The Weapon

It'll never cease to impress me how simple it is to pass through time, a couple steps over the Racer’s ring is all it takes to return to Katz’s lab. We were in there for half a day, but everything’s the same as when we left it, and the hours and minutes of a digital clock on a desk haven’t changed.

Ezri stumbles, holding her head. Grabbing a nearby chair, she pulls it over to her and flops down onto it. Meanwhile my eyes are locked on some random object in the lab, thousands of thoughts rushing in my head. Even I can barely keep track of them.

“Can’t see anything,” she mumbles. It’s enough to catch my interest, albeit briefly.

“What? You’re blind or something?”

“Heh – no, not like that. Let’s just say going to the past while in the past can take a toll in some ways,” then with her free hand, she points to another chair. “Sit down, we need to talk.”

Walking to the exit like a zombie, feet dragging sluggishly, her request falls on deaf ears. Being surrounded by Katz’s contributions to the IPU is rattling my nerves. Funny, before I went through the portal, I was fascinated – now, I just want to get the heck out of here.

“You don’t want to know the main reason I’m here? Did you really think it’s all because of you?”

I stop, almost reluctantly. A quick glance between Ezri and the door shows my contemplation. Dang it. With a sigh, I turn back around to sit in a seat, taut with annoyance. Ezri, rubbing her temple, has a satisfied look in her eyes.

“Look around you, blondie,” she says. “You see all this?”

“Pretty hard not to.”

“Imagine that one day, it’ll all be gone.”

“Let me guess, because of you?”

She waves a finger. “Wrong, actually – because of a crystal, one that’ll be discovered by Katz someday in the future. A simple experimentation revealed its hidden power, and this whole place,” she makes an open-hand gesture, “got filled with corpses in a matter of minutes.”

“Just because of a crystal?”

“Not just any ‘crystal.’ In fact, it’s only called one because that’s the closest match – truth is, they got no idea what it is. But they gave it a name, Ezrite.”

Ezri, Ezrite… Sure seems to be a connection, either that, or crazy coincidence – though these past few weeks have made me lose much belief in the latter.

“Katz was overjoyed when the news got to him, despite half his team dropping dead. Thought he found ‘the next big thing,’” she says with an eye roll. “So, he dedicated his time to studying Ezrite. But the IPU saw his work as a risk, so he abandoned here to develop a new operation somewhere out in the outer territories – Project Zero Labs.”

That’s the name I saw on the Re:Pills’ label. Never imagined Katz would enter the medicine field, but then again, any opportunity to show off his “greatness” is irresistible to a man with such an ego.

“Is Ezrite in the Re:Pills?” I ask.

Ezri nods. “An oddly versatile substance, it can be reduced into two forms – one, can heal the fatalist of injuries, but not without some side-effects, as you’ve experienced.”

“And the other?”

Her voice becomes serious. “The ability to drain the life of every being – human, animal, even microscopic bacteria. Somehow, it can exist as both a mineral and a parasite that’s always starving. You don’t even have to touch it, or be near it – if it senses you, it’ll take you.”

Thinking of the golems, and how careless it was of Katz to bring an unsecure Racer to the Convention, it doesn’t come as a shock that he’s going to dabble in something so extreme in the future. Whatever brings fame to his name. I lean back, listening closely as Ezri continues.

“Some time after I formed the Liberation, when we were at our peak, the IPU gave Project Zero Labs permission to release Ezrite as a weapon. And when they did…” a hand clutches into a fist, the other resting on it, “we dropped like flies. Not only us, but civilians. We can’t dodge it, can’t predict when it’s coming. We could be fighting golems and battleships one moment, then be squirming in agony the next… Against Ezrite, we’re powerless.”

“So, what? You’re here to find Ezrite before Katz can or something?”

“That’d be useless. Without Katz’s skills, how would we know how to unlock its potential? The deal is, blondie, we’re both after my past self.”

But obviously not for the same reason, right? No matter how full of surprises Ezri can be, I highly doubt this whole thing is an elaborate suicide mission.

“Since I came here, everything I’ve done has been a reenactment of the events that made me become ‘Ezri.’ I theorized that, if these things were to happen in a shorter timeframe, then the revolution could begin sooner – before Ezrite is found. Bit by bit, I’ve been chipping away at her, my younger self.”

So, that’s her ‘alternative method.’ If Ezri’s past self is encouraged to walk the road of a rebel at an earlier time, then everything would fall into place perfectly – the IPU would be dismantled, all while the existence of Ezri remains. Dang it, I was hoping she’d have something less solid in mind. With this idea, she’d be unstoppable.

“Why not just use the Racer to travel to Ezrite’s discovery instead?” I ask.

“In order to do that, we’d need to know exactly when and where that took place – both of which are things Katz has kept under lock and key… Plus, after my little ‘stunt,’ time travel is banned. The Racer is destroyed,” she says with a sense of gratification, as if she’s proud of the fact she tarnished one of mankind’s greatest achievements. “And before you ask, we tried torturing him already. Didn’t work, and he was rescued.”

I wasn’t going to ask. Geez.

As we finally head to leave the laboratory, there’s so many things that my mind can take before it explodes. Murders and deceptions from the IPU, a deadly “crystal” that’ll be found in the future, a surefire path to victory for Ezri, and shackling guilt. What I wouldn’t give to have this all wiped clean from my memory – but it’s just like Ezri said. Once you know the truth, you can’t go back.

How am I going to explain this to Shiloh and Jasper? Then again, their perceptions of the IPU were already starting to change – and here I was worried about them being “corrupted.” What a joke. I guess them being on the Spearhead turned out to be a good thing—

Before we reach the elevator, I freeze as a terrifying realization knocks at my brain.

“You said everything was a reenactment, right?”

“Yes – well, more or less. Had to make some ‘adjustments’ after a certain point.”

The crash, I bet. That was the only time she ever expressed that things were “different.” If that incident and everything afterward was meant for her past self, instead of merely getting me to “see the light” or whatever, then that can only mean one thing…

“When you said you’ve been to the past,” I say, “you weren’t just talking about time travel, were you?”

A muffled laugh comes from under her mask. “Can’t say I was. When I was younger, I also met Ezri – me, from the future. She probably met herself as well,” she disappears from my view as she steps inside the elevator. “How the first Ezri came to be, though? That’s a mystery.”

And now, I’m at the tipping point.

It can’t be what I’m thinking. It can’t.

My focus goes to her long locks of hair, or the blood in her body, or even a fingerprint.

It's not what I’m fearing, and I’m going to prove it.