Jump Starting the Universe Book Bundle

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Jump Starting the Universe Book Bundle Page 81

by John David Buchanan


  Soe shook his head violently and dropped out of sight below the window sill.

  “That’s not good,” said Wayne, who stood up. “I’m going to find a back door.”

  He slipped outside the restaurant without being noticed and found Soe crouching under the window.

  “Soe, is something wrong?” asked Wayne.

  “Tonight. They will take our champion tonight,” said Soe. “Our friends have told us he will be taken in his sleep.”

  “What about the Listirna leaves,” asked Wayne. “How are they going to drug him?”

  Soe looked distraught and began to shake uncontrollably. “We tried to find you,” he said. “Ute and Kar are also looking. But I was too late.” He shook again, then composed himself and continued. “All the restaurants in the government sector have a license to operate issued by the Chancellor’s office. They are revocable for any cause. It is widely known the Chancellor obtains favors any time he desires. They will not tell him no.”

  “What does that have to do with us?” asked Wayne, who suspected he already knew the answer and he wasn’t happy about it.

  “You have all been drugged.” Soe began to tremble again. “You must go to your hotel. I will find Ute and Kar. We will stand watch and make sure nothing happens to you.”

  “All of us? Wayne was expecting to find out Blackie had been drugged, but not all of them. “Can we do anything? Is there an antidote?”

  “Soe quit trembling. Yes, if they used Listirna we have already found an antidote and placed it in your hotel rooms with instructions. You must go, now.”

  Wayne turned and walked back inside. Before anyone could ask what happened he blurted out, “We’ve been drugged. We have to leave now before it takes effect. Amelia, could you go to the counter and pay the bill. We can’t wait for the waiter, they may try to stall us. There’s more. We can talk on the way.”

  As they walked, almost ran, to their hotel Wayne told them what Soe had said. “I assume Soe has gone to find Ute and Kar.”

  “Joules, this is great,” said Blackie.

  “Great? How is this great? We’ve been poisoned”

  “Well, aside from that issue, since we’ve got the antidote, after I’m abducted I’ll be able to sneak back and watch you teach the big kahuna a lesson.”

  It wasn’t long before they arrived at the hotel, but Soe and his friends were nowhere to be found. The lobby was empty and no one was behind the reception desk.

  “Don’t you find this a little disturbing?” asked Joules. “When have we ever been in a hotel and no one was in the lobby.” She looked around and checked behind the front desk. “No staff, no visitors, I think we are the only ones here.”

  Amelia was scanning the hallways but she couldn’t see anyone either. “We should go to our rooms, find the antidote and then one of us can come down and wait for Soe,” she recommended.

  “I agree. I don’t want to pass out in the lobby,” said Blackie.

  They walked down a short hallway to the elevators, but when the doors opened Wayne blocked them from entering.

  “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.” Wayne looked into the elevator, but he wasn’t sure what he was hoping to see. Everything looks normal, he thought, but then Dr. Hannibal Lecter looked normal too, didn’t he?

  The rest of them were trying to peer into the elevator from behind his back. The elevator sat with its doors wide open, like it was begging them to come inside. They stood there for several minutes, but the elevator didn’t close. The scene was reminiscent of the fire at the Phoenix Hotel, and how the elevator had mysteriously returned to the lobby, like it was beckoning them to escape. This elevator didn’t have a positive vibe. It felt more like a trap.

  “Doesn’t appear that anyone’s keen on using the elevator this evening,” said Amelia.

  “This isn’t the exactly the Sub Bar elevator is it,” commented Blackie. “I was thinking, for safety’s sake we need to leave this common area, and the sooner we’re upstairs taking take that antidote the better.”

  “Let’s take the stairs,” said Wayne, who turned and went to the stairwell. “Unbelievable, the door is locked.”

  “Not for long,” said Amelia. Rumbling through her backpack she found a small silver tool with fold out pins. In seconds, she had picked the lock and opened the door. “My dad was fascinated by locks,” she explained as Wayne looked at her with a bewildered expression. “He taught me how to open them.”

  “Good for your dad,” said Blackie, and he stepped into the stairwell. “Let’s get to our rooms. We’ll go to your suite first,” he said, looking at Joules and Amelia. “If there’s any trouble, find a safe way back to the lobby and get out of the hotel. They want me and there’s no sense in anyone else getting hurt.”

  They made their way up five flights of stairs to the girls’ suite without any trouble. They didn’t meet anyone in the hallway and they all noticed it was unnaturally quiet. Joules opened the door and they went inside. Everything appeared to be just as they had left it. On the counter, she found a note from Soe, with instructions for taking the Listirna antidote. After taking it, they headed to the guys’ suite that was twelve doors down the hall.

  No one was in the halls. None of the typical hotel noises whispered in the background. No voices echoed from the rooms, no machines were whirring, and no entertainment centers blaring - nothing. It was unnaturally quiet.

  Wayne opened the door expecting a ransacked room, but it was exactly as they’d left it. Blackie walked across the room and found a note from Soe on the coffee table. It gave the same directions for taking the antidote; mix it in warm water and drink it immediately. Wayne had already retrieved two glasses of water and handed them to Blackie, who mixed the powder in each glass, handed one to Wayne and said, “Here’s to your health. Cheers.”

  “Now what?” asked Amelia, as the guys downed their drink.

  “I’ll can go downstairs to wait for Soe,” offered Wayne. “Ugh, you could have warned us about the nasty taste.”

  “I was afraid you might not drink it,” said Amelia, and she promptly gave him the 'I-know-you' look.

  “You three can hang out here. I’ll go downstairs and when they arrive, I’ll bring them up.” Wayne smacked his lips and made another grimace. “Disgusting.”

  “OK, we’ll wait here,” agreed Joules. “Is that okay with you, Blackie?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. I’m going downstairs,” said Wayne and he headed for the door.

  “I need to get something from our room,” said Amelia. “I’ll be right back.”

  Blackie caught Joules’ gaze. His eyes were narrowed and the creases in his forehead deepened. He made toward Joules as she turned toward the door, and tipped her off to what he was thinking.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Joules, popping off the sofa to join Amelia and Wayne as they stepped into the hallway.

  Wayne went straight to the stairwell to find Soe and his friends. Amelia found the notebook she was looking for, then she and Joules went back to the other room. They knocked on the door but there was no answer, so they waited a moment and knocked again.

  “I don’t like this,” said Joules, who knocked on the door a third time. Still, there was no answer.

  Amelia tried her lock tool, but it wouldn’t work; the keyhole had been plugged. “We should get Wayne. Blackie may have had a reaction to the drug or the antidote.”

  They ran down five flights of stairs as fast as they could go and burst into the hotel lobby. Through the panels of glass on the front of the hotel they could see Wayne outside. Soe, Ute and Kar were approaching from the far side of the parking lot. Joules shot through the front door with Amelia right behind her and yelled, “Wayne, something is wrong. Blackie won’t come to the door.”

  “Maybe he can’t,” but before Wayne could react, Soe, Ute and Kar ran up to them, all talking excitedly at the same time. They couldn’t understand a word each other was saying over the ruckus from three pe
ople jabbering at the top of their lungs.

  Wayne held up his hand and they stopped talking. “We need to go upstairs. There is something wrong with Blackie.” Wayne turned to go but stopped when Soe grabbed his arm.

  “That is what we were trying to tell you,” said Soe. “What we told you was true, you were all drugged with Listirna leaves. But…but Blackie was given an additional drug. It was in his drink.”

  Wayne bolted to the front door, threw it open and ran to the stairwell. Joules was right on his heels and slipped through the stairwell door before it closed. Amelia was right behind them, but noticed something had changed and stopped before she made it to the door. A hotel host was behind the check-in counter, and farther down the hallway hotel staff were milling around the restaurant entrance. The check-in host asked if she needed assistance with something as she approached the desk.

  “No. I don’t need your assistance with anything. But you need to hear this, and you had better repeat it to the right people. I’m sure you know who they are. If I find out any of the management or staff of this hotel colluded to hurt our friend Blackie, there is no place on this planet you will be able to hide from us. And yes, that means exactly what you think it means.”

  Fear swept across the host’s wide-eyed face. It was only then Amelia realized Soe, Ute and Kar had not gone upstairs. They were standing right behind her with satisfaction written on their faces. Amelia moved away from the counter intending to go to the stairwell, but Kar stepped past her and confronted the host.

  “They are the Wanderers. They have come as it was foretold by Elo. Whatever has been done with the help of your hands, it would be wise if it were undone as soon as possible.”

  Kar turned toward the others, “We should try to help upstairs,” and marched to the elevator.

  “You think it’s safe?” asked Amelia as the doors opened.

  “I’m sure it is now.”

  They reached the fifth floor without incident and proceeded down the hallway. Several rooms away they could tell the door to Wayne’s room was standing wide open, and when they reached the door they found Wayne and Joules standing in the middle of the room, near the sofa. Their expressions told Amelia something wasn’t good.

  “He’s gone,” said Wayne as they approached. “There’s no sign of a struggle. I expect the second drug kicked in and they carted him off.”

  Amelia leaned over and picked up a small dart from the floor. “I’m sure this was somehow involved.” She held the flared end and showed it to the others briefly, then threw it in the trash.

  At that moment Blackie was semi-unconscious in the back of a delivery transport. In the brief time Joules and Amelia were gone he had become light headed. The sliding balcony door was thrown open and he was shot with a tranquilizer gun, carried to the elevator. When they reached the third floor he was loaded in a cargo elevator that went to the basement, where he was promptly loaded into a transport.

  Except for the dart’s puncture wound right between his shoulder blades, he wasn’t hurt. That was a perfect shot, he remembered thinking, as he crumpled to the floor. Now, he could hear their muffled talking, saying he hadn’t passed out completely, and they were concerned he might remember what they looked like, or where they were taking him.

  One of the kidnappers suggested shooting him with the dart gun again. Blackie didn’t like that idea much at all, but he knew in his condition, he couldn’t fight them off, and if he tried he was sure to be darted again. So, he waited and tried to be as quiet and still as possible. You have to know when to act, he thought, although he wasn’t entirely sure anything he was seeing or hearing was real. Maybe it was the effects of the drugs and the tranquilizer dart. He might not be in a truck at all.

  He wasn’t sure how long they drove but he could tell they had driven into some hills or mountains because he felt himself sliding toward the backdoors. When the van came to a halt, he was carried into a small cabin at the edge of a lake.

  Honestly, he thought, they’re not very good at this. They didn’t bother to blindfold me.

  His captors laid him on the sofa and stood around congratulating themselves for a long time. They were so busy feeling good about how well the kidnapping went they didn’t hear it; a small transport had settled to the ground less than fifty yards away.

  The drug is wearing off, thought Blackie, and seconds later he heard the unmistakable sound of a branch snapping under someone’s heavy foot. Not stealthy, whoever they are.

  It was then his captors decided to leave him in the cabin. After all, he was still unconscious and they were told once he woke up he could find his way back to town.

  They all agreed it was time to leave, and on the way out one of them took the opportunity to punch Blackie in the back of the head. As he watched the stars swimming in front of his face, Blackie thought, “He’s going to regret that.”

  “Later Wanderer,” he laughed. “If you were, you wouldn’t be in this mess would you; abandoned helplessly in the lake district.”

  “Shut up, Nor. Our job doesn’t include giving him grief, and you don’t have a clue if he’s a Wanderer or not, so shut it.”

  “Lake District and someone named Nor. I’ll remember that,” thought Blackie, “and that punch.”

  The kidnappers stepped out onto the front porch of the cabin, and when they did, the scene exploded into chaos. Five Bantorians set upon them like hungry banshees. Blackie could hear the sounds of fighting and the grunts of his captors as they were pummeled. The fracas hadn’t lasted two minutes when the front door was kicked open, and five men in work clothes bearing the hotel’s insignia carried three bound and gagged kidnappers inside.

  “Very sorry about this,” said one of the workers, who proceeded to untie Blackie’s hands. “The hotel management and staff were threatened with severe repercussions if we didn’t look the other way when you were taken.”

  “Some of us didn’t take to kindly to that,” said a second worker. “We were told to look the other way, but they didn’t say anything about not intervening after you were taken.”

  “We’ve heard rumor of your odd spaceship,” said a third worker, “and we think you’re a Wanderer. Are you?”

  “And if you are a Wanderer,” chimed in the fourth worker, “can you explain the all-consuming-fire in Elo’s prophecy. Folks are nervous about that.”

  “I am a Wanderer,” conceded Blackie.

  The look of amazement on their faces made Blackie uneasy.

  “Look, I’m a normal guy. Just like you. It’s only the circumstances we’re in that makes me and my friends the wanderers. Help me back to the hotel. Then, go to the competition today and you can see the all-consuming-fire for yourself. That’s something you won’t want to miss, trust me.”

  “If we go now, we can be back at the hotel by midmorning,” said one of the workers.

  “Then let’s go,” said Blackie. “I’d like to know how my friends are getting on as soon as possible.”

  At the hotel Joules, Amelia and Wayne, and the Blue Bantorians, were discussing how quickly Blackie went missing.

  “They couldn’t have taken him if he were conscious,” said Joules.

  Soe let out an awful sounding groan, like he had a tremendous bruise and someone had punched it.

  “It’s alright, Soe,” said Joules, hoping to comfort him. “This was the original plan. Blackie was sure it would work out this way. It will be alright, I’ll be your champion.”

  Soe and his friends stood with slumped shoulders, and their heads hung low toward the ground. They couldn’t speak. They stood there, staring downward, not able to express what all three of them were thinking. Their body language indicated a complete lack of confidence and fear that all their plans had come undone.

  “It will be alright,” repeated Joules. “I promise.”

  Soe lifted his head and looked at Joules. Only one response came to mind. He tried to choose his words carefully. But he could only think of one response, and he was afraid to sa
y it. They are the Wanderers, and he dare not say anything to them that might be deemed offensive in any way. Ute seemed to understand Soe’s silent struggle. Placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder, he looked at Joules and said, “He is big. You have seen him. The Chancellor is big.”

  For a moment no one said a word, then Wayne broke the silence. “Show them, Joules. They’re familiar with the prophecy. Show them what Elo’s words mean to us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, he’s sure, and I agree. Soe, Ute, Kar, would you come stand by the curtains with me, please.”

  As they joined Amelia, she stepped to the sliding doors that led to a small balcony and closed the curtains. “Show them, Joules.”

  Wayne closed the hallway door. Then, he walked to the counter separating the sitting area from the kitchen, took a seat on one of the tall stools, and looking at Joules said, “Let it rip.”

  She smiled back at Wayne and looked around the room. Then positioned herself near the hallway door. Without any warning, she began to glow intensely. It started in her hands, then spread up her arms and face, then down her chest and legs. When the glow reached her feet, flickers of searing hot white light burst out and formed a cone of gyrating loops of energy that reached within three feet of the floor.

  Bending her arm and holding the palm of her right hand facing out, she turned toward the corner of the room. A tubular beam of light six feet long shot from her hand and hung in the air making spitting sounds like drips of water dropped in a pan of hot grease. The Bantorians moved back a little, closer to the sliding door curtains.

  Amelia spoke to them softly, to ease the tension showing in their faces. “Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe,” she said with a slight smile. “Joules knows what she’s doing.”

  Joules nodded to Wayne, who winked at her and spontaneously picked a piece of fruit out of the basket on the counter and tossed it toward the sofa. Before it landed, the energy beam burst across the room and vaporized it in mid-air. Except for a pleasant aroma like cooked apples, nothing was left but a wisp of ash that drifted to the floor.

 

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