Glassford Girl: Boxed Set (Complete Series) (Time Jumper Series)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Her body felt sore, but not like it did after most of her jumps. Not like the previous jump when she landed behind the house for sale and woke up with a vicious headache and the strongest nausea she’d ever felt. Plus, this time her head wasn’t killing her like usual—just a dull throbbing between her temples.

  Baby jump, she thought. A less severe time jump triggered by a baby.

  “Mom okay? Me okay?” Julius asked her.

  “Yes. You’re okay and Mommy’s okay.” We jumped together, sweetheart, but we’re okay now,” she said, sending images of comfort and love.

  “Food. Me. I hungry,” her baby replied.

  Emily’s mind returned to normal speed and so did the reality around her.

  “Emily, are you okay?” Derek said, arriving and standing over her. “Emily? Say something! Please!”

  She realized she must have appeared catatonic to her friends while her mind and attention were focused inward on her son—whose emotional energy ramped up to another level, probably due to the volume and closeness of Derek’s voice.

  “That’s your daddy’s voice,” she silently told her baby.

  “Daddy? For me?” Julius asked.

  “Yes. He’s your father. I’m your mother. Together we made you. We’re a family. Your family. We love you, Julius. You’re safe.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, looking up at Derek instead. “I’m okay. As okay as I can be.”

  He bent down to help her, but she waved him away when his hands came close to touching her skin.

  “No. Don’t. It might make me jump again,” she said, sensing a powerful electric charge surrounding his hands. She was afraid if his energy connected with her body, it might send Julius into a frenzy again.

  She sat up, expecting the usual wave of nausea, but it never came. Baby jump, she told herself again.

  Her eyes found Duane’s. She offered him a weak smile. “Hi Duane. Thanks . . . thanks for sending Nora to get me.”

  “Of course, Em. We’re always here for ya,” he said before pausing for a three count. “By the way, that was some trick you just pulled.”

  “Trick?” Emily asked, trying to latch onto the meaning in his words.

  Duane raised his eyebrows and then waved his hand around the area in a circle to point out the scorch mark in the yard.

  “Oh, that,” Emily said, laughing with a smirk on her face. She threw up her hands. “Pffft. That was nothing.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, okay. If you say so. After all, that kind of nothing happens every day around here.”

  “We should probably get her inside,” Derek said, looking at Duane.

  Duane nodded. “Yeah, before one of the neighbors sees her and calls for some of Phoenix’s finest.”

  Emily looked down at her body and squealed. She’d been so distracted by Julius and her post-jump analysis that she’d forgotten one of the more important aspects about her time jumps—nakedness.

  She crossed her legs and tried to cover her exposed breasts with her hands.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  Jim Miller moved slowly across the patio behind his house as he approached the Orange Man’s body with his finger resting lightly on the trigger and his heart pounding away at his chest. The last time he’d encountered this man, the consequences were disastrous. Not only for him, his friends, and his house, but for the neighbors as well.

  He wasn’t sure how this man was still alive after the numerous rounds he’d pumped into him the last time they’d met. Then again, maybe this wasn’t the same man. Could be his twin or some kind of genetic clone.

  “Strange facts yield strange theories,” he mumbled.

  The intruder’s chest wasn’t heaving and there was no sign of movement across his body. The man appeared to be dead, but Miller knew there was no guarantee his assumption would hold true. He’d made that mistake the first time around and wasn’t going to make it again. Not when it came to this man and his advanced technology.

  He kicked Orange Man’s pistol away, then turned his eyes to the metallic briefcase. It was on the ground with its lid still closed, only inches from the man’s outstretched hand.

  Miller bent down to grab it and haul it a safe distance away, but before his fingers landed on the handle, he felt a strong pressure grab hold of his ankle. He looked down and saw Orange Man’s hand wrapped around it.

  Before he could react, Miller’s leg was yanked to the side, sending him spinning around from the force. He hit the ground on his left elbow, sending a firm thud into his bones.

  When he brought his eyes back to the target, he saw Orange Man twisted over on his right side with his left hand opening the briefcase.

  Miller unleashed the rest of the ammo from his gun, this time focusing all the shots at the man’s head. Round after round found its mark and he didn’t stop his trigger finger until the weapon was empty.

  Orange Man flopped back to the ground after succumbing to the barrage, but not before he managed to press the palm of his hand against the swirling, flat surface inside the case.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Miller snapped, springing to his feet.

  He ran to the briefcase and closed its top, now cradling it in his hands like a carton of eggs—a glowing carton of eggs wrapped inside a blue cocoon of energy.

  Miller knew from experience what was about to happen and needed to find a safe place to stash the high-tech bomb before it went off. Someplace that would stop the explosion from ripping apart the neighborhood, again.

  Before he reached the back gate, the answer came to him—two houses down on the left—a brand new swimming pool in the neighbor’s yard. Miller liked the family who lived there and hated to ruin their new pool, but it was the only option.

  If he could get the case into the pool before it exploded, the chlorinated water might just flood it and stop the explosion entirely. If not, the water should at least absorb the majority of the shockwave and contain the shrapnel.

  The briefcase began to superheat as he tore through his back gate and his feet found the loose dirt in the alley. Then it started to vibrate and emit a low-pitched hum a second later. The process seemed to be happening much faster than he remembered.

  When the sizzling and cracking started, Miller knew he wasn’t going to make it to the pool two houses down. He scanned the alley and made a split-second decision, tossing the briefcase toward a green metal dumpster ten yards away. Its lid was open and his aim was perfect. The briefcase spun in the air on its horizontal axis and then disappeared from view as it cleared the edge of the metal container and landed inside.

  He hit the ground and covered his head with his arms.

  ***

  Emily struggled to her feet in Duane’s front yard, taking her hands from her breasts long enough to push herself up from the ground.

  Derek reached out to help, again.

  She frowned and snapped, “No. I told you before, no.”

  “Mom. Need some food,” Baby Julius said inside her head.

  “Food! Coming!” she sent back, scolding her baby for the first time. Food seemed to be taking precedence over her baby’s fondness for Derek.

  “Sad. Me. Mommy mad.”

  “Sad?” Emily said out loud.

  “What?” Derek asked.

  “What?” Emily said, trying to stall until she had a better answer. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You’re mumbling, Em. And you went cross-eyed for a second. Is that normal, after you—um—jump?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not like I can see my own eyes, now can I?”

  Derek looked in her eyes, his face showing he was a little miffed. When his lips parted, she thought he was going to say something. But he stopped with his mouth agape, right before his eyes shot wide.

  “Ah, that can’t be good,” Duane said, standing a few feet behind Derek.

  “What?” she said as the hair on the back of her neck began to tingle.

  Derek leaned to the side and pointed at something behind her
.

  She could see the hairs on his forearm standing straight up, like a lightning storm was brewing. Emily whirled around just as a sizzling, crackling noise erupted behind her. Her eyes locked onto a sphere of blue energy hovering in the yard about ten feet away. It was only a few inches in diameter, but glowing brightly.

  “Oh my God!” she said. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes,” Derek said, grabbing Emily’s arm with both hands.

  “Wow,” she said, feeling strangely drawn to the energy. “So that’s what it looks like?”

  “Emily, we should go. Now. Before—”

  “No!” she said, fighting against his strength. “I have to see this. Someone’s coming through.”

  Derek tugged her arm even harder as a hundred thoughts raced through her mind, sparking a flood of memories and feelings from her past.

  Could it be her mom?

  Or someone else like her?

  Another time jumper, perhaps?

  The sparkling lines of blue swirled wildly as the sphere expanded. They looked like tiny lightning bolts, reminding her of the energy streaks that crisscrossed her skin right before she jumped. The same type of streaks she’d seen engulf her mom over and over that horrible night of The Taking, after the equipment on the ship had tortured her.

  Emily summoned all her energy, pulling Derek along as she moved closer to the anomaly.

  “Duane!” Derek called over his shoulder. “A little help here!”

  Duane grabbed onto Emily’s waist, trying to help Derek pull her away.

  “Let . . . Me . . . Go . . .” she said with a clenched jaw, dragging both of them forward in the grass. Somehow she had the strength to keep plowing forward with two grown men hanging on to her.

  Baby Julius sent out a deluge of emotion she hadn’t felt yet: fury. His tiny mind was on fire, his energy crackling like a fuse burning furiously on its way to a stick of dynamite.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the sphere. She’d never seen anything that was connected to her time jumps before. At least not from the outside. It was mesmerizing. She’d always been part of them, experiencing them from the inside out.

  Emily dug her feet in, dragging her two friends toward the hovering sphere as it grew in size. It was over two feet wide and still expanding.

  When its bottom edge made contact with the ground, it morphed into an egg-like shape. She could make out a human figure inside.

  “Mom? Is that you?” she said out loud, ignoring the powerful yanks and tugs at her body.

  Julius was raging inside her. He was livid. “NO! NO! NO!” he screamed at her.

  “QUIET!” she sent back, sending an image of her index finger over her mouth.

  Julius recoiled. She could feel he was scared and shrinking away from the connection. Emily took a moment to reach for him, but he slipped away and hid inside the deepest shadows of her mind.

  She turned her attention back to the energy sphere, putting her hand out in its direction. A moment later, there was a hissing noise right before the blue ovoid disappeared in an instant. When it vanished, it left behind a naked human figure lying in the grass. Whoever had just been deposited by the blue fire was curled up in a ball.

  When the new arrival uncoiled from the fetal position and looked up at her, she realized she’d made a mistake. A horrible mistake.

  It wasn’t her mom—it was Orange Man.

  She screamed.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Miller waited in the dirt, lying face down in the alley with his hands covering the back of his head. But the briefcase explosion never came. He let another minute tick by before deciding to stand up and brush himself off.

  The well-seasoned dumpster was ten yards in front of him and sitting twenty-degrees askew from the fence behind it. Its set of four ten-inch caster wheels and rusty exterior told him he’d chosen well. The gray metal beast would have contained much of the blast—if there had been one.

  The abundance of rust wasn’t the only fact signaling the container’s age and old school construction. There was a faded political sticker on the side that said Mondale/Ferraro ‘84.

  Like him, the container had been around a while and seen a great many things while standing watch in darkened corridors of Central Phoenix.

  However, their combined years of experience didn’t explain why there hadn’t been an explosion. The last time Orange Man pressed his palm to the case’s swirling control surface, it initiated a self-destruct sequence.

  Miller ran through it in his head, wondering what he’d missed. He was sure his memory had recalled the events correctly, but perhaps whoever sent Orange Man to infiltrate his home for a second time had changed the rules of engagement. Or adjusted the mission objectives. Either would explain the change in tactics.

  While it was clear this encounter was different than before, one fact remained the same: Orange Man had come uninvited onto his property and did so with a weapon drawn.

  Miller felt more than justified in eliminating the threat with lethal force. Especially given their violent history together. However, law enforcement might have a different take on it. But if he could show them the tech in the briefcase and the man’s weapon, maybe they’d side with him.

  He went to the dumpster to investigate. When he put his hands on the leading edge of the metal and looked inside, all he saw was trash. He couldn’t believe it. It landed inside when it tossed it—he was sure of it.

  Sunrise was still a few minutes away, meaning he couldn’t see every nook and cranny from where he was standing. There was a decent amount of ambient light from the neighboring houses and yard lights, but shadows still existed inside the dumpster. It was possible the case might’ve slipped down inside the mound of refuse when it landed. Inertia and gravity can do that, so he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight app.

  He ran the light over the trash, making sure to scan the corners carefully, but he didn’t see any sign of the briefcase. There was, however, a noticeable film of fine gray dust sitting on top of a pile of shredded paper in the corner opposite from his position.

  His mind took him back in time and replayed a vision from the original Orange Man encounter. The memory began immediately after the man’s weapon, briefcase, and body had disappeared in Miller’s backyard. In his vision, all that remained behind was a fine powder. It was gray in color and its shape lay as an outline of each of the objects that vanished.

  “Shit!” he snapped, turning from the dumpster and running back into his yard. When he arrived at the spot where he’d left the body, it was gone. So was the gun he’d kicked away. Only the powdery residue remained. Even the blood had vanished. He didn’t understand any of it, but he couldn’t deny what his eyes were reporting.

  Miller heard sirens in the distance, coming his way. The barrage of gun shots he’d let loose at the prowler had no doubt caught the attention of his neighbors. He was in no mood to deal with the police, and there was nothing to tell them, anyway—nothing they would believe. Plus, all the tech was gone. And so was the rest of the evidence.

  He scattered the gray-colored dust across his yard with his foot to hide what was left of the residue, then ran into the house, grabbed his keys and went out the front door to his truck. He cranked the engine and backed out of the driveway with a squeal of the tires, before tearing down the street on his way to Duane and Nora’s house.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  Emily retreated from Orange Man, stumbling backwards and falling into the grass in front of Duane’s house. Her first instinct was to protect Baby Julius. She wrapped her hands around her midsection and sent her thoughts inward to search for him, but he wasn’t there.

  She knew he was hiding from her, having shrunk the size of his consciousness and withdrawn from the psychic connection. She figured that was what Julius did when he was frightened—made his mental footprint as small as possible, then hid in the neural shadows where her mind couldn’t find him.

  Emily d
ecided to leave him there—she didn’t want him to experience the Orange Man through her eyes and her emotions. She didn’t want to either, but she didn’t have a choice.

  “Derek, get her out of here!” Duane shouted.

  Orange Man stood up before any of them could react and grabbed Emily by the wrist. He pulled at her with a powerful grip.

  Duane stepped forward to engage the muscular goon. He took a roundhouse swing, but Orange Man dodged the punch easily after letting go of Emily.

  Orange Man delivered a sharp left jab in response to the attempted assault, landing a lightning fast blow on Duane’s chest.

  Duane flew off the ground, sprawling backwards across the yard as if a cannonball had just smashed into some character in a violent cartoon. He tumbled until his back smashed into the passenger side door of the Impala in the driveway. His eyes were closed and his head slumped down, but Emily could see he was still alive with his chest heaving.

  Derek stepped in front of Emily, cradling her behind his back with his arms. He moved her back a few steps from the assailant, then brought his hands up in a boxer’s pose.

  Orange Man didn’t hesitate, quickly blowing through Emily’s defender with a karate kick to the gut. Derek’s body flew into Emily’s, sending both of them spilling backwards into the grass.

  While Derek moaned and gasped for air, Orange Man came at them and grabbed Emily by the ankle, dragging her across the ground on her back.

  “No! No! No!” she said, clawing at the grass with her hands, digging her fingers into the soil. She knew where he was taking her—back to the spot where he’d first arrived.

  A millisecond later, a sphere of crackling blue energy appeared a few feet away. Before it disappeared, it left behind a metallic briefcase on the ground. It was identical to the one Emily had seen in Jim Miller’s backyard before she jumped away from the explosion.

  Orange Man bent down and picked Emily up with only his left arm. His bicep was huge, looking like a twisted cord of vein and flesh. He tucked her under his arm like a ragdoll, then knelt by the briefcase, opened the lid, and placed his palm flat against the gleaming surface.