Wynter Jumper - Part 2 (SandS Collaboration Challenge)
The gear turned, interlaced with another, and another. His eyes traced the inner workings of the machine to the place where the light shone.
"Won't be long now. Trav, pack the van. Bentley, get the tranq gun."
They'd learned a lot with the early jumps. Chloe had been the first candidate to really excel at Jumping and over the decade since those first tentative steps, had helped Doctor Forgrave perfect his invention... And dramatically expand its use.
A slight buzzing preceded the Jumper, followed by an inward pull of air as if the very spot she would appear was taking a breath. A flash of light bathed the room, and a bestial roar filled the warehouse.
"Shoot her!" he yelled, looking at Bentley who stood frozen. Newbies. God.
The Jumper snapped her head in Bentley's direction and with a growl, lurched back into the void.
Harmon hadn't even finished his curse before a pulling wind and blinding flash lit the room a second time. A fine pink mist exploded out of the area that Bentley had been occupying moments earlier.
"Chloe! Stop!" he shouted. Behind him, a van roared to life, which thankfully took her attention off of him. "Chloe! Don't Jump! You're experiencing a dangerous level of synapse warp. We aren't -"
She blinked out of existence again.
Get the tranq gun.
Harmon lept forward, sliding through the gore that had been the team's newest recruit only a minute ago... wrapping his fingers around the weapon and rolling to face both the space he'd been and the van behind him.
Another distant pull of air confirmed the worst case - she'd targetted the van. Harmon closed his eyes in the half-second before the flash. The van ripped apart as if torn by the hands of God. Chloe's displacement wasn't explosive, but it did turn the entire front of the van into shrapnel. For a split second, it hung there in the air before exploding outward.
Harmon did his best to roll behind a nearby pillar but felt the bite of multiple chunks of metal shred his back. A scream ripped free of his throat, but there was no time to waste - he forced his shredded muscles to raise the rifle and squeeze the trigger.
Chloe turned to look at him in the same moment the dart slammed into her chest. She took a step forward as if preparing to Jump, and then fell.
Harmon raised a shakey hand to the earpiece he wore. "Doc, the clone is down. You've got maybe two hours to get here. Van is gone. Team is dead. I'm in bad shape... but she's down. Send recovery."
Shakily, he pulled a vape out of his breast pocket, remembering the lyrics of an old song.
🎵You've got twelve good minutes of pain before it's useless complaining... time to have a cigarette and wash it all away...🎵
I tried two different takes on this, and in the end, settled on this ending to the story. It didn't end up leading where I thought it would... but I figured I'd roll with it anyhow. It leaves some more questions to be answered but hopefully is satisfying nonetheless.
This was the second part of the story proposed in this post, and was a continuation of @killerwot's story here
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay:
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/cry-person-face-abstract-banner-1682140/
Hahaha this is sick! I had no idea where this story would go, or where it would end, but you know what, I think it's pretty cool! I like the idea of her being a clone, as well as the idea of the jump device thing being used as a weapon, and yeah, it 100% raises some more questions... Perhaps there'll be a part 3... 😎
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In my head-cannon, Chloe Prime went from that first encounter to basically doing dozens of more jumps and eventually helping to really quantify the limits of like... distance, number of jumps you can do, how long you can stay in the space between, etc etc etc before being lost or killed or something. And now, they're trying to clone her since everyone else to try the kit couldn't hack it for nearly as long as she did. But, there's something going wrong, and the clones are hitting a threshold where they're suddenly snapping and just begin killing anyone that tries to stop them from whatever their goal is.
That's a really interesting concept, you really took the idea on a whole new spin and added so much to the initial story.
Did you get set up on Dreemport? We'll each be uploading our parts tomorrow, and I've just linked your story to the first part so it's easy to find.
Also, thanks for... jumping... in on this story with me, I think they'll both be well received in the contest.
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This is awesome dude. You did really great. I loved the whole twist thingy... Bravo hunnie! Bravo!!
Thank you!
This is a cool image to end this two-part story. The story kept the overall same tone and essence as the first part. It's great that you and @killerwot carried the story pretty well together.
Thank you!
Quite impressive.
Seems this collaboration is really bringing out the best qualities in posts
Popped in via @dreemport
Thanks! It was a lot of fun!
It was definitely satisfying, but honestly I would have either gone longer, or added a part three. It was just too good not to tie up loose ends :)
!PIZZA
Thanks! Yeah, I was under a bit of time constraint as I needed to get it in for the contest just before we left for a mini-vacation, but a part 3 is a good idea!
Please tag me when you do??? I don't want to miss it!
Can do!
You guys collaborate well together. I would have loved to have known what they were achieving with the jumps... maybe in part 3 !LOLZ And clones? This is an interesting and topical conclusion to the story, when AI is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds these days. Especially AI on steroids or gone rogue, removing control from human hands. The vape is a nice touch with the song 😎Thanks for taking part in this dreem-wotw collaboration challenge. I hope to see more of your writing in Dreemport some day !PIZZA !ALIVE
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Thank you! It was a lot of fun. I'm not sure it went exactly the way Killerwot would have taken it, but I think we did end up setting ourselves up a pretty cool little collaborative world. I'll talk to him about continuing this!