“I’m sorry, Maxine. Did anyone else walk by and see us?” Shauna’s voice sounded shaky to Mike’s ears.
“No. Who is this man? Is he a Global Guardian?” The rounded middle-aged woman stepped back, fear clearly written on her face.
“Global Guardian?” Mike asked.
“Mr. Forrester is from another country. He’s a police officer and not affiliated with the Guardians. No need to worry, Maxine. You’re safe.”
Mike saw relief slacken the woman’s features and heard her sigh. “Well, if you’re all right, I’ll go back to my desk now.”
“I’m fine, Maxine and thank you.” Shauna ushered out the woman and turned to Mike. “Don’t ever do that again.”
Mike grinned. “What? Kiss you? Lady, that was the most fantastic kiss I’ve ever had. I don’t know about you but I want to do it again. Now.”
Shauna placed the desk between them. “Sit down Mr. Forrester. I need to finish explaining some things about today’s world to you. First, you might want to take off any identifying marks that make you look like a police officer. In today’s world they’re not thought of highly. Actually, they’re feared beyond anything else in the world.”
Mike could see she meant it. He had forgotten he still wore his uniform. He’d finished his all-night shift and decided to pick up Scott’s Christmas present on his way home. Luckily for him the stores opened early and stayed open late to accommodate the last minute shoppers. He stripped off his name tag, badge, anything that looked military and placed the items on Shauna’s desk. Then he unbuttoned his collar and pulled out his shirt tails. “Better?”
“Much. People are allowed to carry concealed weapons but no one has seen a pistol like that in a century. You might want to hide it under your shirt.”
Mike complied and stuffed his pistol into his waistband. “Okay, tell me what’s wrong with this world.” He sat on the corner of Shauna’s desk on the side nearest to her chair. He leaned forward giving her all of his attention.
“Do you always sit so close to people? It’s unsettling.” Shauna shifted in her chair and leaned back as far as she could go.
Mike smiled. He felt a little predatory toward this woman but didn’t understand why. “No. Only you.” He reached out and touched Shauna’s short, straight, spiky blonde hair. “Soft.”
She pulled back but not before Mike saw her chest rise and fall from his nearness. “The Global Guardians are supposedly the protectors of our society. The world’s society. Well, most of the world. There are a few smaller countries that still rely on their own police forces. They’re considered backward but I don’t think they are. I think they have it better than we do but no matter.” She rose to pace between the desk and the window. She stopped, stared at the flying cars shooting by and turned back to him. “They’re really more like storm troopers from the old Star Wars movie or Gestapo from the ancient World War II days.
“In this century we have no government. Four corporations run the world. Four corrupt CEOs. The world is run by the communications corporation I work for, a healthcare corporation that everyone is covered under, one energy corporation and the Global Guardian Corporation. I don’t know why they’re called a corporation, because they’re really a military organization but no one asked me for my opinion.”
“What happened to the politicians?” Mike asked.
“They were all voted out of office in the late twenty-first century.”
“Every single one of them?” Mike couldn’t believe it.
“Every single one of them. The world rebelled against them after the failed war in the Middle East. There had been too much bloodshed, too much misery, too many mistakes.”
“So now there’s one police force for most of the world,” Mike said. “Isn’t that a monopoly?”
“The laws are different now. The bigger the better.”
Mike thought about it and knew he didn’t like it. “Why are people terrified of these Global Guardians?”
“Because they enter our homes in the small hours of the night and take away our loved ones.”
Mike’s head snapped up at tone of Shauna’s voice. “Did that happen to you?”
There was a knock on the door. “Come in, Maxine. She’s my assistant.”
The woman had an odd look on her face. “A message just came for you on the computer.”
“Who’s it from?”
“Your parents,” Maxine said.
* * * * *
Shauna gasped and clutched her chest. Mike saw the blood rush from her face, leaving her chalky. She sank into her chair. “Impossible,” she whispered.
Maxine handed the printout to Shauna, gave her a queer look and left. Shauna stared at the paper but Mike didn’t think she saw it. He walked around the desk took the slip of paper out of her hand and read it out loud.
“We arnt ded. We lv u. Tkn by GG, ecpd, hdng. 2 clse. No 2 mch. Lk 4 r msg in hdng plc. Only u wd no. B sf, MD.”
“Is it some kind of code?” Mike asked.
Shauna didn’t respond.
“Shauna, what does it say?” Mike shook her to bring her out of her stupor.
“What? Oh. It’s text script, texting, you know, like from cell phone to cell phone. It’s considered an old language. It says, ‘We aren’t dead. We love you. Taken by GG—that’s the Global Guardians—escaped, hiding. Got too close. Know too much. Look for our message in hiding place only you would know. Be safe. Mom and Dad’.” She stared into space, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I thought they were dead. I grieved. I didn’t get to say goodbye or tell them I love them.”
The sorrow Mike heard lanced his heart. He pulled her up from her chair and wrapped her in his arms. “It’s okay. Go ahead and cry. We’ll find your parents.” Mike pulled Shauna close to him and wrapped his arms around her. He marveled that she felt so right, fitted so well, as he soothed and murmured to her. This wasn’t the time to think about himself, it was time for her to heal and regroup.
Mike knew when the tears stopped. He heard her inhale deeply, felt her straighten her spine and square her shoulders. She stepped out of his arms and once again Mike felt a sudden sense of loss. Shauna opened her mouth to say something when Maxine burst into the cubicle.
“Get out. The Guardians are on their way. They must have monitored the computer.”
Shauna grabbed her time travel device. She stuffed the note in her pocket and raced out of the cubicle. Mike was right behind her after he grabbed his uniform items off Shauna’s desk. They ran to the bank of elevators. Mike saw the flashing numbers blur as one of the elevators flew up to their floor. The doors opened and Shauna shoved Mike inside. She pressed a series of numbers and the supersonic elevator fell so fast Mike felt his feet come off the floor. He grabbed a handhold just before his head hit the ceiling. It felt like his stomach reached his mouth and this time he did throw up. With no time to be embarrassed, Mike felt himself pulled out of the elevator the minute the doors opened. Wiping his arm across his mouth, Mike ran after Shauna. She grabbed a floating scooter with two seats on it and yelled, “Get on. Hurry!”
Mike jumped on the back of the futuristic scooter—it looked like a cross between a motorized bicycle and a kid’s scooter—and they shot down the street. Hovering no more than three feet above the ground they flew along the narrow corridors squeezing in and out between other scooters. Shauna cut corners at a sharp angle and twice Mike almost fell off. The wind blew in his face causing his eyes to tear. A man on a scooter flipped them off when Shauna cut in front of him.
After a harrowing ride Shauna turned down another identical street with identical buildings and settled the hover scooter on the ground. She picked up the lightweight vehicle and carried it through the front door. As she pushed the button to the elevator Mike said, “If this thing is supersonic, I’ll pass. I need to rest after the last ride.” She grabbed his arm, dragged him inside the elevator and jabbed her finger on the button for the twentieth floor.
“It’s not supersonic. It’s j
ust a regular elevator in a residential building. Only the commercial buildings owned by the Fearsome Foursome have supersonic elevators.”
“The Fearsome Foursome?” Mike asked.
“It’s the name we call the four CEOs.” The elevator rose and the doors opened but this time they sounded like regular, twenty-first century doors. Shauna strode out carrying the scooter and headed down a long hallway. About half way down she clicked a remote device and the door opened. “Welcome to my home. Don’t get used to it, we won’t be here long. I’m sure the Guardians are already on their way.”
“Then why did we come here?” Mike looked around the one room apartment. A studio. He saw a couch that probably turned into a bed, a small kitchenette, one table and two chairs, made out of some kind of plastic and a wall of electronics. A television screen took up most of the wall but was surrounded by niches with other devices stuffed inside them.
“You have one minute to take a shower and clean up.” She pointed to a closed door. “I’ll put some clothes just inside the door. Hurry.”
Mike rushed into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. It seemed the future hadn’t figured out a better system, or maybe Shauna’s building was old-fashioned. He tore off his uniform and jumped into the steaming shower. He scrubbed himself clean and stepped out just as Shauna came in to put some clothes on the closed toilet.
Desire filled her face and she licked her plump lips again. He hardened right in front of her, then grabbed a towel to cover himself.
“Get dressed. We’re out of time,” Shauna said.
Her eyes had been riveted to Mike’s hardness and he felt himself blush for the first time ever. “Fool, idiot, letch,” he muttered as he pulled on the clothes. Jeans, shirt, sweater, socks and work boots that fit pretty well were donned in less than a minute. Mike ran out of the bathroom praying his body would settle down. “I’m ready.”
“So I saw. It doesn’t take much to arouse you, does it?” Shauna didn’t wait for an answer.
“Give me a break, will you?” Mike complained as he followed her. “There’s something between us, you feel it too.”
She didn’t answer. Shauna left the scooter in the apartment as they took the elevator to the basement where she pointed another black device at a flying car and the doors opened up, in a gull-wing configuration. “Get in.”
Mike climbed in. The vehicle was spacious inside and his six-foot-two frame fit with room to spare. “Where are we—”
The flying car shot out of the garage like a rock out of a slingshot. Mike’s head snapped back and hit a headrest, then snapped forward. “Damn it. Now I’ve got whiplash.”
“You’ll get used to the speed of things here. If you need to you can wrap that thong around your head. It’ll keep you attached to the headrest behind you.”
“No way. I’m not strapping my head to the seat. If you drove better I wouldn’t have a stiff neck.”
Shauna punched a button and the car sped forward. They climbed over the tops of the buildings and she made a sweeping left turn. “Quit griping. I need to think for a minute.”
“I see women drivers haven’t changed much in over one hundred years,” Mike muttered.
“Watch it. You’re treading on thin ice here, Forrester. I could eject you and you’d be very sorry for that remark.”
Mike sat straight up, worried. Could she? “Uh, does this seat have a parachute?”
Shauna laughed. Mike heard real delight in her laugh. The sound flooded him with light and joy. He stared at her profile and saw a beautiful strong jaw, a straight, thin nose and one perfectly arched eyebrow. For a moment he wanted to run his finger over that arch, feel the softness of the hair that framed those incredible blue eyes.
“Yes, as a matter of fact it does. And this vehicle does have an ejection seat. For emergencies.” Shauna glanced at Mike. “Don’t worry. I won’t eject you unless you demean women drivers again. We don’t tolerate that in the twenty-second century. You see, it’s common knowledge among us that we have the real power. Too bad men haven’t learned that yet.” She laughed again as she maneuvered the flying car behind another one.
Mike slouched in the seat, relieved to know he wouldn’t be tossed out of the car. He told himself that he wouldn’t upset this woman when she was flying. He wouldn’t take that chance. “How do you know where to fly these cars?”
“The sky is divided into lanes. We call them skylanes. Everyone learns where they are and how to use them. They work like the lines on roads in your day. No one under eighteen can fly without passing a worldwide test. Every country has the same rules. Once you pass you get your sky license. It’s used just like old driver’s licenses for identification. It’s linked to a worldwide database.
“It takes years to get a sky license. We start when we’re fourteen. We take one year to learn the basics on the computer, then graduate to actual flying lessons. Then we have three years of test flying. That’s when we go with instructors, parents, older siblings who have their license. It’s very regulated. You’ll see signs in windows when a ‘test flyer’ is at the controls.”
Shauna touched a button and said, “Autopilot.” The car shifted and Mike heard the “engine” settle into a quiet monotone. “So, what do you think of the twenty-second century?”
Chapter Two
Mike didn’t know what to think yet. He’d had all of five hours in the future and was still shell-shocked. He rubbed his stomach feeling a little queasy from the flying but knew he wouldn’t throw up. “I’m not sure. Everything’s so different. What are the small cities like?”
“What small cities?” Shauna laughed ruefully. “They’re pretty much gone. Most of the world lives in large clumps of skyscrapers. When the Fearsome Foursome took over running the world they made it sound like we’d be living in paradise if we moved closer together. Said that we’d have easier lives, more food, more gadgets, more free time. But they were wrong. The population exploded, we’re running out of food and now they won’t let us expand outside the cities to spread out and breathe.”
“Why are the four CEOs called the Fearsome Foursome?” Mike asked.
“In your century there were four football players called that. The world is still sports crazy. The four CEOs thought they’d sound more legit if they took on a legendary moniker like that. In our century it’s become a detested name that means corruption, greed and secrecy.”
“So I gathered.” Mike watched the skycar fly automatically. Smooth turns and gentle bounces rocked him. He liked the feeling of soaring above the ground in a personal vehicle. “I like flying like this. It’s a lot better than being cramped into a huge jet with two hundred other people.”
“Yeah, me too. The airlines all went out of business at the end of the twenty-first century. A casualty of sky-high oil prices. The economy faltered, big-time. Car and airplane manufacturers scrambled to come up with a way to move the population and its merchandise. You’ll see bigger skycars that haul freight and on the ground there are monorails that move products within the cities. The Middle East oil consortium, OPEC, went bankrupt when the airlines failed. Poetic justice some say.”
“Pretty amazing,” Mike said. His all-night shift was catching up with him and he felt exhausted. His arms and legs were heavy, hard to move and his fingers felt sore and swollen. He heaved a sigh and put his head back. Soon the rocking of the flying car lulled him to sleep.
* * * * *
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Shauna said. “We’re here.”
“Wha—” Mike roused from his nap forgetting for a minute where he was. He’d been having the most fantastic dream about flying in a— “Oh my God. It wasn’t a dream.” He bolted upright. Running his hands through his hair he looked down at the ground rushing by, saw other skycars passing them and marveled at the soaring brown and tan skyscrapers they wove through. The sky was a slate gray with flakes of white raining down on them. Snow. “Where are we?”
Shauna pressed some buttons and the skycar slowed.
She moved the control throttle forward and it began a gradual descent. “We’ve flown to Chicago. We have to ditch this vehicle and get another one. Every skycar worldwide has a global positioning system tied into the Global Guardians. Originally it was for safety but now they use it for their own intrusive needs.”
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“About thirty minutes.” Shauna glanced at him. “You look beat.”
“I am, I worked all night and then met you.” He grinned when he saw a blush rise up Shauna’s neck and face. “Ah, you like me.”
“I do not. I don’t even know you.”
Mike laughed. He saw Shauna jump. The blue-white light from the interior of the skycar lit her arms showing the little hairs standing straight up. As they’d left her apartment in New York she’d grabbed a coat but thrown it into the back of the skycar in her rush to get away. He reached over and stroked her arm, smoothing the tiny hairs. She smelled earthy, sweet. Static electricity crackled.
He felt burned.
His knee twitched. He rubbed her wrist and wrapped his strong fingers around it feeling the erratic pulse beneath the tender skin. He had a driving need to touch Shauna. Why did this woman affect him like this?
Shauna jerked her arm away. “What’s with you and touching?” She shifted in her seat, putting as much distance between them as she could. Mike watched her fiddle with some controls and the skycar slowed some more. She maneuvered it into a stream of traffic.
“Every time I touch you I feel it all the way to my toes. You’re electric, Shauna.” He touched her cheek with his fingers. “Your skin is so soft, it glows in the light.” The redness in her face turned maroon.
“Look, Forrester. I don’t have time for this. Keep your hands to yourself.”
Shauna pushed forward on the controls and the skycar slowed. Mike saw they were a few hundred feet off the ground. He couldn’t wait to see how she landed this thing and where she’d put it. Flying at this altitude gave him a sense of vertigo. The buildings rushed by at alarming speeds and blurred into each other. “How do you know—”
No Future Christmas Page 2
