“Emily.” He leaned forward and rested a hand on her knee. “In all the time you’ve known me, has there ever been anything I’ve done that wasn’t in the interest of keeping you with me? Of keeping you safe?”
“No. Never.”
“Then believe me when I tell you now. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you from harm.”
“Are we in danger?” Emily asked.
Dom looked back out the window as the vehicle slowed. “Not for much longer. Drink the rest of that, then come on. We’re here.”
Chapter 2
The concrete sidewalk leading to the research facility was cold on Emily’s bare feet. She shivered a little and wrapped Dom’s jacket around herself a little tighter. A security guard at the entrance tipped his hat to Dom.
“Good to see you again, sir. Twice in one night.” He smiled and opened the door for them.
The doorway traded cold concrete for cold epoxy flooring that was slick beneath her feet.
Dom didn’t slow his pace at all as he guided her through several hallways to what must have been the back of the building. He finally stopped at a doorway that had been chained shut and padlocked. Dom entered a combination and unlocked it, then pulled the entire chain free. Emily noticed that the combination had been her birthday, 4-9-20. Dom took a glance down the hallway they came from, then pulled the door open. “Okay. Here we go.”
Emily wasn’t sure what she expected, but the room they walked into wasn’t it. It looked like an oversized storage closet. Dusty metal racks lined the walls, home for a few outdated computers and forgotten hard drives. There was a window on the far end of the room but the opaque glass squares only let in the faintest glow from the streetlight. Dom flipped the switch and illuminated the room with harsh fluorescent light.
He ran the chain through the door handles again and refastened the lock.
“About time,” someone said. “I thought you said you’d be quick.”
Emily located the speaker sitting in a folding chair in the corner. He rocked forward and stood, shaking out the length of his overcoat and stomping his feet. He was skinny, dressed in all black, and smoking an electronic cigarette. She hadn’t seen one of those in years.
“Why are you just lurking here in the dark?” Dom said. “It’s creepy.”
“You wanted me to stay here. I stayed. You didn’t say you needed me awake.”
Dom turned toward Emily. “This is a new acquaintance of mine. What did you say your name was again?”
“Axle.”
“Well, Axle, did you at least prepare things for me like I asked you to?”
“Setup’s all ready. Standard stuff.” He pointed to a rolling office chair and a contraption against the wall that looked like some kind of door frame.
“Dom, what’s going on?” Emily said. “You really need to tell me what we’re doing here. Who is this guy?”
“We’re getting away for a little,” Dom said. “I’ve got somewhere where we can go to get things sorted out. I’ve got a way to keep you safe.”
Emily noticed that Axle was eyeing her bare legs and tried to tug the edge of Dom’s jacket a little lower.
“You don’t mind me saying so, mack, you got a fine looking lady here. Lots going for you. You sure you don’t want to just forget this plan and go off and enjoy her somewhere? I’m thinking I would.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” Dom growled at him. “I didn’t pay you for your suggestions. I paid you to do your job. Just get things ready. We’re wasting time.”
Axle held up his hands. “Whatever you say, mack. You’re the boss.” He stepped over to the doorframe erected by the wall and started fiddling with a control panel attached to the side. A number of heavy-duty cables were running across the floor and were directly wired into the breaker box on the wall.
“Emily, I need to tell you something,” Dom said. “I’m sorry to keep you in the dark about this but we’re almost safe. There is going to be a problem at the plant. The reactor core is growing unstable. It’s going to . . . It’s going to do a lot of damage. But I have somewhere to take us. I can fix things. I just need you to come with me. It’s all going to be okay.”
“The main reactor?”
As she spoke, the door frame against the wall started buzzing. The space between the posts began to shimmer, then erupted into a field of multicolored light. The colors swirled and twisted in an eerie sort of harmony with one another. Emily found herself transfixed by their beauty.
“What is that?” she murmured.
“Our future,” Dom replied. “Have a seat.”
Dom wheeled a rolling office chair over and Emily sat, almost automatically, her eyes still glued to the luminescent doorway. She didn’t look away until something cold closed over her wrist. She looked down to find her arm handcuffed to the chair.
“Hey, what the hell?”
“Standard procedure,” Axle muttered from next to her..
“Procedure for what?” Emily demanded.
Dom shoved Axle out of the way and knelt in front of Emily. He rested a hand on her knee, then held up another bottle of blue liquid. “I need you to drink this.”
“What the hell is that stuff, Dom? And don’t give me that ‘sober you up’ bullshit.”
“It’s going to help stabilize your cells,” Dom replied. “The more we get into you, the safer you’ll be.”
Axle wheeled an IV rack over to her chair and started prepping a syringe.
“You have got to be kidding,” Emily replied. She snatched the bottle from his hand and threw it across the room. “I’m not drinking anything until you explain what you’re doing to me.”
Dom closed his eyes for a moment, then grabbed her arm and took her hand between his. “Emily.” He opened his eyes again and stared into hers. “That machine over there is going to take us somewhere new. But in order to get there, we need to treat your body with a special sort of particle. It will protect you and enable you to travel safely. But only if we get enough into you to make it work.”
“Why aren’t you cuffed to a chair? Why isn’t he?” She looked to Axle who was now wheeling some other contraption made of hollow tubing toward them.
“We’ve already had our treatment,” Dom replied. He kissed her hand then laid her forearm against the arm of the chair. “Now I need you to stay still.” He wrapped a fabric strap quickly around her arm and fastened the Velcro.
“Hey! No. Dom!” Emily tried to jerk her arm loose but it was strapped tight. She tried moving her other arm but the metal handcuffs only rattled against the chair. “I don’t want to do this. Let me go!”
“There is no other way,” Dom replied. He grasped her face between his hands. “Your future depends on this.”
“Dom.” She stared at him with her most no-nonsense expression. “I want to go home. Let. Me. Go.”
But Dom simply strapped a band around her other arm and secured it tightly to the chair as well. Axle bent down with the needle.
“Get that away from me!” she shouted.
“It’s going to hurt more if you move,” Axle replied. He pressed on the inside of her arm, probing for her vein.
“Don’t you touch me with that—” she began, but it was too late. He already started inserting the needle. She froze. When the IV was in, he taped the tube to her arm and stood up.
She caught him staring down her shirt. She jerked against the arm of the chair but it was no use. Why hadn’t she used . . . more . . . buttons . . .
She felt dizzy. Her head lolled slightly.
“What else did you put in there?” Dom asked.
“Just something to calm her down. Figured we may as well get a head start on the rest of it.”
Dom frowned but didn’t object. He stood, and swayed with the rest of the room as it turned. It was all getting wavy.
Emily’s pulse was throbbing in her ears with the rhythm of a clock but the men seemed to be moving in slow motion. She tilted her head as Axle wheeled the tubular structure overtop of her seat.
It was a sort of framework, bolted together with space in the interior for her, and with what looked to be plastic sheeting around the edges. She felt like she was in a portable shower. A bright light illuminated the sheeting. It was clear, but difficult to see through. The room had been going blurry before, but now it was even more difficult to see. Dom was just a vague shape on the other side of the curtain.
“Dom?” Her voice came out softer than she intended. She meant to yell at him but it only sounded like pleading.
“Where are you—” the air crackled with static and blue light flickered around the curtain. She saw now that it wasn’t plastic, but rather some sort of conductive material ribbed with fine strands of metal. Electricity danced and tingled across her skin and seemed to burn through her veins. She cried out from the shock of it.
Moments later it was over.
The two men were muttering something on the other side of the curtain, continuing to ignore her, when a loud bang erupted near the doorway. A blinding light flashed, causing her to squint and blink, and then there were voices. The overhead lights went out. Her ears were ringing. Axle shouted. Something crashed to the floor amid a scuffle ahead of her.
“Get her loose!” a man shouted.
Someone collided with the curtain and she caught a glimpse of Axle, snarling and drawing a knife from his belt. The multicolored light emanating from the strange doorway behind her was barely enough to see anything, but she felt hands on her right arm, someone unwrapping the Velcro straps.
“Dom?”
But it wasn’t Dom. A face in a black ski mask appeared in front of her. They unstrapped her other arm.
“Listen, you have to run!” It was a woman’s voice.
“No! Don’t touch her!” Dom shouted as he flung the tubular framework aside and grabbed for the woman in the mask. She backed away and he pursued her, fist raised.
Emily tried to rise from the chair but her left arm was still handcuffed to it. She wobbled and sat back down. What had they given her?
She was about to try again, but then Axle was there, his leering expression illuminated by the eerie flickering light. “You ain’t going anywhere, honey. Except gone.” He put a hand on the chair arm, and the other over her handcuffed wrist. Then he pushed her, hard, toward the multi-colored doorway. His hand ripped the IV from her arm as he shoved. “Have a nice trip!”
“No, wait!” Dom shouted.
Emily attempted to plant her feet to stop her momentum but her bare heels just slid across the slick epoxy floor. The wheels of the office chair wobbled but her trajectory was true. She rolled right into the swirl of light and color.
There was a fraction of a moment where she felt like she’d departed her body and was soaring through the cosmos.
Then the wheel of the office chair hit something and she tipped, nearly spilling out of it onto the floor. The chair teetered, then settled back onto its wheels, planting her in the seat in a room once again filled with fluorescent light. There was a medical table, some silver trays on wheels, and someone standing in front of her. She looked up to find a man in paper scrubs and latex gloves looming over her. He was wearing a paper mask and had a foot jammed against one of the chair’s wheels.
“Well, what did Axle bring us today?” the man asked.
Footsteps sounded from behind her and when she spun around in the chair she found a second masked doctor on her other side. He was holding a scalpel. “Not bad looking, this time,” he said. “Pity. Get her on the table. Let’s open her up.”
* * *
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Acknowledgments
A very special thanks to author Alan Janney (Alan Lee) who gave tremendous advice as I entered the world of mystery writing. His books and characters inspired me and got me excited to try out this genre.
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Each book I write would be riddled with errors if not for the efforts of my outstanding beta team. The Type Pros gave me feedback, caught my typos and have been a source of encouragement along the path to publishing this novel. My special thanks to:
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Eric Lizotte, Marilyn Bourdeau, Judy Eiler, Rick Bradley, Maarja Kruusmets, Mark Hale, Andrew Freeman, Gary Smart, Ginelle Blanch, Alissa Nesson, Felicia Rodriguez, Ken Robbins, Bethany Cousins, Claire Manger, Sarah Bush and Kay Clark.
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Every book I write is better than I could ever make it because of you.
About the Author
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Nathan Van Coops lives in St. Petersburg, Florida on a diet comprised mainly of tacos. When not tinkering on old airplanes, he writes heroic adventure stories that explore imaginative new worlds. He is the author of the time travel adventure series In Times Like These, and The Skylighter Adventures. His series Kingdom of Engines explores a swashbuckling alternate history where the modern and medieval collide. Learn more at www.nathanvancoops.com
Other Series By Nathan Van Coops
In Times Like These
The Kingdom of Engines
The Skylighter Adventures
Copyright © 2020 by Nathan Van Coops
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All names and places in this book are used fictitiously.
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Ebook ISBN: 978-1-950669-06-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-950669-07-3
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