The Polchinski Locket

The Stormers bear down on me with endless fire. Golden, glowing shards of plasmic metal whistle past me and strike my armor, which won't hold up to an endless barrage such as this one. Weaving between cover, I have no hope of escape. My weapon is nearly empty, and my lone searing knife won't do much good with a group of enemies.

Breathless, I take a moment to hide behind a dilapidated vehicle that haven't moved in at least a century. There are no other Hunters around to assist me. A shot damaged my radio, eliminating any communication between me and help.

In my peripheral vision, I see the manifestation of a Stormer's teleportation portal. I turn my attention to the movement. The black smoke swirls outward from a point about three feet off the ground and begins to spark with violent red energy. Not wishing to be pinned down, I flee before it steps foot out of its portal. More rounds pierce my armor, chipping away until the white-hot shrapnel bites into my flesh.

Another portal materializes in front of me. This one is significantly larger and scintillates with purplish sparks instead of the recognizable crimson electricity. Nothing comes through, and gambling with my life, I lunge. I'm not sure what I expected the experience to be like, but a slight coolness and silence were certainly not it. I stumble through the other side, flailing my arms to maintain balance. The portal shrinks and closes behind me. I'm safe for now.

The sight on the other side of the unusual Storm appalls me. I look and see a Hunter, sporting numerous bullet holes in her armor, too. This Hunter stands over the corpse of another wearing riot gear, lying at the base of the steps of an abandoned judicial building. The gear failed to protect her from her aggressor. The glint of a gold chain hanging from the hand of the rogue Hunter catches my eye, sparkling in the smoggy afternoon sunlight.

Seeing me, she holds her hands up and cries out frantically, “Wait, wait, wait!”

I draw my weapon and fire a shot.

She takes the hit without missing a beat and escapes into the labyrinth of scourged skyscraper buildings behind her.

I dash to the prone cadaver and briefly investigate, finding nothing of note. A shot to each leg and a single, perfectly-placed stab wound in the back from a searing knife paint the picture of her death. Honestly, it's an efficient kill strike for melee combat that I would have used. I check her weapon and discover she had no ammo. At least I have four rounds left, which is better than zero. Instinctively, I try to radio in the report about the rogue Hunter, but I have no comms device to do so.

Gunfire and shouts grab my attention.

Following where I saw the rogue go, I find a cluster of bodies. Stormers, violently stabbed to death. I ponder her motive. She killed one of our own along with the three enemies. What is she thinking?

I spot her about three hundred meters away. Taking careful aim, I fire again, hitting the nape of her neck. She falters this time but continues running. She rounds a corner and breaks my line of sight.

I double-check the barrel. Three shots left.

Bounding to keep up, I round the same corner and pause. It's a dead-end alley with no sign of her. I glance upward to check to see if she scaled the buildings. A red Storm forms in front of me. I level my weapon with the center of the portal, ready to fire. The rogue's hands poke through first in surrender, followed by the rest of her. The locket sparkles on her wrist.

Her damaged respirator distorts her voice as she says, “Look, let's talk about this. What if...the Stormers are us, from a different time or place? Or even both?”

Does she mean humans?

I disregard her. I'm a Hunter on a one-track mission for justice. “This is not the time to be hypothetical,” I reply. “I'm following you because you're either a traitor or a Stormer hiding under the facade of one of us.”

“I found her standing over the corpse of a Hunter.”

I raise an eyebrow, but the rogue cannot see my face through my mask. “You expect me to believe you, finding someone else in the exact same situation I found you.”

She shakes her head. “Quite frankly, no.”

Pivoting around, she opens up a strange purple Storm, just like the one I saw earlier. I fire another shot, hitting her in the back and eliciting a grunt of pain before she steps through.

Two shots left.

Not wanting to lose her, I jump through the portal and whirl when a blunt object hits me in the side of the head. The blow doesn't severely wound me, but my head spins from the impact. Retention in my short-term memory slips from a mild concussion, leaving small gaps from the past few minutes in my mind. I remember stepping through a unique purple Storm portal and seeing this rogue who betrayed the Remnants, but the rest is just out of reach. I try to retrieve the moments between taking up chase and now, but it's all fuzzy and probably unimportant.

Dropping to the floor, I blink away some of the confusion and see the Hunter running away. I push to my feet and attempt to follow, but the double vision combined with the near-darkness of the facility disorients me. I lean on the wall for support. It feels like only a few seconds, but the head injury jumbles my thoughts and sense of time as I stand here.

I have to hurry. The main thing I can recall right now is that I have to avenge my fallen comrade. I have to seek justice for her.

My target shoves me and rushes away. I can't discern her in the blackness. Regardless, fighting the dizziness, I begin the pursuit. Blurriness impedes my vision, but I'm able to keep a lock on the glinting of the metallic chain as she rushes down the main corridor. Bursting through the front doors, the rogue descends the stairs.

Desperate, I fire my last two shots. She collapses and cracks her face mask on the ground.

Upon approach, my vision clears enough for me to see that she donned black police gear, which explains why I couldn't see her and wouldn't have known where she went, had it not been for the locket dangling from her hand. Without thinking, I power up the searing knife and stab her through her back. The stench of burning flesh singes the inside of my nostrils. She doesn't even have time to protest before the life leaves her.

I bend down and pick up the locket. Standing upright and opening it, I find two monochrome pictures inside. A shard of glass is missing from the cover of the photo on the left. It is of a woman, and the right is of three young children. I don't recognize any of them, so this trinket means nothing to me. All I know is that all four of these people are deceased and have been for at least two centuries.

Hearing the crackling of a Storm portal, I turn and note it's purple.

A female Hunter stumbles out and catches her balance using her arms. She freezes, examining the ghastly scene.

I need to somehow explain that I found this woman in the same situation. Filling in details that I lost from the concussion will be difficult. I hold my hands out to her and cry, “Wait, wait, wait!”

Without hesitation, she fires at me. Ignoring the wound, I bolt further into the cityscape for shelter. She stays behind to investigate the scene while I take cover behind the nearest structure. I halt. Three Stormers ready their weapons at the sight of me. My pulse skyrockets. Behind me, I have a focused Hunter tracking me down. Ahead, the enemy bears down on me. Adrenaline courses throughout my system. I slowly remove my searing knife from the hilt and activate it.

A sparking red portal forms directly on me and reopens behind the troop. Did I just create this Storm to reach a more advantageous position?

I shake the psychotic idea off and stab the closest enemy to me through the spinal column with a grotesque sizzle. Though he goes down silently, the smell of charred flesh penetrates their filtration masks. Stunned by my strange disappearance, one exclaims, “What the—” but my scalding blade interrupts him, slicing through his neck armor and throat. The other fires on me, drawing blood and a yelp. A second red Storm engulfs me and spits me out to the right of the final Stormer. I plunge the blade into his ribs.

The quiet patter of the Hunter's boots echo through the demolished streets, meaning it's time for me to go. My still-aching head throbs with every pounding step of my own.

A stinging pain pierces the back of my neck, followed by an electrical squelching sound in my helmet. She shot through my microphone. I make a left at the next corner and find myself staring at a brick wall looming over a dead-end alley. I think to myself that I need to get out of here, and another unsolicited portal swallows me, placing me behind my pursuer. I watch her, confused as to how I escaped, inspect the scene.

Am I truly the one creating these portals? Also, if the red Storms can move them around spatially, is it possible that the purple ones have a temporal component?

I ready my hands in surrender and simply will myself in front of the pursuing Hunter. I step through and stand in front of her, exactly as I wanted. There is no doubt that I did it and did it effortlessly.

Fighting the interference from my damaged helmet, I say, “Look, let's talk about this. What if...the Stormers are us, from a different time or place? Or even both?”

“This is not the time to be hypothetical,” she responds flatly. “I'm following you because you're either a traitor or a Stormer hiding under the facade of one of us.”

All of this resonates as vaguely familiar, like this is what happened sometime after I stepped through the purple Storm. “I found her standing over the corpse of a Hunter.”

“You expect me to believe you, finding someone else in the exact same situation I found you.”

I shake my head. “Quite frankly, no.”

Knowing she's about to pull the trigger, I pivot and step into a purple Storm. She gets me in the back just before I enter. The portal dumps me into a pitch-black room, so I switch on the small light on my mask. I see some black clothing piled in a corner at the very moment the other woman follows me through the purple-and-black vortex. I grasp the heaviest object in reach and swing it, connecting with the side of her helmet. Her legs buckle, sending her disoriented to the floor. Seizing the opportunity, I equip the stealthier-colored clothing and extinguish my light.

While she's reeling from the blow, I bolt down the main corridor as soundlessly as possible, but my steps still resound through the empty building. In front of me are the doors to the exterior, spilling polluted light through the cracks between the doors and the frame. I slam my hands into the releases to open the doors and see a staircase descending to the street below me. The weight of the ill-fitting gear shifts forward uncomfortably as I sprint through the exit.

Two rounds embed into my thighs and sprawl me onto the cracked pavement.

I hear the hum of the searing knife activate.