Chapter Six: Death Complex

Rolando arrived in the middle of the desert, looking around at the flaming sand, “How ironic”, he thought as he walked up to the circle in the desert. There had been reports of a crashing object in the area and he knew he had to investigate. He didn’t want to tell Rocco about re-entering objects and going to the burnt deadlands especially after what emotionally compromised him, so the leader of the Outsiders decided to have a walk.

He looked at the flaming circle, it seemed to be pulsing with a red glowing light as if to attach someone towards it.  He closed off the air, the only way through to the site was a canyon outside of a town, and he had blocked the road because of sewer problems. He laughed a bit thinking about how easy it was to trick those people.

He stepped forward and the pulsing increased, it definitely recognized that he was near the crashed object and whatever it was it wanted him to come forward. He stepped down, he didn’t want to die again and have to walk all the way back to his car again, it had already happened once and he wasn’t planning on that again.

Looking around he laughed a bit at how he died last time, he was driving down the road and stopped to set up the road gate so that no one followed him, quite amazingly the road gate malfunctioned and dropped on him crushing his body and spilling his organs over the road, which he knew because the Komodo Dragon had to walk all the way back to the gate.

So he wasn’t in a very good mood dying once already that night and he didn’t feel like dying again so that he could come here and discover a threat and die for a third time again. He looked into the circle and it appeared to be a piece of metal lodged into the ground.

The red ring was on top of the circle, a glowing series of lights. He touched the ring and the sand shifted. The ball was pushed up from the ground and appeared before Rolando. He looked at the metal ball and it looked like it would fit in the size of his hands. Rolando stood up and looked at the ball, it called to him and he had the urge to touch it.

Putting his hands forward, he cupped the balls in his grip. He pulled it up to his face and the light slowly started to change to green. One at a time the red lights turned green as it went through its startup system. He placed the ball on the ground and slowly walked away from it, he didn’t like crazy metallic balls that recognized him.

He backed up towards his car, waiting for the ball to float up and presumably attack him or something. He wouldn’t have long until it did something to kill him or he did something to kill it. So he found himself at his car door, preparing to open the door and drive away like hell.

However, as the circle of red lights completely changed into green. The device activated, it floated upwards probably generator a hover field on the ground and pushing itself upwards. Rolando didn’t have a single clue on what to do with the object. He waved out his arm and it repeated, floating over to the same positon his hand would be in.

“Interesting the device is repeating what I am doing, I wonder.” Rolando said as he put his hand back and put out his other hand. He wondered if he could confuse it with multiple actions. He put up his hands and formed a Y, before quickly shifting to a M, then a C and an A.

However, instead of repeating him with a ball, a green goo was excreted from the ball and formed rudimentary hands repeating the motions with him and doing the dance along with him. He noticed that the time between when he would do an action and it would repeat was slowly decreasing.

“Mental scanner, figuring out what I am doing and repeating me, what use is that.” Rolando said as a face appeared on the goo’s ball, the hands lowering and a body forming along with legs as Rolando walked forward, getting increasing displeased with the floating ball. He had no idea what it was, or where it came from.

He looked at the floating object trying to see if it had any writing on it or anything like an instruction packet or an off switch, an off switch would be a useful function. He didn’t see the whole ball it activated when he held it in his hands meaning he only had seen the top of the ball. He looked at it and the center of the ball did seem to have the vents that were releasing the goo.

As Rolando walked forward, the rudimentary shape became more and more human like, facial details forming, views of clothes forming and more detail in general on the face. By the time Rolando had walked over it was almost like looking at a stretched and deformed version of himself.  

Rolando looked at the fake version of himself, leaning his head to the left which it repeated and to the right which it also repeated as well. Rolando raised his hand and it did the same. He looked at the goo, it seemed to have the consistency of jelly, gravity wasn’t pulling it down and it seemed to be able to hold itself up.

Rolando decided to test something, he put his hand on the goo and it put himself on the skin of the Komodo. However, unlike the goo Rolando pushed through the goo and looked at the goo. He pulled his hand out and put it up to the face as the goo hand did the same.

Rolando closed his eyes and mouth and thrusted forward, pushing his hand through the face and grabbing around the ball. Since his skin was solid, the goo twisted around his face and Rolando did not like it at all. The lizard grabbed the ball in the face and pulled at it.

The goo fell to the ground and he held the ball, looking at the tech it looked like a gravity projector and it seemed to be that it was control goopy body, shaping it with gravity waves and making sure it completed some sort of objective. He looked at the ball and it shacked and shimmied, suddenly pushing Rolando back towards his car and pulling the goo back out of the ground and around itself.

Rolando was frightened and he was afraid this could be a device that had the capability to destroy the human race if it wanted to. He looked at it and decided to deal with it while it was week. He didn’t want to be the person that accidentally caused the destruction of the entire human race.

He pulled out his pistol pointing it forward as he aimed at the metal ball inside of the goo casing. He looked at it and fired. The bullet speed at the metal casing and much to Rolando’s disappointment, bounced off and seemed to be trapped in the goo. Then to his horror the goo seemed set on repeating him.

A gun formed into the goo’s hand and it took the bullet from its arm and pulled it into the right place. Then it fired in the exact same way with the exact same motion. Rolando didn’t have time to dodge, he was struck with the bullet in his head, right between the eyes.

He gasped for air and fell to the ground as blood flooded out of his head. He was used to death, briefly appearing in the offices of hell and then disappearing like it was nothing. Sometimes a strange man in a red suit looked at him, sometimes other people were there like he was a crazy party trick.

It only lasted a second or so before he disappeared again and appeared back in the real world, at some place usually the close place to water. He breathed the fresh air of life and found he was in a bathtub. Looking around, the water was warm and there were bubbles in the tub. He guessed someone was preparing a bath.

“Come on honey, I have a special something for you.” He heard a woman’s voice behind him through a closed door. Quite quickly Rolando jumped out of the tub and looked for way out of the room. He found a window and jumped for it, not caring about the water trace he would leave. He opened the window and jumped out as the couple walked in.

The woman screamed and Rolando ran out of the window and tumbled on to the ground barely avoiding smashing his head. He continued running realizing he was back in the town from before he didn’t have much to work with but he figured that the goop might be coming for the town.

He looked around and there appeared to be some sort of festival going on in the town, he looked around there was a band playing and people dancing around. It looked to be at least early 20^th century, this town must have been left behind or they were celebrating something. The houses looked old and so did the people as well.     

It had to be some sort of festival or something, celebrating the anniversary of the town or something. However, that would have to wait, these people needed to warned before the goop monster appeared. So he took out his FBI badge, while faked he couldn’t have an Outsiders badge, as most of the public didn’t know of them.

He flashed it and people stopped as he walked down the alley and the festival stopped with his appearance. As he showed off his badge, the town leader showed up and looked at him. He examined the badge and nodded at him. The music stopped and Rolando was on stage to tell them what to do.

“Now then, I was just here and it appears that an artifact has crashed a mile outside of your town. I don’t want to stop your festival, looks real fun, but if you don’t, I’d couldn’t say I wouldn’t fear your lives.” Rolando said speaking simply and hoping that his message was conveyed.

“Help, there’s a dead man by the town’s gate!” Suddenly another man ran into the festival. Rolando quickly realized that the man was taking about his crushed body, but hopefully the man wouldn’t notice his appearance. He looked at Rolando and his face turned to confusion before turning to anger. “In fact that man there, looks like him as well.”

“Well then men do not start to walk after death, so I’d say you’d be a part of the devil’s work.” The mayor said, and ironically he wouldn’t be that wrong to say that. The towns folk suddenly turned on him and Rolando tried to make a assuring expression on his face but all he could make was one that really suggested to kill him.

“Do you say that you are not with the devil?” The mayor asked looking very, very angered as they approached Rolando. The dragon said nothing and only shook his shoulders. He looked around and the crowd approached him. Quite quickly he was approached by the town and engulfed and somehow he managed to die.

…

Rolando woke up in some sort of barrel, his head submerged in it. He was outside of town and the people didn’t seem very nice in town. Somehow they killed him with his bare hands, which was real crazy. He figured someone must have left this town off the map for a while and they got left a bit behind in the years.

He looked around and the blob seemed to be a bit dangerous, he had no idea who or what was controlling it. Why it appeared near here or why it was even a floating piece of goo, what would that help with. So he decided to call someone, opening his phone and clicking on the contact.

“Hey, there I need some information, there appears to be a crashed ball that controls jelly like goop, it might be alien and it felt cold when I cupped it. And I know how gay that sounds.” Rolando said as he joked with Rocco, he hoped to avoid the topic of re-entry.

“Well there was a satellite that had some material including goop inside of it, a gravity wave generator and it was sent on the closet path on the sun, it disappeared in the radiation and nobody knows where it went. It might have been sent on a highly elliptical path and after a few years it must have returned, good luck with that information.” Rocco said quickly, before hanging up. Rolando said as he took in that information that barely helped him in his current situation.

He put the phone down and needed an idea to get into the town and find the goop. He knew for sure that the goop was in the town and he needed to get there before it performed somesort of evil plan. The goop was wholly evil and he knew that from the second that he killed the goop. He needed to examine and view the town, trying to find evidence of the goop.

He focused and his body switched into the next, he found himself in the body of a female dancing around a male. Rolando didn’t feel strange, shifting into a female was perfectly normal for him. She looked around but kept finding her vision being blocked by the man.

“Honey could you please move, I need to go get something from the kitchen.” She said as he suddenly stopped, the man stopping and looking at her like she was crazy. He laughed a bit and continued dancing as if she had never said it. “I’m sorry but I have to go now.”

“What did you say now woman.” The man said as he put his arm on Rolando and started to squeeze. Rolando tried to walk away but as she did, the man grabbed her and pulled her out of the crowd, no one noticing as he did, taking her down the alley and looking at her.

“You are mine, I sold you to your father for five pigs. You are mine and you owe me.” The man said spitting at her as Rolando quickly realized that in addition to the 19^th century appearance of the place was not the only thing that remained. He pulled his belt out of his pants and folded them up preparing to beat the woman.

“Remember, this is your fault. You deserve this.” The man said as he raised his hand, and then Rocco had enough of it. He raised his hand and grabbed onto the man’s hand. She started to kiss the man, before pulling back and getting an apologetic look on his face. He then bashed his head forward and knocked the man down onto the ground.

“You do not hurt me, I will not hurt you, that is what marriage means, learn about that.” Rolando said as he felt he made his point, he switched out of his current body and back into his original body. He took a breath of air and ruffled his red and black hair, surely messing off the style. He though that perhaps time had messed up and this was a distortion. A time shifted dimension appearing, or one affecting the flow of time.

The more he thought about it though the more unnatural the town seemed to him. It had to be something causing this time, an experiment something that wasn’t right, a time shifted town from the past. He looked around and wondered if the goop ball had anything to do with it.

Perhaps it was an experiment, taking a town out of time and playing with them. Perhaps to train the goo, see what it was capable of. A company hacked the satellite and returned it to Earth, a test perhaps to test the Outsiders team. That angered Rolando. That meant he had to deal with both groups and resolve both of them.

He looked around and suddenly he saw the goop travel by, exiting the canyon and making his way towards the town. Rolando quickly ran towards the goop tracking it as he suddenly realized that ball had tracked back on him and was now coping him instead of following its own directives.

Rolando stood still and he had complete control over the goop and ball. He still had a bit fun with it, jumping up and down and watching it copy him, the longer he could keep it distracted the longer it wouldn’t kill. It was ironic, he found the killing machine a bit funny.

However, as it changed back towards his look, the goo became less and less clear and instead it appeared to become more and more similar. He looked at it more strands of hair becoming separated and colors appearing on his skin and in his hair. He was disturbed at the copying of his body as well and stopped moving and he looked at it.

“How similar can you get are you trying to replace me.” Rolando said getting his answer as the goop seemed to make similar mouth movement and a groaned voice that made him sound like he had smoked for thirty or so years appeared out of the goop.

“Stop that, now you’re trying to copy me fully, memorize my talents and then how far do you go predicting my body shape, how it evolves and how you can use my powers. Catch up to me and then go ahead.” Rolando said as he became further confused with what was happening. The creature was starting to copy his exact movements and he needed to do something with it.

He walked forward towards the cliff and so did the cloned version of him. As he walked it copied his movement, scanning him and becoming further and further life like. This blob this thing needed to be stopped whatever the deal with it was. It was a problem and needed to be stopped.

Rolando looked around and there appeared to be a large bolder being hung onto of a nearby cliff, deciding to use it as ammunition he raised his gun at it and fired.

The goo beast did the same, and fired a gooey bullet into the rock wall, but to no effect. But Rolando’s bullet seemed to work wonders with the cliff. With enough pieces blasted away, the rock started to tilt and fell over. The rock started to fall and the goo ball still didn’t recognize the danger and stood still under the rock.

“Good luck getting crushed, hasta la bye-bye!” Rolando said laughing a bit as the rock fell down and landed right on the goo beast. Hopefully whatever  put this town nearby would send it back to the hellhole time it came from and all of Rolando’s troubles would be dealt with.

However, as he looked around there was a sudden shock wave blast. He stood up and everything seemed a bit more different. He pulled out his phone and there was no signal anywhere, but there should have been signal. There couldn’t not be signal, there cell phones were connected by a tiny receiver on every single piece of space debris.

“Oh god this isn’t right, I can’t be back in my birth times, I can’t live twice again.” Rolando said as he had a bit of an crisis. However, unlike his old younger self he had all the experiences he needed. He remembered his experiences from growing up and now he had a second chance. He grew excited again, in two centuries he could visit him again and get his last good bye.

He however, would need to confirm  his time and year in order to make sure he could be up to date with the times. If he was right he should have been somewhere in the late 19^th Century, between the Civil and the Spanish American Wars, now he had to live back through the wars to end all wars.

However, the more he thought about the more he realized he might have not have to live through the entire time. He realized that lightbulbs would have existed by the time he was in and it would only be a quick jump to make vacuum tubes and after that he could make basic rudimentary programing.

However, he could only make a four bit program and  just barely could it work and even then the highest number he could register 16 valves and the highest would be his time. So he’d have to jump 16 years at a time, but it’d be easy once he’d arrive at Washington DC, he simply need to buy a few unrelated items and he could build a quantum freezer.

However, as he walked through the badlands he realized that Washington would be a few hours away on foot and he hadn’t had a drink until 200ish years until the future. Half way there he passed out and died, and then he woke up in the Potomac River.

Looking around unless they teared down the largest buildings and decided to replace them with tinier buildings, he was definitely in the 19^th Century. Picking up a newspaper, it appeared he was in 1869, because he did remember the opening of the Suez canal, he was there building the waterway and hitting on soldiers.

Looking around that should have meant he was free of people, but it is never as it seems. Suddenly a man wrapped his hand around his back and Rolando continued to walk.

“Hey Ronald.” No one called him that any more, however looking over his shoulder was his friend Tomas Elva Edison. While he didn’t know how famous he would be in the future, he was currently, based on the time visiting Washington DC, six months after he was granted his first patent, so while he couldn’t rely on him for lightbulbs he could still have a bit fun with history.

“So Edison, it has been a while, luckily I got sent back after an injury, but it seems with the canal finished I won’t be needed any more.” Rolando or as he was known in the past Ronald said to his friend as they walked down the snowy Washington street.

“You know if you are looking for work, I am opening a workshop in New Jersey near New York, if you are interested I would love to have you there.” Edison said in a dignified manner and while Rolando would take up that offer, it would have to be a different Rolando, not himself.

“Not now Edison, my sister is sick and I have to go see to her, but maybe in five years I can take up your offer.” Rolando said as he nodded to Edison, getting with in the style of voice that he needed to take up, hopefully his hair wouldn’t attach much attention.

“And what did happen to your hair, why is so upwards like it was statically charged?” Edison asked as Rolando’s fears were realized. He needed to act like he owned the place to lie like that and he needed something fast.

“I was working with ground platinum in a lab and when I ran a charge through the metal it was attached to my hair and it colored it like this, hopefully it wears out.” Rolando said as he realized that he had just invented the first idea for hair dye. He would need to be more careful if he wanted to avoid changing the future, unless he needed to do so to keep the nexus of time intact, time travel is confusing.

Either way he became the assemblage of his machine and built it in the locked basement of the future Outsider’s basement, made sure it was locked and programed correctly and one way or another he woke up 200 years later.

As the machine unfolded he looked out and found himself in come high tech felicity, it was like the room was created in the camber around him. He exited and found himself in a room with locked doors. Another door opened and he was then in a section of the Outsider’s base he had banned people from going into.

He wandered the base and tried to figure out what had happened, the lizard wondered the base until he found his way to the main room. Passing out on the floor, he breathed for a few seconds and hoped that nothing had happened. He remembered a face, Zander’s both appearing to him at two different points.

“Where was RAF in 2022?” He heard Zander yell and his final embrace.He remembered both Zander’s, not Zander’s father Xander; but the snow leopard in the past. Thirty years ago and most recently in the cyro chamber, he tried to repress his memories but he couldn’t figure out what it was about. And then figuring he hadn’t slept in two hundred years he passed out on the floor.