Storm Warning

by Jaxon Reed

  She sighed and pulled out a tiny pocket purse inside her suit coat.

  “I always keep a few hundred credits in cash on me. These look real. I wonder if they’ll pop away when we disappear? Does everything get taken back for recycling, even after it leaves the clone?”

  “That’s a question for Dr. Hsu,” Jamieson said. “Either way, we can pay back the autocab company in the present if they keep a record of getting stiffed four years after the fact.”

  “Well, we can try it,” Boggs said. “Or we can ask Dr. Hsu if we can borrow his car.”

  Jamieson and Collier raised their eyebrows in thought.

  Collier said, “You know, I bet that’s how our perp got there. He was able to use his old car.”

  Jamieson said, “Well, he’s been here long enough he could have walked to Eastside if he had to.”

  “We need to get going if we’re going to have any hope of catching him,” Boggs said.

  -+-

  In the end, Hsu gave them a company car to use rather than his own. They flew out of the huge complex of factories and headed toward Eastside at full speed.

  Boggs had to fly the machine manually. He joined a traffic stream heading east.

  “What if she doesn’t have the same hideout? What if she can’t be reached here in the past?” Jamieson fretted.

  “I admit we are going on some assumptions,” Collier said. “But it makes sense he would know where to go to find her.”

  Boggs said, “I say we scope the place out, maybe break in and look around. I mean, what can they do to us? Kill us? Nope. Can the police find us in the present and give us a fine for breaking rules from before we came to work for AOJ? Nope. We’ve got a free ride here. We should use it. Let’s break some eggs and cook an omelet.”

  Collier frowned at the allusion.

  Jamieson did not.

  He said, “That’s right! When life gives you lemons, make a lemon meringue pie.”

  “Yeah. And do it in the past, when the lemons are free.”

  “Or at least cloned.”

  Collier ended their repartee by pointing out they were nearing Eastside.

  She said, “That’s the building, there. It’s a few blocks in.”

  Boggs said, “I guess we can’t park at Sarge’s place since it’s not hers yet.”

  He slowed the vehicle, breaking away from the traffic stream, and slowly floated over the borough.

  They looked down on top of the buildings and dingy, dirty streets.

  “It looks as depressed as ever,” Collier said.

  Jamieson said, “Down there on the sidewalk . . . Is that our guy?”

  Everyone looked where he pointed. Someone pulled a mask off his head while walking. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.

  “Yeah, that’s Bainer,” Boggs said. “I’ll put us down behind him.”

  As the car settled on its landing feet in the street, everyone inside turned to watch Bainer approach the front door of Stormy’s building. He pressed his hand against the pad to ring the bell as Jamieson and Collier stepped out.

  Jamieson shouted, “Mr. Bainer! Hold it right there!”

  His head whipped around, eyes registering shock. Bainer turned and ran down the street.

  “Good going, buddy,” Boggs said as he got out from the driver’s side.

  Jamieson ignored him and took off running. Collier ran after him.

  Boggs grunted, closing the car. Then he raced down the street, too.

  The building’s door opened and Evan Edge stuck his head out. Big, tall and muscular, the man could be an intimidating presence when needed. Stormy often sent him to answer the door and deal with bums trying to come in off the street or looking for a handout.

  He looked around in confusion. Nobody was there, even though he distinctly heard the doorbell.

  He shut it again, grumbling about teenagers and their practical jokes.

  26

  Bainer pounded the pavement, running fast.

  Jamieson followed several meters back, then Collier with Boggs bringing up the far rear.

  Bainer cut sharp to the right in an alley. Jamieson raced up to the intersection, then skidded to a stop.

  He had fought in too many urban engagements to rush around a corner. Cautiously, he peeked around the bricks.

  In this rundown part of town the alleys were choked with trash and debris. This one was no exception. He saw dumpsters and piles of garbage strewn all the way down the walls to the dead end.

  It’s a myriad of places for someone to hide, he thought. And no sign of Bainer.

  Collier came up behind him, breathing hard from the run. She glanced around the corner, then looked at Jamieson.

  She said, “Ambush?”

  He nodded and said, “The only thing is, I don’t think he has a weapon.”

  “You can’t be certain without visual. That’s what they taught us in the Academy.”

  “Yeah. But at least it’ll be the clone getting shot if he has one, right?”

  “Good point!”

  She ran past him into the alley, gun held out straight.

  “Hey, wait!”

  He ran in after her.

  Collier made her way rapidly, alert for threats. She scanned with her gun as she passed each pile of trash, ever vigilant for someone hiding and waiting to jump out.

  The alley abruptly ended after several meters, with more debris piled against the far wall and a fire escape ladder.

  Jamieson joined her, trying to aim his own gun everywhere at once.

  He said, “You don’t think he could be under one of those piles, do you?”

  “No, none of them look recently disturbed. Did he go up the fire escape?”

  They both looked up in time to see Bainer falling on them, legs and arms outstretched.

  He landed with a crunch, as both their bodies absorbed the fall, smacking the concrete.

  Boggs ran around the corner and into the alley, inconsiderate of any ambush risks. At the far end he saw Bainer standing up over two bodies. He slid to a stop.

  “Hey!”

  Thoop!

  He squeezed off a round but it went wide at that distance, missing Bainer’s head and slamming into the bricks at the dead end.

  Bainer snarled and picked up Collier’s gun, aiming it at Boggs.

  Thoopah!

  The bolt grazed his head and the agent stumbled to the ground.

  Jamieson groaned. Bainer aimed down and shot him, point blank. Then he shot Collier. Both the bodies popped out of existence as the subroutine ported them back to the clone bank.

  Bainer jogged up to Boggs and aimed the gun down at him.

  A pile of debris moved, and the head of a wino appeared, his unkempt hair like a dirty mop.

  He said, “Hey! Wha’s goin’ on here?”

  Spooked, Bainer shoved the gun in his belt and ran out of the alley.

  -+-

  Back in the present, Jamieson and Collier opened their eyes and pushed the domes off their heads.

  “Whoa, that was intense,” Jamieson said. “Did you feel that? I mean, the concrete hurt when he jumped on us, but being shot like that . . . wow. I’m going to have nightmares.”

  Collier said, “Did he get Mortie?”

  They both looked at Boggs. He remained unconscious, the vitals showing in the holo above his head.

  Jamieson said, “Huh. I guess he’s still in the game, so to speak.”

  “We should let him stay. Maybe he can stop Bainer.”

  -+-

  Bainer ran out of the alley, turned and headed back up the street to Stormy’s door.

  He paused for a moment, hands on his knees, catching his breath. Then he pressed the access pad again, activating the doorbell.

  Edge opened the door immediately.

  He said, “Gotcha! You’re not running away this time.”

  He looked at the panting man standing there and frowned.

  Edge said, “Who are you?”

  Between gas
ps Bainer said, “Is . . . Stormy . . . home?”

  “Yeah, just a minute I’ll—”

  Thoop! Thoop!

  They both ducked. One of the bolts sailed inside. Another slammed into the wall next to the door.

  Edge said, “What the . . .?”

  He pulled out his own gun and aimed at a bum running down the street waving a pistol.

  Thoop! Thoopah!

  The bum went down, tumbling on the sidewalk. Then he disappeared.

  Edge squinted, with a confused look on his face.

  “Where did he . . .?”

  Stormy came downstairs, hearing the gunfire. She rushed to the door where Edge stood. She had her own gun out and looked ready to use it.

  She said, “What’s going on?”

  “A guy shot at us and disappeared,” Edge said.

  Bainer stood and checked himself for injuries. He looked at Stormy and his eyes lit up with joy.

  “Ginger Storm?”

  “Yes?”

  She moved closer to the doorway.

  “Careful,” Edge said, placing a protective hand on her.

  She shrugged it off and said, “I have a gun.”

  Bainer handed her a sheet of paper and said, “I don’t know how much longer I’ve got, but Triskelion will be activated after the war. When it is, you’ll need this information. I wrote it down for you after I got here . . .”

  He disappeared.

  Edge jumped back in surprise. He said, “What the . . .? Is everybody today just going to just vanish on us like that?”

  “He was ported somewhere,” Stormy said. She glanced down at the paper.

  “What was that all about?”

  Stormy unfolded the note. A symbol was drawn on top, reminiscent of a swastika only with three prongs instead of four.

  She said, “I’m not sure.”

  She read the note silently as she walked back inside and the door closed.

  27

  Boggs groaned, his clone stirring on the alley pavement. He stood and stared at the trash pile next to the wall, where the bum had faced him earlier, hidden.

  He said, “Huh.”

  Then, realizing no one else was around, he jogged to the alley’s entrance. Out on the street, there were few pedestrians and even less traffic. He made his way back toward Stormy’s place in time to see the bum pull out a gun and shoot at the doorway.

  He watched at a distance as Edge fired back and the bum disappeared.

  Edge and Stormy scanned the street, but he stood too far away for them to notice. He ducked back inside the alley for several minutes.

  When he went back to the street, the door was closed and Bainer’s clone was gone.

  Boggs walked toward the company car, still parked near the curb.

  He shrugged and climbed in. PLAIR would not obey orders from his cloned self, so he took over manual controls again and made his way back to the Republican Shipworks parking garage.

  Several minutes later the elevator pod dinged open and he stepped out into Hsu’s work area. Employees looked up from their workstations, but nobody said anything. Visitors were common enough.

  Boggs looked around, keeping an eye out for Bainer or his clone but seeing neither. He walked to Hsu’s door and tapped the access pad.

  Hsu opened it and rose from his desk as the agent walked in. Hsu’s face was bandaged, hiding the bruises.

  He said, “Where are the other two?”

  “They got shot. Their clones are in the recycle bin.”

  “I see. But you are still here.”

  “Yeah, but somebody else was there, another person, and they disappeared too. I’m getting a sneaky suspicion who that was.”

  “And who might that be, Agent Boggs?”

  “Myself.”

  -+-

  Boggs’s clone sat in the same chair he used before. Or rather, would be using in the future, he thought.

  “This is most unusual, Agent Boggs. No one has ever . . . The machine hasn’t even been used on human subjects yet, it’s too new.”

  “I understand. But, I know what I saw. And I’m proof it works fine on human subjects.”

  “But you are already in the past. Your quantum optical receptors are operating with a conscious link to . . . the future, your present. And now you are asking me to send all that back. It’s . . .”

  “I know. It leaves me speechless too, Doc. Just do it. I know what I saw. Send me back a few hours today, that’s all you’ve got to do. This is an AOJ investigation, I could order you to do it if I have to.”

  Hsu sighed and quit arguing as Boggs’s clone pulled down the dome over his head.

  The clone’s vitals displayed on the holo above the chair. Hsu made adjustments on the control panel and threw the switch. The clone lost consciousness.

  -+-

  Hours earlier in the day, a red line scanned down the first clone in line inside the cramped room behind the chairs.

  Boggs opened his eyes. He looked down at his chest and held out his hands.

  “Ha! Son of a gun, it worked! I bet you could take endless jumps, from one clone to another.”

  He opened the door to the control room carefully. Nobody was there.

  He opened the door into the large work area and found it likewise void of people.

  “Too early in the morning,” he said. “No war going on yet, either.”

  At the elevator bank he paused to consider if he should try to get a car from the employee garage or make his own way to Eastside. He finally decided he would have little luck getting a company car, since Hsu had not made the authorization yet.

  He took the pod to the main lobby instead. Here more people streamed in, heading to the elevator banks.

  Walking outside, he found himself in the street with various autocabs arriving, bringing in workers who either did not own their own cars or were using other means of transportation.

  Boggs looked around and found a young woman waiting for a vehicle instead of getting out of one.

  He approached her giving his best smile, hoping he could wrangle a ride out of her.

  “Hi there. Mortie Boggs.”

  Boggs noted she was a little overweight, but not unattractive. She seemed young.

  She looked startled at the abrupt approach he took, but shook his hand willingly.

  “Romi Mulhaney.”

  “Listen, Romi, I’m in a bind. My implant stopped working and I don’t have a credit token to my name. Could you please give me a ride? I would sincerely, super-duper appreciate it if you did.”

  The autocab she had called settled down in the street nearby, and the canopy popped open.

  “Well, sure, I suppose. I mean, there’s records of everything that goes on in an autocab, so if you try to assault me or anything, you’ll surely be caught.”

  “I’ll sit in the front or back seat, whatever you want. I just need a ride to Eastside.”

  “Eastside? You live there? That borough is a dump.”

  “Well . . . it’s a long story. But, I just need to get there as soon as I can, and I can’t take the bus or anything.”

  “Alright. Hop in.”

  As the autocab soared away, Romi Mulhaney found herself telling a total stranger all about her job as a functional analyst for Republican Shipworks.

  Her current assignment involved calculating the probabilities of ship losses in a theoretical war. She had crunched some numbers on an old thinscreen, not connected to the net. She left it at home while going to work this morning. The report was due soon and she needed that thinscreen. Thus her need to go back and retrieve it.

  The detour to Eastside was out of the way, but the young man seemed nice, and he was very interested in her work. Men normally did not pay her much attention. She jumped on this opportunity to talk with one.

  Indeed, Boggs felt highly interested since he fought in the war, or would be fighting in it. He offered her his ideas, based on actual experience although he did not tell her that. The fact he was on a double ti
me jump was odd enough without having to explain everything.

  She listened enthusiastically as he suggested additional variables that could result in spaceship losses during battle. These were based on actual combat, and his experience of being on a troop transport as it ported around trying to avoid destruction. They included several she had not previously considered.

  He had the experience, which he also did not share, of being on a space ship that was taken down. After Wilcox left their squadron, the troop transport Ronald Reagan was attacked by a Starfold cube during the Republic’s assault on Sporades. The Reagan fortunately managed to crash land on the planet’s surface. But many other ships were completely lost in that first encounter with the deadly new planetary defense system.

  By the time the autocab reached Eastside, settling down in the street near Stormy’s entrance, Romi felt sorry to see him go. All of her initial apprehensiveness of riding with a total stranger had dissipated.

  The canopy popped open and he jumped out.

  She said, “Hey, can we meet and talk again? You’ve got some great ideas and I’d love to pump you for more info. And, I don’t even know much about you. We didn’t talk about where you work or anything.”

  He gave her an apologetic, almost sorrowful look.

  “Maybe another time.”

  With that, he turned and walked away.

  The canopy went down and the autocab shot back up into the air, turning around toward her flat.

  Mulhaney sighed in misery as the car sped away, heading west.

  She said, “What is it about me that scares men away?”

  28

  Over the course of the next few hours, Boggs made the clone of his clone look more like a bum.

  He got very dirty, which was not hard to do in this unkempt neighborhood. Dirt was, in fact, everywhere. He smeared mud on his face and in his hair. He patted down in dust from the street and made sure his clothes were thoroughly unclean.

  He found some old rags and stuffed them in his pockets. He stole a jacket off a real bum, passed out apparently from a drug overdose. The jacket did not fit very well, but it seemed convincingly bum-like.