by Teya Tapler
Zander unlocked the cage and kneeled in front of her, the flashlight dangling on his wrist. Evan resisted him as he pulled the brown bag off her head: she kept her head high, eyes searching for help. He took her shoulders gently and looked into her eyes.
“Yeah. It’s okay … it’s okay.” Tears filled her eyes as she nodded in confirmation. He pulled the duct tape off her mouth and untied her hands. She started rubbing her sore wrists.
“Sylvester, Bugs Bunny needs your help.” Zander heard the male voice in his communicator again.
“Peter, who’s Bugs Bunny?” Zander replied back quietly. “Could you for once simply tell me what you need?”
Evan had wobbled from the cage and sat on one of the chairs in the middle of the room. She had her feet on the chair too, knees close to her chest, perched like a frightened bird. She was looking around the dark room, eyes moving frantically from item to item.
Before Zander finished his conversation, something shook the house. The music coming from upstairs was replaced by hysterical screams. Evan screamed, too. The theme of the party had changed.
“Yeah, she’s with me. I’ll come upstairs. I found something you might like.” Zander ended his conversation then turned to Evan.
“It’s okay… It’s okay,” he said, kneeling in front of her. She was not seeing him, squeezing her knees as close to her chest as possible, blindly looking through him. It took some time until she noticed him. Then she started gasping for air and looked around frantically. Her tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. He repeated his litany over and over while gently cleaning her tears with his thumbs. Her breathing slowly normalized. She had her eyes focused on his. In the dim light, his deep blue eyes looked black. He looked confused, not sure whether he should smile to encourage her, when she finally nodded a yes.
“Can you walk?” Zander asked.
She nodded again and held his hand getting up. They headed toward the stairs.
Someone opened the door, switched on the light, and ran down the stairs. Before Zander and Evan could hide, Kevin ran into Zander and they rolled onto the floor. Evan pressed her back against the bare wall and watched as the two guys tried to strangle and kill each other. First one of them prevailed, then the other. They furiously punched each other in the ribs, face and nose, rolled on the floor, pushed each other against the wall, twisted each other’s arms and fingers when the grip of their opponent became too strong, and then started all over again. Whatever was in their hands or pockets before was now lying on the floor around them.
Kevin saw the transcaster gun, quickly loaded a bullet and fired. Before Zander could get off the floor he got shot in the abdomen. He turned to his side, flashed in blue and then disappeared.
Evan screamed and kicked the table toward Kevin. The box fell on its side and the remaining transcaster bullets sprinkled on the floor. She continued screaming and tried to run, but Kevin kicked the table back and blocked her way to the stairs. Evan stopped moving and suddenly stopped crying. Her world had ended. A few minutes before, she was happy to see Zander saving her again, and now she didn’t know what to do. Zander was gone. Kevin had killed him. The bullet had hit Zander in front of her eyes. She saw him roll on the floor. Zander was gone. Evan felt very, very, very helpless and … lonely. There was a huge, empty space where her heart used to be.
“Now it’s your turn, Princess,” Kevin said, looking at the frightened girl.
Evan stood with her back at the wall, hair spread around her head, eyes wide open and hands searching the wall for something to grab, for something to throw at him, for something to protect herself with. The wall was coarse and the stones felt cold. She was alone, with no way to defend herself and no way to escape. She stood there completely vulnerable and helpless like a deer in headlights.
Kevin’s usually silly grin looked sinister. He searched for another transcaster bullet and bent to pick it up form under the table. Evan’s sobbing and frightened look had reassured him that she would not run away.
“Oh!” Kevin heard her sigh.
“Get outta there!” Kevin heard Zander’s voice and was pulled by the back of his jeans. He started kicking, trying to wiggle himself out of the firm grip.
“You deserve the right punishment,” Zander said, still pulling Kevin to the clearing on the floor.
Kevin turned back and tried to grab something to stop the pull. The idea of hiding under the table or even behind Evan seemed attractive. He was still contemplating his next move when Zander pulled the trigger. Kevin flashed in blue and his scared face faded away as he disappeared.
“Are you okay?” Zander pulled the table away from Evan and ran to her. She was still standing with her back against the wall, hair spread around her head, eyes wide open in disbelief. She was crying silently, tears falling one after another. He started cleaning them with his hands.
“W-what h-happened? I-I t-thought h-he k-killed you,” Evan stuttered, her big brown eyes looking at him through long, wet eyelashes.
“He sent me somewhere.” Zander said leisurely when the puzzled look on her face made him continue in a more normal tone. “This gun has the power to send the person hit by its bullets to a predefined location.” He continued to slowly wipe her tears with his hands. “When he sent me to that other place, I sent myself back here.”
“Will he … you know … come back, too?” Evan was slowly grasping the concepts.
“No … I sent him to a maximum security prison. They will take good care of him.” He reassured her and took her hand. ”Let’s go upstairs,” Zander led the way.
Chapter 20
Mary dialed the code to open the front gate. The huge, cast-iron doors slid open for her to drive through then closed behind her car as silently as they had opened. She followed the curve of the driveway under the heavy oak and linden trees. The Shtuttgarts were in the back seat. They’d left the hotel in a hurry and were still wearing their cocktail clothes. They had traveled silently from the hotel to the house of Mary’s cousin.
Agatha Shtuttgart, shoulders covered with a delicate woolen shawl, was looking straight ahead holding her purse as if it was a lifesaver. She hadn’t moved during their 30-minute drive. Her knuckles had turned white from her strong grip and probably the rest of her body was as tense.
Albert Shtuttgart looked more relaxed than his wife. He was leaning on the back seat, but Mary, who was closely watching him in the rear view mirror, recognized the signs of anxiety. The professor was consecutively peeking through each of the car windows as if trying to remember the way in case he had to return to their starting point alone. He never looked long enough through either window. He only spot-checked that there was still a window at that side of the car and that he could see through it. He looked like a person who was searching for something very dear to him.
Mary parked the car and let the Shtuttgarts into the house. The foyer was brightly lit by a crystal chandelier and its reflection off the wall mirror and the golden frames of the wall paintings. The sand-colored marble floor had reddish veins running thought the stone that created the feeling of having a lush carpet spread on the ground. The house felt warm and welcoming. The Shtuttgarts smelled coffee and cookies from the room to their left.
“We’ll take your suitcases and have some refreshments later,” Mary said, sensing that her guests were hungry as well as frightened and tired. “My cousin’s in his workshop at the back,” she continued. “Come this way!” She led them through the kitchen and the aroma of pork roast filled their noses. They walked through the back door to a small building in the backyard. Mary knocked at the door. “It’s me, Cousin Mary.”
“Come in!” A male voice responded.
Mary opened the door and let Agatha and Albert in first.
“These are the friends I told you about,” Mary said to the smiling Asian-looking man with spiky hair as she closed the door behind her back.
“Nice to meet you! I’m Peter,” Mary’s cousin said, his eyes still smiling at the guests.
He was sitting at the table, soldering an old radio receiver. Something was smoking on the table next to him. The room was filled with the obtrusive and heavy smell of solder. Agatha subconsciously wrinkled her nose.
“I’m Albert and that is my wife Agatha.” Professor Shtuttgarts presented both of them.
“Here, take a seat!” Peter moved two wooden chairs to the guests. “How may I help you?” He unplugged the soldering iron and put it on a shelf at a safe distance from his guests.
“We—” Mary started then corrected herself. “They—need pearl substitutes.”
Peter looked confused. She corrected herself again. “They need something to replace the five pearls that Professor Shtuttgart discovered over the last five years.”
“Oh, those pearls,” Peter exclaimed, intrigued.” I’ve never seen one of those in person. I’ve only seen the picture in the International Archeology magazine. The one where you and your family are at the dig holding the last pearl. I thought I’d never talk in person to Professor Shtuttgart, the very one who had discovered them all. And here you are in my humble home,” Peter said as if trying to convince himself that the man in his lab was the real Professor Shtuttgart.
Then he heard Emil’s voice in his ear, “Tell Zander to come upstairs.” Gun shots and rumbling sounds followed. “Now!”
“The pearls are quite interesting,” Professor Shtuttgart said. The unexpected attention to his work seemed to have relaxed him a little. His anxiety was gone and he confidently looked around at his audience. “One of them even glowed in the dark and—” he stopped abruptly when his wandering eyes landed on his crying wife. He looked back at Peter and quickly provided a summary of the pearl’s parameters. “We need something that looks like an ostrich egg, weighs 15 pounds, and has a multi-colored finish. It has to be polished and smooth as a glass.”
“And you need five of these, right?” Peter clarified and put his hand over his left ear pretending he had to scratch his head there. Emil’s voice came louder than before. “Come on Peter! Tell Zander to come upstairs. Now!”
“Yes,” Albert said.
“Okay. Mary,” Peter turned to his cousin, “take our guests to the house. I’ve asked the staff to prepare dinner for all of us. Our guests need to rest while I take care of this.”
“Peter, come on. Where are you, man?” Peter kept on hearing Emil’s voice in the communicator as Mary and the Shtuttgarts left the lab.
“Taz’s here,” finally Peter said after he closed the door.
“Tell Zander to come upstairs! There’re complications!” Emil yelled in his ear.
Peter switched over to Zander and said, “Sylvester, Bugs Bunny needs your help.”
“Who’s Bugs Bunny? Could you for once simply tell me what you need?” Zander replied.
“Emil encountered some complications. Over,” Peter said and ended the conversation. There were times he wished to be part of their operations group. He imagined himself sneaking in the dark and catching villains for the good of humanity and the galaxy. Today, Peter barely wanted to be part of the support group. The operation had become an across-the-globe logistics nightmare. Emil and Zander were in Massachusetts, he and Mary were in Switzerland and if he remembered correctly they had to magically show up in New York before five pm the next day, without breaking any rules, to deliver something they didn’t even have at the moment.
Peter started fabricating the pearl substitutes. After making sure they left no traces when obtaining the real pearls, there was no way they were going to give them to Mort. Peter carefully made a mold and began preparing the concrete mix to fill it up when another voice came through the communicator in his ear. There was too much background noise and he couldn’t distinguish the words. “Taz’s here,” Peter said.
“Drop that Looney Tunes stuff. Zander got transcasted,” Emil yelled in his ear again.
“I’m on it! He still has the implant, doesn’t he?” Peter asked while moving aside one of the shelf-covered walls to uncover a set of credit-card-sized holo-threens and their quietly humming, holographic three-fold screens. He sat behind one of them and started typing on the virtual keyboard. That was another thing he didn’t like, the accidents. In 2424, the transcaster guns were not available for communal use, but as all such things, they had reached the general public and were among the prized possessions of many gangsters. The Anaconda team never knew whether the person they had to secure would pull such a gun on them. Once someone was sent through time and space it was a matter of life and death.
“What were his last coordinates?” Peter asked hastily. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of Zander landing in a hostile environment.
Only the sounds of a battle came through as a response. Something or someone was being thrown around. Finally Emil’s response came then the sounds of the battle continued. “The basement of Mort’s house, about two minutes ago.”
Peter left the communication line with Emil open and continued typing on the virtual keyboard that was hanging mid-air in front of him. A map came up on the holographic screen and Peter started zooming in and out of it on various spots.
“Please show up. Please show up.” He spoke quietly to the monitor in front of him.
Every member of the Anaconda team had an implant at the base of their skulls. Its location was marked with a small, triangular tattoo which was only visible under infrared light. Those implants allowed Peter to locate every one of his teammates during their missions through time and space. That time he was searching for Zander. It wasn’t hard to find him. His implant was recently replaced and had a very strong signal.
Peter located Zander and dialed the coordinates on his transcaster gun with both hands. He then wrote his current coordinates on his left hand and put a pack of blue bullets and another transcaster gun in his pocket. Ready for anything he then shot at his foot.
Traveling with the help of a transcaster gun wasn’t painful. One could be shot on any part of their body. The bullets were not penetrating the skin or even the clothes of the person. They were dispersing at first contact and engulfing the subject with the blue material that then kicked off the time and space travel. One could say that it even tickled while doing that. The landing was the trickiest part as the traveler had to be prepared to find himself on the ground, underwater or mid-air. That time Zander was in a top-floor New York apartment, about two hours ahead in time.
Peter landed almost on top of Zander.
“Still having problems setting the coordinates?” Zander greeted him.
“Happy to see you too.” Peter tried to steady his gaze. “Emil said I could find you here and that you still have to go upstairs and help him.”
“Yeah, I had a complication of my own. Come’n send me back,” Zander said.
Peter gave Zander the additional transcaster gun and most of the bullets from his pocket then dialed the coordinates for the Morts’ house and shot at Zander. He flashed in blue and disappeared. Peter dialed the coordinates of the lab in Switzerland and looked around. He was standing in the middle of a penthouse suite taken out of a 20th-century James Bond movie. The floor was white marble. Everything was exquisitely decorated in red. From the window, he could see the buildings on the other side of the nearby park. In one of the portraits on the wall he saw - the face of Zull Mort who was posing next to the five pearls.
Peter made a mental note to remember those coordinates and transcasted himself. They would have to return here and at least look around the apartment that resembled one of the 906 Inquisitor’s hideouts. Back in the lab he prepared the concrete, filled in the molds and while the mixture was curing he went online to find a private jet.
Mary came in. She had removed her makeup and changed her clothes, turning back into the bubbly young woman that loved her cargo pants. “Our guests are sleeping. How’s everything else going?” she asked.
“Considering the various levels of complications experienced by different members—” Peter started, but Mary’s raised eyebrows m
ade him stop. He knew that she was interested in the summary only but he wanted to show off his intelligence and contribution.
“The pearls will be ready on time,” he said.
“Any luck with the jet?” she asked impatiently.
Peter browsed few web pages then looked at her.
“Yes. Call these guys.” He pointed to the phone number on the screen. “I’ll start packing the portable lab. We’re going to New York.”
Chapter 21
When Zander and Evan reached the top of the basement stairs, they found the door wide open and their classmates running toward the exit trying to avoid fallen students and tumbled furniture. Chairs and tables were toppled, the carpet torn, the white grand piano had lost a leg and some of its keys were sprinkled around it. The curtains were partially holding on. Even the pictures on the walls were no longer lined up. It was total and indescribable chaos. Screaming, yelling, hysterically laughing or quietly crying, the seniors, the rulers of the Hamptonville High School, were running to save their lives.
Evan reached for Zander’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could.
“I won’t leave you,” he squeezed her hand.
They followed the wall all the way to the marble staircase. That was the safest way to get anywhere without risking being run over by the stampede. Once at the foot of the staircase, they ran up to the second floor. There, Evan looked to the left and Zander to the right. Then Zander looked to the left and Evan to the right. The corridors at either side were quiet and seemed unaffected by the pandemonium in the rest of the house. For good or bad, all the doors were closed, the runners unharmed and the night lights on the ceiling were spreading an unobtrusive, soft light. Zander and Evan looked at each other and ran close to the open door to their left. They didn’t know what was going on in there, but every now and then something flew out. As they came close, they overheard a conversation going on in the middle the room. Zander clearly recognized the voices of Mort and Emil.