Strong arms catch me.
Frank looks down at me. “Is she okay?” The lines of his face are anxious, his eyes tight with worry.
I nod then close my eyes.
And at the worst possible time, I take a nap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mitch
I blink.
And I can smell my retinas burn.
So, sure, I can blink in daylight. But my eyes cook like fried fucking eggs.
Nice.
I forget all that shit when I see Deegan—and that crooked fucker, Brad Thompson.
I see that world and about a million others. I take a five-second pause to look at them all, making certain I don't skip into the wrong earth. I've had about as much diversity as I can stand.
Through the gaps, I see the other Random for Humanity agents tucked between those standing worlds.
One of them thinks to reach out and touch another world wall.
“I wouldn't do that, sunshine. Could lose something.” I smirk.
He instantly looks at his crotch, and I snort.
Yup, not as dumb as he looks. Keep your hands and feet where they are, kids.
I turn back and face the world I know Deegan's in. I don't allow the blink to solidify, so we're in between, hovering at the edge of choice.
My eyes are disintegrating.
Not worried, though. Being near Deegan will clear that shit up.
“What are they?” Tate asks, wonder soaking his voice.
“All the places we're not going to visit,” I say, then my eyelids sweep downward as I touch the opaque sheet that looks like a window measuring about eight feet tall by four feet wide.
Deegan's there.
And some sense alerts her to me. She does a half-turn, eyes searching and seeing nothing.
I'm coming, Deegan.
A grim smile forms on my face. “Hang on.”
Tate grabs me, and I assume the other bozos grab each other too. We're a barrel of monkeys, hooked together until the blink is complete. My eyelids close, and the floaty world window becomes solid as I walk through.
Instantly, I heave myself low on sheer instinct. As I stand slowly, my vision swims from the damage of blinking in broad daylight and in my disintegrating form. Gotta love this death gig.
“Mitchell,” Deegan cries, relief and alarm perfectly mixed.
Half-blind, but using the natural zombie mojo, I sense my mistress and turn, opening my arms.
Deegan plows into me, and I wrap her tightly.
Instantly, my vision clears. Joints grow solid, and my feet hardening again.
Strength returns in a shining, breath-stealing burst.
And I feel him. Or her. The life force within Deegan has changed.
I feel the baby we made.
It's an awful reality, but the baby has started to grow a brain. And I know that because I'm a zombie.
Brad Thompson speaks. “This is truly wonderful. I have Deegan's pet—who I'll torture—before I get to you. And the rest of the gang is back.”
Brad cocks his head. “I am steaming pissed my Mover is dead, by the way.”
I can tell I'm not going to get caught up to speed. Some shit's happened while I was MIA, and I'll need to guess.
Thompson turns to the Reflectives. “Whatever you are, you're responsible for this.” He wings a palm toward some decapitated dead dude lying on the grass. Must be the guy he wanted alive.
A tall man, maybe my height, with whitish-blond hair, stands beside a smaller woman.
Then it hits me.
These are the Reflectives who were jonesing for Deegan. They're the ones who let us know what her talent was really called.
Because zapping doesn't really cover what Deegan can do.
Reflective Merrick plants his feet wide, arms hanging loose and ready at his side. “You are the individual responsible for giving that criminal a means to an end.”
Thompson nods happily. “I am. And if it hadn't been for you, even now, I'd have everything exactly as I want it.”
He glares at Merrick, who looks pretty cool for the horde of undead facing them.
I also notice a horde of... infants. Seemingly without instruction, they're crawling toward Brad Thompson. I chuckle. Can't think of a better guy to get the gnaw treatment.
Deegan frowns at my amusement, cranking her head back to look up at me. “Can you blink us back?” she whispers, her fingers biting at my waist.
I nod then look at everyone here. Lotta folks. “Where's Pax?”
She shakes her head, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of her lower lip. “I don't know.”
Pax's a dick, but he's got skills. I'd rather have him here than not.
Deegan's grandpa has subtly moved into a position closer to me. Brad's attention is on the pair of Reflectives.
Eyeing up the two-hundred-strong adult zombie horde, I know it's in our best interest to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Deegan's parents and their friends are inching their toward our position. Brad's distraction is our chance.
Drextel Tate is at my left. “What is all this?” His eyes restlessly scan the pile of undead, Brad Thompson, and the Reflectives—who could pass within human norms, but with the uniforms and their stance, just flat out look different.
After a few seconds, I answer, “Something we want to get the hell away from.”
Tate looks at Deegan, “Where's your brother?”
She shakes her head.
“I will have my associates tear you limb from limb,” Brad threatens.
Pencil dick.
The Reflectives laugh as the infant zombies are no more than a yard from Thompson's feet.
“It looks as though you have bigger fish to fry, slaver,” Jasper comments.
Thompson appears to suddenly notice the dead babies struggling to get to him.
“The theory is, zombies go after who killed them. Maybe he didn't physically do the murdering, but I betcha he gave the order,” Tiff comments dryly, with an edgy enthusiasm I haven't seen much from a woman.
Happy to have her on the team.
“Get rid of them,” Brad Thompson says with disgust.
Not a single zombie of the horde heeds him, and I could have told him why.
“Harold!” he shouts, and an AftD—I'm guessing he is because I can feel his pull—strides to his side.
“Get rid of these. Force these zombies to make them stop...” He looks at the sea of undead infants. “Slithering.”
Harold's sweating face scrunches in clear concentration.
Not a zombie moves, stirs, or does anything to help olʼ Brad.
Thompson grips Harold's shoulders, shaking him. “Why isn't it working?”
A baby grasps Brad's shoe, and he kicks it away. The undead baby rolls backward, mowing into the ones coming behind it.
One of Thompson's zombies hisses.
This ought to be good. Where's a La-Z-Boy and a box of popcorn when you need it?
Then I look at the girlsʼ faces. They're all crying their eyes out.
It is an awful example of humanity's degradation—but it's a done deal. These poor babies were killed to make room for the cyborgs.
The Reflectives nod, putting their back to the undead carnage.
When Thompson starts screaming and trying to hurt the dead children, four zombies break ranks and stride to him.
Harold the AftD starts blubbering and spouting commands for them to stay where they are.
Right... that'll happen.
One zombie plants its hand on the center of the AftD's chest and shoves. Harold flies ass-over-tea-kettle before landing a couple of yards away. He leaps to his feet, and takes off running in the opposite direction. He doesn't stay to watch the fun.
Reflectives Merrick and Jasper saunter toward us, leaving Thompson to his own devices.
These two have a form of blinking. But it's more. Better. From what they say, they're born with it. It's not a borrowed ability, a science-given ability. It's part of
their DNA.
And they're bad asses.
My eyes sweep the group. Their hands are already linked. I put Deegan behind me.
I know she could make them disappear. But a few of us might go too. She's not great on control yet.
I turn to Tate. “We're going. Now.”
“But,” he says mournfully, his eyes taking in the approaching Reflectives, “we have so much to learn.”
I give a disdainful chuff. “Ignorance is fine by me.”
My eyelashes, nonexistent just minutes ago, tickle my cheek as I blink over my still-raw eyeballs.
Then we're gone.
*
Pax
“Shit!” I sit up straight and immediately bang my head on something. Rubbing it, I duck and notice it's a solid wood top bunk. Not having a lot of luck with this bed style.
Zero give. Probably have a dent in my thick skull.
Frank stands, startling me.
He's been sitting in the corner, watching me sleep.
Not creepy at all. Shee-it.
“You're awake.”
Looks like it. I manage a smile.
Lowell flops upside down, hanging from the upper bunk. His fine orange hair falls, like a halo of fire around his head. “You slept a long time, mister.”
I almost whack myself again, but am just smart enough to dip my head before I go to stand.
Turning, I face them both, and Lowell bounces to his knees. “Mama's better!” He starts jumping on the bed.
Frank doesn't tell him to stop.
He looks at me for a solid minute. When tears begin to trail down his face, he angrily wipes them away. “Men don't bawl like babies,” he says in his own defense. “But I can't seem to quit.”
“Men cry when their women live,” I say.
Frank strides to me then gives me a bone-crushing hug. “I don't know what you did, son, but you honest-to-God healed Patty.”
He pulls away, shakes me once, hard. “I'm so damned glad I fished you outta the drink.” Frank seems to suddenly become aware his arms are still around me and gives a nervous laugh, stepping back. He reminds me of Gramps some. Seems like men from the twentieth were so much more concerned about physical affection. Weird.
Patty steps inside the room, and her skin tells the story. It's no longer waxy and sickly yellow. Instead, fresh pink creeps across cheekbones no longer hollowed out by disease.
“Is it possible to feel better than before I was sick?”
I nod. “It's an after effect. You'll go back to normal in a few days. In my time, they call it Healing Euphoria.”
“Well, I feel pretty euphoric!” she says, twirling around in a full circle.
Lowell’s and Frank's eyes sparkle with their happiness.
After a minute, I say, “Hey, you guys, ya got the time?” I automatically touch where my disc is hidden. Of course, there's nothing there to glean. My disc is dead to info because I'm circa 1970. Crazy.
Weird as fuck to not have information instantly available.
“Sure,” Frank looks at his wristwatch (just like my dad insists on wearing, though I don't know why).
“Straight up eleven o'clock.”
Shit. Late.
“I gotta go.” I rush down the dimly lit hall and to the front door. I rip it open and stare into what Kent must have looked like nearly a hundred years before my time. Rural. Dark. Light pollution a thing yet to come.
“Um...” I turn so my profile is lit by one of the million lamps around the house, energy guzzling be damned. I give a slight shake of my head. “How do I get back to the lake?”
Frank smiles. “I'll take you. Heck—I'd take you to the moon if you asked.”
“That's funny,” Lowell says, skipping over to our position, “a guy just landed there last year. Mama and Daddy watched on TV.”
That's right. 1970.
I ruffle his hair. Nice kid.
Looking at the family, I think, Scratch that, nice family. Even if Frank did punch me.
*
The lake's a black hole. Unseen waves lap gently at the edges of a shore silvered by a moon on the wane. My clothes are still damp from earlier.
You don't know how much ya miss dry clothes until you have to sit in shit that's wet for a few hours.
“You're going to hop back in that water?” Frank asks in disbelief.
I blink. My second eyelid covers my eyes, and everything becomes crystal clear.
When I turn my attention to Frank, I spot an old scar across the bridge of his nose. Probably got it when he was a kid.
“Yeah.”
“How?” Lowell raises his thumb to put it in his mouth then realizes and changes direction at the last second, stuffing his wayward digit into his pocket.
I explain that blinking isn't just parallel-world travel; it's being able to see better than I can in daylight. Better than anyone can see.
Lowell smiles. “Cool!”
“Yeah, mostly.”
I don't know really that blinking is cool, since I've always had the talent. Sometimes, I just wanted to be a mundane, a normal.
Right now, I'm fucking relieved I have the talent. So I can get back.
Patty walks over to me, and rising up on her tiptoes, she kisses me lightly on the cheek.
Heat infuses my face.
“You act tough, but you're not where it counts,” she says, cupping my cheek, then steps away.
“Thank you, Paxton.”
I nod. “Welcome.”
“What can we do? To improve the future?” Frank asks suddenly, eyeing the lake I'm at the edge of.
I don't want to mess up the future. But I have an answer that doesn't give anything away and still offers whatever wisdom I can.
Or so I think.
Looking at Lowell, I say, “Give everything you've got to him. Make him aware. Make him see.”
Turning away from them, I walk into the water. Icy waves instantly drench my denims.
This sucks. As I dive beneath the surface, my breath is wrenched from my throat.
Then I see the worlds.
Relief swamps my guts, calming the roil.
When I see mine, I blink again. This time, to my home.
My time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hugh Easter
I hate the Hart clan.
In fact, the word hate is too soft. I'm going for loathe to be exact.
Saying I want them to go die is also too soft. I'm fond of perish.
I'm stirred from my musings as a huge ruckus erupts.
The group who'd been torn from this earth to another come back only ten seconds after they left.
Too bad.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if that Mover who came through and grabbed that pesky Hart girl dropped her into one of her own black holes?
My lips flatten. Oh well, can't have it all.
Thompson had assured me that he had within his arsenal of talents a five-point Mover, or whatever the equivalent is in his earth.
The Hart family calls it blinking or zapping. Paxton Hart can blink, and the girl brat can zap.
What she doesn't know is her extraordinary talent is called Moving for a reason—the ability to transport garbage, people, and parts to an uninhabitable earth.
She's a waste, unless she could be bred, which was Brad Thompson's goal.
But this earth is a barren wasteland. Though women of fertile age are starting to pop up pregnant in very low numbers, they're normals. Not Randoms.
Brad promises me on his world, women are fertile. Sanction’s goal is to have these dangerous Hart assholes somewhere else—put the Hart girl somewhere that she's just a baby maker.
Brad can deal with her.
I don't give ten shits myself. I just want my zombie operation to continue, unfettered by the Harts, and with Clement and Brad Thompson in charge somewhere I'm not. So I have the power.
If fucking Drextel Tate had kept his bleeding-heart nose away from sniffing out the Harts, this entire day would not
have happened.
But somehow someone alerted Randoms for Humanity, and they came a-running. The old coot running the show should be dead. But rumor has it he's got the ear of the president—and has used regeneration successfully enough to hang on well past his natural lifespan.
The only way to get the Harts out of here is enacting Sanction law. I want to do whatever I wish with the zombie population, and I don't want to deal with illegals, Harts, or basically any interference with what has become the most lucrative trade on earth.
Zombie slave labor.
*
Deegan
I crash land on top of Mitchell.
He grins, not minding the position one bit.
I smack him, and he gives a dark chuckle, standing with me in his arms.
Our good humor fades as my eyes catch on my brother marching in our direction with thunder on his face.
Stop, Pax.
No way, he got you knocked up!
This sounds like a bad pulsemmercial.
I had something to do with it.
His step falters. God, Dee.
I shrug. Had to grow up sometime.
So obviously?
Mitchell takes one look at my brother's face and puts me behind him.
“He's not going to hurt me, Mitchell.” I roll my eyes.
Pax gets to our position, glowering at my zombie lover. “Yeah, Mitch—kinda insulting.”
Mitchell doesn't miss an opportunity to stir things up. “Temper, temper, Pax.”
Pax's hands fist.
I move in front of Mitchell. “I wanted to be pregnant.”
Somewhere in the background, a few people groan. I don't have to guess at who they are.
“It's every girl's dream here, Pax. You know it.” I search his eyes until he casts his away, sweeping hair off his face. “I know.” His eyes do a quick scan of the people gathered, and when he spies Tara, he takes a final long look at me and leaves my side.
Dumped for Mitchell's sister. But the thought brings a smile. I'm happy, if he is.
Mitchell watches Pax and Tara reunite.
Uh-oh.
There's a flavor, a quality to people who've been intimate. It's pretty obvious that Pax and Tara might have done more than kissing.
Especially since she's pregnant too—flashing pulse informant and all. Oops.
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