In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

My body seems to be reacting in slow motion, while his movements are a blur. How is he so fast? Finally the right synapses connect in my brain and I move, ducking under his arm and twisting in his grip till I’m at his elbow. It’s not a great position, but it allows me a moment to recover and send a kick to the big man’s knee. He grunts from the blow but doesn’t budge. His grip on my arm may as well be a vise.

  Around the room, the photography crew is keeping their distance, some dialing phones, but no one is moving to help.

  The Gladiator wrenches my arm around and presses on my shoulder. I cry out from the pain. He has my wrist twisted at a hard angle.

  “Leave him alone!” The yell comes from my right. Piper is running toward us.

  “No! Stay back!” I gasp, waving with my free arm.

  Mym is already working to set the chronometer on her wrist, but she’s backing away from our attacker.

  Smart. Keep some distance. A safe space to jump.

  Piper, on the other hand, keeps coming.

  The big man in the helmet twists my arm again, and I’m forced to refocus my attention on him. I jab at him with my left, but he evades the blow. He blocks the kick to his groin as well, moving at a speed that seems incongruous with his size. His meaty fist connects with my face again.

  “Let him go!”

  Something smashes into the man’s arm and he releases me. I’m seeing stars as I reel away, but I spot Piper wielding a 2x4.

  Smart girl.

  I’m reaching for my chronometer even as I stagger. I dig one hand into my pocket and extract the galvanized nail. If I can just jump away, I can come back to this fight with more options. Maybe a shotgun.

  I dial my device for the right time, trying to recall the coordinates from memory.

  Helmet Head is too fast. He appears right in front of me. He smacks my arm and the nail goes flying out of my hand. I attempt to dodge around him and go after it, but his movements are a blur. As soon as I think of a direction to go, he’s there, blocking my path. The only visible parts of the man’s face are two bloodshot eyes flicking back and forth in the eyeholes of the helmet. It’s almost as though he’s not looking at me, but through me. As I watch, a fine mist sprays from around the eyeholes of his helmet directly into his eyes. I recognize the faint floral scent of the performance-enhancing street drug, 4sight. It speeds up users’ reaction times almost to the point of them being able to predict the future. No wonder he’s so fast.

  Then Mym is there. She swings her bag at the Gladiator and smashes him in the head with it, but the contents merely rain around him. She roundhouse kicks him in the ribs and he groans. But then he turns on her. Mym tries to dodge but this time she’s not fast enough. He snatches a handful of her shirt. She kicks at him again, but he dodges the blow, then rears back with a fist to punch her in the face.

  I barrel into the man at full speed. He lets out a grunt as I hit him, and the force of the blow is enough to make him lose his grip on Mym. The Gladiator stumbles, and we hit the floor together in a heap. He’s too fast though. He clamps onto my arm and twists me around in some kind of wrestling maneuver. I find myself facing the wrong direction.

  “Let him go!” Piper still has the 2x4 in her hand and is waving it at him. Unfortunately it’s far too small to really hurt him. Especially wielded by someone who might weigh sixty-five pounds.

  “Looks like we’ve got the whole Travers family,” the Gladiator says, climbing to his feet and dragging me up with him. “Another person you care about?”

  “Don’t touch her,” Mym hisses.

  I attempt to free my arm from his grasp, but he violently wrenches it behind my back and forces me to a knee. He’s only a few inches taller than me, but his brute strength is incredible.

  “You two don’t seem to understand how things are working now,” he snarls from beneath the helmet. “You do what I say. No questions. You don’t, people get hurt.” He twists my arm upward, and it feels like it’s going to come out of my shoulder socket. I wince and move with the force, trying to keep from tearing anything.

  “Stop it!” Piper rushes him, swinging the 2x4. He catches it with his free hand and wrenches it from her grasp in one fluid motion. He hurls the piece of wood away while Piper stands shocked.

  The next moment he grabs a handful of her shirt and drags her toward him.

  “Hey! Wait. I’ll get what you want!” Mym shouts. She has a hand raised. “Just don’t hurt them.”

  “I know you will,” the man replies. “Because otherwise you won’t be able to live with what I do to them.”

  I’m desperately searching for solutions to this situation, but I can’t see one. My chronometer arm is pinned behind me, and even if I activated it by remote, the Gladiator and Piper would come with me. We might survive, but we could end up fused into whatever was occupying this space hours or days ago. Could be years if the rings on my chronometer have moved. If it was just me I might risk it. But Piper . . .

  Then someone appears behind Mym. Two someones. Now three. The henchmen I saw in the video are popping in right and left.

  They are still wearing masks, but I recognize the Hawaiian shirt one of the men had on. They encircle us.

  “Go!” I shout to Mym. It’s really our best hope right now. If she can find help and come back . . . Mym is wide-eyed, searching my face. She pulls the anchor from her pocket as the thugs close in on her. Then she vanishes.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t have time to react further because Helmet Head is tearing at the chronometer on my wrist.

  “Hey! Get your hands off that!” I twist and reach for him. “You don’t even know how to—”

  But then the chronometer is off. Despite the custom lock I’ve installed on the band, this brute has somehow detached it. He releases my arm.

  “Oh shit,” I mutter, trying to grab it from him. I can’t seem to get my hands on him.

  “Dad!” Piper has been snatched by one of the other thugs and is being dragged away.

  “Get off me!” she shrieks.

  I move toward her but the Gladiator steps in to block me.

  This time I’m ready. He swings at me, but right before his fist reaches my face, my fingers find the remote in my pocket. I press the button and he vanishes.

  “Didn’t see that one coming, did you?” I mutter. “That’s what you get for stealing.”

  I run for the guy holding Piper and his eyes widen. He tries to move faster toward the door to the elevator. Apparently he didn’t have an exit jump planned.

  Piper is squirming in his grip and reaches one hand in my direction.

  I’m almost to them when the Gladiator reappears right in front of me.

  He elbows me hard in the gut, taking my breath away.

  “Nice try, loser.” Next thing I know he has ahold of my collar with both hands, lifting me in the air. “Time to say goodnight.”

  I don’t have time to formulate a response. He pulls me toward him and lowers his helmet—fast—directly into my chin.

  He drops me and I stagger backward. The room is swirling, and I just have time to notice it shrinking around me. The horizon gets all wavy. Faces of shocked onlookers and newly installed fire sprinklers spin around in a little dance. Piper is screaming in the arms of her captor. I get one last look at the bloodshot eyes in the metal helmet. Then it’s concrete floor, dust, and darkness.

  8

  “I will admit that there are virtues a time traveler lacks. Patience is typically one of them. It’s difficult waiting for the world to turn when Friday night could be a blink away.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2002

  When I open my eyes, it does no good.

  I’m blind.

  Well, not blind blind, but definitely blindfolded. Whatever fabric has been tied around my eyes is creating an orange blur. A bandana perhaps?

  It smells like road dust and the outdoors here. Salt air and something oily.

  The sounds confirm it. Tires on a rough surface. Might be asphalt but it’s po
orly maintained. Too many bumps.

  I do my best to assess what else I know.

  My hands are tied behind me. I’m on the floor of a vehicle. Truck bed would be my guess. Electric. There’s a faint whine in the air from the motor. No combustion rumble or exhaust fumes. That narrows things down a little.

  I attempt to move my legs but find those have been tied too. I’m not gagged, though.

  “Hello?” I try to sit up but something mashes me back down. The sole of a boot.

  “Stay down,” someone rumbles.

  “Dad?” Piper’s voice chimes in from somewhere nearby.

  “Hey,” I manage, before getting kicked by the boot again.

  “Shut up,” the voice commands.

  My jaw hurts from my recent knockout. Wherever they’ve taken me, they must have dragged me here. As we bounce along the rough road to wherever we’re headed, I do a mental inventory of the rest of my body. All my major pieces seem to be intact. My wrist is still bare, however. It’s pressed against the back of my jacket, and the position of the ropes is a reminder. No chronometer means my options for getting out of this mess have been significantly reduced. My trouser pockets feel empty as well. No phone. No pocketknife.

  The truck comes to a stop somewhere dusty, and the tailgate slams down. There’s some movement and a shout of greeting from someone outside before two sets of hands reach under my armpits and drag me out of the truck. I’m immediately dropped in the dirt.

  There’s some more scuffling as someone else is forcibly pulled from the truck. Piper, I would guess, because it only takes one set of crunching footsteps and less dragging. She’s deposited next to me.

  No one else joins us. No Mym. That’s something at least.

  “We ready to go?” one of the men asks.

  A woman’s voice responds. “Front gate is open. Jorge will be waiting on the other side. He’s taking these two with him.”

  “You’d think we had enough hostages by now. We’re sending the kid through too?”

  “Franco said to keep ’em together. He acts up, we’ve got her as leverage to keep him in line.”

  The man grunts, then kicks me again. “You hear that?”

  I have enough sense to keep my mouth shut this time.

  Someone unties my legs and I’m lifted to my feet. I stretch my ankles and consider my options. Even if I were to run, I can’t see anything. God knows what I’d collide with. I’d probably just knock myself out again.

  A hand grips my arm and pulls me forward. I get a sudden rush of panic as the vision of the man getting shot with the musket flashes through my brain. I have to remind myself that I’m not in his circumstances. Whatever is tied around my head is just a blindfold. No hood. And while I don’t know where I am, I doubt it’s colonial times. We did arrive in an electric vehicle.

  The facts do little to calm my nerves.

  “Where are you taking us?” Piper asks.

  “Somewhere far away, kid,” a voice replies. “Somewhere even your mommy won’t find you.”

  “You’re gonna be sorry,” she replies. “You’re gonna wish you didn’t mess with my dad.”

  Someone laughs. “You hear that, Sal? You’d better watch out.”

  The man pulling me along, presumably Sal, chuckles in derision. “I think I’ll be okay. What do you think, daddy-o?” My foot catches on his outstretched leg and I crash to the ground. I groan from the impact, not having my arms to break my fall. Luckily I manage to avoid breaking my face.

  Several of the voices around us laugh. I count at least four.

  “Leave him alone!” Piper shouts.

  Sal’s voice comes from directly above me. “Don’t worry, kid. That’s what we’re planning to do. Leave you both somewhere nice and alone . . .” He pulls me to my feet and I work on getting my breath back.

  Piper lapses into silence.

  We’re led for several hundred yards, crossing what might be a small bridge. We climb several sets of steps, but barring some vague changes in sunlight, I couldn’t even venture a guess as to where we are. There are some strange smells. Old trash perhaps? I get a whiff of something that smells like an overused bathroom. The scent is stale urine and maybe other worse contributions. Luckily we move on.

  “’Bout time you got here. You bring the rest of my supplies?” A voice with a Latin accent greets the others. “I hope you brought the power packs.”

  “All in the trucks,” the woman responds.

  “And your heavy-ass scanners,” another man with a deep voice adds. “Best be sharing the wealth when this works.”

  “You get to take these hostages,” Sal comments from beside me. “They take priority for now. As soon as we get the call from Franco, then we can proceed with the rest of TRIK’s plans. That’s the deal.”

  “Don’t like playing no games with this TRIK dude,” the deep voice says. “He’s the real deal. We fail at what he wants, who knows what he does to us.”

  “Franco says he can handle him,” the woman says. “Just do your jobs.”

  The trucks are off-loaded. There is a lot of moving of equipment and dragging of things. Piper and I are sat on a low wall or barrier of some kind and left alone while this is going on, but I sense someone is watching us nearby.

  “Can you see anything?” I whisper.

  Piper is to my left and scoots a little closer till her arm is against mine. “I can see a little, but it’s just the end of my nose.”

  I get the impression she’s moving her head around and trying to see beneath the edge of her blindfold. “Try not to attract attention,” I say. “You have any idea if they took my phone?”

  “Yeah. The one who tied you up took it.”

  “The Gladiator?”

  “No. It was another one. The one with the flower shirt on.”

  I recall the Hawaiian shirt one of the thugs had been wearing. He was stocky. Not tall, but muscular. Couldn’t tell much else in the mask. I don’t recall hearing his voice.

  “That’s too bad,” I mutter. “What else did you see before they blindfolded you?”

  “They jumped us somewhere new before they put us in the trucks. A garage, I think. I couldn’t see outside though.”

  “What else is in the trucks?”

  “Guns.”

  “That’s not good,” I reply.

  “And a helicopter.”

  “A helicopter?”

  “Hey! Shut up over there. I will knock you out if I have to,” the man with the Latin accent says. “It’ll just make my life that much easier. And make your brain that much stupider.”

  I slump into a position that I hope will appear submissive. I have a feeling I’ll be needing all my brain cells if I’m going to get out of this.

  Piper stays close. After a few minutes someone calls our guardian to help with something, and Piper dares to whisper again. “Dad?”

  I hesitate a moment. “Yeah?”

  “Do you think Mom will find us?”

  I have no way to physically reassure her so I whisper back. “I know she won’t stop trying till she does.” After a lapse of silence I whisper again. “You know I’m not your actual dad, right? If you came back and changed things, the odds that I’m him are kind of . . . well . . . slim. There are factors involved that would change from you doing something like that.”

  “I know how it works,” Piper says. “I know how they make babies. I’m not a little kid, you know.”

  I can’t see her face to make out her expression, but she sounds indignant.

  “Sorry. I don’t really know when we—when your parents explain the details . . .”

  “I know all about sex. It’s when you kiss someone with no clothes on. I’ve seen it on TV. It’s how people get babies and why you shouldn’t ever kiss boys without clothes on till you are a grown up. That’s easy.”

  I try to think of an appropriate response. “I’m sure your parents will be happy to hear that.”

  Working slowly, I attempt to loosen the bonds around
my wrist. Whoever tied me up knew what they were doing. My wrists don’t budge.

  “I know you’re not him exactly,” Piper says. “But my dad’s in trouble. You’ll help me save him, right?”

  I recall the man from the video. The me who was older. Was that him? I still don’t know which one of me was under that hood when he was shot. Could that have been Piper’s dad? What does that mean for me if it wasn’t?

  I can feel the warmth of her back pressed into my shoulder. She’s turned herself to lean against me.

  “I’m going to do everything I can, okay?”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise,” I say.

  “We’ll think our way out of this?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “That’s what you always tell me. To think my way out of problems. And if you can’t think your way out, then talk your way out. But always think first.”

  “Sounds like a plan. We’ll see what we can do.”

  Piper’s fingers find mine, and she grabs hold of the ones she can reach. I clench her fingers in mine. We stay that way till Jorge comes to get us.

  “Okay, on your feet. Hope you’re ready for a ride.”

  We are guided onto some kind of vehicle, but I can’t make out what. It has a flat floor and no top. The electric motors whir loudly behind us as we begin to move, but the ride is smooth. A few of the other voices shout goodbyes to Jorge. They apparently aren’t coming with us. I’m still trying to figure out what we’re riding on when the wave of color hits us. It lights up my vision in a whirl of brilliance that’s unmistakable, even wearing a blindfold. We’ve passed through a time gate.

  The squealing of the metal wheels finally gives away what we’re riding. It’s some kind of train car.

  As the car rolls to a stop, we rock forward and the motors shut off. It’s hot here. The sun is bright. Its light and heat penetrate the blindfold to warm my face. There’s a subtle breeze bearing the scent of evergreen trees. Some shuffling and clunking ensues as someone walks past, and the time gate is shut down.

  After a few minutes, a hand grabs at my face and pulls the blindfold loose. Jorge is staring back at me. His wide face is sparsely decorated with a thin mustache and an attempt at a beard. His black hair is loose and shaggy, and he’s wearing a broad hat for the sun.