“Yes, that may be true, but—”
“You can’t blame him. She is a very pretty girl.”
Lucas wouldn’t agree that she was pretty, not in a glamorous sense. But yet, the Krellian Empire had abducted or eaten many of the age-appropriate girls during their assault, and with Rico scooping up the few remaining hotties in town, there wasn’t much left to choose from. Perhaps the old bag meant she was popular by default. Not pretty.
The woman held out her hand. “My name is Tehani Fria.”
“Lucas Ramsay. Doctor Lucas Ramsay,” he said, gripping her hand for a light shake.
“A doctor?”
“Yes. With multiple post-graduate degrees in physics. Not some schmuck like Fisher thinks.”
“I’m sure you’re a very nice young man, but Stump is very set in his ways. Try not to judge him too harshly. He wasn’t always this way.”
“Have you known Mr. Fisher a long time?”
“Yes. He and I used to be married. But that was a long time ago.”
“So, I take it, Carrie Anne’s your daughter?”
“Step-daughter. She’s from his first marriage, which didn’t last long, either.”
Lucas couldn’t believe anyone would have agreed to marry that duck-walking jerk. Let alone two women. “Yeah, he’s pretty rough around the edges.”
“Life has taken its toll on him, I’m afraid,” the old woman said, sipping a bit of coffee from a blue mug. Her hand tremors shook the cup front to back, clinking the porcelain against her teeth.
“What happened to your arm?” Lucas asked.
“Taku Beast,” she answered after a two-beat hesitation. She put the coffee cup on the counter, then dabbed her chin with a paper napkin. “It attacked the prayer group I was with. We were walking home from last month’s service in town. I wish they would capture it before it kills again.”
“You know that there are two of them, right?”
Her eyes widened. “No, I hadn’t heard that.”
“Well, there used to be two, until recently. My boss trapped and killed one of them yesterday. We had it for dinner last night. Not bad—a little gamey.”
Tehani smiled as her eyes widened. “Your boss sounds amazing. Is he single?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. But I’m not sure he’s available right now, emotionally, that is. His ex-wife sort of ripped his guts out. He’s a total mess over it.”
“Yes. Love can do that. Especially when it ends suddenly.”
“It wasn’t exactly sudden for her. Just for him.”
She looked confused, yet didn’t respond. Instead, she seemed to be staring at his four-inch cheek scar.
Lucas rested that same cheek inside the palm of his hand, with his elbow propped against the countertop.
“I don’t mean to pry, but what happened?” she asked.
“Some bully back home in the orphanage. He decided I needed some makeshift plastic surgery.”
“It must have been painful.”
“I really don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”
Carrie Anne walked through the doors from the kitchen, carrying a three-foot-wide tray full of food orders for the trio of patrons sitting to the left of Lucas. She slid the plates in front of the customers with precision; not a second wasted. She doled out the food: two plates of breakfast items to the first patron, a portly male, maybe thirty, with thick, black-rimmed glasses, and three plates to the second adult, the man’s wife by the way she was futzing with his shirt collar. The plump toddler sitting between them whipped her tiny hand around to grab the closest sausage link from her father’s plate. It squirted from her fingers and shot across the counter, striking Carrie Anne in the upper thigh before it dropped to the floor. The child let out a high-pitched squeal, sending Lucas’ eardrums into hiding.
The sausage fumble reminded Lucas of his encounter with NASA and the U.S. President eighteen months earlier when Lucas had similar trouble controlling his fingers while unscrewing the water bottle cap during an underground meeting. Actually, it wasn’t much of a meeting, more of an ambush, one orchestrated by those hell-bent to place blame for the countless deaths just prior to the Krellian incursion on his version of Earth.
Carrie Anne turned her head and made eye contact with Lucas. She smiled.
His heart raced, as the air in his lungs turned heavy, making it difficult for him to breathe. Lucas waved and nodded. He looked down at the place-mat menu, trying to play it cool.
Tehani leaned in to whisper into Lucas’ ear. “She’s such a lovely girl.”
Lucas nodded, but kept his head down. He flipped the place mat over, running his finger down the menu, as if he were searching for something.
Seconds later, he could see Carrie Anne’s chubby, stark-white legs and twin rolls of stomach fat standing in front of him, just beyond the counter. Then he saw something new: The center crease of her belly button was pulled out and held into place by a one-inch, pearl-braided stud. The skin surrounding the implement was an odd, pinkish-red color.
The number 1400 flashed in Lucas mind—the typical number of bacteria strains living inside the average human’s belly button. Probably six hundred or more of them unrecognized and potentially lethal—a bio-diverse playground for the unclean, he thought quietly. At least she wasn’t covered with tattoos; he hated them. It seemed like every girl he knew had desecrated her gorgeous body with the proverbial tramp-stamp above the crack of her ass.
He craned his neck to make eye contact with her.
“Hi, Lucas. Haven’t seen you in a while. I thought something dreadful had happened to you.”
“Been busy,” he said, trying not to stare at her well-presented cleavage—it jiggled wildly with every breath she took.
She ran her index finger over the cotton-wrap protecting Lucas’ punching hand. “What did you do to yourself this time?”
Lucas cleared his throat. “Oh, ah. It’s nothing. Just a little accident. I’m fine.”
“You really need to be more careful,” she said, scooping up the newspaper sitting in front of the old women. “Can I put this away, ma’am?”
“Yes, my dear.”
Lucas through it was odd that Carrie Anne called her step-mom “ma’am.” Some type of local tradition, he figured—not his forte, to be sure. At least Carrie Anne did not seem to notice the front-page article. Maybe it was his lucky day.
“Did you see the headline?” the old witch asked.
Lucas felt his blood pressure spike.
Carrie Anne opened the newspaper and scanned the front page for a good minute. “That’s horrible. How can anyone torture innocent people?”
“Maybe the victim wasn’t so innocent?” Lucas suggested.
Carrie Anne pressed her hands to her mailbox-wide hips, newspaper still in hand. “Why would you defend a cold-blooded psychopath like that?”
“I’m not. I’m just saying, until we know all the facts, isn’t it a little premature to judge him? He might have a good reason for what he’s doing.”
She scrunched her face and raised her voice two octaves. “There’s never a good reason to hurt people. It’s just wrong.”
“Makes you wonder what makes a man like that tick?” the old woman asked.
“He’s just a sick, twisted bastard,” Carrie Anne said, contemptuously. “When he’s arrested, I hope they put him into a locked room with a Taku Beast. Let the exterminator get exterminated.”
Lucas didn’t respond. His emotions and thoughts were competing for the same space in the front row of his mind. Probably not a good time to ask her out, he figured. She hated him with every fiber of her soul, and she didn’t even know it; yet.
She turned the page. “It says here that the victim—a restaurant owner—got away.”
“Plus, he stabbed the attacker,” Tehani added, elbowing Lucas on the side of his ribcage.
Lucas wasn’t sure if the elbow was accidental, or if the old lady was trying to tell him something. He decided to ignore it. He slid his
injured hand under the counter, resting it on his lap. “I read that same article and it didn’t say that he stabbed the attacker. It said the assailant was injured and bleeding, but it didn’t say how.”
“Either way, serves him right.”
Lucas needed to change the subject without being obvious, but his mind froze. Before he could decide what to do, the restaurant door behind him banged open, smashing into the wall next to it. Four men, raunchy-looking, in their twenties, strolled in laughing and cussing.
Carrie Anne ducked behind the counter in front of Lucas. Only the tuft of her disheveled hair was visible.
“Where’s my slut?” the tallest of the four men yelled, walking with his chest pushed out and a well-defined bounce to his step. A rust-colored machete hung from his beltline, the shiny tip about mid-thigh.
“Oh, not this fucking guy,” Lucas mumbled.
One of the teenage boys standing in the To Go line gave the dirty-blonde loudmouth an elbow bump. “Piston, my man. You rock.”
Piston pushed through the line, forcing his way to the front. “Carrie Anne! Get your fat ass out here.”
“Don’t tell him where I am,” Carrie Anne whispered to Lucas, her eyes peeking over the edge of the countertop. “We broke up, but he just won’t leave me alone.”
“He’ll see you down there,” Lucas responded. “Maybe you need to talk to him and set him straight.”
“I tried but he won’t listen.”
“Do you want me to handle it?” Lucas asked, spinning his legs around to get up from the stool.
“No, Lucas. He’ll kill you. This is my problem,” Carrie Anne said, grabbing a handful of plates from under the counter. She stood up and walked six steps toward Piston, though at a snail’s pace. “I’m over here, Piston.”
Piston and his gang met her halfway, slipping their bodies in between the now well-fed three-member family sitting on the swivel stools to the left.
Lucas avoided eye contact with the loud mouth, but readied his arsenal of hand-to-hand combat skills. He figured it was about time to find out if Rico’s hundred-plus hours of training in recent months were worth the pain and sore muscles.
“What do you want, Piston?” Carrie Anne asked.
“You need to come home. And I mean now!”
“No. I’m never coming back. Ever.”
“Come on, baby. It’s all good.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you lead with meanness, and tuck away love. I can’t be with someone like that.”
Piston looked around, making eye contact with several of his men. He looked at Carrie Anne. His face went soft. “But sweetie, I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You’re incapable of love.”
“How can you say that after all we’ve been through?” he asked, grabbing the fold of her arm.
She pulled away violently. “You’ve sucked the last drop of life out of me. I can’t do this anymore. And I’m not doing any more of those favors for you, either. You can just forget it.” A stream of tears ran down her cheeks. She hurried to the kitchen door, swung it open, stood in the frame. “Oh, and just so you know, I took all the stuff you left at the apartment, including that duffel bag I wasn’t supposed to open, and I gave it all to the church. Then I had the landlord change the locks. You’re not welcome there anymore.” She threw her head back and disappeared through the kitchen door as it closed behind her.
Piston turned to face his posse. “Fuckin’ bitch. I don’t care what she says, we’re not done until I say we’re done. Never coming home, my ass.”
Lucas pulled his feet under himself, and began to stand up to face the scoundrel, but the old woman sitting next to him latched onto his arm, stopping his motion. He turned and looked at her.
Tehani shook her head gently, not saying a word. Her eyes flared, as if she were trying to warn Lucas about something. She put both her index and middle finger on the center of his forehead, closed her eyes, and bowed her head.
Before Lucas could decide what to do, his head swirled with thoughts of Drew. He looked down, grabbing the tin container holding a wad of napkins. He emptied its contents and looked inside. His brother’s reflection appeared across the shiny surface, wearing an ear-to-ear smile. Lucas’ temper cooled, so did his intent. Moments later, he realized that it was the first time that he had seen Drew’s reflection without the customary headache or verbal nonsense from the traveler in his head.
Piston and company left the bakery a few seconds later.
“You should go,” Tehani said. “I’ll take care of things here.”
Lucas agreed.
SIX
Two hours later, Lucas entered the abandoned warehouse and saw Major Rico Renaldi standing in the back, next to half a dozen men who were prying open a stack of wooden crates emblazoned with yellow and black bio-hazard warning labels. Rico put his hand inside the first crate, pulling out a pair of stun guns wrapped inside sheets of old newspaper. He tilted the sunglasses off his nose, looking closely at two of the guns, and then nodded to his men.
Rico always wore shades, even indoors, which he said was to protect his sensitive eyes from the abundant sunlight that washed over the colony during the summer months. Lucas thought otherwise. He figured the bronze-skinned mercenary wore them to enhance his reputation with the ladies, as if he needed any help.
Rico had hit the gene-pool lottery with his devilishly handsome good looks, six-foot-two frame, six-pack abs, and wavy dark hair to match. His face was covered perpetually by a two-days’ growth of neatly-trimmed stubble, like what you’d expect from a boy-toy underwear model, who thinks he’s all that. But Rico actually was, and then some. He was a smooth-talking panty-peeling chick magnet who barely had to try. Women swooned over him, willing to spread their legs on a moment’s notice, even when he was rude to them.
Rico’s standards, though, were ultra-high when it came to women. In the eleven months that Lucas had known him, the major had burned through all eight of Flandreau’s sexiest girls—each one seemingly more beautiful than the last. None of Rico’s relationships lasted more than a single date, if you could call it that—and he liked to brag about it. He said he would meet them by the mosquito-infested Abbidos Lake, pour them two drinks of raspum, then initiate his seed dump and send them off in a heartbeat.
If Rico’s man-juice was as remarkable as his combat skills, there’d soon be a trail of little Rico’s littering the countryside. STDs had been eradicated in Kleezebee’s universe and birth control wasn’t available, meaning it probably wouldn’t be long before all the newborns started growing thick, wavy black hair and talking ultra-smooth.
The colony’s Supreme Commander, Cyrus, had ordered all citizens to begin procreation efforts to repopulate the species after the Krellian invasion, but Lucas wasn’t sure if the SC’s general order was the basis for Rico’s motivation or not. Maybe it was simply a case of Rico’s inner caveman taking charge to cultivate and fertilize as many gardens as possible. On the other hand, the fatigue-wearing Adonis could be searching for that one special woman who could placate his emotionally-starved Oedipus complex.
“Let’s get this party started,” Lucas shouted, hearing his voice echo off the far wall.
Rico looked at this watch. “You’re late.”
“Traffic was a bitch.”
“What traffic? There’re barely any roads left.”
“Sorry, just an old Earth saying. Took longer than I thought to get here from town.”
Rico turned his attention to a white, baby-faced soldier standing to his immediate right. The boy was half a foot shorter than Lucas and pencil-thin. The freckles sprinkled across his nose seemed fake, like they’d been drawn with an unsteady hand and a red magic marker. The name on his fatigues said “Stonebridge.”
“Sergeant, I want each weapon checked and prepped,” Rico said. “Make sure the power cartridges are fully charged and the contacts are clean. No mistakes.”
“Yes, sir,” Ston
ebridge answered with sharp precision. He saluted and began his work.
Rico tossed Lucas a stunner pistol. “You know how to use this, right?”
“Sure do,” Lucas said, holding the gun out in front of him in a shooting position. He aimed the weapon at a few spots around the room. “Used it when we were back on the hive ship, after the bugs snatched my brother.”
Rico pointed to a towering white guy with jet-black hair, who was removing an equipment vest and chewing on a pair of soggy toothpicks. “This is Zack. He’s from the badlands up north. We call him T-Rex.”
Zack was a good ten inches taller than Lucas, if you included his three-inch, squared-off crew cut with a bright yellow streak down the middle. His sleeveless t-shirt stretched the seams, clinging to the well-defined curves in his physique.
Lucas extended his right hand for a shake, hoping he’d get it back in one piece. “I’m Dr. Ramsay.”
“Doctor?” Zack asked, barely moving his lips when he spoke.
“Physicist. Not ‘turn your head and cough,’” Rico said.
“Astrophysicist, to be exact,” Lucas replied, studying the giant’s square face and prominent chin. They looked like they were chiseled from a two-ton slab of granite: rock hard and weather-worn. Zack fit the bill exactly: A lowbrow, high-testosterone commando type right down to his leather army boots and enormous hands. Only his nose was out of character: It was smashed and dented to one side, reminiscent of an old hockey goalie who forgot to wear his facemask a few too many times.
“A civilian?” Zack asked, looking Lucas over from head to toe. “I thought we were only working with pros.”
Lucas straightened his posture, trying to grow a few inches. He made sure Zack could see his bandaged hand and cheek scars. He strengthened his voice. “I can handle myself.”
Rico nodded. “The kid’s right, he can; I’ve been teaching him hand-to-hand. His marksmanship could use some work, but trust me, he’s good to go.”
The concerned look on Zack’s face washed away. He gripped Lucas’ hand. “Nice to meet you, Doc.”
Incursion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 2) Page 5