One Helluva Bad Time- The Complete Bad Times Series

by Chuck Dixon

  There, in the middle of the crowd, two men stood side by side in dark cloaks with hoods raised to throw their faces in shadow. They were both distinguished from the rest of the mob. Both were easily a head or so taller than the rest. One of them held a hand up to bid, keeping his fingers splayed and raised to indicate he was prepared to outbid all comers.

  53

  The Highest Bidders

  CAROLINE NEARLY COLLAPSED in relief. Rangers. They had to be. Two tall, broad-shouldered men traveling incognito. It was Jimbo along with Boats, or maybe Chaz, come to buy their freedom. She clung to that thought. It made sense. It had to be so.

  The bidding came down to three and then two and finally to the cloaked men, one of whom stood with arm rigid above him until his was the only hand raised.

  She caught Praxus’ look of frozen astonishment as she was led past him and down the steps. Dwayne was standing at the rear of the stage with some of the armed handlers by him. He was fighting down a grin as she approached. He’d been bought by their friends as well, that much was clear by his barely suppressed smile.

  They were both surprised when the auction for Praxus ended and the skinny naked boy was shoved over to join them. He glared at Caroline with resentment.

  “A girl? You were a girl all along?” he hissed.

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “And an ugly girl at that,” he sneered, and she kicked him in the shin, causing him to howl.

  “Settle down. We’re not in the end zone yet,” Dwayne whispered to her.

  “Can you see our buyers?” Caroline asked.

  “They have their backs to me,” he said. He could

  see their cowled heads over the mob. They were paying off the trader at the foot of the steps. The fat man nodded from where he stood on the second step. One of the men counted coins from a leather sack into his chubby hands. The fat man counted the coins and placed them in a purse that hung from a belt depended below his protruding belly. The two hooded men moved away, and the fat man gestured eagerly to a pair of toughs. Xin stepped up with hands cupped before him for his end of the take.

  The toughs, a pair of men whose faces matched their ugly profession, prodded Caroline, Dwayne, and Praxus with the ends of their clubs, herding them forward like sheep through the parting crowd. They left Xin and the slave trader bickering loudly.

  Dwayne put an arm around Caroline as best he could. She pressed against him, as they followed after the pair of hooded men walking toward the arched opening of an alleyway. Praxus and the pair of toughs followed close behind, urging the trio along with thrusts from their clubs.

  They entered the narrow alley for delivery to the two men waiting there in the shadows. One of the toughs said something and the taller of the hooded men nodded. The toughs departed, leaving the newly purchased slaves alone with their buyers.

  Caroline opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a sudden coughing noise. She turned to see Praxus drop lifeless against a wall of the alley, a fan of blood and brains spread above him.

  One of the men parted his cloak to reveal a wicked black handgun with a smoking silencer attached to the end of the barrel.

  54

  The Anomaly Dance

  CAROLINE STEPPED IN front of Dwayne. The Ranger was starting toward the pair of cloaked men. With wrists bound and ankles hobbled, any attempt at resistance would only get them both killed.

  “I only really need one of you,” the man with the gun said in accented English. South African.

  Caroline and Dwayne followed the gesture the man made with the silencer and stepped deeper into the alley.

  The man was Bohrs. Caroline knew him as he was a security officer for Gallant Ltd, a company owned through several other shelter corporations by Sir Neal Harnesh. Bohrs was a frequent companion of Augustus Martin, the Gallant exec assigned to oversee the Tauber Tube operation in Nevada.

  “We’re heading back to the port. Any shit from either of you and I’ll put a bullet in the troublemaker,” Bohrs said and withdrew the handgun into his cloak. He lowered his hood, the need for disguise over. He might have been a handsome man with surfer good looks if not for a pair of lifeless gray eyes that could have belonged to a wolf. His companion, also a hard-eyed man missing half his left ear lobe, sported a wicked scar about his neck as might have been made by a noose.

  Caroline began to ask the first of a thousand questions. Bohrs clucked his tongue and shook his head mournfully. There would be no answers right now.

  “Could I at least have one of your hoodies?” she said.

  Bohrs shrugged, removed his cloak, and draped it over Caroline’s shoulders. She clutched it closed as best she could with her bound hands. It dragged on the ground as she walked. Bohrs wore a simple singlet and leggings. His automatic was shoved into a brass-studded leather girdle about his waist. There was a doe-skin purse jingling with coins hanging on the girdle. He had come prepared to outbid all comers.

  They were marched farther along the alley to where it opened into a broader avenue lined with residences. The street was empty but for a woman leaning at a trough scrubbing clothing with a stone. It was market day, and almost everyone was down at the main square and surrounding lanes.

  The avenue curved to lead around the market area. The road wound down to where it ran along the water. There were wharves lined with stinking fishing boats. Men hung nets to dry surrounded by a blizzard of white gulls dropping onto the netting to pick any morsels of flesh trapped in the knotted lines. The slaves and their new masters walked down a long pier. Anchored at the end was a boat Caroline recognized as a samaina, a fat beamed cargo ship with a complement of fifty rowers. Some of those rowers were lounging on the pier until kicked to their feet by the hanged man.

  Caroline and Dwayne were urged to board. Other men taller than average height waited on the main deck. They were in convincing period costume of singlet and sandals, and all were armed with holstered sidearms that were very much out of place here. They were ex-military, with tattoos similar to Dwayne’s inked on their arms.

  More Gallant employees, she surmised. Sir Neal was making quite an effort to get back what was his. They were led down into the broad open hold as the rowers rushed to take their benches. It was roomier here than the Lion’s below decks area and floored over with layers of stuffed sacks from hull to hull. Bohrs urged them to sit. Dwayne wasn’t fast enough for the hanged man’s taste. The man kicked Dwayne in the chest, knocking him sprawling on the sacks. Caroline sat herself down, still wrapped in the cloak. The sacks felt like they were filled with grain of some kind.

  “You came along nice and quiet, so I’ll share some knowledge with you,” Bohrs said. “We are taking you back to the present, but first we have to do a little traveling. Sir Neal wants both of you where he can find you, and he has a lot of questions to ask you both.”

  “Look, I know I shouldn’t have taken the reactor,” Caroline said.

  Bohrs and the hanged man exchanged amused looks.

  “It’s the gold, darling. He wants to know all about the gold.”

  It was Caroline and Dwayne’s turn to look at one another.

  “Yes. Sir Neal knows about the gold. The cache you found in Nevada. The treasure on Nisos Anaxos. But he’d like to know a good deal more,” Bohrs said. A third man climbed down the ramp into the hold. He was dressed for the period except for a pair of tinted Ray-Bans. It appeared that chronal integrity was not a high priority for Gallant time travelers.

  “Sir Neal likes you, Dr. Tauber.” Bohrs made a point of glancing at Dwayne then back at Caroline before continuing. “He means you no harm, and really hopes that you and he can reach an agreement.”

  “You mean, go back to working for him?” she said, her eyes on the newcomer in the shades, who was opening a small plastic case holding two syringes.

  “You and your brother, doctor. All is forgiven. Under certain new conditions.”

  “What’s this?” Dwayne nodded toward Shades, who dropped to o
ne knee by him. Shades wore vinyl gloves.

  “A little preventative cocktail,” Shades said. “Can’t be too safe. Antibiotics, antivirals, some vitamins and minerals. You can pick up some nasty bugs in the land of Socrates.”

  He wiped Dwayne’s thigh with an alcohol swab, then stuck the needle in Dwayne’s leg and pumped in a full barrel of serum.

  “Why did you kill Praxus?” Caroline asked as Shades parted her cloak to wipe a section of her thigh clean.

  “Covering our tracks, perhaps?” Bohrs shrugged. “I’m not clear on that shit, and, frankly, it hurts my brain thinking about it. But we were told to eliminate the kid, so we eliminated him.”

  Caroline winced as the needle stabbed her in the muscle pinched between Shades’ fingers.

  “Where are we going? Where is the manifestation point?” she asked.

  “Shh,” Shades said with a wry smile.

  She tried to phrase another question, but her tongue was suddenly thick. The smiling man in the Ray-Bans seemed so far away. Her last sensations were the feeling of gentle movement and the clack of the oars against the wooden locks like a slowly ticking clock.

  55

  No Time Like the Present

  “CAROLINE.”

  Someone was calling her name from far, far away.

  “Caroline.”

  More insistent. Not a dream. Someone here. Right by her side.

  She fought to open her eyes. She was stiff and sore. It hurt to move. She closed her eyes again to sink back into the comforting foam of sleep.

  “Caroline, wake your lazy ass up!”

  Dwayne was by her in this gloomy place. He was rocking back and forth. No, everything was rocking back and forth.

  The slave-market. The two men. Praxus’ small, still body.

  “We’re still alive,” she said in mild surprise.

  “From the direction of the sunlight, we’ve been traveling an eastern course.” Dwayne nodded toward the bow. They were both still bound. Caroline’s shoulders were on fire from the unaccustomed position she’d been lying in, arms behind her. The borrowed cloak was gone. She shivered with cold. They were still dirty, but their cuts had been wiped clean and slathered with some kind, of ointment. Caroline’s hands were wrapped in clean gauze. The deeper slashes on Dwayne’s torso were plastered with bandages over orange stains of mercurochrome.

  “Phoenicia?” she said.

  “The Med coast of the Middle East anyway. Turkey, Israel, Lebanon. Or they will be someday,” he said.

  Caroline was aware that her throat was dry, and her stomach burned with hunger. She sat up, and the effort made her dizzy.

  “Hey! Little help here!” Dwayne called upwards to be heard over the slow creak and knock of the oars.

  A shadow crossed the bar of light blazing down from the opening in the deck above them. Bohrs dropped into the hold and stooped to approach them.

  “We need food and water if we’re going to be of any use to you,” Dwayne said.

  “That’s reasonable.” Bohrs shrugged. “We’re nearing port. I’ll have something sent down.”

  Bohrs left them without another word.

  A crewman came down and set bowls of watery gruel on the sacking and left. They had no choice but to kneel over the bowls as best their bonds would allow and eat the mess like dogs. It was loaded with onions and a meat Caroline didn’t care to guess at. It was greasy and unsalted and cold.

  “Every bit. We don’t know when these fuckers will feed us next,” Dwayne told her.

  They had both cleaned their bowls when Bohrs and the hanged man came down into the hold with handguns in their fists. The man with the Ray-Bans came down the ladder next and unlocked Caroline from the hull, then, using a knife, freed Dwayne. They were urged to climb up to the main deck.

  The samaina was pulling into the sheltered harbor of a port settlement that did not give as lovely a first impression as Rhodes had done. The harbor wall was more of a curving jetty of piled stones. The buildings about the port were shabby structures. The wharf they tied up to was crumbling. Lateen-rigged fishing boats with sagging sail and frayed lines were bobbing on ratlines along its length. Men sat in the shadows of awnings slung from the fronts of hovels that lined the waterfront. None made a move to stir from their places to help tie up the lines tossed from the newly-arrived vessel.

  Dwayne and Caroline were guided onto the wharf by the hanged man and Ray-Bans. Bohrs led the way along the wharf and through the narrow lanes and faded buildings of the town. The hanged man carried a hemp sack slung over his shoulder. The only inhabitants they saw were the ragged men sitting in the shade, sharing a clay jar of wine. There were no remarks between them as three cloaked strangers led a naked man and woman past them.

  They walked from the last of the buildings and past goat pens to a trail that climbed to a headland that overlooked the harbor. Bohrs urged Dwayne and Caroline to take a seat on the ground in the shade of some date trees that lined a wide clearing of barren sand atop the rise. The hanged man opened his sack and handed out plastic bottles of Evian water. Ray-Bans crouched to give Caroline and Dwayne a drink of the cool spring water.

  “Don’t worry. We recycle,” Ray-Bans said. This is the first he’d spoken to them. He had a Texas drawl.

  Bohrs stepped up to them.

  “We’re a little ahead of schedule, so we’re going to wait here awhile. Feel free to take a little nap,” he said.

  “Like the one on the boat?” Caroline said.

  “Yeah, I feel a little bad about that. But we couldn’t have you trying to talk to the crew. We like to keep them in the dark as much as possible. Temporal integrity and all that shit,” Bohrs said.

  “Why go to this trouble? Why not pick us up in The Now?” Dwayne said.

  “’The Now.’ I like that,” Bohrs said, smiling. “Trouble is, when you people decided to disappear, you seriously dropped off the goddamn map. It was easier to go back in the books and see when you might pop up.”

  Caroline sat silently battling with her curiosity. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “The kid wrote about you,” Bohrs continued. “It appeared in a codex he handwrote himself. The ink on the pages actually changed as you two went along, fucking up the past. Freaky, huh? Sir Neal owns an original of the kid’s full manuscript, and that provided a lot more detail, including the slave market and...well, you know the rest.”

  “The full Profectus Praxus? That was lost when the library at Alexandria burned.” Caroline could not help herself.

  Bohrs only smiled.

  “You were there? You were at the library?” she said.

  “Before the fire. Sir Neal had a shopping list,” Bohrs said. “What do you think of that, huh?”

  “I’m not sure,” Caroline said, suddenly dizzy again. “Okay, since we’re just bullshitting,” Dwayne said. “The words on the handwritten documents changed. Does that mean all the books reprinting it changed too? And if Praxus died before writing about any of what happened to him, how do we still know about it?”

  “We’re learning more about that as we go,” Bohrs said. “The whole Butterfly Effect thing is a non-starter, it turns out. These anomalies don’t have the wide-reaching impact that the brainiacs theorized they did.” He nodded to Caroline at the word “brainiac.”

  “You mean, the only writings affected are the ones physically touched by the author?” Caroline said.

  “You can still read all of the kid’s writing in books and on the Internet if you want to. Even if he didn’t write them after all.” Bohrs crushed an empty Evian bottle and tossed it to the hanged man, who stowed it in the sack with the others.

  “That’s some fucked up shit right there, am I right?” Ray-Bans said, lighting up a Marlboro from a pack he had in a pocket of his cloak.

  “Doesn’t pay to think about it,” Bohrs said.

  “The hell it doesn’t,” Caroline said. “Localized anomalies, my ass. You just haven’t screwed with something significant enough.�
�

  “And you two have been so goddamned careful?” Bohrs said, catching the pack of smokes tossed to him by Ray-Bans.

  Caroline had no answer for that.

  They waited in the shade of the palms throughout the afternoon. The three Gallant mercenaries talked among themselves, and Dwayne and Caroline sat silent. Both were aware that Dwayne was only still alive to keep Caroline cooperative.

  The sun neared the horizon, turning the water to burnt orange dappled with brightest gold. The temperature dropped too suddenly to be caused by the approach of dusk.

  Caroline could see her own breath. She nudged Dwayne and rose to her feet. A cloud of mist was drifting over the sand toward them. The air turned frigid before it. The other men stood and turned to the growing cloud.

  Ray-Bans had a handheld radio of some type in his fist and spoke into it. Only static returned through the receiving speaker. He walked into the mist, speaking into the transmitter with growing impatience.

  Bohrs gave Caroline a gentle nudge toward the edge of the fog.

  “Wait till you see this.” He laughed.

  56

  Everyone Knows This is Nowhere

  IN THEIR WEAKENED state, Dwayne and Caroline were stricken worse by the manifestation effect than ever before. They exited the mist guided by Bohrs and the hanged man to fall to their knees. They vomited up a mix of the noxious gruel and Evian water.

  The other two were gasping with hands on knees but remained standing. Caroline looked up to see the mist falling away. Further down the steel platform, she could see Ray-Bans lying still on the deck. The radio squawked in his lifeless fingers.

  She dropped prone, propelled there by a shove from Dwayne, as gunfire exploded from somewhere outside the mist. Green fingers of tracers stirred circles in the dissipating fog.