by Greg Cox
That’s what I get for taking on the entire U.S. government, he thought. Even if they didn’t give me much choice.
Not for the first time, he wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been abducted by the future back in fifty-one. When he’d shipped out to Korea, he had certainly never intended to end up behind bars in the twenty-first century. A good part of him wished that those meddlesome time travelers had left him alone. Then again, if he hadn’t gone AWOL from his own era, he would have never met Lily …
His gaze was drawn to a solitary snapshot taped to the wall. The color photo depicted a beautiful blond woman cradling a grinning toddler on her lap. The little girl’s dark skin matched her father’s. Both mother and daughter beamed happily.
Lily. Isabelle.
Richard’s throat tightened as he recalled taking the photo up at the cabin, back before Lily died and everything went to hell. It had been a beautiful summer day in the mountains. Blue skies. Birds singing in the trees. The snapshot was his sole worldly possession and also his most prized. The precious photo was a reminder that once he had been more than just another inmate, that he had been a loving husband and father. For a brief time, they had been happy.
The dim lighting made it hard to make out his loved ones’ faces. Feeling a sudden need to see his family close up, he raised his hand and extended his fingers toward the photo. His mind instinctively reached out for it …
Nothing happened. The snapshot stayed taped to the wall several feet away. It didn’t even flutter.
Oh yeah. He smiled ruefully. Funny how quickly you could get used to moving things with your mind. And how much you missed the convenience of it once it went away. Daily doses of the inhibitor had done a number on his telekinesis. Where once he could hurl heavy objects just by thinking about it, now he couldn’t lift a feather unless he did it the old-fashioned way … with his fingers.
Sighing wearily, he got out of bed and started across the cell. The concrete floor felt cold beneath his bare feet. Apparently, the warden wasn’t inclined to blow his budget on heating. Judging from the recent quality of the meals, there had been some cost-cutting in the kitchen as well. He didn’t want to know what kind of meat was in last night’s stew.
He was only halfway to the wall when heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor. They came to a halt right outside his cell. “Whoa there!” a gruff voice challenged him. “What you doing up and about, Tyler? Don’t you know it’s past your bedtime?”
Richard groaned inwardly as he recognized the voice. Turning toward the door, he saw a pair of uniformed guards, standing on the other side of the bars. And not his favorite guards, either. Just my luck, he thought. Grogan and Keech.
He had nothing against most of the guards stationed here. They were just doing their jobs. But Grogan and his sidekick were different. They got a sadistic charge out of throwing their weight around and making life harder for the inmates. Petty dictators with a grudge against the 4400. They were the last thing Richard needed tonight.
“Just stretching my legs.” He retreated back to his bunk. Hopefully, that would be enough to placate the guards.
It wasn’t.
“Is that so?” Grogan taunted him. He was a bullnecked bruiser with a florid complexion and a prodigious beer belly. A handlebar mustache carpeted his upper lip. A crew cut barely covered his scalp. A Colt pistol was holstered against one hip. A billy club rested against the other. He looked Richard over suspiciously. “How do I know that you weren’t up to no good, Tyler. Plotting a late-night escape maybe?”
I wish, Richard thought. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Damn right you’re not!” He chuckled at his own wit, then glanced at his partner. “You believe the nerve of this guy? Thinking he can put one over on us?”
A scrawny, sallow-faced rodent with greasy black hair, Keech was the Laurel to Grogan’s Hardy, except that neither of them was particularly funny. “Lotta nerve,” he agreed sourly.
“Hey!” Grogan feigned alarm. “You feel that?”
“Feel what?” Keech asked.
“That pull!” Grogan extracted an electronic keycard from his breast pocket. It wobbled between his meaty fingers as he pretended to have trouble holding on to it. “He’s tugging on the key with his brain. Trying to pull us closer.”
Very funny, Richard thought, not at all amused by the guard’s antics. Of course he was doing nothing of the kind.
“Oh yeah,” Keech agreed, playing along. “I feel it now.” He limped toward the door, as though pulled by an invisible force. A sneer twisted his lips. “Cocky sonovabitch.”
Grogan unhooked his club from his belt. “Guess we’d better teach him a lesson.” Smirking, he ran the keycard through a scanner by the door. An electronic lock clicked open and the barred door slid to one side. Grogan swaggered into the cell, brandishing the billy club. He smacked the truncheon against his palm. “Can’t let these freaks think they can pull their tricks on decent folks.”
“You got that right,” Keech said. He accompanied Grogan into the cell.
Sitting on the edge of his bunk, Richard tensed as the guards approached. His memory flashed back to that time in Korea, right before he was abducted, when a bunch of his fellow Air Force pilots had beaten him to a pulp for daring to date a white woman … Lily’s grandmother, in fact. This whole scene was feeling way too familiar.
He held up open palms. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.”
“Who cares what you want, you terrorist freak?” Grogan spat venomously. “Ever since you scum came back from God knows where, nobody in the country is safe. You think we’ve forgotten about fifty/fifty? Nine thousand Americans are dead because of people like you and Jordan Collier!”
Richard considered pointing out that he’d had nothing to do with the disaster, that he had been locked up in this very cell when the outbreak had ravaged Seattle, but figured that would be a waste of breath. Grogan wasn’t interested in listening to reason.
Richard braced himself. Was it worth trying to fight back? He was outnumbered and unarmed.
Grogan spotted the family portrait on the wall. “Well, get a load of this.” He yanked the photo from its perch and held it up for Keech to see. “Check out Mrs. 4400 here. Gotta hand it to you, Tyler. You may be a good-for-nothing radical, but you’ve got fine taste in fillies.” He leered at Lily’s portrait. “I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that.”
“You and me both.” Keech licked his lips. “Bet she’d like that, too. Both of us,” he spelled out, in case anyone missed the painfully obvious innuendo. “At the same time.”
Richard glared at the men. Just seeing Lily’s photo in Grogan’s grubby hands made his blood pressure spike. “Leave that alone.”
“Or what?” Grogan dared him. “You gonna tell Jordan Collier on me?” He ripped the precious photo in half and dropped the pieces onto the floor. “Too bad she’s six feet under!”
Redneck bastard! Anger took over and he lunged at Grogan. He only got a couple of steps before Keech smacked him in the side of the head with his club. Richard crashed to the floor, his head ringing. His vision blurred momentarily. He tasted blood inside his mouth.
“You saw that!” Grogan crowed. “The crazy skel jumped me.” He savagely kicked Richard in the ribs. “You like that, you stupid freak? Have a heaping helping of self-defense!”
Gasping in pain, Richard tried to scramble to his feet, but Grogan punched him in the face hard enough to loosen teeth. Blood sprayed from his lips. Keech clubbed him in the back, knocking him facedown onto the floor. The room spun around him.
“Hey!” an irate voice shouted from across the corridor. Lifting his head, Richard spied another prisoner standing behind the door of one of the opposite cells. A muscular Hispanic man with a shaved head, he gripped the bars of his cage. “Leave him alone! He doesn’t deserve that!”
The protesting inmate was a new addition to the cell block, having just been incarcerated earlier today. What was his name ag
ain? Sanchez?
“Mind your own business!” Keech snarled, but the attention seemed to make him uncomfortable. Backing out of the cell, he played lookout in the hall. He fidgeted with his truncheon. “Okay, that’s enough fooling around,” he hissed at Grogan. “Let’s get this over with.”
Grogan reacted as though his crony had lost his mind. “You kidding? I’m just getting warmed up.”
“Don’t push our luck.” Keech looked around furtively. He wiped a sweaty palm on his trousers. “Just waste him, all right?”
The guard’s ominous words penetrated Richard’s dazed and aching skull. Horror merged with pain. This wasn’t just a beating, he realized. They’re out to kill me!
And there was nothing he could do to stop them …
“Okay, okay,” Grogan said grudgingly. “Don’t have a meltdown.” He scowled at Richard, clearly unhappy at having his fun cut short. “Time to say good-bye, Tyler.” He ground the fragments of the family photo beneath his heel and drew his pistol from its holster. “Give Blondie a kiss for me when you see her in hell.”
He cocked the pistol.
Richard wondered if Lily would really be waiting for him on the Other Side. We already crossed time to find each other …
“That’s enough!” Sanchez yelled from his cell. He shook his fist at the guards. “You ignorant cabrons asked for this!”
He punched himself in the jaw … hard. His bizarre behavior briefly distracted the guards from their mission of murder. “What the hell?” Grogan muttered. “You gone loco, Sanchez?”
Ignoring the guard’s inquiry, Sanchez stuck his fingers into his mouth and wrenched a loose molar from his gums. He hurled the bloody tooth through the bars of his cell. It clattered against the hallway floor before cracking apart with a peculiar ring that sounded more like broken porcelain than shattered enamel.
That’s not a real tooth, Richard realized. It’s an implant.
The cracked shell split in two to reveal a miniature sphere of energy, about the size of a pea, that shimmered with a strange unearthly radiance. There was something eerie about the glow emanating from the orb, which didn’t resemble light as much as a photo negative of light, casting shadows instead of illumination upon the startled faces of the guards. They stared agape at the flickering sphere. Richard blinked in confusion.
I don’t understand, he thought. What’s happening?
Then the orb unfolded like a flower blossoming in fast motion. The very fabric of reality seemed to twist and contort before Richard’s eyes. A blinding flash lit up the corridor, forcing him to look away. He squeezed his eyelids shut against the sudden glare. Grogan swore obscenely. “Holy crap!” Keech exclaimed.
The flash was over in an instant. But when Richard opened his eyes again, he was amazed to see four strangers standing in the hallway where the orb had been only seconds before. All four—two men, a woman, and a young boy—were dressed entirely in black, like cat burglars or commandos. Ski masks concealed their faces. One of the men was panting hard, like he had just run the marathon. The woman stretched her limbs, as though she had been cooped up in a cramped space for far too long. “Thank God!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t take much more of that.”
“What?” the tired man quipped. “Too cozy for you?”
“Shut your mouths!” Grogan barked. Overcoming their shock, the guards drew their sidearms on the intruders. “I don’t know who you clowns are, or where you came from, but don’t move a muscle!”
The second man, an African-American from the look of him, stared at the guns. “Careful with those.” He sounded not at all concerned by the weapons pointed at him. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Wha—?” Grogan squealed. The metal gun turned redhot in his grip. Flesh sizzled. Yelping in pain, the guards let go of their weapons. The molten guns crashed onto the floor. Grogan clutched his scalded palm. Keech sucked on his burnt fingers. The men whimpered pathetically.
The black guy turned to the woman. “Your turn.”
She obliged by cracking her neck loudly. At first Richard thought she was still stretching, but then the guards clutched their own necks in response. Their faces contorted in shock. They dropped limply to the floor. Grogan landed only inches away from Richard. Only his ragged breathing assured Richard that the unconscious guard was still alive.
Sanchez nodded in satisfaction. He spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor of his cell. He glanced at the boy, who appeared to be no more than twelve years old. “Billy?”
“I’m on it,” the kid chirped. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses were fitted over his ski mask. He dashed forward and searched Keech’s body until he found the guard’s keycard. “Bingo!” Hurrying over to unlock Sanchez’s cell, he had to stretch to reach the scanner. “Bet you’re anxious to get out of there!”
“You have no idea.” The prisoner exited the cell. He gave the boy a friendly slap on the back. “And I hope you never do.”
Meanwhile, the woman scooted into Richard’s cell. Stepping over Grogan’s sprawling form, she helped Richard to his feet. “You okay, Mr. Tyler?”
“I—I think so.” His battered brain, which had been coming to terms with death only moments ago, struggled to catch up with events. “Who are you people?”
“Your guardian angels,” the woman replied. “Sorry for calling it so close. We just got wind of your danger.” She extracted a slender carrying-case from a pocket of her vest. The container opened to reveal a syringe of glowing chartreuse fluid.
Promicin.
She uncapped the tip of the syringe and squirted a droplet from the tip.
“Wait a second,” Richard said. “What are—?”
Before he could finish, the woman jabbed the needle into his upper arm. The sharp pain jolted Richard out of his daze. He clutched his wounded arm as she withdrew the needle. “What was that for? I’m already p-positive!”
“Just a booster shot,” she explained, tossing the empty hypo aside. “To help you overcome the inhibitor.”
Was that possible? Maybe, he thought, recalling how a similar shot had woken Shawn Farrell from a coma last year. Richard closed his eyes and concentrated. Was it just his imagination or could he already feel a peculiar tingling at the back of his brain, like a sleeping limb waking up after being inactive too long? His bleary eyes spotted the torn halves of the photo on the floor, and he tried to lift them with his mind. Once again, nothing happened, but the prickling sensation grew stronger. Bending over, he rescued the pieces with his fingers.
He was still trying to figure out where his rescuers had come from. “How … ? What was that with the tooth?”
Sanchez gestured toward one of the men. “Adams here can fold space in ingenious ways, enough to fit four people into something way too small to hold them. Like a phony tooth maybe.” He massaged his bruised jaw. “Think of it as a Trojan molar.”
Was that possible? Richard had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that the entire strike team had been hiding inside Sanchez’s tooth. Then again, when you thought about it, how more far-fetched was some of the other stuff he had witnessed over the last few years? Like Isabelle growing from a toddler to an adult overnight? Or Jordan Collier returning from the dead?
“Remind me not to do that again,” the woman groused. “I’ll never complain about my tiny apartment again!”
“That’s enough chatter,” Sanchez said, taking charge. He dragged Richard out of the cell. “We need to get you out of here, pronto.”
By now, the entire cell block was in an uproar. A blaring siren assaulted Richard’s ears. All the lights came back on. Roused by the disturbance, the other inmates rushed to the doors of their cells, pleading to be released as well. They reached through the bars, desperate to get the intruders’ attention. “Please!” Orson Bailey called out. The middle-aged businessman was one of the first 4400 to be detained against his will. “Take me with you!”
The frantic cries tugged at Richard’s heart. “What about them?”
Sanchez shook his head. “Another time. We’re just here for you today. You’re not safe here … obviously.”
Richard couldn’t dispute that. His throbbing head and ribs attested to the truth of Sanchez’s words. Steeling himself against the piteous entreaties of his fellow inmates, he fell in behind the strike team as they sprinted down the corridor. Adrenaline fueled his legs, despite his recent beating. A heavy steel door, with an unbreakable glass window embedded in its frame, blocked their path. Sanchez tried Keech’s keycard, but the door didn’t budge.
“Damn,” he cursed. “The override’s kicked in.” He looked at Adams, who appeared to have recovered from his earlier exertions. “You up to this, man?”
“I can give it a go,” the other freedom fighter volunteered. He stepped forward and laid his palms against the steel door. A grunt escaped his lips as he focused his ability on the unyielding barrier, which instantly took on that same photo-negative effect. Solid steel seemed to turn inside out, tearing free from its hinges, as the entire door compacted into a luminous black marble, leaving the doorway open before them. Adams scooped up the marble. He was breathing hard. “Open sesame,” he gasped.
They weren’t out of the woods yet, though. An entire squadron of guards came rushing toward them, clutching automatic rifles. “Freeze!” a uniformed officer commanded. “Get down on the ground with your hands on your head!”
“Don’t shoot!” Billy shouted over the alarms. He rushed to the front of the team. “I’m just a kid!”
The guards hesitated, reluctant to fire upon a child, which was all the time Billy needed. His jaws opened wide and a high-pitched shriek issued from his mouth. The guards staggered backward clutching their ears. Rifles slipped from their fingers. The sonic assault drowned out their screams, but Richard could see how the inhuman wail was affecting them. They flailed about in agony. Even standing behind Billy, with the punishing sound waves directed away from him, Richard got a taste of what the guards were enduring; the echoes pounded against his eardrums. He clamped his own palms over his ears.