Fantastic Detectives

by Dean Wesley Smith

  And then with a bright flash, the warehouse went completely dark.

  “They jumped,” I said.

  “And as soon as they come back,” Ben said in the dark, “we’ll know if we are in the right time window.”

  “I hope so,” Lady Luck said, her voice beside me in the dark. “We have very little margin of error.”

  18

  FINDING HANK

  While the machines were gone I teleported to the front of the warehouse where I remembered a light switch being, and flipped it on.

  Overhead lights clicked on, showing the gigantic size of this slot graveyard. It had to be at least two football fields long and another one wide, and the slots were stacked on shelves a good twenty feet over my head in long rows from front to back.

  Laverne and Ben joined me and we went over to one side at the head of the aisle where the slots were. I pointed to a tarp that still seemed to be covering something, only if you looked hard, there was nothing there. The tarp just seemed to be floating in space. Some part of the machine never left the warehouse when it jumped.

  “My gut sense is that riding on the outside of this thing isn’t going to be a pleasant experience,” I said. “Hank will appear under that tarp, more than likely knocked out cold.”

  Both Laverne and Ben nodded.

  “I’m going to check the other doors to make sure none of them are unlocked or broken open from the inside,” I said. “I know he didn’t go out the front door because it had a padlock on it when we arrived the first time.”

  “Good thinking,” Ben said.

  I teleported to the back of the warehouse and checked the door on the right. Secure. I jumped to the garage door and it was also secure.

  Suddenly I heard Laverne in my head, They are returning.

  I jumped back to where they were just as the machine appeared under the tarp.

  There was no one in the chair under the tarp.

  Damn.

  The machines sat there, covered, their glow taunting me, pulling me to go sit down at them.

  “Wow, that’s some pull,” Ben said.

  “They are very powerful,” Laverne said.

  “I’m going to check the other door,” I said.

  I jumped and the instant I saw the door, I knew we were in trouble. It had been broken out from the inside.

  Hank had already gotten out into the world.

  I jumped back to Laverne and Ben. “He’s been here,” I said.

  “Damn,” Lady Luck said. “When was the previous jump that we know about?”

  “Six hours ago,” Ben said.

  Laverne nodded and looked up. “Kronos, help?”

  Suddenly we were back in a dark warehouse, and again through the darkness, the machine was pulsing, getting ready to jump.

  “Check the door,” Laverne said a moment before I vanished to do just that.

  It was locked and hadn’t been broken out.

  “Thank the heavens,” I said.

  I flipped on the lights from near the back door and was about to jump back to Laverne and Ben when suddenly Hank appeared out of nowhere and hit me on the side of the head.

  I had a fraction of an instant of warning from one of my superpower senses, but they were tuned to slower warnings like what I needed at a poker table.

  Not someone about to hit me.

  But still I managed to move just enough to cause Hank’s intended blow with an old slot handle to just graze my head.

  I went down hard, but somehow stayed alert enough to say, “Hank’s here!”

  And then I took myself out of time, freezing Hank as he was about to smash open the back door of the warehouse.

  Ben and Laverne appeared above me in the time bubble.

  Ben reached down and helped me to my feet.

  “You all right?” Laverne asked, frowning and looking at the side of my head like a worried mom.

  I could feel I was bleeding slightly from a gash on the side of my head, and I knew for a fact I was going to have a nasty headache, but I wasn’t about to tell Lady Luck herself that I wasn’t all right.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “My Spidey sense warned me just in time.”

  Ben laughed.

  Laverne just looked puzzled.

  “I’m going to take him back,” Laverne said, nodding at Hank.

  She waved a hand at him and he went to the ground like a sack of very rotten Idaho potatoes.

  “Wow, nifty power,” I said. “Can I learn that one?”

  She laughed. “Hang around for a few more centuries and I might teach it to you. I’ll tell everyone at the office we got Hank and then be back.”

  Then she and Hank were gone.

  Ben handed me a wad of Kleenex from his pocket for the bleeding and I nodded thanks. I pressed it against the side of my head as we started walking silently up the aisle between shelves and shelves of old slot machines, a reminder of many people’s dead dreams.

  19

  JOHNNY DOES A DOUBLE TAKE

  Laverne appeared as we neared the front.

  “They stopped another attack,” she said. “And they were happy we got Hank.”

  I nodded. Damn I missed Patty, even being away from her for this long seemed wrong these days. We were a team. I was stronger and smarter and much calmer with her around.

  “I’m going to jump us to about a half hour before you guys start bringing people out,” Laverne said.

  “Too close,” I said. “It took us a while to figure it out. Make it forty-five minutes.”

  She nodded and the next thing I knew we were standing off on the other side of the warehouse, away from the Slots of Saturn.

  Something really bothered me and I looked around. Then as I heard the doorknob rattle, I knew the problem.

  “Lights.”

  I teleported to right in front of the front door, clicked off the lights, and jumped back to a spot beside Laverne.

  A moment later I heard my own voice and the lights came back on.

  “Quick thinking,” Ben whispered.

  We stood there for the next half hour, listening to the echoes of our talk, letting me relive once again one of the most horrid times of my life. But now from what seemed like the grandstands.

  If I didn’t already have a headache from the hit across the head, this time-travel stuff would give me one.

  Then, finally, my younger self and Patty and Screamer started rescuing people from the machine.

  “Here we go,” I whispered. “Ben, you watch and when you see the first one, you tell Laverne.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you need to be touching the person to jump them back to our time?”

  “No,” Lady Luck said. “Ben just tell me when and where as exact as you can.”

  “I will,” he said.

  We stood in the shadows, watching as Johnny and Geneva helped the rescues from the Slots of Saturn out into the hot air and the waiting arms of ambulances and police.

  “The first one,” Ben said, nodding as Johnny brought her around the corner from the machines and started toward the front door, helping her along as he went.

  He then told Lady Luck exactly when, right to the minute, and which casino the woman had come from and what area.

  Laverne nodded. “Be right back.”

  The woman disappeared right out of Johnny’s arms.

  I stepped forward and motioned for Johnny to come into the shadows with me.

  “Poker Boy?” he asked, looking very puzzled and looking back over his shoulder at the same time.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Geneva says you are still back there getting another person out.”

  “I am,” I said. “That me, from this time. I’m from ten years in the future.”

  He started to open his mouth and I waved my hand. “We have some people the machine took from my time ten years in the future. We will just be taking those people out of your hands and getting them back to where they belong. But you and Geneva keep this to you
rselves. Don’t ever tell the other me, or anyone for that matter. Okay?”

  He nodded, still looking puzzled and hesitant.

  “Go back to work,” I said. “It is critical you and the team over there get the people out of that machine.”

  He nodded and turned away.

  I teleported back into the shadows in another aisle so when he looked back, I would have vanished.

  Laverne appeared and nodded she had been successful. But she was looking a little tired.

  And that bothered me a lot.

  I glanced at Ben and he was looking at her as well, looking worried.

  Lady Luck should never look tired.

  Ever.

  20

  A CHANGE OF PLANS

  After the next two jumps for Laverne back to the present, she looked horrible.

  When she came back after the second one, she actually staggered some.

  I looked at Ben and he looked very concerned.

  I needed to do something and do it fast.

  “Change of plans,” I said as we waited for the next one from the future. “We have eight more and we’re going to hold them all here and all of us jump as a group back to my office. Can you do that?” I asked Laverne. “Just one more jump?”

  “I think so,” she said, her voice weak. “Kronos warned me this might not be possible. Time jumping takes a massive amount of energy. More than I had imagined, actually. More than I have ever spent in thousands and thousands of years.”

  That was not something I wanted to hear.

  “Just sit there against those slots in the shadows and rest,” I said. “Ben and I will get the other eight people rounded up.”

  She nodded and slid down to the ground. “Thanks.”

  I looked at Ben and he nodded and we went back to watching the people being rescued from the machine. In all my years, I would never have imagined giving Lady Luck orders, let alone seeing one of the most powerful gods in all the universe exhausted.

  Now I just hoped she had enough energy to get us all back at once to my office. From there, Stan could take care of getting the survivors to the right places and times. Otherwise, all of us were going to be stuck in a very ugly time loop that ended with Patty and me ten years apart.

  I didn’t even want to think about that.

  “Next one,” Ben said.

  The woman was being escorted by Johnny.

  I stepped out into the light and walked up to Johnny, who again looked surprised to see me.

  “That’s one of them,” I said. “We need her to wait in here with us.”

  Johnny nodded and I led the way into a side aisle. I quickly pulled a few tarps off of slots and put them on the concrete. “Just sit there and rest,” I said to the woman. “We’ll have you home shortly.”

  “Another one,” Ben said as Geneva escorted another man from our time toward the front door.

  I moved out as Johnny headed back toward the machines and motioned for Geneva to bring the man over and I had him sit on the tarp as well.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “We’re trying to get you home,” I said.

  He started to stand and I froze him, pulling myself and Ben out of time.

  “We need help,” I whispered to Ben.

  He nodded. “Who can we trust?”

  I knew at once who to call.

  “Stan,” I said, “A little help?”

  Ben shook his head. “Stan can’t jump through time.”

  “I can’t what?” Stan asked, then looked at me and Ben.

  “Oh,” Ben said.

  I had called the Stan of this time, not the future Stan.

  “That you, Ben?” Stan asked, smiling. “What are you doing here? It’s been a long time.”

  “Working on Poker Boy’s team from ten years in the future,” Ben said.

  Stan started to open his mouth and I stopped him. “We can’t tell you anything and you can’t say a word that you saw us here.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re trying to rescue people the machine took from ten years in the future,” I said.

  His face went white as he instantly understood some of the problem.

  “We need help with holding these people in place until the last ones get out of the machine and we can jump them all back to the future.”

  He nodded.

  “Can you help us and never say a word, not even to Laverne.”

  “Does she know you are here?” he asked.

  “I do,” Laverne said, staggering around the corner and again sitting down, her back against a slot machine. “But I’m blocking my past self or any other gods from seeing any of this.”

  Stan nodded. “Not a word. What can I do?”

  “Hold these people while Poker Boy and Ben round up the rest,” Laverne said. “Then give me an energy boost when I try to jump us all back to our time.”

  “I can do that,” he said, nodding.

  I dropped the time bubble and Ben turned back to the steady stream of people again starting from the machines toward the front door.

  Behind me the two people from the future were sitting on the floor, frozen, not moving.

  Another power I really needed to learn at some point.

  21

  TOO CLOSE—FAR, FAR TOO CLOSE

  After we had the seventh person sitting frozen on the tarp, I looked at Ben. “How much time do we have?”

  “Thirty-seven minutes,” he said. “The last one from the future should be out in fifteen minutes.”

  “Well,” I said, “that’s going to be a long fifteen minutes.”

  He only nodded.

  “And this is cutting it far, far too close.”

  Again he nodded.

  “Too close?” Stan asked.

  “You’ll know in ten years. If this works.”

  I looked at Lady Luck. She was still sitting on the floor with her eyes closed. But at least now she had some color in her cheeks again, as much as I could see color in the gray shadows of the thousands of dead slot machines towering around us.

  Stan just kept staring at me, shaking his head.

  “Sorry, can’t tell you anything,” I said, smiling at him. “You know that.”

  He laughed. “Hell, this is going to be a tough enough secret to hold for ten years.”

  “Well, keep it,” I said, “and we’ll all owe you big time.”

  “That we will,” Lady Luck said, without opening her eyes.

  After that, we stood there, watching each and every person rescued from the Slots of Saturn be helped to the front door of the warehouse and out into the heat of the day.

  I forced myself to relax as much as possible. I had a hunch that Ben and I both were going to have to help Laverne make this jump to the future. I wasn’t sure how, but I bet it would include feeding her energy. Last thing we would need would be to get stuck five years from now.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity as time had slowed down and slowed down, Ben said, “That’s him.”

  I also recognized the guy being escorted by Johnny.

  I moved out into the light and took the dazed man’s arm, then looked at Johnny. “This is the last one. Remember, not a word.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I expect when the timelines catch up, you find me with a full explanation.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  I took the man over into the shadows where Laverne was now standing.

  “Gather everyone together tightly,” she said.

  Her voice still didn’t sound strong, but it sounded better than it had a little bit ago.

  Stan and I and Ben did what she asked, with the eight people from the slot all in some sort of trance. I have no idea how Stan did that, but I sure wanted to know.

  I’d ask him if this worked and we got back.

  “Push them tight together,” Laverne said. “The three of us need to be holding hands around them.


  Stan helped us arrange that until I was pushed in tight against a middle-aged woman wearing far too much perfume. I just hoped I didn’t sneeze in the middle of all this.

  I had a hold of Laverne’s hand on one side and Ben’s on the other.

  “Stan, stay about five feet away,” Laverne said, “but focus as much energy at me as you can right now.”

  I could feel the energy pouring from Stan into Laverne as Stan stepped back and leaned forward and focused at Laverne.

  Then, after a few moments of soaking in energy from Stan, Laverne said, “Ben, Poker Boy, on the count of three, focus every bit of energy you both have through your hands to me.”

  “Understood,” I said, taking a deep breath.

  “Understood,” Ben said.

  “Kronos,” Lady Luck said into the air. “A little help would be appreciated right about now.”

  Then with Stan still focusing energy at her, Lady Luck said, “One. Two. Three. Go!”

  Every ounce of energy I had I imagined it pouring through my fingers and into Lady Luck. I knew how to do that since Patty and I did that all the time with each other, but not at this level.

  I felt like I was turning myself inside out.

  This was life or death.

  There was no point in holding back any ounce of energy if I ever wanted to see Patty again.

  And that thought made me pour out even more energy to Lady Luck.

  Around us the warehouse vanished.

  And then nothing for the longest time, or what seemed to be the longest time.

  I just kept pushing energy at Laverne with all my focus.

  Suddenly, we were in my office floating over the city of Las Vegas, in front of the big booth.

  The eight survivors and Laverne and Ben and I all tumbled to the ground in a bad imitation of a mass Twister Game gone horribly wrong.

  The woman with too much perfume smashed me into the floor.

  The only thing I remember seeing was Patty’s wonderful face, panicked as she jumped out of the booth to come and help.

  Then the room went black as I think I passed out.

  22

  THE MAGIC TOUCH