The man looked at the comm belt and at Tiffin. He nodded as he let go of the bar on the mag lev cart and took the comm belt from her. "I hope you know what you're doing. I hope you save your friend."
Tiffin nodded back at him. She stepped in front of the control bar as he moved aside. Taking hold of the bar, she looked at the controls for a second, then squeezed the bar and pushed the left side down and the right side up. The cart tilted forty-five degrees, spilling all the parts onto the ground. She righted the cart and swung it around to face the direction they had been running.
"Sorry about that," she said to the man.
The man shrugged. "All that was going to bring me fifty credits. Don't worry about it." He held the comm device up and gave it a gentle shake. "This'll set me up for the year."
"I'm glad," Tiffin said. "Dewey." She tipped her head toward the empty mag-lev platform. "Get on."
"You must be kidding." Dewey's expression shifted. He looked dazed.
"Dewey. Are you okay?" Tiffin said.
He shook his head slightly and blinked his eyes, as if he was returning his focus to the present. "This isn't going to end well."
"Just do it!" Tiffin's stress and sense of urgency came through with an intensity which surprised even herself.
Dewey held his hands up, as if in surrender. "Okay. But I don't see how this is going to work." He sounded like he was trying to console her, or like he felt a little sorry for her. But he climbed onto the cart and sat, holding the sides of it.
"Which way to the ship docks?" Tiffin asked the man.
He twisted and pointed past a building on the far side of the street. "That way. You're not far. Three—no, four streets."
"Thanks." Tiffin looked at the mag-lev's control bar. "Which one of these controls the speed?"
The man leaned in and pointed to the second lever on the right, beside her thumb. There were notches on the band at the base of the one-inch lever. "Move the safety slider, then the speed controller. But you won't be able to keep up if you take it above two."
"Dewey," Tiffin said.
"Yeah?"
"Hold on."
"Oh, crap." Dewey leaned forward, bringing his chest closer to the platform. He shifted his grip to take advantage of a small opening on either side of the short raised edge.
Tiffin shifted the mag-lev cart into motion, changing from walking to running speed almost immediately after the cart started down the road.
Dewey groaned each time Tiffin leaned into either side of the steering bar, causing the floating platform to veer in one direction or the other. After five or six course corrections, she was beginning to get the hang of it. Lining the platform up with a long clearing which ran diagonally between several buildings, she flicked the speed control up to four.
Dewey, facing her, his back to the direction they were headed, smacked his face against the steel surface in front of him as the thrust propelled him downward. He kept the position, face down, arms behind him, hands gripping as tightly as possible to the rail on either side.
Tiffin's red hair flapped behind her in the wind, a wake of dust rolling in on itself behind them. She ran at a breakneck pace for a few seconds, but she felt the mag-lev cart about to get away from her. The ground flew by in a blur, as did the people she saw in her peripheral vision, several of which shouted unpleasant words at her and Dewey.
The platform lurched as she yanked on the horizontal control bar and drew her small body in against it with a quick jump. She tucked her legs into her stomach and landed in a crouch, her knees perched on the middle of the bar. She leaned forward to keep her center of gravity over the bar.
Dewey lifted his face off the surface of the platform and the two of them were eye-to-eye, six inches apart. She saw the look of shock on Dewey's face. She thought for a split second it was due to their proximity to one another, but her concern at not being able to see where they were going took over.
"Get your head down!" She wanted to reach out and force him to comply for his own good, but she knew better than to take her hands off the control bar.
He ducked just in time for her to see they were barreling toward the corner of one of the buildings. She felt the flood of adrenaline up her spine as she dropped her torso toward her left knee, stiffening her left arm to drive her weight onto the bar. The platform tipped twenty degrees and veered clear of the concrete edge of the building's corner, mostly. The right side of the mag-left cart struck the concrete. Dewey's hand escaped disaster by a few inches.
Tiffin's knees slipped from the control bar as the platform hit the building, but she deftly pushed each foot against the ground for a split second and hopped her legs back onto the bar.
Dewey kept his head low, but he looked like he was about to hurl everything they'd had at the cantina and anything else inside his gut. The possibility worried Tiffin, but not enough for her to slow the platform down. She negotiated the next two intersections more easily, allowing a wider berth from the buildings. Dewey helped a little by shifting his body slightly in whichever direction she leaned. From that point on, they coordinated to keep the mag-lev cart under control...mostly.
Soon, Tiffin saw the long line of spaceships parked side-by-side down the street. She didn't see Sarah, but figured they were approaching the street past where Sarah landed. Tiffin had steered the mag-lev cart at a diagonal on purpose, targeting the area where Sarah had said the men might've taken Jake.
She leaned left again, racing the mag-lev platform down the middle of spaceship boulevard. Several people dove out of the way as she and Dewey shot past new arrivals and those loading cargo into ships along the road for departure.
"There!" She didn't take her hands off the control bar, but saw a ship ahead with the same emblem Jake's kidnappers wore. It was painted on the side of the vessel.
Dewey took his eyes as far to the side as he could without moving his head. "I can't see anything, but if we're there hit the breaks!"
"Hang on," Tiffin said. "It's gonna be a fast stop."
She pushed down on the speed switch, but it wouldn't budge. "Huh?" The safety lock. Right! She pushed against the safety slider, which had moved back in place somehow.
"Oh, no!" she said.
Dewey lifted his head more. "What?"
"I can't slow down."
"What do you mean, you can't slow down?"
"It's stuck. I must've hit it somehow."
"What'd I tell you?"
Tiffin looked past Dewey, over his head. "Get ready to jump."
"Jump? No!"
"Trust me. It's better than the other option."
"What option?"
"Now!" Tiffin let go of the steering bar and tucked her arms against her chest. She dropped out of Dewey's sight, but a large splash sprayed water into the air where he could see it.
Tiffin came to the surface of the water. "Now! Jump!" She hoped Dewey could still hear her. He and the mag-lev cart had quickly left her behind.
She saw Dewey fold his arms and roll over the side of the platform.
Tiffin watched the runaway mag-lev cart disintegrate in the explosion from its impact against the huge fuel cell truck parked on the bank of the aqueduct. The discharge of energy from the industrial-sized fuel cells used in older model spaceships lit up the sky. The flash of light off the water which had saved Tiffin and stole her vision for nearly half a minute. She hoped Dewey hadn't been hurt by the blast.
When her vision recovered, Tiffin swam to the side of the aqueduct and climbed out. She looked down a ways and saw Dewey had also made it to land. He must have been underwater just long enough to avoid the force of the blast, which she observed from a safe distance. She stood and opened the pocket of her vest.
"Squeakers, are you okay?"
Squeakers was wet, but otherwise seemed alright—except the expression on his mouse face. Tiffin could tell, he wasn't pleased. "I'm sorry, little guy. I know you hate baths." She reached in and stroked the top of his head. Squeakers pushed gently against her f
inger. "Extra cheese," Tiffin said. "When this is over. I promise. All the cheese you can squeeze into your little belly." She knew he could eat a lot, but she planned to indulge him to make up for putting him through so much.
She closed the flap of the pocket and secured it, then looked down to her pants cargo pocket.
"Oh, no." The blaster was gone. Must've fallen into the water. She looked at the aqueduct. The water was anything but clear. No time to even try. It may not even be waterproof. Now what are we going to do?
She wiped some of the water from her face and ran to Dewey.
Dewey had dragged himself a few feet away from the aqueduct and was on the ground in the middle of a slowly expanding puddle building from his clothes. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at Tiffin.
'You okay?" she asked.
"No."
"What's wrong?"
He rolled his eyes. "For starters, I'm not a big fan of swimming."
Tiffin nodded toward the large fading fireball rising into the sky above the wreckage of the fuel cell truck. "What about dying in explosions? Are you a big fan of that?"
"Not really."
"We need to get Jake."
Dewey nodded, looking as if he realized Tiffin had no intention of stopping, despite what they'd just been through.
"It's going to be even harder now," Tiffin said.
"Harder than almost dying? Maybe we can sneak up on them and shoot them before they know what's happening."
Tiffin shook her head.
"What? I know it's harsh, but better them than us."
"No, I agree, but..."
"But?"
Tiffin looked at the aquaduct. "The blaster's in there somewhere."
She could see from the change in Dewey's expression that the little bit of hope he'd just been harboring faded. The notion that they could get Jake without risking their own hides seemed even more far-fetched, now that they didn't even have a weapon.
"Maybe they've got him tied up somewhere," she said. "Maybe we can get to him without dealing directly with them."
Dewey clearly wasn't buying into her optimistic scenario. "Really?" He exhaled. "I think it's much more likely we both get captured too. Then-"
"That's not going to happen! We can't let it. Jake's depending on us."
Dewey nodded, his expression softening. He looked sympathetic to her words, or more likely just to what she was feeling. "Okay. We'll try. I'm not giving up. But we need to be careful."
"Yes. First we need to find where exactly they have him." She glanced at her vest pocket, which moved a little from Squeakers changing positions. "We need to be sneaky. Quiet as a mouse."
Resolved to continue the rescue mission, they hurried to retrace the path the out-of-control mag-lev cart had taken them past their destination. When they reached the building with the symbol matching what she'd seen on the jackets of the men who took Jake, they noticed it had two doors, each on a different side of the building, and the place was nearly twice the size of most of the other buildings on the street.
Tiffin turned to Dewey. "What if there's more of them in there?"
Dewey didn't respond, but she could see he hadn't thought it could get any worse...until she said that.
She shook her head. "We still need to find him. We'll just try to avoid those men." She ignored the possibility she'd raised of there being more than the three who took Jake. "If he's alone, whoever finds him gets him out as fast and quietly as possible. If he's being guarded..." She paused to think for a moment. "If he's guarded, get out without being seen and meet out here. We'll figure something out."
Dewey stared at her for a moment, saying nothing, then sighed. "This is not a good plan."
Tiffin knew he was right.
"But it's all we have," Dewey said, looking around for a second before turning back to her. "We obviously can't wait on the authorities. Sarah said she'd contact them, but-"
"Jake can't wait that long," Tiffin said.
"Yeah."
Tiffin nodded toward one side of the building, the door was at the far end of it. "You go that way." She looked to the side closest to them. "I'll go in here."
Dewey nodded. "Quietly."
"Exactly. Find him. Get him out. Or get out unseen and report back here."
"Maybe they tied him up and left him. Left the building for a while."
Tiffin cocked her head to the side and raised her brow as she looked at Dewey. "Really?"
"Just hoping."
Tiffin stepped closer to Dewey and put her hand on his arm. "It'll be fine."
Dewey smiled and glanced at her hand on him. "You take care of yourself in there. First sign of trouble, get out."
Tiffin noticed how sincerely he was looking at her. She got the sense he wanted to say more. "I will."
"Promise?"
I get what you're saying. I like you too.
"I promise," she said. "You too."
"Okay."
They stared at each other for a few moments, then Tiffin turned and headed for the door nearest them. Dewey started for the other one. He sped his walk nearly to a run, evidently to get there close to the same time Tiffin made it to hers. She lost sight of him as the two of them made it farther down their respective sides of the building.
A few moments later, Tiffin, standing outside the unopened door, took a deep breath and let it out. She lifted the flap to the pocket on her vest and looked at Squeakers. "You ready?"
Squeakers looked up at her and twitched his nose, wiggling his whiskers.
"Right," Tiffin said. "He needs us. Let's do this."
She closed the pocket flap and put her hand on the lever to open the door.
What if it's locked? She hadn't thought of the possibility before. Of course it's going to be locked. Why didn't I think of that before? Frustrated with herself for ignoring that key detail, she tried the handle anyway, not expecting it to turn. But it did.
She heard a click, the door's catch pulling out of the hole in the frame.
"Okay, Squeakers. This is it."
She slowly pulled the door open slightly and peered inside, but it was too dark to see anything. Moving it slowly, she opened the door more, just enough to slip inside. She didn't want to let in any more light than necessary, lest Jake's captors notice.
She stepped inside and quietly closed the door behind her. While she took a moment to still her breathing and let her eyes adjust to the darkness, she heard another click. It sounded a few inches to the right of her head. She heard a faint hum and looked toward the sound, but the room was too dark to see anything. A moment later, a faint green glow made a clearing in the blackness. Her eyes adjusted quickly, then she knew what made the noise and glow.
The man holding the blaster to her head grinned. "Well aren't you a pretty thing."
In a flash, the memory of hiding from Hyde in the alley on Eon filled her mind and she began to tremble.
Chapter 17
Dewey opened the door slowly, but immediately realized his breathing was entirely too audible. He'd run the last third of the distance to the door, hoping to get inside and find out what the situation was before Tiffin got into the building and ran into trouble herself. Despite running there, he knew his heavy breathing came more from his nerves than from the physical exertion. He wasn't an athletic type by any stretch, but the distance he came was minimal.
Take it easy, Dewey.
He reminded himself he had no weapon and no real hand-to-hand ability, though he recalled he'd witnessed a fair amount in the arena back on Eon.
Standing just inside the closed door, he shook his head. Don't be stupid. Find Jake...before Tiffin get's into trouble too.
He blinked several times, then took a few steps before pausing a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, which they soon did, giving him a view of the room almost as clearly as if he were outside in daylight—a natural advantage of his race.
Seeing the room to be unoccupied, he made his way to the door at the other sid
e. Passing a few metal shelves on the way, and several crates stacked two-high on the floor opposite them, he scanned for any clues that might tell him something about the men who'd taken Jake. The crates were closed, however, with only standard shipping markings on the outside. Just before stepping up to the door, he spotted a crowbar on one of the shelves. No doubt for opening the crates, he thought. He picked it up and held it like a club as he used his other hand to open the door a few inches to peek into the next room.
Through the narrow opening, he saw the toe of a man's boot across the room. What now?
He wanted to shut the door and run back outside, but he thought of Tiffin. He knew he couldn't turn back. He hated the idea of something about to happen to her and that quickly turned switched on a sense of urgency inside him.
He closed his eyes for a split second while telling himself he could do this, then he tightened his grip on the crowbar and flung the door open the rest of the way, rushing into the room to swing the metal club at the man wearing the boot.
"Dewey?"
Dewey managed to cut short his crowbar swing before the metal hit Jake's head, but he stumbled as he tried to keep from running into Jake, who could do little to get out of the way.
After recovering his balance, Dewey quickly looked behind him, to see if Jake's captors were in the room. The relief he felt at seeing he and Jake were the only ones in the room quickly gave way to a new sense of worry that the men must have heard him rush into the room. He expected the men to storm through the room's other door any moment and shoot him dead.
"No city patrol coming?" Jake asked, sounding weak.
Dewey turned back to him. "No. Just us." He winced at seeing the bruises on Jake's face and his cut lip. He knew they'd worked Jake over pretty hard.
"Tiffin too? No." Jake suddenly appeared much more alert. "Get me out of this. Fast."
Jake's wrists were tied with a thick rope to the arms of a chair, and his ankles to the chair's legs. The same rope wrapped several times around his chest and the chair back.
Dewey glanced at the other door once more, then set the crowbar down and began untying the rope binding one of Jake's wrists.
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