“Thank God you found us!”
“Are you all right, sir? What happened?”
“Cyclobots, a lot of them... He was hit by a blaster shot.”
“Commander Myers! Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”
“Myers! Did you hear me? What the hell were you doing?”
“Sorry, sir,” I muttered, and slid into my place in the black SUV as quickly as I could. Our first time in action, and I had managed to get yelled at by my C.O. One more thing to blame Wes for.
I kept my eyes straight ahead as we moved out, leaving the store parking lot to head back to Bio-Lab. I certainly wasn’t trying to look but I couldn’t help catching a glimpse as we passed him, still standing in the same spot with his new friends. Wesley Collins. A little older and more mature, but still as good-looking as ever, maybe more. Not that I cared. Sometimes over the last nine years I had wondered about him: what his life was like, how different it was from mine, whether it had changed him as much as my life in the Army had changed me. And ever since I had taken this job working for his father’s company, I had known there was a good chance I’d find out.
However I had pictured our meeting again, it hadn’t been anything like this. I’d expected to find him sitting in a corner office at his daddy’s company, turned into a real three-piece suit of a guy and all settled into his role as heir apparent. I’d even wondered whether being an old friend of the boss’s son would buy me a little advantage - or turn out to be a problem, if he remembered the wrong things about our school days.
But it looked like neither of those things was going to happen. When they talked about Wesley Collins around here it was usually with a smirk, and an eye out to make sure the boss wasn’t close enough to hear. Apparently the rumors were true. Wes had ditched the company, and his father. The kid I knew in school, who had nothing much on his mind besides the fastest way to have a good time, had actually chosen the harder path for once. For a moment I almost admired him. Until I remembered all that money, and all the power he would never use, and realized he was just stupid.
Maybe you were right the first time. And either way, did you have to be so rude?
He hadn’t even recognized me until I took off my sunglasses. And when he did - sure, he had smiled and held out his hand, but not before I saw the half-second of startled dismay that made me reject that handshake.
It’s been more than nine years. You’ve changed. And you’re just about the last person he expected to see.
Bullshit. I had known him at first glance, despite nine years and those overalls he was wearing, across a parking lot and in the middle of a fight. But why should I care, anyway? I wasn’t a kid with a crush any more, and Wes was no longer the same guy I’d had that crush on. Now, he was just someone I used to know. I didn’t care. Not at all.
Sure you didn’t.
“No time to wait for an ambulance. They’re having trouble getting through the streets anyway. Get him in the car; we’ll take him ourselves.”
“Right. Careful, watch his head... Okay, let’s go.”
A brilliant flare of light faded, and the box I had risked my life to hold on to disappeared with it. I stared at what had replaced it: a red and black device on a strap encircling my wrist. Like the one Wes wore - and somehow I knew without a doubt what its purpose was.
I had been chosen.
Eric Myers, the guy who had never caught a break without fighting for it longer and harder than anyone else. Eric Myers, who struggled every day just to get a little respect from people like Mr. Collins. Finally it had happened: that one stroke of luck, the kind of opportunity that might never come again, my chance to prove that I could be better than any of them.
“This is not about us! Please, don’t do it!” Wes shouted from a few yards away, where he lay too battered and exhausted from our battle with a horde of cyclobots to be able to stop me.
He was right about one thing. This wasn’t about us, not anymore. There was no way I wasn’t going to grab that chance and run with it, in spite of Wes. If a lazy, thoughtless rich kid who had never worked hard a day in his life could be a Ranger, why couldn’t I? I deserved it more. Much more.
Right, it wasn’t about him at all. Why all the hostility? What did Wes ever do to you, except try to be your friend?
He had tried to stop me, to take this away from me. But it was too late. With a triumphant smile I raised the morpher and said the words for the first time.
“Quantum Power!”
There’s no way to describe what I felt then. A rush of strength and energy like nothing I had ever experienced before, better than money, better than winning, better than sex, better than anything. Filled with the power and needing to use it, I heard the sounds of a fight outside and went to face my first enemy as the Quantum Ranger.
Wes managed to get out and find his friends in time to see the show. For a moment I wondered what they were thinking as they watched me take out the mutant who had been kicking all their asses combined. I know what they should have been thinking - that they were glad I was on their side.
Or that power corrupts?
I took care of their problem for them, not that they thanked me for it. We stood there, the five of them and me, trying to stare each other down. And then, Wes stepped forward and said something strange.
“Eric, are you all right?”
Wasn’t it obvious? I had won - I had the power - my life would never be the same, all the frustrations and disappointments left behind, and he’s asking if I’m ‘all right’? Can’t he see? Is he stupid or something?
Or maybe he sees something you don’t.
Ridiculous. I smiled again, inside my helmet, and told him just how wrong he was.
“Never been better.”
“Okay, get him out... careful...”
“Where’s a stretcher, dammit!”
“Sir, there’s casualties coming in from the whole city. The hospital’s swamped. We’ll carry him in.”
“Good. And I’m getting a doctor if I have to drag one out of an operating room.”
“Wes!”
I shouted his name as I saw him fall, his body turning in a lazy spin, head over heels, getting smaller as he got closer to the ground. For a moment horror froze me, and almost cost me my own life.
Just as I thought I glimpsed the flash of a morph before he hit the ground, a rumbling growl reminded me I was in imminent danger of becoming a dinosaur’s lunch. I turned around to see it coming after me, a mouth big enough to swallow a man whole gaping wide, bristling with rows of large and ugly teeth.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. Maybe my life isn’t worth seeing, because all that went through my mind was ways to get out of this mess. Ranger up and fight it? Not enough energy in my morpher. Jump off the cliff and try to morph just before hitting the ground, the way I hoped Wes had? Too risky. Only one real possibility, as my eyes found the dark opening of a cave in the hill behind the dinosaur.
I ran like I’ve never run before, between those massive legs, expecting its jaws to close on me at any moment. Made it, got halfway to the cave in the time it could turn its bulk around, but then it had the advantage, one stride as long as five of mine, and whoever thinks dinosaurs were slow is crazy! I flung myself into the cave just in time, yelling in terror as it came after me, trying to push its head inside and get me. Breathless, I squirmed as far back as I could, pressed up against dank, cold earth and stone.
It seemed like forever that I sat there with death snapping inches from my feet. But finally it gave up and pulled its head out. I heard heavy footsteps pacing impatiently outside. After another eternity, they faded away.
I was saved from having to take the risk of going back out when my hand pressed against the cave wall as I tried to get up, and broke through. There was more cave beyond, a lot more. With a nervous glance back towards the possibly dinosaur-infested cliffside, I pulled out my flashlight and decided to explore, and maybe find a safer way out.
“What happened to him?”
“Blasted by a cyclobot.”
“We’ve been getting a lot of blaster victims. No effective way to treat them, just general support, hope they get better.”
“I understand, Doctor. Just do your best.”
“We will. But don’t get your hopes up too much.”
No sign of him. I stopped for a moment of rest, and looked up at the cliff where I had been an hour ago. Wes would have landed somewhere around here. I had found a spot where a few tree branches had been broken very recently, but nothing else. Too much ground cover for footprints. I cursed myself for never having trained in tracking. Still, no news was good news; at least I hadn’t found a body or bloodstains.
What next? I turned to look in the other direction, up at the peak of the volcano where those mysterious cave drawings had told me I could find the Quantasaurus Rex. Find the Q-Rex, and find the mutant we had followed through a timehole into the distant past, and find a way to get out of here.
What about Wes? He was pushed off that cliff trying to save you. If he’s hurt, or dead, it’s your fault for bringing him here.
No! It’s all his own fault. No one asked him to jump on the Eagle and come with me. I told him I didn’t need help. Besides - besides, he’s a Ranger, and there was no sign of a body. He’s okay, he must be okay. I’ll find him, and we’ll get back home. Somehow.
“Wes...”
“Doctor! He’s conscious!”
“Wes... Where is he...?”
“He’s asking about my son. I don’t... I don’t know where Wes is. I just hope-”
“He’s fading again...”
Great, another cave. Maybe the last one had saved my life, but I had no taste for picking my way through dark, cold caverns, expecting something to jump out at me at any moment. But the drawing I had found had told me this mountain was where I would find the Q-Rex, and this cave was the only place big enough to hide it.
As I started through the last patch of trees, I saw a flash of red, headed in the same direction. I stopped, my heart leaping as I recognized it - Wes - Wes, alive and apparently well. I took another step, pulled in a breath to call to him...
And then I stopped. What was he doing? He was about to go into the cave, and there could be only one thing he wanted there. The Q-Rex. He was trying to take the Q-Rex, the zord that belonged to me, trying to take it away the same way he and his friends wanted to take the morpher away. That was the real reason he had come along, just to keep me from claiming what was mine.
With a quick gesture and a quiet word, I morphed and drew the Defender, and stopped him with a blast across his path.
He jumped and turned. “Eric?”
“Just hold it right there.” I shifted my aim to his chest. “Tell me, where do you think you’re going?”
“That mutant’s in there! I’ve got to stop him before he gets to the Quantasaurus Rex!”
Did he think I was enough of an idiot to believe him? “You’re not going anywhere. Q-Rex is mine!”
He started for the cave entrance again, moving faster this time. “Listen, he’s going to be Ransik’s if we don’t get in there and-”
I had stopped listening. Lucky for him, I only fired at the ground at his feet and then charged, converting my blaster to sword mode, wanting to fight him in this more personal way, not at a distance with blasters but man to man. He blocked me a few times, but it was as if he wasn’t even trying, while I had my anger to urge me on. It didn’t take long for me to get the advantage, and in only a few minutes I had forced him to his knees.
He just wants to stop Commandocon and Ransik from getting control of the Q-Rex. He doesn’t want to fight you.
Then he’s a fool as well as a weakling. I turned the Defender back into a blaster and pointed it at his face, and laughed at him and his pathetic attempts to defeat me and take what was mine. As if Wes Collins could ever beat me, or even slow me down. Then a noise made me look up - and I realized the mistake I had made. While we had been fighting, Commandocon had been taking the Q-Rex. The dark swirl of a timehole appeared in the sky, and I saw them streaking up, and into it.
With a curse, I shoved Wes away and started running back to where we had left the Eagle, even as the volcano seemed to react to the distortion of time with a deep rumble and a burst of dust and smoke. I staggered, but kept going, feeling the earth begin to quake and shift under my feet. Wes shouted my name, but I didn’t pay attention. I had to get up to that timehole now, and running was useless - I raised the morpher and called the Eagle, seeing it appear only a split-second later and lower to where I could leap aboard.
As I slid into the cockpit I saw Wes, cut off by a chasm that had opened in the ground before him. “Eric! No!” he shouted.
The timehole wouldn’t last long. I had no time for him. This was his fault, anyway; if he hadn’t distracted me I could have stopped Commandocon from getting the Q-Rex. He deserved whatever he got. I raised a hand in a mocking salute and shouted, “See ya, Wes!” and took off, ignoring another anguished cry from him.
You really were a bastard, weren’t you?
Shut up. I took off, and headed up. Wes would be all right. His Ranger pals would know how to find him. They’d bring him back.
And what if they can’t?
Then I made the mistake of looking down, and saw the whole area turning into a mass of cracks in the ground, everything moving, collapsing, crumbling, the red glow of lava underneath swallowing up the earth. And Wes, trying to keep his balance, staggering and then falling, sliding into one of those gaping holes...
Without even thinking, I turned the Eagle down and dove after him, heart pounding as his struggling form got nearer, but could I catch him in time, and then I popped the cockpit bubble and reached out, grabbing his hand and holding on tight as the little aircraft carried us out of danger.
He looked up. I couldn’t see his face, but his voice was warm as he said, “Eric, thanks!”
“I saved your neck. Now we’re even,” I muttered as I pulled him up to the wing, just to let him know that’s all it was, just paying a debt for the times he had saved me.
After the way you acted, after the way you almost stranded him to die, he still thanks you.
Yeah, well. What an idiot.
Are you talking about him or yourself?
Shut up.
“The emergency rooms are all taken... We’re swamped, too many injuries...”
“Do something! He needs help!”
“Bring him in here. We’ll double up.”
“I came here for the morpher.”
Wes looked more serious, more determined, and more dangerous than I had ever seen him before as we faced each other in a deserted storage yard behind Bio-Lab. It didn’t matter. I was more of all of those things, especially dangerous. No matter how much he wanted to keep me in my place, safely inferior to him, he was about to find out that this time things weren’t going to go his way.
“You want to save the city?” I said, raising my wrist. “You’re going to have to take it from me.”
“If that’s the way it has to be,” Wes said, with no sign of fear or reluctance.
In a double flash we were morphed, and charging at each other; hitting hard and for keeps, no mercy asked or given. We had fought over the Q-Rex on the side of that prehistoric volcano, but that had only been a scuffle compared to this. This time Wes was uninjured. And he was angry. He was fighting for real, and he was a more skillful and determined opponent than I had given him credit for. Grudgingly, I felt a spark of respect.
And then - when we had succeeded in knocking each other down, he made another attempt to persuade me. “Eric, listen, we don’t have much time left!”
“You mean you don’t!”
“This isn’t about me!”
“It’s always been about you!”
Finally, you’re saying something honest.
I meant it was about his attitude, his superiority, about every stuck-up rich kid at that prep school who had looked down on me and every jerk in a business suit who had ignored me. It was about his father’s money, and about the Commander’s job that Wes didn’t want, but I did, but it had been offered to him just because of who he is while I would have to fight for it, like I still had to fight for everything. It was about all the things he had that I wanted.
And all that is Wes’s fault exactly why?
I don’t know. But it is.
You’ve forgotten one more thing you want that Wes has. The thing you really can’t forgive him for.
What’s that?
Himself. You want him.
Me, want Wes? Like the idiot school kid I used to be? No way.
“I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to stay outside.”
“But I want to know what’s going on. I want to help.”
“Then notify his family. They should be here.”
“He has no family. Just us.”
Falling - I had been falling. I thought I heard Wes’s voice, calling my name as if he really cared what happened to me, just before I hit the water. I could remember the burning in my lungs, the struggle to reach the surface with the swift, cold river current sucking me down. And then someone had taken my hand and pulled me back...
I was wet, and chilled, and what felt like pebbles were digging into my back. With a start I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the clear blue sky above. The second was the clear brown eyes of the pretty young woman who was leaning over me, hand outstretched, bathing my forehead with a scrap of wet cloth.
My reaction was instinctive. “I don’t need your help!” I exclaimed, pushing her hand away and sitting up too fast, wincing as my arm twinged with pain.
“Obviously you do,” she snapped right back as I lurched to my feet. “You would’ve drowned in the river if I hadn’t pulled you out.”
“If you think I’m going to thank you, you’re wrong,” I said, still inspecting my injuries. Besides the blaster burn on my arm, I had a few cuts and bruises. Nothing serious. I was more worried about my morpher, and what Conwing was going to do with it and the Q-Rex.
The girl - Jen, I remembered - was still talking, her voice angry. “What’s your problem? We’re not your enemies.”
“You’re not my friends, either.”
“That’s your choice, not ours.”
My choice. No, she was wrong; I had been given no choice. Not since the moment I had grabbed the morpher to keep it away from another mutant. Taking it, keeping it, using it, every step along the way had been something I needed to do. I needed that morpher, and the power it gave me.
There’s more to life than power.
Only to someone who already has it. I focused on the morpher again. How could I get it back? What chance did I have against someone like Conwing? Wes and the others... Instantly I dismissed the idea of asking them for help. They’d made it clear enough that they didn’t want me to have the morpher. If they managed to defeat the mutant they’d keep it for themselves.
Jen was storming off after another angry remark. And it occurred to me that I might have a hold over them - if Conwing had been telling me the truth up on that bridge. “I know more about you than you think,” I said, seeing her stop, shoulders stiffening. “I know you and your friends aren’t even from here.”
She turned back, her cautious expression telling me I was on the right track. “What are you talking about?”
I threw it at her. “So it’s true. You are from the future.”
I had expected denial, expected her to try to laugh it off, or maybe get angry and threaten me. But Jen only turned around and stared at me for a few moments, not an angry or frightened look, but one that seemed to be trying to understand - looking for weaknesses, probably, but still...
She came closer, and what she said surprised me. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should have told you we were from the year 3000. But if you only knew what’s at stake... The whole world, everything we-”
I almost did it, almost threatened to reveal their secret and turn the whole city, and Mr. Collins, against them, unless they got that morpher back and gave it to me. Almost. But Jen looked so sincere, and try as I might I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe she really meant it. The mutants... everything that had been going on... Was I interfering with people who were trying to do something important?
No. Whatever they were doing, I had a right to be a part of it. Maybe this girl had Wes wrapped around her little finger but she wasn’t going to stop me, no matter how pretty she was or how sweet she acted. “Save it,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to hear about your problems. I got my own. Like getting my morpher back.”
We exchanged a few more remarks, none of them friendly. Jen was about to leave again - and turned back again. “Do me one favor,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone we’re from the future. It could ruin everything we’re working for.”
Again I was tempted to threaten - or at least to make a bargain. The morpher for my silence. But no, I knew the decision had already been made. They were safe from me - but I didn’t see any need to tell her about it. Let them all sweat a little. “I’m not making any promises,” I muttered.
Seconds later she was gone, disappearing into the woods. I stayed where I was, suddenly feeling weighed down, tired, burdened with hopelessness. Again guilt whispered in my ear, telling me that if Conwing used the Q-Rex to destroy Silver Hills it would be my fault for not turning the morpher over to its rightful owners.
So, what are you going to do about it?
What can I do? Without the morpher I’m nothing.
Nothing? The suit’s not much without the man in it. Maybe it’s the morpher that’s nothing without you. Go back there. Help them.
Again, there was no real choice. I had to try, for the sake of everyone in the city beyond these woods, for the little girl who lived next door, for Wes, for Jen and her friends who had come from the future to protect us. Maybe even for myself.
“Doctor, they need you for another patient.”
“Damn... Try to get him stabilized. I’ll be back.”
What was he doing here?
That was my first thought as I saw Wes making his way through the busy Bio-Lab lobby. Where did he think he was going? Couldn’t he see we had a crisis on our hands, and no one here had the time to deal with him and whatever he wanted now?
I stepped into his path and stopped him with a hand against his chest. “Where are you going?”
To my surprise, he reacted with anger. “I need to see my father,” he snapped, and tried to push by.
“He’s busy with the Silver Guardians. Come back later.” I stopped him again with a slightly harder shove.
Again he surprised me by not backing down. Grabbing my wrist, he stepped closer to glare into my face. “No. It can’t wait.”
“In case you haven’t heard, the city’s under attack!”
“I know! That’s why I’m here!” The anger faltered, and died into fear - but not for himself. “My friends have been bitten.”
His friends... Much as I disliked them, that didn’t mean I wanted something like this to happen to them. I just stared at Wes for another moment, something passing between us as his eyes searched mine for sympathy, and found it. He was hurting, and asking for my help. My help. I guess it was my chance to finally get back at him once and for all - but it never even occurred to me to turn him down as I saw the appeal in his face.
Maybe it was the first time you bothered to really look at him. Not seeing the money and the morpher, but just him.
An hour later we stood in a corner of Dr. Zaskin’s laboratory, watching as the best biologists in Silver Hills went to work on the sample of serum Wes had brought. If he was right, it would save not just his friends but everyone in the city who had been bitten in this latest attack. He would be the hero again... and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to resent it this time.
I watched his face, so pale and worried and vulnerable. For a moment I wanted to reach out, just to put a hand on his shoulder. But he probably wouldn’t like that. Instead I said the only thing I could think of that might help.
“There’s nothing more you can do here. Go take care of your friends. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
Wes’s blue eyes turned to me, perhaps trying to see if I meant it or was being sarcastic again. Apparently he was satisfied with whatever he saw. “As soon as you know something? Promise?”
“Sure. And if - when they start making the serum, I’ll make sure you get the first batch.”
Again, our eyes met and held. And then he said, “Thanks,” and for just a moment we were the old Wes and Eric, friends again, as his warm, bright smile that I still remembered from so many years ago seemed to go right through me.
“How’s he doing?”
“So far so good. He seems to be responding to the oxygen.”
“Good. I have to go back to another patient; call me if anything happens.”
The attack had been swift, and vicious. A mob of cyclobots, swarming through the hallways and laboratories of Bio-Lab. And with them - Ransik himself, big and ugly as life. I had tried to stop him as he left, thought I’d have no problem; I was a Ranger after all, and stronger than any of the rest of them. Now I was lying flat on my back, beaten and forcibly demorphed. Ransik sneered down at me, laughing at me. He hadn’t even broken a sweat in our brief fight.
Was he going to kill me? He could, easily. But for whatever reason, he just gave me a contemptuous look and walked away, as if I wasn’t even worth the effort.
The mighty Quantum Ranger, not so unbeatable after all.
Stiffly, I climbed back to my feet and limped back towards the building. And then I saw that Ransik hadn’t been so merciful to Mr. Collins, as he was carried out on a stretcher and lifted into an ambulance.
“Heartbeat is getting irregular. Blood pressure falling. Breathing is erratic.”
“Get a tube into him, and find the doctor! Any doctor!”
I sat in a boardroom at Bio-Lab, trying to keep my face from showing anything as anger followed shock at the sight of Wesley Collins, complete with suit and tie, taking a seat at the head of the conference table. Mr. Collins’ seat. While his father was fighting for his life, Wes was already moving in and taking over, like a shark smelling blood.
Look at his face. Does he look like he wants to be here? Or does he look lost and alone, just trying to do what he thinks his father would want?
He looks like... What difference does it make? He’s here. He’s taking control. And guess what’s the first thing he’ll probably do?
Wes isn’t petty or vindictive. He’s never given up on trying to be your friend. He won’t fire you.
After everything I’ve done and said to him? He’d be a fool not to.
Feeling guilty?
No - yes - I don’t know! I can’t take the chance. Don’t want to give him the satisfaction of getting back at me.
Why? Because you’d rather quit than be fired? Or because if Wes hates you; if you’ve made him hate you with your arrogance and your hostility, it would hurt more than you can stand?
Because... I don’t know! Leave me alone!
“He’s in cardiac arrest, Doctor!”
“Prep him, and get the crash cart ready!”
“I’ll miss you.”
I was surprised when Alice hugged me, her little arms tight around my waist. What had I done to earn her affection? Been her neighbor? I was gone more than I was home. Let her play with my birds once in a while? That had been more for me than for her, because it was nice to have her undemanding company, and to talk about the simple things children care about, and forget the increasing complexity of my own life just for a few minutes.
Awkwardly I rested my hands lightly on her shoulders. After another moment she looked up, eyes clear and innocent, the look of a child who has learned to accept the strange and sometimes hurtful things grownups do without asking too many questions. I wondered if I had looked like that when my mother left.
The cab was waiting. I opened the door and leaned in to drop my bag on the seat, and then turned back to say goodbye. Alice was staring at me solemnly. Swallowing back the lump that had risen in my throat, I found I couldn’t speak. Instead I smiled, and reached to touch her cheek, and then got in. The smile stayed on my face while I waved a last time, and then faded as the cab carried me towards a future that loomed bleak and empty. I had left everything behind, even my birds. They would be better off without me. Everyone would.
Why exactly are you doing this?
Mr. Collins would be gone soon, if he wasn’t already. With Wes running Bio-Lab, how long would my job last? No, better to leave, and start over somewhere else.
Wes has tried very hard to make friends again. If you’re leaving, it’s because of you, not him. Admit it.
Even if Wes didn’t fire me, how could I face taking orders from him? Calling him ‘sir’? It would just be too humiliating.
So you’re going to run away, and take your toys with you. The other Rangers need you. So does everyone in Silver Hills.
They don’t need me. They need the morpher and the Q-Rex.
Not much of a distinction, when you’re the one controlling them. Like it or not, that morpher came with responsibilities. You can’t just leave.
Movement caught my eye. Two huge forms in the distance, facing each other in battle, the Time Force megazord and Frax’s latest creation. It didn’t look good for Wes and his friends; their zord had already taken obvious damage and took more as the dragon-like robot sent sparks flying with a blow to the chest. “Pull over!” I said without thinking, and got out as soon as the cab came to a stop.
I hesitated for a few seconds, but I already knew what I had to do. Whatever Wes thought of me, whatever he might do to me later on - at this moment he needed me. They all did. I raised my arm to morph, and joined the fight.
“Get ready to shock! Everybody clear!”
“Doctor, wait! I have a pulse! He’s back!”
We had won. The others were busy congratulating each other as their zords disappeared, heading back to their own time. I made no attempt to join them. I had played my part, and somehow that was enough. Leaving them to their celebration, I sent the Q-Rex back to its hiding place, demorphed, and commandeered a car from a unit of Silver Guardians that had been observing the battle from a safe distance.
Which left me with a choice. Find my stuff, call another cab, and head out of Silver Hills again? Or go home and face up to the consequences of my own actions? Make my peace with Wes, if he was willing, suck it up and do my job, even if I had to do it for him?
Would that be so difficult?
Difficult, yes. Reporting to Wes... obeying his orders...
Why does that seem so impossible?
Because when I look at him I still see that kid I used to hang with in school. I still see the guy who avoided responsibility, and was just out for a good time.
Do you see the guy who made friends with you, and didn’t care what the other kids thought? The guy who’s tried to make friends with you again, despite your attitude? The guy who’s never been anything but kind to you?
I see him turning away from me because of one mistake, when I tried to come on to him.
Maybe he was confused, and didn’t know how to react. He was just a kid then. Maybe that was his one mistake.
I see... I see the kid I had a crush on then.
Or do you see the man you’re in love with now?
Love? No. Hell no.
You can lie to him, and even to yourself. But not to me.
Wes! I hit the brakes instinctively as I saw him burst out of the bushes, cross the sidewalk at a run, and stop just before my car would have hit him. Damn, I could have killed him! Shock and relief turned to anger; I wanted to yell at him; I wanted to hit him; I wanted to jump out and grab him...
He must be rushing back to the hospital to see his father; even Wes wasn’t enough of an idiot to run into the street without looking unless he was too upset to see straight. Maybe this was my chance to show him I wasn’t the lunatic he and his friends probably thought I was. Maybe it was a chance to start over, in a very small way.
Dammit, maybe it was time to admit I liked him. Just a little.
Only a little?
All right, all right, more than a little. Love? Well, I’ll think about that later.
“Get in!” I called to Wes, seeing him nod and give me the ghost of a smile as I added, “I’ll give you a ride.”
“He seems to be stable enough to be moved to intensive care. We’ll have to keep an eye on him; we don’t know much about the effects of these blasters. Let’s just hope he’s past the worst of it.”
I opened my eyes to darkness, and wondered if I was still alive. But I must be, in the afterlife I wouldn’t be lying under a heap of rubble. And I wouldn’t hurt so much. Gathering my strength, I shoved on a sheet of metal over my head, and got it out of the way.
Destruction. Nothing but destruction all around, small fires, smoke. The Q-Rex and Doomtron, they had been fighting; where were they? I scrambled out and slid painfully to the ground, got to my feet, and looked up to see my once-mighty zord, now almost too damaged to move. “Q-Rex!” I shouted, and got only a twitch and a rumble in response.
It needed to recover, to repair itself. And I needed some repairing myself. But it looked like I wasn’t going to get the chance, as a small mob of cyclobots appeared from the wreckage strewn around me. My morpher was out of power after somehow keeping me alive through being blasted by Frax’s robot; it would be of no help now.
The next minute or two was a blur as I defended myself as best I could. They surrounded me, too many to fight, just a wall of fists and grabbing hands and kicking feet. When they threw me onto a car and let me fall to the cracked pavement again, I knew this was it, I was facing death in the middle of a ruined city, with no one to see, without having defeated Ransik or Frax, and not even at the hands of a living opponent.
But I wasn’t going to admit defeat, or to go quietly. Wordlessly I snarled at them as they came closer... and caught the movement only an instant before a form in a red shirt flew in and whirled into action. Wes, not looking a whole lot better off than I was, but still on his feet, and strong enough to drive most of them away.
When he reached me I was dragging myself up, determined not to let him see me just lying there helplessly. “I was managing just fine, thanks,” I said, but held on to him gratefully enough.
“Right,” was all Wes said, but I caught a glint of amusement in his eyes before he hauled me the rest of the way onto my feet.
“Doctor? How is he?”
“Still stable, but he hasn’t recovered consciousness.”
“What are his chances?”
“No way to know at this point. But he’s young, and strong. I’m hopeful.”
“He’s lived though more than most of us face in a lifetime, and come out on top. No reason to think he won’t do it again.”
“Any word about your son?”
“Not yet. But I’ve gotten a report that the Rangers are in action again.”
“You and I have nothing in common!” I glared up at Wes as he sat on a broken piece of concrete in the wreckage-strewn back alley where we had found temporary safety.
I’m not sure if it was the pain of my injuries, the hopelessness of our situation, or the shock of finding out Wes’s pals from the future had run out on us. Probably it had a lot to do with his casual assumption that we would stick together and team up now. Or maybe it was surprise at the way he had gotten angry at me when I told him that wasn’t going to happen. He had demanded an explanation - and I had given it to him. It was more than I could remember ever telling anyone about myself. Growing up poor. No one to help, no one to care. The endless struggle just to keep myself out of the gutter, while he was cruising through life on his daddy’s money. I had told him, all right, all the reasons why we shouldn’t - couldn’t - be friends.
For a moment I thought he would accept it - but then he crouched beside me, his face hard and determined. “No,” he said. “We may have grown up differently, but we have a lot in common. We both fought to change our destinies, and we both succeeded.” He grabbed my wrist, and held his arm next to mine. “Look at this!” Unwillingly, I glanced down to see our morphers, different yet the same, side by side. “We are Power Rangers, Eric. And friends or not, we’re the only hope this city has right now!”
Is this the same guy you thought was a weakling? A lazy rich kid with nothing on his mind except a good time?
I raised my eyes to Wes’s. No. Not a weakling. I suspect he’s stronger than I am in some ways.
About time you realized that.
Okay, okay. You’re right and I’m wrong. Wes is right and I’m wrong. Happy now?
Yes. If you can admit that, you don’t need me anymore.
“So - what do you suggest we do now?” I asked Wes, and saw him smile.
“Still no change?”
“No. He seems to be in some kind of coma.”
“But - he’ll come out of it, won’t he?”
“We just have to wait and see.”
I had never been in the other Rangers’ clock tower before, except for the little shop they worked out of on the ground floor. Couldn’t say much for it now, when it was dark and empty. Hard to imagine that Wes Collins, spoiled rich kid, had spent months living in this chilly, dusty dump. My respect for him went up another couple of notches. As a matter of fact, I felt - I dunno, proud of him or something.
“You’re pretty badly hurt,” he told me now, as I gave the bandage he had wound around my arm a gingerly touch. “You’ve got to take it easy. The next time we go out there...”
He was right, but if he thought I was going to let him go on alone, he was crazy. “It doesn’t matter how bad it is, does it?” I said, a little more harshly than I intended. “I’ll still have to fight.”
Still, we didn’t have to go into action quite yet. I sat on the ancient sofa they must have all relaxed on in better times, and looked up at the glass clock face that let in enough moonlight to cast the room into shades of silver and shadow. Wes followed and sat beside me.
We began to talk. It started innocently enough, with his teammates, and why they had left. But then, when he told me what Alex, his double in the future, had said about them - about him, and what was going to happen to him, according to history... It became more personal. He believed he was going to die. I believed it too. And if he was going to die, most likely I was too, because there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to do my damn best to try and prevent it.
I’m not sure why I said it. The need to confess, I suppose, or to reach out and hope he understood what was behind so many of the things I had said and done in the past. “Wes...” I started, and hesitated. “We may not survive this night. We may never see each other alive again. I need to tell you...”
“Go on.”
I looked away, not quite daring to see his reaction. “You probably know already. Must have suspected it, ever since school.”
“What?” The word sounded almost afraid, as if he didn’t think he wanted to hear what I had to say.
“That I’m gay.” I glanced up, not long enough to see anything.
“Eric, I -- it doesn’t matter to me.”
“It should. I had a crush on you back then. A big one. That time, in the study room, you probably wondered if I was going to try to kiss you. I was.”
Wes paused as long as I had. “I remember,” he finally said.
“After that, I was embarrassed to face you. Thought you probably hated me. So I got angry. Tried to hate you back.”
It all came out then. School, that night, how I felt afterwards, my scholarship being pulled, dropping out and going into the Army. Wes listened, with only a comment or two. I tried to figure out what he was thinking, but all I could see was that he was embarrassed. So of course I made it worse by confessing things I had avoided admitting even to myself.
“You were nice; you tried to make friends again. And you were a great Ranger. A good fighter. Brave. Smart. Willing to risk your life to help other people. Even me. I started to respect you. And...” I could have stopped there. Should have. But I didn’t. “It’s stupid, I know. But I love you.” I tried again to see a reaction. “I guess there were times you suspected it. Sometimes I even thought... maybe you felt something too...”
Wes shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. I love Jen.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“All right. Fair enough.” It almost stopped there. But...
“I’m sorry, Eric. I wish...” Wes looked into my eyes, and I saw something at last. It was hidden, it was only a spark, and an unwilling one, but it called to me and gave me hope.
I leaned closer. “Wes, this might be the last chance. Please...” I reached out hesitantly and saw him flinch, but that spark was still there, brighter now. “Just let me touch you... once...”
I ran my fingers over his cheek, and his face began to come closer, and he didn’t stop me when I closed the distance between us and kissed him at last, our lips barely making contact. And then I realized he was kissing back, and reaching to pull me closer, and he didn’t stop me when the kiss became passionate and my hands began to explore. He didn’t stop me when I unzipped his pants, and when I knelt between his knees...
There’s a big difference between having sex and making love. As quick and clumsy and out of control as it was, I had never felt anything like it. Until it was over, and Wes pushed me away.
“Look at his eyes. Rapid movements, like deep sleep. As if he’s dreaming, and can’t wake up.”
“Or won’t wake up. There’s no physical reason for him to still be unconscious. Wish we knew more about the effects of these blast weapons.”
“Yes. We can give him stimulants, keep his heart beating and his lungs working. But who knows what’s really going on inside him?”
Morning. I kept going, because that was all that was left. Just keep going long enough to beat Ransik and Frax, and get rid of the cyclobots, and save the city. If we could. But Wes and I both knew we couldn’t; I could see it in his eyes, the few times he would look at me.
It never happened, that was what he had said in the clock tower, when he realized what we had done. It shouldn’t have happened. But it had, and like all the mistakes we make in life we would just have to live with it. In our case, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have to live with it much longer. The cyclobots had found us there not long after our little encounter, and we had barely escaped with our lives. Next time, we probably wouldn’t be so lucky.
“What’s that?” Wes had stopped in the middle of the rubble-strewn street, staring ahead.
I heard it too. “Cyclobots.”
“Let’s go.”
The sight we saw froze both of us, but only for an instant. Moving as if we were one person, we morphed and attacked; destroyed most of the cyclobots which were closing in on Mr. Collins, and drove off the rest. As soon as it seemed to be safe, we demorphed, as we had been doing to conserve the energy in our morphers.
Wes ran to his father. “Dad, what are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you.” He said something more, about being proud. I tried not to listen, and not to watch them as they hugged. It was easier to look away as I wondered what it would feel like to have a father who cared about me that way. But for once what I felt wasn’t envy and resentment, but gladness that Wes finally appreciated what he had.
So it was pure luck that I was looking away from them, and in the right direction to see one of the fallen cyclobots move, lifting its arms, raising a blaster to take aim, dead at Wes and Mr. Collins. I moved, acting on pure instinct, jumping into the line of fire even as I shot back. Fast enough to save them - but not myself.
It was like the time Conwing had blasted me, but much worse. I saw the energy blaze up around me, and felt it burn. Then as it faded, all I felt was a sort of numbness, and all I saw was a blur as I started to fall.
They caught me before I hit the ground. As Wes bent over me, I thought I saw that spark again, this time cold with fear and warm with concern. “We’ve got to get him help!” he said to his father.
“I’ll take him.”
“No...” I saw the look that passed between them. It meant that Wes was going on alone. Without me. “I’m going with you...” I tried to fit action to words, and get up. But it was only words, and we all knew it as pain brought me back down, weak and groaning.
“Eric, don’t worry. I got it from here.” Wes laid a gentle hand on my chest and started to stand.
“Wait! Wait...” If I couldn’t be with him, there was still one thing I could do. One thing I could give him, one way to help. There was not a shred of doubt or hesitation in my mind as I held my morpher up to my face and deactivated the voice identification, breaking my link with it and leaving it ready to be controlled by another person. Then, painfully, I undid the strap and held it out. “Take this. If anything can neutralize those crystals... my Quantum Defender can.”
Looking astonished and overwhelmed - stunned, really - Wes took it. Had I been so selfish that he found it amazing that I would do this for him? But of course I had. I held my hand up, wondering if he would take it. He did, clasping it tightly with his own, his eyes looking deeply into mine once more, and there it was again, the spark...
And then he was gone, going to meet death on his own terms, with all the courage I had never given him credit for. Gone, as I heard the distant sound of car engines grow louder and Mr. Collins waved and shouted, gone as everything faded into silence and darkness.
“Eric?
“Eric, it’s me. Wes.
“Can you hear me?
“They said you called for me. You asked for me.
“The doctors say they don’t know why you won’t wake up. Dad said maybe if I talk to you, it would help. Just to tell you everything’s okay now. We captured Ransik. He gave up, really. Nadira too. Frax was destroyed in the fight.
“My friends - Jen and the others - they came back. They disobeyed orders from Time Force and came back to help me. I guess history has changed - but then I always said we make our own destiny. Maybe it’s even true. It seems to have worked out; no harm done, the timeline survived okay. And the city came through, too. Lots of damage, but we’re going to make it.
“So anyway... Eric... anyway... I just wanted to say something. About what happened... Well, I wish I knew what to say, but I don’t. Just... all I know is you saved my life, and Dad’s, and I want you to know I’m grateful. And I’m your friend, and I want you to be okay. No matter what, that’s always going to be true. I - I care about you.
“Jen said they want to let you keep the morpher. So you have every reason to wake up, don’t you? I’m leaving it right here, so it’ll be ready for you when you wake up. That’s when, Eric, not if. When. I have to go now, but it’ll be waiting... So will Dad, and Jen and the others... and so will I...”
When I opened my eyes again, it was to a white ceiling, white walls, and the soft sounds of hospital equipment in an empty room. And a question. I could remember the shadowy dreams in which I had wandered my own past, and the sound of my own voice, sometimes mocking, sometimes arguing, always forcing me to see what I should have seen then. Had I imagined Wes’s voice too, calling me back?
No way to know... or maybe there was. When I turned my head I saw it, red and black, lying on the table next to my bed. My morpher.
We make our own destiny, Wes had said. Maybe he was right. We had won; the long hard fight was over, and the rest of our lives was about to begin. Whether or not Wes forgave me for what had happened between us, whatever he really felt for me, and whatever our relationship finally turned out to be... It was time to start thinking about a better destiny, as I prepared to face the future.