Kidnappers from the Future

by Gene P. Abel

  “Always a chase,” she remarked with a growing grin. “I think I’m going to like that part.”

  20

  The Fast Trip Down

  The hallway stretched on for a hundred feet left and right, all white-painted metal and smacking of that same overabundance of cleanliness that would define a hospital in nearly any age. A scattering of doors with similar palm-print security locks as their own adorned the hallway’s length, each labeled with appropriate signage, their own door indeed labeled op-control c. To the right the hall came to an end at an extra-wide door labeled main operation theater, while the far-left end came to a T intersection with another hallway.

  “Left,” Agent Hessman immediately decided.

  With Samantha carried over his shoulder, he immediately started into a hurried walk left, while Captain Beck took the lead with his Taser in hand, Ben and Claire covering their rear.

  “I’d feel a lot better with Sue with us,” Claire remarked as they hurried along. “She’d probably run on ahead, then just assume there’d be someone there and turn and shoot. Probably with some fancy cartwheel or split to avoid the other guy’s guns.”

  “Unfortunately, Miss Hill,” Agent Hessman called back, “Agent Harris is not with us on this one.”

  “But,” Captain Beck remarked as he readied his weapon, “a good idea is still a good idea. Though I can’t manage the cartwheel.”

  And so as they came up to the intersection, Captain Beck ran on ahead, then spun around facing left while firing off his Taser. Two wired darts flew out, impacting solidly into a target to deliver a full charge through the wires connecting them to the gun. Unfortunately, the target turned out to be a long and empty gurney left to one side of the hall, the darts having wrapped around the metal handles of one end of it.

  Fortunately, an orderly stood there gripping the metal handles at the other end of the gurney, apparently just about to move the gurney away. Metal being rather conductive, the charge shot through the gurney and into the attending orderly, who spasmed once and then dropped.

  “Well,” Captain Beck noted as he pressed the retract button on his Taser, “not exactly what I had in mind, but—”

  “Hospital Security. Hold it right there!”

  Captain Beck froze, his hands rising slowly. The voice had come from the right-branching hall.

  Hearing the new voice, Agent Hessman not only did not slow down from his fast walk with Samantha slung over his shoulder, but actually sped up while feeling her hands fishing around in his back pockets. He burst out into the middle of the T intersection, then turned to present his back to the presumed security guard. That meant, of course, that Samantha’s draped upper body was facing the guard as she lifted her head with a brief smile and produced the gun she had just fished out of Agent Hessman’s back pocket. Holding it in both hands, she took aim at the single guard she saw and fired.

  It was another Taser, but fortunately, Samantha had a better shot lined up than Captain Beck. The pair of wired needles stuck not into his chest and the assumption of body armor, but in his face and into either cheek. The guard jerked, eyes rolling to the back of his head, foamed a little at the mouth, and then collapsed just as Ben and Claire emerged into the open.

  “Now that’s what I call teamwork,” Claire said, beaming.

  As Samantha pressed retract on the gun before putting it back in Agent Hessman’s pocket, they all quickly appraised their current location. The left hallway was labeled b wing, the one they had just come from a wing, and the right branch reception.

  “Reception it is,” Agent Hessman said after a quick turn around to see his options. “Samantha, you may want to keep my gun handy since I find it difficult to carry you and shoot at the same time.”

  “Then you could always let me down,” she said. “I think I can walk now. Not to mention that being upside down is turning out not to be the best thing for me right now.”

  As quickly as he could, and with a little help from Ben to steady her, Agent Hessman deposited Samantha back on her feet, whereupon she placed a hand to her forehead to steady herself before giving a slow nod to the others.

  “Still a little out of it,” Samantha reported, “but doing better.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to shake it off on the run,” Agent Hessman told her.

  “I would think more of a hurried walk if we don’t want to stand out,” Claire put in.

  “Miss Hill is right. The only ones after us are those Russians and the time police. Robert, hide the artillery.”

  As Captain Beck secured his Taser in his pocket, the group walked quickly down the right-hand hall, with Agent Hessman to Samantha’s left and Ben to her right to support her. The hall ran just thirty feet before opening up into a wide vestibule. To their left was a large circular desk manned by receptionists and a couple of nurses, beyond which lay some sort of records room and nursing station; to their left, a couple of short rows of chairs and benches for prospective patients to wait. Straight ahead the wall was open to another mall-like view, this time of a slightly less gaudily lit medical court with offers for all manner of elective and emergency medical procedures.

  Before anyone could wonder what to do, Claire immediately walked over to the reception desk.

  “Excuse me, but we have someone who just came from having a procedure done and she’s still a little groggy and we have a shuttle to catch. Do you have a pill or something to snap her out of it?”

  The nurse-receptionist looked up, saw Claire’s concerned smile and behind her the obviously distressed young lady being supported by the two men, and replied with a nod.

  “Up too early against doctor’s orders?” the receptionist asked.

  “She’s got some important work to get back to and has decided she’s had enough fun in Space Vegas,” Claire replied in a pleasant tone. “Personally, I’m amazed that we got her to stay this long. All business, you know.”

  “Got it,” the nurse said with a grin. “I got some stuff that should fix her up.”

  Reaching around to a drawer behind the counter, the nurse quickly produced a pair of tiny pills wrapped in cellophane and handed them to Claire.

  “Here. One now, then the other if she needs it, but nothing else after that. This stuff is probably illegal without a prescription most places planetside, but as the motto says, anything goes in Space Vegas.”

  “Oh, thank you. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  “Compliments of Space Vegas Medical Center. Anything to keep the gamblers awake and rolling.”

  Claire replied with a quick smile, then hurried back to the others and handed the packet to Samantha.

  “This should fix you right up. One now, the other if that doesn’t do it.”

  Samantha took the pills, carefully tore off the wrapper, and while she was taking one Agent Hessman offered a remark to Claire. “Miss Hill, anytime you wish to join my branch of government work I am sure that I can get you in.”

  Claire grinned in reply but said nothing more, just slipped back to Ben’s other side as the group started moving forward. It was a short walk across the foyer to the edge of the mall court when Samantha spoke.

  “Leaves a slight tingling in my mouth. Sort of like seltzer and . . .” She stopped, her eyes suddenly going wide.

  “Samantha?” Agent Hessman asked. “Are you okay?”

  She gave a slow nod in reply, then pushed away from the two men, standing now on her own.

  “If you mean can I run for a mile or two without stopping, then yes,” she finally replied. “What the heck was in that pill?”

  “Enough to get us moving,” Ben said. “Look.”

  Across the medical court, just coming out of a room advertising while-you-wait face-lifts, they saw another pair of temporal-police uniforms, one of them consulting a handheld instrument of some sort. The court was about one hundred fifty fee
t across, arranged in a circle, with two ways out: one about midway up the left-hand curve and another about midway up the right-hand curve. The pair of uniforms were closest to the left-hand exit. The court itself wasn’t as crowded as the other places they had seen about, but crowded enough.

  Agent Hessman immediately directed them around toward the right, making sure to keep close to Samantha.

  “Fast walk, nothing suspicious, and everyone make sure to stay close to Samantha.”

  “Lou, I assure you, after that wake-up tablet, I can probably—”

  “That’s not it,” he explained as they hurried along. “Those Russians had you here all this time, but there were no time cops tracking you down. This implies that they took you off the time cops’ radar somehow, maybe with an implant of some sort.”

  “And if it is an implant,” she said, “then why don’t the rest of you reap the same benefit by sticking close to me. Got it.”

  They stayed as closely packed as they dared, everyone clustered around Samantha Weiss, as they walked around the clinic’s perimeter and past another clinic specializing in “Zero-Gravity Radiometric Eye Surgery” and joined a crowd of people spilling out the left-hand exit. It was actually another wide hall, sweeping out in a slow curve that brought them along a passage lined with pop-up holographic ads for various entertainment venues.

  Once out of sight of the medical court, it was Samantha who spoke up. “Can we run now? Yes, I want to run. Very far and very fast.”

  Agent Hessman looked at the tensely energetic expression on Samantha’s face, then the wrapper with the second pill still in it and pried the wrapper loose from her grip and wadded it up into his pocket.

  “No more of that for you,” he decided. “And yes, I think it’s time we picked up our pace.”

  “But where do we go?” Captain Beck asked. “They’ll have the shuttle docks under watch by now.”

  “Option two,” Agent Hessman replied. “Mr. Nezsmith mentioned a space elevator.”

  “He also mentioned it was experimental,” Ben pointed out. “Not to mention that I didn’t see a big long shaft stuck up in the underside of this place.”

  “Slender shaft, dark albedo—who says that you would have?” Agent Hessman countered. “Now let’s hurry.”

  “Again, to where?” Captain Beck asked.

  “Where else would you put a space elevator? This place had a bottom section. Let’s head straight down.”

  Their hall expanded out into another multilevel promenade sporting clear elevators, walkways, deep drops, glittering casinos, one 3D holographic multiplex cinema, and a food court at one end with a large picture-window view of Earth, as well as lots of people. In the midst of the noise of flashing signs and audio entreaties to passersby, not to mention the passersby themselves, one sound stood out above it all in Agent Hessman’s ears: the sound of running shoes quickly approaching from some distance behind them.

  “Run!”

  He led the way out into the middle of the open area, across a bridge spanning the central gap of the multistory drop, weaving through people without a glance back, and nearly across to the other side, where another sight stopped them: another pair of time cop uniforms on the other side of their bridge, waiting for them. A quick glance back confirmed that the running shoes had indeed been the pair from the medical court, now behind them and just coming onto the bridge.

  “We have nowhere to go,” Ben stated, “and the gravity around here’s too strong to jump.”

  “We got one way,” an urgent-looking Samantha said, sticking out a hand to Agent Hessman. “The second pill.”

  “Samantha, after seeing what one of those things can do to you, I do not think that—”

  “Trust me. The pill.”

  With two sets of cops closing in through the march of pedestrians, it was Agent Hessman’s time to trust in another’s judgment. Quickly he took out the wrapper and squeezed the remaining pill into Samantha’s hand. She took it without hesitating, then stood there for a few precious seconds.

  The front pair of time cops were nearly thirty feet away when it hit her. Her entire body went tense, her eyes nearly bugging out as she grabbed the gun out of Agent Hessman’s pocket and broke into a run, charging the pair of cops before them. Their response was predictable: they took out pistols similar to what they had seen the Russians use and fired. Two electrified bullets homed directly in on her, while at the same time Agent Hessman called out the charge for the rest.

  The pair of temporal police saw a statuesque young brunette with bugged-out eyes running straight at them as the two projectiles hit her, but while both delivered their charges, they did not have the anticipated effect. Instead, they saw her aim and fire her own primitive gun while the others charged in behind her. One time cop found himself hit with a pair of needle-tipped electrified wires on the tip of his chin, while the other had a lithe, young body slam into him like a freight train.

  Behind her, Agent Hessman came in with a fist to the face of the one still spasming from the Taser as Samantha tossed the gun away, Captain Beck following up Samantha’s body slam on the other with a fist to the man’s gut and a hard shove aside. Ben, meanwhile, picked up a pistol dropped by one of the cops, spun around, and fired it at the first cop he saw running up behind them. He didn’t pause to see the result, just continued running on with the rest.

  By this point the bystanders were screaming and ducking, trying to clear the way in whichever direction any of the combatants wanted to go. Once on the other side of the bridge, Agent Hessman managed to push ahead of Samantha, grab her by the hand, and lead them all through the screaming crowd toward the nearest glass elevator in a dead run, where he and Samantha shoved their way through to the head of the line, Claire apologizing to one elderly man along the way.

  The elevator doors closed with Captain Beck punching the lowest-numbered button that he could find on the panel. As the car shot down to the sight of one frustrated team of cops helping the other team back up to their feet, Ben shot a questioning look to Samantha, who briefly explained her action.

  “I just figured that the way that first pill hit me, it must be a derivative of PCP. People high on that stuff are just about impervious to pain.”

  “And if it was designed to quickly revive someone,” Agent Hessman said, picking up her train of thought, “then a double dose just might provide some protection against those electrified bullets of theirs. Good call. But I worry about possible overdose effects.”

  “Getting hit twice by those charged bullets seems to have taken the edge off,” she replied. “But what now? How do we find our way off this thing?”

  “No buttons labeled ‘Space Elevator,’” Captain Beck reported, “but I did find a card reader.”

  At the bottom of the panel of buttons was indeed a slot that looked perfect for something about the size of a credit card. Ben was closest and stepped over, saw the size of the slot, and grinned. Taking out the transport card that Jeffery Nezsmith had given him, he slid it in and spoke out loud: “We want to go to the space elevator. Please take us there and ready a ride down.”

  A light on the panel blinked, the panel of buttons disappearing to be replaced by a display that read “Space Elevator Express,” and his card popped back out as the elevator sped on a bit faster.

  “As automated and interlinked as everything around here is . . . ,” Ben said with a shrug.

  “Another good call,” Agent Hessman stated.

  The elevator shot them down through level after level, directly past a couple more open courts, then a long trip past nothing but windowed views of space as they passed into the lower section and on through a dozen more levels before coming to a smooth stop. The elevator doors, however, did not open.

  “They trapped us,” Claire said with a worried look.

  But then the elevator began moving again, only this time sideways. To Claire
’s confused look, Agent Hessman offered his own opinion.

  “The odds of us picking an elevator that happened to be the one to go directly to the space elevator were astronomical. It figures they would have a system like this set up.”

  “It does say ‘Express,’” Ben stated. “I guess they really meant it.”

  When the elevator finally opened, it was to a relatively small reception area. In fact, it had just the one elevator, two hallway doors out, and directly across from them a set of heavy-looking double doors. The only people there were one man dressed prim and proper in his suit and tie and a less formal-looking technician at a control stand to one side of the double doors.

  “Welcome to Space Vegas’ Elevator to the Stars,” the man said. “Be careful as you walk: we’re close to weightless around here. Just step purposefully and don’t shuffle, and the floor’s static grid will hold you down. Now, do you all have your transport cards?”

  They stepped carefully out, walking as the man had instructed and finding that, while they could still feel that weightless sensation in the pits of their stomachs, their feet nonetheless grabbed on to the floor as if magnetized—except there was nothing about their footwear to be magnetically drawn.

  Claire’s long hair was floating around as if underwater, yet the rest of her was not. The mixed sensation earned a wide-mouthed, voiceless exclamation from her as they each produced a transport card. All save Samantha, who had none, but as the man went around with his hand scanner to quickly scan the cards, Agent Hessman spoke up for her.

  “Put her on my card, or divide it up among them all if you have to.”

  “It looks like there should be enough left on the account,” the man said, glancing at his reader. Then, after confirming the fact, he broke out into a smile. “I hope you enjoyed your stay at Space Vegas. You have chosen a magnificent way to end your trip, as I assure you there is nothing like what you are about to experience.”

  The technician pressed something on his control board and the double doors before them opened, followed by another inner set of similar doors. Agent Hessman led the way across while the man continued going on about their impending ride and various safety procedures, most of which they all ignored in their urgency to be away.