Voynich Shift - Season One (COMPLETED)

Leonis, 1:11, 2:15 - Roach Hotel - Firebugged

As the building rumbled, Gerald turned in place with Cameron's large, heavy arm around his neck. They needed to find a way out and fast, but he was unsure where to go next. They were surrounded by walls of fire. That was when something across the room caught his attention . Gerald squinted to see whatever it was. Through a broken window, he noticed the rippling, distorted images of the fire undulating in strange disorganized patterns over a dark surface. Sparkling reflections glinted intermittently from whatever it was. Gerald figured the substance to be water, but like the old adage, water, water everywhere, it would do him no good if he and Cameron could not get to it. He needed to find a way to make it across the building and every avenue of escape was blocked. Gerald forced down the panic growing in side of him. He was beginning to wonder which one of the two things, fright or smoke, was going to deprive him of oxygen first. Regardless, though his consciousness waned, he had no designs on giving up without trying.

Having always heard the rule to stay low in a fire, Gerald decided to ignore this snippet of wisdom because he knew that would be the last thing he and Cameron ever did. He also dismissed what his frantic brain told him to do, make a run for it through the fire. Gerald chose instead to lug Cameron up a metal staircase at the back corner of the room as it was the only structure still accessible for any sort of mobility. He stifled a scream as his hand touched the iron railings and pushed on, opening and closing his hand to alleviate the pain. He suddenly felt Cameron become limp in his arms. He patted the Marine's face. "Come on, stay with me Cam, okay? Let's get to the top."

He opened his eyes. "You're...an idiot...Gerald. Leave me," Cameron wheezed.

"To burn? No way, you don't want that and neither do I. Now, stop talking damn it  and walk!"

Gerald covered his hand with his coat. The flames licked at their heels and the building groaned. On the fourth level, Gerald could see that parts of the roof had fallen in taking a section of the floor with it. There was a flame-filled opening below that looked as though it led straight to hell, and a void in the ceiling above revealing a smoke-laden, nighttime sky.

"We're going to have to jump across," he coughed.

Cameron shook his head. "I can't."

"Yes you can! Now, get ready? Okay here we go. One, two, three!" Gerald exclaimed and the two men leapt forward from the metal stairway landing over to the remaining section of the third floor.

"Whoa!" Cameron's right foot slipped as a portion of the floor fell loose from below his boot and the large man began to tumble backwards, threatening to pull Gerald over the edge with him.

With his injured, yet free hand, Gerald released his coat and grabbed the brass door handle of an open apartment entry door. With the other, he caught Cameron's hand. The door suddenly swung open on its hinges and the two men leaned further over the edge into the open pit to hell. Gerald felt his hold on the Marine's hand slipping.

"Let...me...go," the exhausted Cameron pleaded. "I'm done."

"No, Cameron! Come on, pull up, please. We're so close...Cameron? What are you doing!?!!"

"Won't let...you die, too," Cameron said as his remaining boot slipped from the edge of the floor.

Gerald felt the Marine let go. "No!!!" he cried out.

With arms outstretched, Cameron fell backwards and disappeared into an eruption of flames and rolling embers.

Incredulous, Gerald remained there for a moment, hanging from the door handle in disbelief. "Cameron? ...Cam?"

With the last of his energy, the heart-broken Gerald pulled himself up, located his jacket, and stumbled over to a window. He attempted to open it, but it would not budge. With time running out, he wrapped the cloth around his hand and busted out the glass.

Gerald jumped from the fourth story window and splashed down into the dark water below.

<<*>>

Kate blinked and lifted her head from the steering wheel. She raised her hand to her forehead and felt the circular indention it made in her skin. "Ouch, damn!"

The rising sun's rays infused an orange haze into the gray smoke billowing up from the roofs of the still smoldering buildings. Its light revealed a city in ruins. The place was like a warzone, and Kate considered, if anyone, she was an expert in that sort of thing.

Kate opened the door with a metallic squeal and stepped from the steamobile. She turned, and with a gasp, crumpled to the ground. Several city blocks were no longer ablaze as she last saw it, not even smoldering. Instead, they were just...gone. Replaced by a hole in the ground filled with river water. No little girl, no mother, no anyone, including Gerald or Cameron.

"Kate!?!! Oh my god, it's you! You're still alive?"

Kate stood up and turned to find one disheveled, pale-faced Secret Service agent standing there all alone, clothes wet. She cocked her head and looked around him to see if she could locate Cameron.

Gerald shuffled weakly over to the steamobile and leaned against it. He then slid down its smooth metallic side until he was sitting with his legs out in front of him on the cobblestone street.

"Oh no, Gerald. Oh no! I'm so sorry!" Kate said and sat next to him.

Gerald turned a soot-covered face to Kate. Tears cut lines through the black dust on his cheeks. "I tried, but...he just couldn't. I couldn't..."

Karen pulled the blubbering man to her and held him until he regained his composure. "You loved him didn't you?"

"What am I going to do? He's gone."

"You're going to do what I'm doing." Kate said definitively as she thought of Parker and of her sister, of the woman and her child. She defiantly straightened her spine and placed her hand over her heart. She lifted Gerald's hand with her left and placed it to his chest. "Come on Sergeant Jerry, you know the words. We have a job to do and we can't do it if we are mourning, now can we?"

"No," he sniffed. "No, we can't."

"Okay, then say it with me..."

Gerald nodded, and he and Kate once again repeated the words from her world that he and she both had uttered far too many times, "Together we stand, divided we fall. A nation of many, individual souls. Forget the Fallen!"

Lowering his face into his hands, Gerald repeated the words one more time. "Forget the Fallen."

Kate stood. "That's right. Now, let's set it and forget it!"