Thirteen Days and Fourteen Nights
Chapter 1: It's All About Time
    
  "Oh, for friends like Bob Bryar," thought Frank; fingering his license plates longingly.
    He had arrived at Ray Toro's house around 7:30 in the morning, and had found Bob on the front steps, frowning in disapproval at the blood on Frank's car. Bob had ushered him inside and put Frank to sleep in the spare/storage room. He had awoken ten hours later by the sight of Professor Toro sticking his bushy head through the door and asking if Frank wanted some soup. Professor Toro  was directly Frank and Bob's senior, (the two had joined at the same time seven years ago) and had been at Base 1 longer than everyone else. He was incredibly kind and had a mane of incredibly curly hair. A moment after Bob appeared behind Professor Toro he told Frank that he had just dumped his car into the river.
Which brought us to the present.

In any other circumstances Frank would have been very angry. He had loved that car, but getting angry at Bob was like getting angry at an oncoming train; you just didn't do that sort of thing. But still, that car had been a Delorean, so Frank was entitled to at least two hours of sulking.
    "We have to go back to The Lab" But apparently he would have to sulk later.

***

    Bob called it The Lab, but in Frank's mind, where they worked would be called Base 1. It was fully equipped as a lab and once you were inside it was like a proper scientific research facility. But from the door that you entered up until the door to the lab it was a military base camp. There were probably official names for Base 1, but Frank didn't know them. They never told scientists like Bob and Frank anything important, they were given samples and tests but never any information as to what the results were being used for. But none of the stuff that they dealt with was dangerous, just various mixtures of chemicals there were sent to various facilities around the country to be passed along to another scientist who didn't know what their work was going towards.
    But of course, the chain ended somewhere, at some mythical lab where someone was holding a finished product instead of another step.
This time, it had been Base 1 where Bob, Frank, Professor Toro, and, and. . . he had worked.
    "Heads up for your victim last night." said Bob, waking Frank up from his reverie and bringing his mind back to the present once again. What a dreary place to be. Frank leaned his forehead against Bob's passenger seat window and glared at the trees as if they had done him some personal injustice. The trees gave him a withered leafy look.
    Frank sank back in his seat when they neared Base 1, as if the motion detectors were still on. They weren't. if they had been rounds of machine gun pellets would have found their way through Bob's windshield and no doubt passed through Frank's and Bob'simportant body parts. The bullets were fast and dangerous. They didn't get stuck in soft man-flesh, they went right through. If someone else had been watching, it would have looked like it had missed, the momentum not changing at all until it hit the ground. More bullets would come, and more bullets would 'miss,' and your best friend who was trying to climb over the fence with two sweaty, and rather ill security guards attempting to stop him, would think you were OK until you fell to the ground bleeding.
Hypothetically of course.
    Making their way around the first chain link fence adorned with barbed wire, Bob drove carefully around the hole that Frank's bruised, battered and now dead Delorean had made on it's way out. Bob was revving up his engine to make an entrance in the second and last fence between them and Base 1, when he found Frank gripping his arm tightly. His eyes were wide and lips pressed together in a thin white line and you could barely hear his voice when he said:
    "We have to go get Mikey."
Bob let the engine die and his eyes wandered over to the east sector, where his program hadn't reached the day before, where he knew Mikey lay in a pool of his own blood.
    East sector, the place closest to both the parking lot and the woods, rich with old paths from when this area was more populated. East sector, the only section of the base that's security system didn't shut of when hit by Bob's virus. East sector, where Mikey tried to run, where his corpse lay now. The only place in this demandable place where the guns still might be working.
    Reluctantly, he reversed the car and took a turn to the right, but stopping just short of the second fence that Frank had busted through. Stepping out of his car, Bob picked up a piece of cement, and heaved it over the fence, directly in the way of the motion detectors. The cement was unharmed.
    Cautiously Bob picked his way over the fence, walked over to where the guns should have been firing from and found the bright green light flashing on and off that warned the mechanics that something had gotten into the computer. Bob sighed and relaxed. The virus had just taken however much longer to affect these guns than the others, for whatever reason.
    Once Bob was in and not dead, Frank went straight to Mikey. What had been fresh blood yesterday had now dried and congealed, but that was the only difference that Frank could see. He carefully rolled the body so that he could see his face, and wiped some blood of his cheek with a grubby shirt sleeve. Bob, who was much bigger, carried Mikey to the bed of his truck and covered him with a tarp.
    Bob had set up the virus the day before. On any normal day, this was like a regular job. On abnormal days like the past few weeks, you didn't go home. There were separate bunks for 'emergency' that were in the west sector. The higher-ups like Professor Toro were allowed one outside visit to explain what was happening to friends and family of the scientists. The four of them had discussed what to do, and rather reluctantly Professor Toro had agreed to the plan set up. He took his social visit and never came back. Bob built his virus and set it loose on Base 1. When the security started to malfunction they sent their best SDIT (Scientific Division Integrity Technical) guy. That was Bob. He was supposed to take a right once he went through the Official Front Door, but instead kept going straight ending up by his car which had been hidden under scraps on tree near the forests edge.
    Once they called for Bob, it was confirmation that the guns weren't, or shouldn't, have been working. Frank and Mikey then ran as stealthily as possible in white lab coats to the East Sector Building. East Sector building was a weapons locker, manned only my security guards but no working people. It was also less populated than the other sectors (south sector, the medical division was packed so full you could barely breath). If you stuck to the walls no one could see you. They had ran, but Mikey was now under a tarp in the van and Frank was in the passenger seat, still breathing.
    He wasn't thinking much about anything at the moment. He didn't even flinch when Bob drove his truck through the fence. Frank followed meekly through the white medical section, making an effort not to look at the corpse filled waiting room. People had died while nurses told them that it was just a five minute wait for a doctor was available to look at them. 
    They headed into the east sector building, which was less dead and a lot more empty. Frank held a flashlight over the floor (the lights shut down ever 24 hours if someone didn't register them, usually someone got to it ever morning) as Bob searched the cracks that Professor Toro told them about. Without much theatrics, Bob pushed a certain spot and the floor gave way to stairs.
    No one ever had two minds. Thought existed without time, and picking up on wandering memories from the future was all that oracles and sooth-sayers did. Supposedly, all thought existed at one time, all the time, and are just waiting to be picked up by their physical body. All the machine at Frank's feet did was replace your 'then' mind with your 'now' mind, which was already supposedly floating around in the 'past'. In essence, a time machine.
And their only hope.

Title: Thirteen days and Fourteen Nights (prologue)

The words on the grave were unrecognizable, but everyone who stood there knew what they meant. On the grave was


Κατὰ τον δαίμονα ἑαυτοῦ


Which meant ‘true to his own spirit.’

Some people still thought it meant ‘with the devil himself’.

***

    None of the band was a sucker for tourist attractions. Whenever a sign reading ‘Fun for the family! Just two more miles!’ was seen painted on the top of a barn, it was passed on by without even a break in the conversation. Famous ones, like the tower of Pisa and Stonehenge were viewed from the windows of the tour bus as they passed on by. They were on tour, so this was work. This band didn’t want to have to reschedule a show because they had spent too much time screwing around at Mount. Rushmore the day before.
    But there was one place they all agreed that they wanted to go see.
    Up on entering Paris, the Arc de Triomphe was passed under with no one really noticing, except for Bob who knew these kinds of things.
    Frank was grinning madly when he heard that they would go. Gerard was smiling because Frank was, and Mikey beamed when Gerard smiled.

They only watched lazily when the band drifted by the Eiffel tower.

    When they neared their destination, Frank put on the first CD he had ever owned. Back when he was just a small child, his mother deemed some of the more metal bands too vile for his delicate ears. Instead, she had bought him this CD, unaware of some of the songs meanings. The ends of Frank’s mouth turned up, without him even realizing it, in nostalgia.
And Gerard smiled because Frank did.

Ray, Bob, and Gerard were intent on their game of blackjack, Mikey was in the bathroom, and Frank was looking out the window on the opposite side of the bus, so not one at all noticed the Louver. Frank was singing along with the music under his breath as he observed the hoards of motorcyclists passing them.
    “now, I’m gonna love you ‘till the heavens start to rain… I’m gonna love you ‘till the stars, fall from the sky…”

***

    It was misting over when they reached the Père Lachaise cemetery. There was a dull grey fog to wade through when they stood in front of Jim Morrison’s grave.
    At first they stood in silence. Mikey, his eyes wide open and wary, ready to run at the first sign of the Morrison Ghost. After a while, Frank told them about how his mother had bought for him the doors greatest hits for his eleventh birthday. Then there was more silence. No one quite remembered how long they stood there for, in quiet respect.
    A few lines of ‘Riders in the Storm’ flitted through Ray’s mind, and he shivered. He made some lame excuse about the bathroom and hurried back to the warm tour bus. Mikey followed soon after, mumbling some unintelligible reason for his leave. A few minutes later, Bob turned around and left without even giving an explanation.
    Frank smiled softly down at the grave, not noticing their absence. Neither Him nor Gerard were feeling the fear and trepidation that has scared off the other three. After he was sure that the others had gone, Gerard slipped his hand into Franks. He said:
    “I love you Frank.”
    Franks expression froze, still looking like a smile but no longer warm. He didn’t say anything. When they made love later that night, Gerard whispered sweet nothings into his ear. He screamed Frank’s name when he came, and smiled and told Frank that he loved him afterwards. Frank said nothing, the noises coming from his throat as he trusted more feral than anything.

***

Thousands of miles away, jamia was singing along with the radio as she drove.
    “And in the end, beautiful friend…” a man with curly hair walked calmly into the road. “And in the end, my only--oOH SHIT!” The man turned his dark, dangerous eyes to her, not at all surprised when she jerked the wheel, spun out of control, off the road. The wheels of the overturned car spun in the air, and the radio sputtered its last few dying words.

    “KSSSSSSHH-desperately in need-KESSHH SHH of some strangers hand KSSSSSSSHHSHHHS--”

The radio would play nothing but static after that, not even when it was repaired to be installed into another car.

***

    Gerard was woken by the tour manager talking to someone on his cell phone, with a cigarette in one hand and looking tired.
    “Yeah, he’ll have to take some time off for the funeral-” was all Gerard heard before he passed into the next cabin. Confused, Gerard rolled out of his bunk and left to ask someone what was up. He met Bob right outside the door, and he explained about Jemia’s accident. Gerard went to find Frank, but he had already locked himself in the bathroom.
    As the van began to move, something in the caught Gee’s eye. A man with curly hair and dark eyes was waving at him. Gerard hesitantly waved back, unsure of why he was immensely grateful and immensely guilty.

***
    Frank sat on the toilet, wondering why he wasn’t devastated. He certainly should be, but all he felt was a scary sort of numbness. He heard some footsteps outside the door and Gerard whispered in “I love you Frank.”
    Frank considered what he had for a moment. He had lost someone dear to him, and he would mourn for while. But he would get better eventually, and something new had just been presented to him.

“I love you too, Gerard.”