Bad Behavior (The Last Time Traveler Book 3)

by Aaron J. Ethridge

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Rob,” Morgan thought, “I have a question.”

  “What is it, Morgan?” Robert asked, glancing back over his shoulder at the invisible young man.

  “Why didn't we just break in back in time when James the first is asleep upstairs? Then, we wouldn't have needed the remote control unit.”

  “Setting up the remote was no big deal,” Robert pointed out. “Plus, we could work on it in the safety of the ship. Tonight, we'd already knocked the guard out and Cleo's already cracked the code on the door to the lab.”

  “Then, why did she need to go with Azure?”

  “I didn't recover the current password, Morgan,” Cleo explained. “I bypassed the lock using a particular algorithm.”

  “Couldn't you have shown her how to do that?”

  “She probably could have,” Azure replied, “but, I wouldn't have wanted to go down here alone, anyway.”

  “Not to mention the fact that we didn't know James' door was locked,” Cleo pointed out. “So, there was no reason for me to go with you guys.”

  “I guess I can see that,” Morgan nodded. “You know, it's awesome being able to talk like this when we're in two different places.”

  “Yeah,” Robert replied. “It's almost like having a cell phone with an earpiece. Now, would you shut-up? I can hardly hear myself think.”

  “Sure thing,” Morgan thought quietly.

  By this time, the young men (I know one is ancient but, at that moment, they were both physically young) had reached the door of James the fourth's bedroom. For several silent seconds, Robert stared down at the lock.

  “Cleo,” he thought, “I absolutely hate to admit it, love, but, I'm actually not sure how to go about this.”

  “You don't know what to do?” she asked playfully.

  “I'm not sure what to do. There is a difference.”

  “Care to explain that difference to me?”

  “I don't have time,” he bluffed. “Either way, having given it some thought, I'm guessing that, as this lock isn't plugged into the rest of the system, it probably has an independent power system, as well.”

  “Probably,” she agreed.

  “So, Vox can't just cut the power to the door.”

  “Probably not.”

  “And, if I trip the alarm, we'll be crawling in robots in no time.”

  “Almost certainly.”

  “That being the case, I need to get this right the first time.”

  “Do you want me to come up there?”

  “I don't think so,” Robert replied. “I'm pretty sure you can help me from where you are.”

  “I don't know, Rob. You know I have hard time when I can't see what I'm working on.”

  “I know, dear,” he said. “Everyone brace yourself. This will be a little weird at first.”

  “Ahhh!” Morgan thought fractions of a second later, accidentally throwing himself to the floor.

  Fortunately, he managed to remain relatively silent, in spite of this tumble.

  “I told you to brace yourself,” the traveler said.

  “You should have told me not to move, as well!” Morgan thought in reply. “This is crazy!”

  “You're just seeing through my eyes,” Robert explained. “If it's too much for you, pull the headband off for a sec.”

  “No, I'm alright,” the young man replied. “It's actually kind of cool. It's like being able to see with four eyes.”

  “It kind of is,” the traveler agreed. “Now, shut-up again. Cleo, you see what I'm seeing?”

  She did. In just over two minutes, she had him open the correct access panel, hook up the hand-held computer he was using, and successfully reverse the locked and unlocked signals on the door. Seconds later, Morgan and Robert were standing by James Morgan's bedside, spraying knockout-gas in his face.

  They quickly ran a complete brain scan on him and pulled a single blood cell from his body. This done, they relocked the door and headed in the direction of the girls.

  “How did you do that, Rob?” Morgan thought as they snuck down a hallway, carefully avoiding a wandering robot.

  “Do what?”

  “Show us what you were seeing. I didn't know these things could do that.”

  “Until yesterday, you didn't even know these things existed.”

  “I guess that's true. Still, that doesn't tell me how to do it.”

  “It's not the easiest thing in the universe to do,” Robert replied. “They're not really designed for it. You basically have to think what you're seeing almost as speech patterns that will be interpreted as visual stimulus.”

  “What?”

  “It's hard to explain,” the travel said, “but, you actually kind of know how to do it already.”

  “No, I don't.”

  “Yes, you do. It was part of that mind management stuff you were programmed with. You just have to conceptualize it almost as you would another mind.”

  “Oh,” Morgan replied. “I think I get you. So, kind of like this...”

  “Ahhh!” almost all of his companions thought-screamed at once.

  “Not exactly!” Robert barked in his mind.

  “Sorry.”

  “You know, Morgan, it's a really bad idea to try something new when we're in the middle of a mission.”

  “I feel ya.”

  “Good,” Robert nodded. “Now, let's get this job done and get out of here before we get ourselves caught.”

  That's exactly what they did. Less than half-an-hour later, they were all safely back on the bridge. Doc took James Morgan's blood cell and got a beautiful clone-bud growing in one of the clone tanks. (Obviously, it was only beautiful from a scientific point of view. For the first few hours of a clone's life, they aren't exactly attractive. In fact, they're kind of nasty looking. They don't go through a baby-phase unless you happen to be growing a baby. Imagine what a full-size meat-man looks like before its skin grows on. That's why clone tanks have shields to cover them. Nobody wants to see that.)

  At Morgan's insistence, the entire crew spent an hour in the dojo. His plan, of course, had been to show the girls his mad skills. However, this plan was undone by Doc, who had him spend the entire hour stretching out. By the time he was done, he was too sore to display any mad skills. As a result, he suggested they go bowling again.

  This was vetoed by Robert, who wanted to play poker instead. Morgan made some sort of innuendo about the possible stakes that the girls didn't completely follow, causing Robert to threaten him with slap-poker. After roughly two hours, Robert had a wide smile on his face, and a majority of the chips on his side of the table.

  The last few hours of the evening were filled with more of Morgan's mindless chatter, several stacks of flapjacks, and several servings of space ice-cream. Vox decided that he was simply too tired to stay up any longer at around nine o'clock. So, he wished everyone a good night and he and Celeste went to bed. Although, his I'm sleepy ruse didn't actually fool any of them, none of them were so indelicate as to point that fact out; not even Morgan.

  The next couple of days were burned through with filling up their time as best they could. The menfolk spent some of the time doing research the girls didn't know anything about, while the girls spent a fair amount of time at the gun range, helping Celeste improve her technique. Morgan started putting on his cologne again and getting as close to Azure as he could as often as he could, hoping to wear her down. By the end of day two, it hadn't done much more than make her go back to taking deep breaths off his chest. Still, that was enough to make him feel like it had been worth all the effort.

  As soon as the clone popped out of the oven, they dropped him off in his clone-ship, headed back a little further in time to drop off the video equipment, and set out for Never Never Land.

  “Hit it, Cleo,” Robert said the moment the ship materialized.

  “Yes, Sir,” she nodded, quickly pushing a series of buttons. “The time-machine is ready to pick up James the first... The clone wok
e him up and got him to go home... I'm playing the video... And... basically nothing's changed...”

  “What?!” the traveler exclaimed. “Did that idiot ignore my message?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, shaking her head. “He waited two more days before he went to see his grandson.”

  “Why would that have changed?”

  “You know,” Morgan mused. “The way you said it, he may have thought that you meant he just needed to be careful and that he shouldn't have gone that particular morning.”

  “That's insane, Morgan! I clearly warned him of the danger!”

  “You also told him how great his great-grandson was,” Morgan pointed out. “You were all like: the dude's awesome but, don't go meet him.”

  “I wasn't anything like that.”

  “You were just like that,” Morgan disagreed. “Either way, we need to take a break and have a date night.”

  “Oh no!” Robert replied, shaking his head. “This has become a quest! This job should have been done in less that fifteen hours and we've been at it for days now. We're not doing anything else until we wrap this up.”

  “Then, let's wrap it up!”

  “We're going to,” Robert assured him, pressing the buttons he needed to send the ship into non-space. “Then, after that, we're absolutely doing date night.”

  Chapter 4: One More Time

  “So,” Morgan said, slipping into his seat, “what's the plan, exactly?”

  “We're going to get James the first to record a message to himself,” Robert replied, turning to his friend and gently snuffing the air. “You need to lay off that cologne. I keep telling you, you're going to get Azure jaded to it.”

  “You may be right,” the young man sighed. “I've spent the last few hours sitting right by her, covered in it, trying to break her will. All it's gotten me is a lot of chest sniffing.”

  “She has a lot of willpower,” the traveler pointed out.

  “Too much,” Morgan nodded in agreement. “Still, chest sniffing is better than nothing.”

  “Agreed. Now, go take a shower. I'm not going on a job with you when you smell like that. I also laid the clothes out that you need to wear on your bed.”

  “Alright, I guess. How long have we got?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “Awesome! That gives me enough time to put on a little more cologne and try one last time. If I don't get her to kiss me soon, I'm going to end up dying of neglect.”

  “I'm sure you'll make it,” Robert chuckled. “As soon as we're done with this, it's date night time. After that...”

  “She won't kiss me,” the young man interjected with a slightly bitter tone. “Not unless you kiss Cleo.”

  “Maybe I'll be able to,” the traveler said. “After all, it's been a few days. I'm feeling pretty much under control. Well, as under control as I ever feel. You'll still need to keep a tranq-gun on you, of course.”

  “Happy to. Next time, I think I am just going to shoot you. I don't want to accidentally break your face or my fist, even if Doc can fix 'em both.”

  “I see your point. Anyway, I assure you that, if Cleo gives me even the slightest hint of encouragement, I fully intend to kiss her after the date.”

  “Here's hoping,” Morgan smiled. “I'll meet you back up here in a couple of hours. Until then; I'm on the hunt.”

  “Good luck!”

  Morgan's luck wasn't good. Not that it was bad, really. Azure was clearly into him, if you know what I mean. This didn't, however, result in her kissing him. Instead, it resulted in the girls deciding to go to Cleo's room for a little girl-talk after about an hour; from which he was excluded. This fact forced him to cede defeat for the time being.

  As he had nothing better to do, he headed for his room, took a long, cold shower – doing his best to remove all traces of Eau de Morgan – and got himself dressed in the clothes Robert had provided for him. These consisted of black shoes and socks, black pants, a black shirt, and what appeared to be a black lab coat. The only thing Morgan could figure was that they were going to show up right before James the first died, dressed like undertakers and claiming to be the ghosts of future past or something.

  “Why are we dressed like this?” Morgan asked as he stepped back onto the bridge.

  “We're supposed to be doctors,” Robert explained, handing the young man a pill and a glass of water. “Take this.”

  “Alright,” he replied, immediately doing as he was told. “Although, we're not dressed anything like doctors. What is this, by the way?”

  “We're not dressed like doctors from Earth,” Robert pointed out, “However, we are dressed just like doctors or, more specifically, psychiatrists from Kreple. And, it's a micro-transponder.”

  “So, I just swallowed a transmitter?”

  “Of a kind.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “Perfectly,” Robert assured him.

  “What should we wear?” Cleo asked, gazing at Robert from under a single raised eyebrow.

  “I like what you're wearing now,” the traveler smiled. “Both you girls look scalding hot.”

  “Be serious, Rob,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh,” he chuckled. “I'm serious.”

  “He's right,” Morgan nodded.

  “Alright,” she replied, tilting her head to the side. “Well, how does Azure and I being scalding hot fit into your current plan?”

  “It gives me and Morgan a reason to come back alive,” Robert explained. “We're going in alone.”

  “No, you're not,” she assured him.

  “Yes, we are,” he assured her even more.

  “Rob...”

  “Cleo,” he interrupted, “we're breaking into a minimum security asylum. The only weapons we're going to be taking with us are disguises, fake credentials, and a lot of lies. I love you, honey, but deception isn't really where you shine.”

  “Not compared to you,” she ceded.

  “It's easy to explain why a famous doctor would bring a single associate with him to a psychiatric evaluation,” he continued. “Explaining away four of us would be rather more difficult.”

  “I suppose I can see that,” she sighed.

  “Plus, we won't be gone long.”

  “Why did we need to swallow those transponders?” Morgan asked.

  “So the girls can keep an eye on exactly where we are,” Robert explained.

  “Sure, but, I mean; why couldn't we have just worn transponders.”

  “They may search us.”

  “Even so...” Morgan began.

  “They may strip-search us,” Robert interrupted.

  “I see...” the young man replied thoughtfully. “You know, on second thought, it might be a good idea for the girls to...”

  “Shut-up, Morgan,” all three of his companions interjected.

  “There is one tricky thing we have to deal with,” Robert pointed out.

  “What's that?” Azure asked.

  “The Kreplians don't speak common,” the traveler explained. “So, Morgan and I need to be programmed with Kreple Prime.”

  “Is that what it's called?” the young man asked.

  “Who cares? Let's go talk to Doc.”

  They went to talk to Doc.

  “If you can program us on the ship,” Morgan began, “why do we ever take the time to go to induction?”

  “I can program us with a few simple things,” Doc replied, pushing buttons on a nearby panel, “just as I can backup or rewrite memories. However, many things are too complex for the ship's computers to handle. For instance, I could rewrite your memory where you would remember knowing kung fu but, you wouldn't actually know how to fight using it.”

  “No offense, Doc, but that's crazy talk.”

  “No, it's not,” Doc chuckled. “I can't program you with the muscle memory you would need to use kung fu effectively. Sister can. Basic memories are, in most cases, somewhat indistinct, Morgan. How many times have you seen Star Wars?”


  “I have no idea,” Morgan replied. “A lot.”

  “Can you repeat every line of dialog?” Doc asked.

  “Not every line.”

  “Can you tell me what it was about?”

  “Absolutely,” Morgan smiled, “You see: a long time ago...”

  “My point is that your memory of the movie, isn't the movie, Morgan,” Doc interrupted. “I could program you to remember reading a book. Sister could program you where you could repeat it verbatim.”

  “I got ya.”

  “Good. Now, let me finish.”

  Just minutes later, Morgan could speak Kreple Prime. Doc explained that another advantage induction had was that it could program you far more quickly. Sister would have had him speaking Kreple Prime in mere seconds. (Obviously, the language wasn't called Kreple Prime. Kreple isn't a planet, it's a type of German doughnut. However, Morgan didn't know that.) Just minutes after this, Robert was also programmed up and ready to go.

  The pair made some last minute preparations, including printing out their fake IDs, just before the ship dropped into real space. As soon as it had, they hopped in the car, flew invisibly to the top of a parking garage near where they were headed, jammed the security cameras just long enough for them to hop out and make their way to the elevator, walked down to the street and caught a cab. They were taken to the target asylum where Robert paid the cabby as well as giving him a ridiculously large tip, just before the pair made their way to the guardhouse.

  A quick check of the schedule revealed that Doctor Howard and Doctor Fine did, in fact, have an appointment with Doctor Burrman. After a quick no-strip-search, they were allowed into the facility and directed to the doctor's office. Just seconds after they knocked on the door, a rather tall and attractive woman attired entirely in black answered it.

  “Doctor Howard?” she asked, extending her hand to Morgan.

  “Actually, I'm Doctor Howard, Doctor Burrman,” Robert replied. “This is Doctor Fine.”

  “It's a pleasure to meet you both,” she replied with a smile, offering her hand to Robert. “Won't you please come in and sit down?”

  “I want to let you know how much I appreciate this, Doctor Burrman,” Robert said, sitting down in one of the rather lavish chairs in front of the doctor's massive dark-wood desk. “I think I may dedicate an entire chapter to this case.”