by R J Johnson
“Stereotypes can come in handy…” Alex muttered.
Scott stood and began walking toward the two men standing outside the building. Alex cursed and began to quickly follow him, ensuring that he kept his head down from any cameras or security personnel who might spot him.
“All’s I’m saying is that the Death Star wasn’t exactly something you could just throw up in a weekend…” the Chinese man was saying. “It’s the size of a moon! Where are they getting all that material and manpower that only two weeks after the last one blew up, they’ve got another one ready to go. Plus, let’s not forget that means Luke left his buddy Solo all carbonited up for however long it took for the empire to get its shit together. That’s pretty messed up if he just left Solo to rot there for a few years.”
“No one said it was only two weeks between battles…” the fat man countered. Donut crumbs fluttered down his beard. “According to the novels, the Battle of Yavin and the Battle of Endor were…”
The Chinese kid snorted, “Don’t you start with that expanded empire stuff… none of that is canon so far as I’m concerned.”
The fat man looked at his friend skeptically, “And you’re saying the prequels were a better authority to have as canon?”
The Chinese man held up a finger to respond, but before he could, Scott interrupted them.
“My fellow nerds, isn’t any Star Wars good Star Wars?”
The two turned to Scott, looking surprised, and then chuckling. “I suppose so…” the fat man said finally.
Scott looked them both up and down and nodded to Alex. “Your turn…”
Alex looked at Scott surprised, “My turn for what?”
“Well, we can’t steal their identities and let them hang out to ruin our plan. Knock ‘em out.”
The two nerds looked shocked at Scott and Alex was just as surprised.
“I’m sorry?” the fat man stuttered.
“Fine, I’ll do it.” Scott swung a haphazard haymaker at the Chinese man standing next to him. He ducked and fell back, looking up in shock at Scott.
“What are you doing?” the fat man shouted. His donut fell from his grasp as he began backpedaling away from Scott.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get far when Alex knocked him flat on his back. The man’s eyes rolled in the back of his head and he was out like a light.
Scott moved to put his friend in a headlock to choke him out, and after a moment, finally slumped to the ground, ceasing his struggle.
“What the hell Scott?” Alex asked furious. He checked the fat man’s pulse, and it was still strong. Alex ran a hand over the man just to make sure he wasn’t responsible for any injuries.
“These guys work for Halprin,” Scott said, his voice cold. “They were in the way.”
Alex stared at Scott and decided to hold his tongue. This was personal for his friend, so he was still willing to cut him a little slack.
But his friend was getting awfully close to the end of his patience.
“Let’s get changed…” Scott said waiving his hand over the unconscious pair below them.
Scott instantly transformed into the thin Chinese man wearing the brightly colored anime shirt. Alex transformed into the enormous hipster who’d been busy chowing down on the sack of donuts.
“You look like the Ghost of Christmas past,” Scott said.
Alex looked down at the many bulges around his waist and stomach. He sighed and began moving toward the lobby door.
“I was wondering if you’d notice the resemblance,” Alex answered ruefully.
“Grab their badges…” Scott instructed. Alex leaned down and removed the ID badges from their doppelgangers, clipping it neatly on his belt as Scott did the same.
“Follow my lead,” Scott said.
Scott stepped confidently around the corner of the huge building and walked through the huge double glass doors. Two security men stared at him, but quickly moved on scanning the crowds after determining he wasn’t a threat.
Alex was impressed by his friend’s courage. Most of the time, Scott had to be dragged into doing anything that involved the outside, but over the years while he’d been away, his friend had changed even more than he’d realized.
Something bad had to have happened to Scott to get him this angry. Scott cared about science and who the next Doctor Who actor might be. Mindlessly seeking revenge wasn’t the way his friend operated.
He’d known men like that though. Especially during his time as a mercenary for Ash.
Alex groaned and shook his head. There wasn’t any time to think about that. His friend needed help, and if revenge was what he needed right now, then he had no choice but to help him. Scott hadn’t asked questions when he showed up after all.
He caught up to his friend walking through security, keeping his eyes cast downward. He touched Scott’s transformed body letting him know he was close.
“Where we heading?” Alex asked quietly.
Scott shushed him and pointed to the bank of elevators lined against the wall. “Server room’s kept in the subbasement.”
“Let’s not waste any more time then,” Alex said. They walked silently through the lobby when Scott suddenly elbowed him.
“The last thing anyone wants is another Star Trek by LensFlair McGee.” Scott said in a loud voice. It echoed through the marble lobby and Alex looked up at his friend in panic. He elbowed his friend sharply in his ribs.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked frantically in a low voice. “Are you trying to get us caught?”
“Yeah, by acting like the nerds we took over,” Scott replied quickly. “I’ve known guys like these and they never shut up. If we’re not talking about something like that, then guys like that security guard staring at us over there will think something’s wrong.”
Alex removed the greasy cap from his head and scratched. Several tufts of white flew off his head and he looked at his hand in alarm. Wiping it off on his shirt, he noticed the guard staring at him, and his eyes narrowed.
“I dunno,” Alex said, his voice warbling. “I thought the first was all right…”
“All right?” Scott snorted loudly, “Is that all you think Trekkies deserve?”
“Now come on,” Alex said, glancing at the bank of elevators only a few yards away. “The whole franchise was nearly dead a few years ago and like you said, any Trek is good Trek…”
They got close enough to the elevators and Scott swiped their purloined ID badges against the square black plastic plate next to the buttons.
“I guess so…” Scott said conceding the point. The guard lowered his eyes and went back to his iPad.
“Told ya…” Scott said in a low voice. “I always said watching TV would save our lives someday.”
Alex grimaced and gave his friend a sidelong glance. Now was not the time.
The doors opened and no one stood there. They got into the elevator and Scott pushed the button for the subbasement.
“It’s gotten me closer than I ever have before…” Scott said sounding excited.
Alex shot him a look, “Wait, you’ve tried this before? You mean besides the building in LA?”
“I told you, Halprin caught me shortly after I broke in the first time around,” Scott said, sounding defensive. “He chalked it up to me being griefstricken. He had no idea…”
“And you didn’t go to jail?” Alex asked, sounding alarmed. “How is that possible?”
Scott looked down at the ground and didn’t respond.
Suddenly Alex had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Scott?” Alex insisted, “Why didn’t they throw you in jail?”
Scott looked up at Alex, shame plastered across his face, “Part of the agreement was that I’d help them finish building the Hypertruck.”
Alex looked down in panic at the keycard Scott had taken from his apartment in Pasadena.
“Scott, we have to get out of here right now,” he said urgently, his eyes darting side to side.
Scott looked at him, his face strange, “Why? What could go wrong? We have the shape shifting stone, no one even knows we’re here.”
The elevator shuddered, stopping quickly. Alex and Scott braced themselves as the fluorescent lights blinked out. Red emergency lights blinked on and the car was filled with dim emergency lighting.
“The keycard!” Alex said pointing at it. “It works on an RFID tag right?”
“Sure…” Scott said sounding uncertain, “But I don’t see how…”
Alex yanked it out of Scott’s hand and broke the plastic open. Scott cried out, and was unable to prevent him.
“It’s a tracking device,” Alex said examining the RFID chip. “They knew we were here the second we entered the building.”
“Oh God…” Scott said realizing. “That’s how he knew I was in the building last time around.”
“We have to get out of here,” Alex said firmly. But, unfortunately for them, the elevator stopped with a jerk. Scott’s face fell, and he looked sick to his stomach.
“They know we’re here...” Scott said, his voice trembling.
“They know the card’s here, not us. Not yet.” Alex said trying to think of a way out. He looked down at the blubbery forearms of his borrowed avatar and glanced at Scott. “We might as well shift back. I don’t need to haul around this extra weight while fighting for our lives.”
Scott waved his hand and they both transformed back into their normal form. Scott looked even more frightened if that were possible. Adding to their problems, the elevator shuddered and began moving back up to the lobby.
“NO!” Scott shouted. “Not when I’m so close!”
Scott stood back and began to transform into the dragon he’d grown so fond of. Alex reached out and stopped him just as the thick scales appeared on his skin.
“No, I’ve got another way,” Alex said. “Stand back.”
Scott regarded him for a moment and then complied, stepping back. Alex closed his eyes and reached out with his hand, using the Fire stone to melt a hole large enough on the bottom of the elevator floor for the two of them to slip through.
“Not bad, but what do we do when we get to the server room?” Scott asked. “There’s still gonna be plenty of security down there.”
“One problem at a time my friend,” Alex said. He crouched and eased himself down into the hole leading into the dark elevator shaft. “Are you coming?”
Scott hesitated for a moment, and looked up at the numbers counting up to how long he arrived back at the lobby and where likely lots of men with big guns were waiting.
“I’ve gotta find better friends…” Scott muttered.
“Hey, this was your idea, now come on!” Alex insisted. He dropped down into the elevator shaft hoping his friend knew enough to follow.
He was getting really tired of rescuing people.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kline appeared on the footsteps of a large building. He looked up to see the impressive facade of MARS Security’s European headquarters and immediately felt the presence of another stone. But this feeling was different than before. Whoever it was that held this stone had an iron will. Besides, Mr. McCray, he’d never felt anyone with such a powerful presence behind a stone.
One of the security guards standing out front gave a start after recognizing his boss. He nodded to the man and stiffened up to attention.
“Mr. Kline!” The guard cried out in alarm, “Sir, are you all right?”
In the excitement of finding a new stone, Kline had forgotten his face looked like a horror show from his earlier confrontation in San Diego. “I am in perfect health,” he said brusquely.
The man stared in confusing at Kline’s horrible injury to his face and nodded quickly. “They ahh… no one made us aware you were flying in today…” the man’s slight accent gave him away as a local, but he was easy enough to understand. Perfect English was something Kline insisted all his people speak, no matter where they worked in the world.
“It was a last minute trip…” Kline said through clenched teeth. The stone was moving with his building and he wanted to find the man who held it before he could get away.
“Have you seen anyone out of the ordinary today?” Kline asked.
“Anyone?” The man stammered. He gathered his thoughts and grabbed the log sitting in front of him. He flipped a few pages as he examined it. “Nothing out of the ordinary…”
He offered the clipboard for Kline’s inspection who ignored it. His eyes darted to the turnstile and back to the guard.
“Of course, of course,” the security guard pressed the buzzer and the thick door clicked. Kline pushed through and strode across the foyer ignoring the guard’s stares. Any other moment in time, Kline might have made an example of the man’s insolence, but right now, the stone was the only thing that mattered. Nothing else. Not even perceived slights to his ego.
He closed his eyes and used his new sense of perception granted to him by the stones to feel out exactly where the other stone was located. After concentrating for a moment, he felt the fog lift and an image of a tall blonde woman rummaging through some files on the fifth floor appeared in his mind’s eye.
Kline smiled and snapped his fingers. He reappeared in the file room.
Lorelei was too busy pulling out the files on his wife to notice the flash of light across the room. She was so intent on finding the deep background on her husband’s pipeline project that she didn’t notice the man watching her.
Lorelei found the file she was looking for and examined it for a moment. She scanned the summary and her eyes widened. No, this couldn’t be possible. Someone would’ve stopped this by now.
“Madame, may I be of some assistance?”
The voice came out of nowhere and Lorelei nearly dropped the file she was holding. She looked across the room to see a tall, thin man with a beard that neatly outlined his jaw.
“I’m sorry,” Lorelei said politely, trying to sound lost. “I think… I… I am lost… I was looking for the bathroom… and somehow stumbled in here.”
Kline smiled and moved casually around the stack of file holders. “That’s quite a trick considering you’re behind several layers of security that even I have to ask for permission to get past. And I own the company.”
Lorelei swallowed and stepped forward holding her stone out in front menacingly as she would a weapon. “I’d stand back if I were you… you have no idea what I’m capable of…”
“No, my dear,” Kline said quietly, “I’m afraid it’s YOU that has no idea what you’re capable of.”
Kline waved a hand and one of the huge file cabinets flew off the floor, knocking Lorelei to the ground.
Lorelei cried out in pain and fell back, the stone falling out of her hand, scattering across the floor. Kline’s eyes narrowed greedily and he held out his hand, summoning the stone to him.
She’d never moved that quickly in her life, but somehow, Lorelei was able to leap and catch her stone just as it started to fly across the room. She turned and held out a hand of her own.
Suddenly an enormous boulder appeared out of thin air right above the billionaire’s head. Kline shouted in surprised and barely caught it in time as it began to fall.
Lorelei’s eyes widened in surprised. Kline smiled and nodded.
Heaving the boulder over his shoulder, he threw it directly at Lorelei as hard as he could. It flew across the room, heading directly for her. Lorelei cried out in surprise and dodged the oncoming boulder at the last second as it crashed through the building’s walls.
Lorelei stumbled, falling back through the hole created by the massive boulder she’d just summoned out of nowhere. Feeling the ground beneath her feet disappear, she reached desperately for anything to help her hang on. At the last second, she managed to grab a piece of rebar sticking out of the building.
Kline appeared on the edge above her and sneered down at the blonde woman. Kline waved his fingers and suddenly Lorelei felt herself floa
ting. Kline raised his hand and Lorelei floated up to eye-level with the billionaire.
“Thank you for the exercise,” Kline said with disdain. “But, I’ll be taking that stone now.”
Lorelei glanced down at the long drop below and back up at the maniacal man who’d just tried to kill her. She had no idea there were more stones like the one he held out there, but this man was clearly going to kill her if she didn’t give him the source of her new power.
The only problem with that was that this man didn’t know Lorelei still had things she needed to do.
There was a roar and the building began to tremble violently. Kline shouted out and raised his arm, readying himself to deal a death blow to Lorelei when the earth opened and shot up rendering Kline’s building in twain.
Kline fell back as the building was taken off its foundation. The sound of tearing steel thundered through the air, sounding like someone crying out in pain. Lorelei felt gravity take hold and fell down onto a piece of the newly formed wedge of earth she’d summoned to displace Kline’s headquarters.
She concentrated and watched the earth recede back down into the mantle where it came from. This was too much for the glass building as it creaked and roared, until it finally collapsed in a violent explosion.
Lorelei stood, looking back at the chaos she’d created and was about to start running when she remembered what the file had said. This company hadn’t just failed to protect her husband, if the e-mail exchange she’d read was accurate, then people within MARS Security were actively HELPING those in the slave trade.
She clutched her stone and concentrated. The wreckage from the building began to stir and fly together in a storm of debris. People were running away screaming as dozens more were killed by the groaning twist of steel and stone fell apart in front of them. She didn’t care who died anymore. These people had to PAY for what they’d done to her Johan.
