somebody from the Rabbits come to take an accounting, he snatched up two of his weapons, the capacitated electro-pulse pistols. Charged by the induction generator, they would fire a miniature ball of lightning that was devastating up close. He had nicknamed them 'bolt guns' because they hit hard like a lightning bolt.

Bolt guns in hand, he stood and carefully stepped to the door. Taking hold of the handle, Fionn eased it open and peered through the cracked opening.

First thing his eyes saw were a cluster of shadowy figures leaning over a pair of unmoving forms on the floor. Behind them was what appeared to be a doorway hanging in the air through which he could see a rocky pinnacle surrounded by pristine blue water with only a narrow isthmus of land connecting it to a larger landmass beside it.

Oddly enough the image seemed familiar to him, as if he had seen it in a daydream. Concentrating slightly, he got the impression that there was a taller mountain overlooking that pinnacle with its isthmus, and it was from there the door into the hallway was opened.

Then the shadow figures were looking up and right at him.

"The bender!" one of them hissed in heavily accented English. "Get him!"

That was enough to make Fionn jerk both his bolt guns up, discharging them as soon as they were level with the figures.

The bolts snarled as they streaked down the hallway. The first took the figure standing close to the portal in the upper body, throwing them back with a choked scream to tumble through the portal and out of sight. The second hammered into one on the right of the portal, spinning it around even as it pitched it back. As it did, the discharge stripped away the shadows hiding the figure and it was a lean, dark-skinned man dressed in black that fell to the floor.

Not that Fionn noticed. He was too busy admiring his weapons' performance.

"Wow!" Fionn breathed as he stared at the guns. He had figured they'd pack a punch but that was far better than he expected. Then he was ducking from several beams of light that streaked all around from the surviving figures returning fire.

From his hunched-over position, the young fired another volley from his bolt guns. One went wide, discharging against a wall. But the other hit, the impact peeling away the figure's protective shadows as it pitched them back.

Firmly focused on the figures now, Fionn saw the revealed man as he fell limply to the floor. They looked like somebody from the Mediterranean area, similar to some of the Italians that lived in the Kitchen. Yet there was something different about them, something he couldn't put his finger on.

Regardless, he now knew he was facing men, not some sort of strange creatures. Men that could open doors in space and fired ray guns, sure, but men nonetheless.

That knowledge was enough to stiffen his resolve. Straightening up, he fired down the hallway once more even as a pair of the beams burned his arm and opposite side as they cut through his clothing. Grimacing at the searing pain, he made to fire again. Only to pull up when he saw the rest of the figures were now on the ground.

A quick look at the primitive gauge he had built into the guns told him he had a couple shots left in the capacitors, enough to finish anybody off if they were still able to give him trouble.

"Mum? Da?" he called out as he cautiously advanced, bolt guns up. "Are you okay?" It was strange that all the commotion hadn't already brought his father, favorite club in hand, out of the common room where they slept. Unless something had happened to them.

"Mum?" he called out again, his panic levels starting to rise. Stepping past the shimmering portal hanging in the air, he carefully eased open the door to the common room, the only other room their apartment had. And almost immediately he was snapping his guns back up to bear as he found another handful of shadow figures holding his wildly struggling parents.

"Warn the bender that we're here, and you're dead!" one of the figures was growling in a low, accented voice when he spotted them. Fionn's father looked from the figure to the sight of Fionn now standing in the light spilling in through the open door.

"Fionn!" he snapped, eyes flying wide. "Get out, boy."

"Da??" Fionn managed to say before every shadowy head was twisting to face him.

"There he is!" the speaker declared.

"Get out now!" his father snarled with such force that Fionn was already halfway back down the hallway to the side room that was his bedroom, the storage room, and his workshop all at the same time.

Behind him he heard the unmistakable discharge of the intruders' ray guns, their buzzing hums calling out twice before dark shapes were pouring out of the common room in pursuit. Then the lashing beams were cutting through the air all around him, one searing into his leg and nearly making him stumble.

He burst into the room in a rush, his wounds throbbing. Scooping up his nascent time-altering device via the ragged piece of canvas it was sitting on, he clipped the bolt guns back into their hammered-copper recharge mounts as he ran through the small chamber.

That left his hands free to throw the room's only window open so he could scramble out onto the rickety fire escape that scaled the side of their tenement building. Fionn's feet had no sooner touched the platform that more beams were cutting through the window and the surrounding walls to nearly surround him in a halo of deadly light.

Ducking frantically, he scrambled down the shuddering staircase to the next platform before he pulled a bolt gun free and twisted to fire back up the way he had come just in time to hit the first intruder as they were climbing out the window. The blast hit them high, knocking them back into the sill before they slumped forward, momentarily blocking the window to the chagrin of its comrades.

The intruders being forced to pull the limp body out of the way gave Fionn just enough additional time to reach the bottom, leaping from the last platform into the heap of garbage in the alleyway, rolling awkwardly back to his feet. Head down, he sprinted for the alley's mouth.

Once there he pulled a wire-wrapped spindle from the side of his backpack generator where it had been charging. It was a lightning web, a miniaturized tesla coil and battery combo coupled to an ejector that would spray iron filings out in a cloud before the coil activated to send an arc reaching out towards the cloud with multiple tendrils of deadly electricity.

A quick twist of the base armed it then he has throwing it against the corner he was rounding. Just in time: with a shout, the intruders reached the ground behind him and began running hard after him.

With gas lamps still lighting this part of the Kitchen, Fionn ran through the pools of warm yellow light they cast as he went down the street. Behind him he heard screams of pain as his lightning web caught the intruders' lead runners in a dancing cage of light. Those behind them, however, managed to elude the web and charged around the corner after him, their ray guns sending deadly beams of light slashing all around him.

Reaching the far corner of the building, he hung a left to once again put himself into an alleyway. Planting another lightning web on the corner, he ran hard into the darkness. It was the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game he would play with the intruders over the next few hours, using his intimate knowledge of the Kitchen's alleyways and backstreets to keep a step ahead of the seemingly endless numbers the intruders sent after him.

Which led him to the here and now. Lungs burning from his marathon of an escape, he staggered around one last corner and set his last brace of lightning webs with hard throws at opposite walls. He would need this last gap to find a place to make his stand. With his portable weapons now exhausted and his bolt guns smouldering from heavy usage, he didn't have much left to fight back with. So he needed to find a defensible spot with a good brick wall at his back.

With that in mind, he took his bearings from familiar landmarks before heading towards the nearest of the many dead ends the backways offered. It took him a few twists and turns to get there, punctuated by two sets of pain-filled screams from his last webs being triggered and loud shouting from his pursuers.

From the tenements themselves there was only silence, the inhabitants of Hell's Kitchen being witness to not a few battles between rival gangs. They knew when to stay inside and keep quiet.

Then he was there, in the dead end where he would make his final stand. Fionn spun around, putting the weathered brick wall hidden in shadow at his back as he unclipped his scorched bolt guns, the capacitors burning hot from the nearly-constant cycle of discharge and recharge he had put them through. Armed, he faced the shadows cloaking the alleyway leading into his position, determined to take as many of them with him as he could.

"Or you could come with me instead," a quiet voice said from his left.

Twisting hard in that direction, Fionn brought both guns up, his teeth grit against the panicked throb of his heart, triggered by being caught by surprise.

"Peace, my young, time-bending friend," the voice said as a lean shape stepped from the shadows, hands upraised in the universal gesture of non-aggression. "My name is Kalestro and I mean you no harm."

"Bending," Fionn hissed through clenched teeth. "They call me 'bender'. I think you're with them. I think you mean me a lot of harm!"

"Quite the opposite, actually," Kalestro replied, its face still hidden by shadow. As if to prove its words, it pulled something from inside its clothing and twisted viper-fast to send several beams of deadly light darting into the darkness cloaking the entryway into the dead end, screams of pain quickly following.

"There!" the newcomer announced with some satisfaction. "That should give you enough time to assemble your time machine."

Fionn stared at the lean shape for an uncertain moment.

"Now's not the time for hesitation, boy," Kalestro abruptly urged before firing several more times into the darkness. "If you do not assemble your device immediately, even my weapons fire will be insufficient to keep the Tideguard at bay."

Letting the strange names rattle around in his head, Fionn hesitantly put his bolt guns back into their clips to take hold of the canvas sack he had his machine in. Then, with a fervor created by desperation, he turned from the lean figure and began to assemble it.

Twice more Kalestro was forced to fire into the darkness while Fionn worked. Twice more the darkness echoed with the screams of those the stranger's beams found. Finally, as the newcomer began to fire a third time, the coils were assembled and he was feeding power into them from his newly-assembled generator.

Coming to life with a crackling hum, the coils immediately arced to form a doorway shape beneath them. A doorway that the young man set to opening by changing the arcs' resonance.

With an abruptness that caught him by surprise, the wall crumbled away and he watched as the view extended out towards the southeast to show him a Manhattan that was rapidly changing with each twist of his resonance adjuster.

"So it's the future you seek to travel to," Kalestro commented from where he stood guard, speaking loud enough now to be heard over the arcs' crackling discharge that Fionn could tell it was a man.

Not answering, Fionn watched instead as great buildings leapt into the sky, scraping the clouds with their height before they came down to be replaced by even taller buildings.Until the young man was looking out over a grassy knoll where people could be seen moving as blurs of motion while a incredible skyline of marvelous sun-kissed towers and platforms around which what appeared to be some sort of flying machines were moving.

"It is a wondrous place, the future," the newcomer said with a knowing nod. "Filled with discovery and astonishment."

Fionn let his hand fall from the resonance adjuster to stare at the amazing sight.

"For a boy as bright as you are, I'm sure you'll have no trouble fitting in," Kalestro went on to say."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fionn fired back, stirred to annoyance by the comment.

"You're in 1897 Hell's Kitchen, New York, boy," the newcomer deftly pointed out. "You step through that time portal and you'll be in 2297 Hell's Kitchen. 400 years into the future. Are you truly equipped to make such a journey?"

As Fionn considered that, the newcomer made a gesture and a scene of a beach visible beneath a great arch of stone appeared.

"Allow me to offer an alternative," he said. "You see, the men that chase you are known as the Tideguard, a paramilitary organization formed to protect the hidden existence of the island nation of Atlantis." At Fionn's confused frown, the man went on. "I can see by your expression that these names mean little. Suffices to say, then, that thousands of years ago Atlantis discovered the power of electricity. Along with it, time travel, much as you have. They used it one tumultuous day to hide themselves away from the world so that none could take what they had learned.

Without the Dark Ages and unending conflict that has plagued the rest of mankind these many years, they have become quite advanced. And even more determined to keep their secrets safe. So, when you discovered how to bend time with your resonating arcs, the Tideguard was sent to stop you, before you uncovered Atlantis' hiding place within a bubble of bent time."

"How could I threaten them?" Fionn protested. "I'm just one man, without even a family." He had to fight off the tears as he said that, knowing that his parents were likely dead at the hands of these 'Tideguard'.

"The ruling council of Atlantis have become paranoid," Kalestro replied. "They strike at anything they perceive as a threat. But there are those that oppose them, including me. Those that want to bring Atlantis back into the light of the here and now, and share what we've learned to make humanity better than what it is right now. Come with me and you can fight alongside us against the council's tyranny and ensure your parents didn't die for nothing. Fight for a better world for everybody, not just you and yours. All of humanity!"

"You fight for freedom?" Fionn said, wiping away the tears with the back of his hand. Kalestro nodded.

"And your skills and intelligence are sorely needed by our side. But don't trust in my words alone. Come and see for yourself. It's no trap. You already possess the knowledge and the capability of returning here. Come and avenge your parents, Fionn. And in doing so, help all mankind!"

The young man took one last look at the futuristic cityscape before, with an abrupt gesture, he drew a bolt gun and blasted his time machine into pieces. He then turned to the newcomer.

"Lead on, Kalestro. I will go with you to fight for the betterment of all mankind!"

Nodding in satisfaction, Kalestro fired once more into the darkness then turned to step through the portal. Following him, Fionn found himself humming a folk song he had heard some of the dock workers singing:

"If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone," he softly sang as he stepped across the threshold. "You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles ..." Then the portal closed and he was gone.