by Aaron Frale
DeAndre ducked into a hallway perpendicular to the pair. The door shut, and the collector said, “What?”
The cop shrugged and said, “It’s nothing.”
The two turned back down the hallway.
DeAndre darted through the corridors after them. He hid in nooks, doorways, empty rooms, and even had to scale the walls by pressing his arms and legs on the opposite sides and crawling above people’s heads. His advantage was that he was fast. People who noticed him either saw a blur or felt the rush of wind. It was exhausting work, and he was almost discovered several times, but thankfully, the two men finally made it to the evidence room. The cop put his hand on the door, and said with a smile, “The guard on duty will be in the bathroom for the next fifteen minutes.”
The pair went inside, and DeAndre slipped in behind them. This time he made it without a hitch. They went behind the counter where an officer would typically check out the evidence. Once the footsteps were far enough away, DeAndre risked hopping over. He tiptoed past rows of shelves until he saw the two at a table in the back.
DeAndre was able to approach the table from the side the pair wasn’t on. He crawled closer and stayed at below table level. The men were already in conversation about the peculiar objects.
The man said, “It’s just a jumpsuit. I don’t get it.”
The dirty cop said, “That’s what I thought at first, too, but then I discovered this.”
DeAndre heard the collector jump back.
“How did you do that?” He said.
“These glasses control it.”
“Oh, yes. I’m very interested. What about this?”
“It seems to be some sort of music player.”
DeAndre could hear the sound of his playlists through headphones.
The collector yelped. “What is that noise? You call that music?”
“I’m sure it does other stuff,” the officer said. “I haven’t had time to figure it out yet.”
“Well,” the collector said, “I’ll give you five for the portable record, and fifty for the suit.”
“Five! I’m sure this does way more than you can imagine.”
While the two haggled, DeAndre needed to think of a plan fast. The racist cop at least had one thing right. The TF3 was way more valuable than either of them could imagine and would buy a private island in some universes. While the invisibility cloak was cool, there were plenty of worlds that had figured out that technology. The real value of it was the Universe One chip that allowed it to tune as a personal medical device.
DeAndre didn’t know anything about money in this universe. Fifty could be the cost of a small car for all he knew, but he was pretty sure they didn’t know what they had. The cop was an opportunist stealing from a population who couldn’t fight back, and the collector was a dirt bag who had no qualms profiting off the misfortune of others. DeAndre popped his head out from behind the table and dashed for the TF3 while the collector inspected the cloak. His nunchucks didn’t seem to interest the guy.
He swiped it before either could react and pulled up the tuning app, and held his hand over the button. The dumbfounded cop went for his gun, and DeAndre said, “I’d think twice before you draw that weapon. This button here will cause this to self-destruct and take out us three and about half this station with it.”
“You’re bluffing,” the cop said.
DeAndre hovered his thumb over the button and said, “You want to find out.”
The cop took his hand from his gun and raised both hands.
“Good,” DeAndre said and pulled the cop’s gun from the holster and tossed it away.
The cop called him a racial epithet and said, “You’ll never get away. There are cops everywhere. The city is full of them.”
DeAndre shrugged and said, “You’ll have to find me. Toss me the clothes.”
The collector shakily tossed the invisibility suit to DeAndre.
While the Tuner suited up and grabbed his nunchucks, the cop yelled more obscenities. If the TF3 really did have the ability to self-destruct, DeAndre would have seriously considered using it to teach the guy a lesson. Instead, he ignored the threats and got himself ready to go.
After he was suited up in everything but the mask, another cop entered the back area of the evidence room. He saw what was happening and pulled his gun.
Before DeAndre could say another word, gunfire blasted toward him. DeAndre pulled down the mask, put on the glasses, and turned on the invisibility field. He barely dodged the bullets as he faded from view. The collector fell to the ground in a puddle of tears. The racist cop dove for his gun. The other fired wildly and missed DeAndre.
However, the man did hit an evidence box with a white powdery substance that DeAndre had to assume was drugs. It puffed out in a cloud of white haze and splotched on his invisibility suit. He was covered in white splotches. He ran towards the front and jumped back over the counter while bullets whizzed past.
He burst from the evidence room, and an alarm sounded in the station. Three surprised cops in the hallway pulled their guns. DeAndre used his nunchucks to knock the gun out of one of their hands, and he kicked the second in his stomach and hit the third out cold with the backswing of his nunchuck. He took off running before they could recover.
He dashed through the station at top speed, fighting when he had to and evading when he could. Even though every cop there would have no problem putting him down, DeAndre did not kill anyone. If there was one thing that made the Tuners different than the cultists it was that they wouldn’t kill unless they had no other option.
Finally, he found his way to the front of the station and was able to break free before the cops could organize a defense. He ran down to the sidewalk and headed toward the mall. It was lucky that it was within walking distance of the precinct or else he’d have to add auto theft to his growing list of charges in this area. If Human Services didn’t kill him, the cops certainly would.
Before he could even get a block away from the station, he saw Hailey spraying some sort of substance on the ground and following the glowing dots it created. He ran towards her and yelled, “Hailey!”
“DeAndre!” Hailey yelled. “I tracked you here, but it looks like you got in a car. I was backtracking to see if there was anything I missed.”
“It’s a long story,” DeAndre said. She looked over his shoulder to see the large group of cops running down the street towards them. She saw a few motorcycles and cop cars circling down a parking garage near the station.
They both turned back to the mall and ran. Before they were able to get another block, the New Yorker rolled up. Jon stuck his head out from the passenger seat and yelled, “Get in!”
Hailey and DeAndre dove into the car, and before they even had time to settle, Alex punched it. The police cars and motorcycles burst from the parking garage after them. Alex whipped through traffic, dodging cars with the cops right on their tail.
“I take it you got my note?” Hailey said. “But how did you follow me so fast? It took me a few hours to get to the station.”
“You really expect me to follow around bits of trace DNA?” Alex scoffed, “I don’t have time for that, spraying every which way. Oh no, once we figured out which direction you went, I just asked someone—”
“More like scared them,” Patel muttered.
“It got the job done, didn’t it? We learned there was a police station. Where else could’ve he gone?” Alex yelled and then leaned out the window. Two motorcycles were closing in on them. Alex plucked a chain with a ball at the end from their vest. They spun it a few times and launched it toward the cop. It got caught in the spoke, and the bike flipped, launching the driver into the air. They cackled with glee and dodged the other police vehicles by running a light at a busy intersection. The Tuners made it past, and the other motorcycle crashed into a car.
They came across a street Jon had recognized from their drive into the city.
“Turn there!” Jon yelled “That should get u
s back to the mall.”
Alex blew right by with several cop cars in their tail.
“We are not going back to the mall,” Alex said.
“We’re not?” Patel said.
“No,” Alex said in-between weaving in and out of cars. “This is a prototype, remember? It keeps the same pathway open for the trip home so long as you make it in 24 hours. You think Universe One would make a vehicle that has to find a new tuning point each time? What if you tuned to a place without roads? At least you can turn around and go back!”
“Are you kidding me?” Jon asked. “That’s way outside of the city!”
“A couple of things to consider,” Alex said as they dodged another cop car, causing it to crash. “Haha! Take that copper! One, even if we do go back to the mall, the parking garage is across the street, so no way to drive to a tuning point. Second, if you really do want to brave the police force converging on our location in droves, I’m not leaving my car behind for any reason, period.”
“So, the next best thing is to have the police chase us and probably set up a roadblock?” Jon asked.
“Oh no, just got to wait for a little less traffic on the road,” Alex said, and as if they summoned it, the traffic cleared, and it was just a few cars here and there with a horde of police behind them. “Speaking of which.”
They hit a button on their shifter. The fins on the back turned into rocket engines. Instead of a burst of fuel, they must have been powered on plasma or fusion. They heated up, and the car jerked forward at incredible speeds. The g forces slammed everyone back in their seats. Alex dodged the vehicles on the road with ease. They left the police in the dust and sped through the city at speeds the speedometer couldn’t even measure.
Alex calmly navigated the obstacles in front of them as the car narrowly missed a slow-moving truck full of chickens. They were going so fast had they hit the poultrymobile they probably would have gone up in a fireball of feathers and burning metal.
Hector had been holding out on them. Jon wondered what other tech was in the Tuners vault or still out there waiting to be discovered. He gripped Hailey’s hand. At least he would be with the woman he loved if Alex screwed things up.
9
Ludie stood at the vault door in the bowels of Tuners HQ in his power armor and attempted to pry it open. He grunted, and the servos shrieked with metal on metal. He cried out and gave up before his suit was about to come apart on him and possibly take his arms with it. He pounded on the thick metal barrier with frustration.
“You’ll never open it that way,” Hector said. He was in energy shackles with two vicious cultist warriors on either side.
Ludie yelled at the two cult members, “Leave us!”
The two complied, leaving Hector alone with Ludie.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of your friends,” Hector said, “but you know how fathers are.”
Ludie ignored the attempt to rile him up. He turned to Hector and said, “What’s the code for the door?”
Hector shrugged. “You know that I destroyed my hard drive. I don’t have any codes.”
Ludie picked up Hector like it was nothing. He placed his other hand on his former boss’s head. “All I have to do is squeeze.”
“Then you wouldn’t get the codes.”
“I know you have them. You accessed the safehouses without your hard drive.”
“So did you,” Hector said. He sounded irritatingly calm.
“I recovered what I could. This wasn’t supposed to go this way,” Ludie said and tossed Hector to the side like he was nothing.
The former Tuners Director stood up and brushed himself off as best he could with the cuffs restricting his movement. “Tell me, Ludie,” he said. “How exactly was it supposed to go?”
Ludie didn’t dignify the man with a response. For the most part, the cultist takeover was a dream come true for him. He had continued his research with the exception that he had no restrictions. If he wanted to figure out how to bring weapons through the universe barrier, then he was given the leeway to try anything he wanted. The cultist would line up as research subjects even if most of his attempts resulted in death.
His intellect finally gave him perks. He slept in his own room instead of hard surfaces like the rest of the cultists. Apparently, all the beds in the cultists’ homeworld were made of stone, and some were even jagged and designed for discomfort. The High Priest brought Ludie food and companionship from any universe he wanted. They didn’t even question why the only acceptable companions had to bear a strong resemblance to Hailey.
Ludie was living like a king, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He needed to bring the leader results. Hector was a great way to stall for time, but he needed something more. He needed to unlock the secrets of the universe that had gone quiet years before the Tuners existed. Beyond the doors of the vault were all the artifacts and prototypes deemed unfit by the Tuners for general use.
Ludie was positive that if he could get inside, he could crack the secrets. He was a brilliant scientist, and the youngest person in his homeworld to graduate with several advanced degrees. There was no way he would have ever passed up the opportunity to study the multiverse. But when he found out that he was stuck playing medic to school children and imposed with the most absurd restrictions, it was no surprise that when he was offered something better, he’d take it.
However, it had become clear to Ludie that unless he started getting results, his privileged position would be in jeopardy. The High Priest of the Flame had invited him into the conference room a week ago to discuss his progress. After the death of two henchmen, Ludie had gotten the unspoken hint that he was next in line.
The honesty of the cultists was refreshing. Everyone at the Tuners had a false sincerity. They pretended like they cared but were too involved with themselves to pay attention to anything Ludie did. The worst of them all was Hailey. She had made him think they were friends, and he even felt that they could be more than that one day. She burst that illusion when she chased after the new guy.
It was a slap in the face that she would go for some guy she barely knew compared to someone who was always there for her. He was sick of being the forgettable one. Even though his new masters were harsh, he always knew where he stood with them. Since he needed to produce some results, he had brought the Priest of the Flame the next best thing to advanced weaponry transportable between universes, their only real opposition in the multiverse: the Tuners.
However, even if the cultists gathered every last Tuner, his days would be numbered without getting into the vault. Ludie was positive. The answers to his research were in there. The people of Universe One weren’t gods despite the rumors of divinity, and if Hector had half the ambition of Ludie, they could have been gods themselves.
Ludie was pretty sure that all religions across the multiverse were just people who had encountered folks from Universe One. Of course, someone with the power to heal the dead would be elevated to a divine status. A modern doctor with the right tools and medicines at their disposal could have convinced a not so advanced culture to think they were a deity. All Ludie needed to do was crack the Universe One tech open, and he’d be the god.
What the High Priest of the Flame didn’t know was that people would worship Ludie one day, and all that stood between them was a door.
Ludie turned to Hector and said, “This is your last chance to tell me the code.”
“Ludie,” Hector said, “I don’t know it. The cultists can torture me all they want, but it was destroyed with the hard drive. We will be lucky to ever get it open. Those doors are made of the same material that keeps this structure afloat in the void between universes. You are welcome to try and brute force the code, but as you know, it locks you out after three attempts, and then you have to wait a day. It could be lifetimes before anyone can access that again. I’m sorry Ludie, but all the tech in there is lost.”
“Then you are of no use to me,” Ludie grabbed Hector by the energy cuff
s and heard a pop, and from the way the man winced, his shoulder was probably dislocated. Ludie didn’t care; the old coot was the cultist’s problem now. The worst part was that he had a sinking suspicion that his former boss was probably telling the truth.
The Director’s codes were on a password manager. It was a program that gave him one login for everything he did. If he needed a door code, all he had to was log into the manager, and it would spit it out when he needed it. There was never a need to memorize more than one password.
The problem for Ludie was that the manager was destroyed with the self-destruct of the computer. Even if he could get the actual password files themselves, they would be encrypted nonsense without the manager. The only reason they had access to the safehouse codes was that it predated the password manager. The old directors kept files with all the locations and how to access them. Unfortunately, the vault code was not among them. If Hector didn’t have it memorized, then it truly was gone.
If his former boss couldn’t be of use to Ludie’s quest for perfection of technology, he could at least be useful for biding more time. It was time to deliver this prize to his master. He dragged the cuffed man through the hallways and up several stairs to the conference room where they used to plan their missions.
The door slid opened, and Ludie waited at the threshold with Hector in tow. It was a temple for the High Priest of the Flame. All the pictures of former Tuners and corporate art had been taken down. Tapestries depicting souls on fire and flames burning the world were now hanging on the walls. The windows overlooking mission control had been shuttered. The conference table was still there, but the chairs were gone. Just like the beds, chairs were considered an item of comfort and had no purposes in the way of the Flame. If a person wasn’t ready to fight at a moment’s notice, they were better off as servants to the honored dead in the afterlife.
