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Whole New World

By Jeannine Trevizo

Chapter 2: Do I Know You?

Days passed as the scientists helped the cloned rangers settle in. Showers and hot meals along with the clothes procured for them got them looking more human and healthy. Because of the cloning process, nails and hair had grown without check for years. For the four males, three had had their hair cut. The fourth had resisted, relenting in having it cut near shoulder length. The two females had not cut theirs as well, but made use of Sarah’s razor to clean up other areas.

In this time as well, Sarah and Samuel had begun to give each of the rangers information about themselves. Names that had been on the labels of the tubes the DNA that created them as well as their ranger statistics, or as much as could be deciphered from the ruined ‘command center’.

As they learned their names: Tommy, Jason, Zack, Kim, Aisha, Adam… they learned more about who their predecessors had been. The group actually consisted of two black rangers. Samuel, who had minored in history in school had learned from the underground historians how the rangers worked. Usually there was a blue ranger, but the DNA sample for the blue ranger, a Billy, had not survived the quakes. The only 6 vials of DNA that had survived were those of the 6 rangers before them, so they were forced to make do with the rangers they had.

With that, Adam had volunteered to change his colors, giving Zack all his black clothes and settling for white shirts and blue jeans.

Besides their names, Sarah, it seemed, had been formerly with the military, and prepared them with some standard military knowledge. Minor tactics and hand to hand. She quickly realized that Jason, Tommy and Adam took to the skills immediately, and pushed them to learn as much as they could.

Learning about rangers, about the new world around them and fighting skills took up most of their days. Samuel and Sarah made it very clear that they didn’t know how long they could stay where they were, so it was imperative to use the time they did have wisely.

During one of Sarah’s discussions on team tactics, the young man called Tommy looked around at the others in the room with him. He had learned their names, along with his own, but he didn’t know them. Hell, he didn’t know himself.

Yet he and the others were having what the two scientists called ‘flashbacks’. Supposedly, they said, it was memories of their other selves from before the DNA was taken.

He’d remembered seeing himself in armor the color they had given him – white. But there had been dreams where he wore green. They confused him. And there were ones where he recalled the people with him. He saw faces, heard names.

Felt emotions.

He looked across the room at where the girl named Kim sat, listening to Sarah’s lecture. Every time he looked at her, he felt… something. In his dreams, he saw her a lot. Images of them touching, laughing… kissing. Yet as powerful and wonderful as those memories seemed, some seemed… melancholy.

Those other memories seemed to always be darker; Images of her being hurt or of him feeling hurt… because of her? He hadn’t had enough dreams to make sense of it. Still, he couldn’t deny the connection he felt to her.

“Tommy?” asked Sarah, breaking the young man from his revere.

“Sorry Sarah. Just…”

She nodded. Neither she nor Samuel could fully understand what it would be like to be in a way, back from the dead, not knowing who you were but plagued with memories of your former life, somehow preserved in your DNA. Clones shouldn’t actually remember their former lives, but it had been reasoned that the ranger powers had altered their DNA sequence to allow them to keep the knowledge up to the point the DNA was taken.

For all she and the others knew, these rangers had lived long and varied lives after the moment the DNA was taken, but for the clones, all they knew were the years up until their age now.

“Now, let’s get back to this. The military has two core branches and one very covert group, that has the primary task of hunting down rangers. They will be the group you will need to be aware of…”

“How are we supposed to fight them?” asked Jason sincerely.

In the days since they had learned about themselves, the red ranger had shown his leadership, deferring occasionally to the white ranger, Tommy. But the fact was the two seemed able to work in unison. Sarah was not surprised by his question.

“The ‘Center’ will be providing you all with weapons and moving you to a more secure location until plans can be made to have you aid the organization in overthrowing the government.”

“Is the government really the cause of the problem?” asked pink ranger Kim.

“I don’t understand?”

“Just… I remember bad guys… not governments,” she replied, and looked to the others for some kind of understanding, confirmation.

“You mean space aliens?” Samuel asked, now interested in the conversation.

“Yeah, I recall something that was…” started Zack, his eyes meeting Kim’s in a show of solidarity.

“Rita,” breathed Tommy and the others all looked at him in stunned silence.

“Rita Repulsa… I remember,” added Jason quickly.

The others shared looks that verged on remembrance and fear. Most of them had been remembering each other and things that pertained to who they were. The ranger aspect, the villains that their previous selves had fought had yet to really permeate their ‘flashbacks’ or dreams. Obviously, Tommy had been seeing more of his ranger past than the rest of them.

Jason and Kim both looked at Tommy with renewed respect. They all expected to get more ranger memories as time went on, but Tommy was already remembering faster then all of them; and perhaps not in a healthy way.

-x-

Men and women, all dressed in severe dark uniforms sat in a circular room at a circular table. They were the leaders of this new world. Some had taken power by force, others through coercion and fear. All though knew that their lives were subject to one power above them; One that allowed them to exist.

They gathered there to go over their responsibilities and discuss any issues. Today had been a fairly short meeting. Food shortages in the South would require the North to increase production, lest the rationing become too deep.

“So, is there any new news to bring to the committee?” asked a older, tanned man, his balding head gleaming in the light of the room.

“The ‘Center’ has been talking,” commented a thin woman with dark hair and eyes.

“Aren’t they always?” interjected a dark man who tried to dismiss the woman, even as she turned the dark eyes to pierce his own.

“This is new. They say they’ve completed the plan,” she insisted.

“Which plan?” asked an Asian man, sitting across from her.

“The resurrection.”

Silence ruled the room for long seconds. Then it exploded into chaos before the man leading the group slammed his fist on the table, hushing the voices around him.

“It’s impossible. Rangers have been extinct…”

“No longer,” the woman insisted vigorously.

“We have to keep this from…” began the Asian man in a panic.

“If we know, it’s too late,” the dark skinned man stated matter of factly, his hands wringing as they laid on top of the polished table surface

“Then our only course is…”

“To find them and destroy them,” announced the balding man, his voice confident. “I’ll issue the order today to mobilize Global Black Force to locate all Center cells and known associates until they can ascertain the validity and whereabouts of any resurrected rangers.”

With that, he stood and stormed out of the room, leaving the other leaders to watch him exit and wonder if their time of power and captivity was finally coming to an end.

-x-

Aisha and Kim had become closer as the weeks had gone on. Memories they both had started to share in the flashbacks had given them both a view of a former friendship between the two.

“So, you remember Adam from before, right?” Kim asked Aisha.

“I’ve seen him in flashbacks, I guess, and it looks and sounds like him. They’re before the age we are now, so I guess it would have been before we were… rangers.”

“What about the others?”

“You mean any of them specifically?” Aisha asked with an infectious smile.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen how you look at Tommy.”

“You’re crazy,” Kim deflected, although seemingly half heartedly.

“I have had flashbacks where you and he were, well you know… hot and heavy… so I bet you have too.”

“So? That was our former selves. It doesn’t mean it will be like that now. He doesn’t even talk with me…”

Kim and Aisha quickly fell silent as the subject of the discussion walked past, talking quietly with Jason. Kim sighed and looked back at the Yellow Ranger with a frown.

“We have too many other things to worry about besides how I felt…” she started, and then revised her statement at a look from Aisha. “How I think I feel about Tommy now. We’re being hunted and have to save the world, remember?”

“Yeah, but still…”

“Still nothing. My memories also have some pain involved with him… maybe being team mates is best. Besides, he has to say something to me first other than, ‘let’s train’ or ‘do you recall fighting Lord Zedd’.”

Aisha sighed but shrugged. Tommy had taken a leader role, just as his former self had before. And with the stakes so high, and Samuel and Sarah’s utter belief in them as some kind of saviors, it was hard not to expect Tommy to focus 100% on the task at hand, and not even consider romance.

-x-

The men had paired up on the practice mats provided to them by Sarah to practice their hand to hand. Almost all of them had started having flashbacks of martial arts training, except for Zack following Sarah’s first training. Since then, the four had focused on remembering as much as they could, and sparring with one another was helping them remember.

Tommy and Jason had just finished a round of sparring, and stood together talking while Zack and Adam took their turn on the mats.

“Zack still isn’t up to par with the rest of us, is he?” asked Tommy as he watched the African American barely dodge a leg sweep from Adam.

“If my memory flashes serve, he didn’t have a martial arts background like you, me or Adam,” Jason mentioned sincerely. Neither does Kim.”

“She seems to be picking things up. I remember she had gymnastics training…” Tommy remarked, and then fell silent, his recent memories flooding his thoughts.

Jason’s eyes flickered from where they had been half-heartedly watching Zack and Adam practice to settle on the person who had in a former life been his best friend. He had recalled a few moments of that friendship in flashes: the karate tournament, the arrival of the green ranger to the new team, the green candle, Tommy’s return as the White Ranger before he left…

“How much of being a ranger do you remember?”

“Surprisingly, a lot. I’ve had memories of Rita, Zedd, putties… it all seems so real when I’m in the flashback. Here though… it’s hard to believe it was real.”

“What about the other Tommy’s life?”

“What about it?”

“It’s just… I remember being friends with Kim and Zack, before being a ranger. I remember meeting you after I was one, and you weren’t… and I recall that we were good friends.”

“So do I.”

“What about the others here. Do you remember them?” Jason questioned, curious.

“Yeah, somewhat. Some people, like you… and Kim more than others. There’s other people, other rangers too I remember. An Asian girl and a blond guy… I can’t remember their names though. Those memories I guess aren’t as clear when they come to me, maybe because they’re not here. Hell, I don’t know why I’m here.”

With that, Tommy looked away, uncomfortable in where his memories were leading.

Suddenly the doors to the warehouse flew open with the sound of crunching metal and high explosives. Dark smoke billowed from the entry as loud voices could be heard moving from the other side of the warehouse door.

“This is Global Black Force! You are known to be harboring Power Rangers. Stand down or everyone in this building will be eradicated.”

“Frack you!” screamed Sarah, as she turned to Samuel, pointing to the back of the warehouse. “Run!”

The teens looked surprised, but all instinctively moved to engage the incoming soldiers. Sarah put out a hand to stop Tommy, and shoved him away violently.

“No! You aren’t ready for this - Samuel, get them out!”

Samuel watched as Sarah pulled a weapon from beneath a large table. He knew she had been military before escaping to the underground of the ‘Center’. Without another look back, he waved his arm in the air and hurried the rangers to the living quarters of the warehouse.

Guns blazed as the Global Black Force entered the room, swarming in like a plague of locusts. Sarah returned fire, her weapons lighting up the room around her as she fought to give Samuel time to get the rangers out.

The rangers along with Samuel rushed across the warehouse floor and into the living quarters, Samuel directed Tommy and Jason to bar the door behind them, cutting off Sarah and the attacking force from their position. For the first time since their resurrection, Samuel guided the teens into a room where Sarah and Samuel stayed. Samuel moved aside a floor covering and a hatch was brought into view.

“Stay out of sight. Keep together. You’ll figure things out as you go along.”

Jason looked to Tommy for his take, and grimaced as Tommy nodded in agreement with Samuel. He quickly started down the rungs of the old metal ladder leading into the dark, only an occasional fading light bulb lighting the way.

“When you get out of the tunnel, you need to go South. We have a contact a few days from here. Their info is here.”

A small scrap of fabric was pressed into Tommy’s hand by Samuel as he shoved him towards the hatch, the last of the rangers to go. Outside in the main part of the warehouse, the gunfire had stopped, meaning… Samuel couldn’t think of that, his responsibility was the rangers. As Tommy’s head slipped beneath the hatch door, he quickly bolted it behind the rangers, throwing the rug back over it and running to the foot locker he kept his personal weapon in.

“Good luck rangers,” he murmured softly as he turned to the door to face the onslaught coming towards him, preparing to die before letting the Global Black Force know that the rangers had escaped and were on the path to save everyone.

-End Ch2-

Again, please provide me with your thoughts on this, as this concept is pretty out there, and I want to make sure I’m not losing anyone with this… J.