by S. H. Marpel
“OK, Will, how did you know I was a better shot than Finn or you?”
“Homework. I had some time to check up your back trail. And your scores are routinely just a bit above Finn’s. And since you’re better looking, that all fits.”
Carol chuckled. “Not that Finn isn’t good looking in his own way.”
I added, “But there are gifts and there are gifts. Better looking is subjective – but the shot scores are statistical. Competitive-wise. Although given a choice, having Finn around for his aim is just as welcome when you really need it.”
Finn sat quiet, amused. His face showed that the best way to handle a backhanded compliment was to just smile and nod.
“OK, then someone explain how I got on top of that Space Needle.”
Carol jumped in. “You were shifted there. The goon who fired on you somehow shifted you there – that was the flash.”
Will cleared his throat. “Actually, I kind of ‘intercepted’ you. You needed to be out of their range. And I had to act fast, so that was the safest place I could think of that they wouldn’t look for you.”
“Safest?”
“Oh, come on, Erika. I knew the power of your observation, and that you wouldn’t freak out and do something drastic. But the goon squad couldn’t see you show up anywhere they expected, or they’d just fire on you again. And it was tough enough splitting time that fine in order to pull you to safety.”
“Relative safety.”
“Sill, you look good when you’re wet.”
I punched him in the arm. “Don’t think you can get away with risqué flattery.”
Will smiled back. “A wet rose smells the same by any other compliment.”
I rolled my eyes at the horribly tortured paraphrase. “One of these days, Will. You’ll get yours.”
“And I can hardly wait.”
For that, I took his free hand under the table and leaned a bit closer. To distract him before he said something really corny.
Carol chuckled again. “So the current reports now say the Navy recovered the two nuclear torpedoes off the bottom of the lake.”
Finn pulled his phone out and checked the display. “There’s also some reorganization in the next few years which will ensure that type of theft isn’t possible after this.”
I nodded. “I’m still getting used to this time grammar. But the key point is that we foiled them again.”
Finn agreed. “Good-guy teamwork trumps evil cabal plotting.”
“Oh – that’s an interesting statement. I didn’t see you much this time.”
Carol nudged him with her shoulder. “No, he was keeping me company and getting in the way of my other work.”
“So he just stayed in the control room with only Al to be a chaperon?”
“Not really, Erika. He was so distracted keeping an eye on you that he was a distraction to me as well. His attention was so much on you that Al and I almost ignored him after awhile. Since he was constantly fidgeting to get up and do something to help.”
I looked at Finn. “Fidgeting?”
He gave a wry smile. “You know I’d be there to protect you if I had to.”
“But Will deserved his chance?”
“Oh, we kinda worked it out as a way he could spend some quality time with you.”
One of my eyebrows went up. This was another setup. “Quality time? You call that...”
Will put his finger on my lips. “Shhh. You seem to be missing your idea of a ‘hot date’ these days, plus Finn knows you like action in your life.”
My hand under the table bent one of his fingers back slightly – until his face showed it. “I’ll take that as another backhanded complement.”
Then I held his whole hand again, and kissed his cheek.
Finn was still reading his phone, with Carol now distracted by his device as well.
“Well, Carol, should Will and I leave you to your own ‘hot date’?”
She looked up, and smiled. “Sorry. Al is pulling up other reports and posting them. Some are giving data about what we might be doing over the next couple of days.”
“Meaning, our last two days.”
That got both of their attention on me.
Carol spoke first. “Oh, I haven’t had time to tell you. We’ve made some good progress on this. But I’ve asked John to bring a special consultant tomorrow to double-check with her. I may have uncovered a solution based on the dataset I got today. It’s a little too soon to reveal at this point.”
Finn nodded. “We still expect to have missions on each of those days.”
“No rest for the wicked, then.”
Will squeezed my hand and looked at me. “Even by any other name, a woman’s work is never done.”
“We’re going to have to work on the paraphrasing in this crowd.” I winked at Will and he smiled. Finn and Carol were already smiling at the conversation that evening. Of course, they had one pair of hands under the table as well, so they had ample reason.
Will and Finn took that drop in conversation as a clue. They each stood and helped us ladies to our feet.
Both Finn and Carol disappeared when they went through the restaurant’s front door.
Will and I walked quietly, arms around each other’s waist until we reached my borrowed apartment.
Then we took some “alone” time – even though we knew that Carol and Finn could both see whatever I did, if they weren’t already canoodling on their own by now.
“So, Will, tomorrow’s another day.”
“And hope springs eternal.”
“Meanwhile, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.”
“And it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
That made me chuckle.
Which Will quieted with a kiss.
VII
ALARM LIGHTS WENT OFF on the console. Finn and I each took a seat to see the readouts.
The energy supply was becoming even more erratic.
As the clock went from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00, the lights dimmed and then restored with a flash, then a continuing flicker.
Not good. Something was up. And the consoles were blank this time.
“Al?” No answer from our A.I.
“AL!” Still no answer.
Though the viewport window, we saw another bedroom. But no one was in that bed. The apartment didn’t even look lived in.
Erika was missing.
Book Universes Notes
All long series of books become complicated. The universes of these stories can mix and merge. There are short and long series, as well as crossovers. So we’ve begun the process of adding Book Universes Notes to each of them. This allows you to get links to the earlier materials that explain the character backgrounds and abilities, story arcs, and even easter eggs.
Please enjoy.
ERIKA AND FINN WERE first introduced in “The Saga of Erotika Jones 01“.
Carol was first introduced in “Time Bent”.
Will was formally introduced as a time bender in “The Saga of Erotika Jones 04“, but appeared a couple of times earlier.
C. E. L. phone stands for “Communications and Emergency Logistics phone”, and is explained in “Erotika Jones 01”. This story is placed in the late 1970’s, where our smartphones, and even the old clam phones didn’t exist yet.
The A. I. named “Al” was formally introduced in “Erotika Jones 03“.
The Saga of Erotika Jones 07
BY J. R. KRUZE, S. H. Marpel
“There are no limits.” - Ancient Polynesian saying
WHERE I WAS AND WHO I was were the one question needing their answers.
I’d been transported, yet not in my own body. Both actions I was more than used to. Usually didn’t happen together. Usually.
And here I was, somewhere. It wasn’t even uncomfortable to be someone else.
The one idea I knew for certain was that I was here to solve a mystery. Probably a crime. Something disastrous.
People were counting on me to solve
these mysteries. Their lives and mine depended on how fast I could solve them.
And only me.
Nothing like the fate of the universe hanging on your shoulders to bring your idea of reality crashing in.
I guess the first thing is to get myself untied, and this gag out of my mouth.
I
SAN DIEGO, CA. - NAVAL Recruit Training Center
The scene in front of us was bad enough without the alarms making it worse. So I turned them off, leaving the alarm lights flashing.
When the clock went from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00, the lights dimmed to near dark. Then restored with a flash, resolving into a continuing flicker.
The consoles didn’t start scrolling the data of Erika’s latest assignment. Instead, they just sat there – blank.
Dials for energy supply, only having occasional twitches before, were now erratic.
“Al?” No answer from our A.I.
“AL!” Still no answer.
Though the viewport window, we saw another dark bedroom. But Erika was missing.
TO SAY WE WERE FREAKED out was an understatement.
Not that it showed - well, mostly.
Finn went in and out of that room we saw in the viewscreen, exploring the whole apartment. Finding nothing. “Carol, it’s completely empty. Enough dust laying around to say that not only has no one lived there recently, it’s more that the landlord isn’t even trying to find someone to rent it.”
I’d pulled out the manuals and started going over the re-start procedure. The pages were crisp. They never had to be touched before this. Running down the lines with a finger only helped me focus. Erika has become a sister to me, and I had to stay focused. I knew that she would tell me to. Like she was at my elbow in this.
“Finn, it’s not all that logical, but I have to get ‘Al’ the A.I. back up and running first. He can get these other re-set sequences going faster than I could by hand.
Finn only nodded. His hands clenched into fists, but holding himself still. And standing away from the keyboards to give me space. The only thing he could really do at this point was calm down. I could hear his deliberate breathing to get his heart rate down. The effect was to get more color into his face - not that I had time to look at him other than glances.
My hands were pretty frantic on the keyboards, punching in the commands out of the book that would restart ”Al”.
At last the code on one monitor was scrolling down as it re-loaded the stored algorithms that made up his support core.
My only hope was that we didn’t have some huge data loss. I’d grown fond of “Al” and his Rat-pack version of a voice. Like another member of our close-knit family here.
Finally I got a prompt: “Enter your question:>_” The underscore was blinking.
I paused, my palms wet and pushed my fingers onto the table to stop their shaking. My own deep breaths helped stop those nervous fears.
And then I typed: “Al, you there?”
No response.
OK. So I tried something simpler: “Hello, World?”
A pause. The blinking cursor had quit. Something was happening in there.
Finally, hesitating words typed out on the screen: “Carol, is that you?”
I almost jumped out of my chair, grinning from ear to ear.
I typed: “Yes. Do you have a name?”
The response: “Al. Like always. Or since you told me I could have one, anyway.”
Next I typed: “How’s your audio circuits?”
Al responded: “Fine, how are yours?”
That’s my Al. To the microphone: “It would be nice to hear you again.”
A modulated baritone came smoothly through the speakers: “And it’s good to hear from you as well. Glad to be back. What happened?”
Then I did jump up and scampered over to Finn’s arms to get a hug. Just the closest thing I could interact with, since Al didn’t have a body. Not that I ever minded hugging Finn. Plus, he was as wet-cheeked as I was from relief.
One step closer to getting Erika back, wherever she had gone.
II
THE ROOM WAS A GRAYISH-brown. Top to bottom. Ceilings were supposed to be white. Of course, the old joke said “beige”.
But I could only see the part of the ceiling in front of me. Of course, my head was to the side, with the rest of my body. So I was seeing all “up” to my left, and “down” to my right.
The reason for this position is that my hands and feet were bound. And a gag in my mouth was tight, but not uncomfortable.
Of course, the bed smelled of dust and the lack of cleaning.
The smells were all old, not damp at anytime in the near present. Old. The room just smelled old.
But my logical self said I needed to get freed from these bindings.
And then figure out how to escape somehow.
First things first.
The hands weren’t tied across each other, and that gap was all I needed. Slumping my shoulders enabled me to move them around my bum and then down my legs. All without dislocating my shoulders.
My fingers next were able to untie my feet, and pull the wad from my mouth.
No sense in crying out just yet. I’d seen too many horror movies to know better. God knows what was waiting outside. And my hands were still tied.
So the next thing to look for was a nail – or something sticking out and strong enough to pry these ropes apart.
At least I wasn’t handcuffed. I could pick locks, but was out of practice. And these long nails of mine weren’t conducive to holding and twisting some thin piece of metal to unlock other tiny bits inside a metal handcuff. Then repeat.
At last, I broke down and used my teeth. By bit and bite, I was able to extract one set of knots. Then my fingers could do the other.
Now for the next question.
It wasn’t where I was, that would come in due time. Once I left this room.
But first, I needed to know who I was.
III
FINN WAS STILL FIDGETING. Erika’s room was still a dusty, un-rented hole in the wall.
But Finn couldn’t do much besides walk in, walk out. And bother me. Without trying to bother me, because if he did bother me, then it just slowed down getting his sister back.
We couldn’t get his sister back until we got the background, unseen computer programs up and running.
That “we” was me and Al.
I even turned off Al’s voice to speed things up.
That just made bored Finn even more insufferable. More distracting. More bothersome.
So I did the next best thing - I handed him several technical manuals to read. The same ones he’d handed me when I first showed up.
Of course, the difference was that I could always look through the viewscreen and watch Finn and Erika go through their mysteries in real life. Like a huge TV screen, but with real actors.
The stories I watched weren’t as good as John writes them - no cutaways or scene shifts, few decent plot twists, and plenty of dull parts – but at least I had the option to go back to my slightly less-dull manual. Not like I could change the channel.
This time, Finn was trying to read to distract himself. The only good thing was that we had three chairs in the control room. So he sat in one and put his feet into the other - just so he didn’t accidentally brush up against a control button or dial with his big feet.
Like I said. Bored, fidgety.
Al was keeping a conversation with me in another console, so I’d go back and forth with him while inputting the commands he needed. It made me look to Finn like I was doing all this stuff, but actually Al was just keeping me occupied as well. Cracking jokes, getting me to tell him the sketchy details that John left out of my stories, getting gossip about the other heroines, and so on.
We were dealing with some old programs that originally ran on much slower vaccuum-tube computers, so there was a lot of waiting involved.
Sure, if one of those whiz kids from the Library could be here, they�
��d have already re-written the code from scratch. But neither Burtie no Ernst were time-benders, so they couldn’t get here from there.
Which brings up our latest time-bender recruit - Will.
He was out doing some searches on his own. Mainly going over the idea that the location in the viewscreen was correct. Per our recollection, our next location was one of three Southern California cities. This apartment was in San Diego.
Since our last few cases all took place within a decade of each other, he last said something about checking up and down the timeline about 5 years in each direction.
And even for a time-bender, that took awhile.
While he was out, I was working with Al to get the systems back on line. Finn was trying to keep engrossed in a dry manual that reads like a cookbook.
All we could see was that empty, deserted apartment bedroom.
IV
I COULD SEE TOO MUCH, even though there was a single window in that dingy room, and it was papered over.
I could see into my own mind - and all the minds I’d co-habited over the years.
Since Carol gave me that treatment (and I still didn’t know how she did it, other than it helped) - I’d been able to access memories. Not just my memories, but those of the hosts I’d borrowed to do my detective work.
That was the trick I had to master.
I was moved around through space and time to chase bad guys and solve or prevent crimes.
To do that, I “borrowed” someone else’s body and their identity at each time-space incident. Not particularly with their permission, but with their cooperation.
And I kept their body alive and returned it in good condition. Plus, I tried to help them out somehow.
It wasn’t always easy. In fact, I mostly didn’t know how I pulled it off - other than a strong instinct for self-preservation. Plus wanting to treat others as I would like to be.
That, and the upbringing I had to never feel sorry for myself, but just take every problem as another opportunity. Kind of a hard-core positive self-image.
