Shit!
Was he back?
Or was this a different one?
Maybe there was an entire detachment of Orange Men.
The hairs on his neck and arms started to tingle when he thought about the watcher and his intent. The Orange Man obviously wanted something from him, but he had no clue as to what.
He checked the area in all directions but didn’t see anything else suspicious. Maybe there was only one. Or none. He couldn’t be sure either way. His eyes might be playing tricks on him, especially during the emotionally charged encounter with Emily.
Just then he felt a firm tap on his shoulder, powering his adrenaline to full tilt. He spun around, ready to unleash a powerful fist at the Orange Man who he feared may have out-flanked him. However, Jim stopped his punch in mid-throw, realizing it was Alice.
Alison leaned back and put his hands in front of his face. “Whoa there, cowboy. It’s just me.”
Jim exhaled and dropped his fist, letting his nerves calm a bit. “Sorry, pal, but you can’t sneak up on me like that. Not when I’m already on high alert.”
“What made the noise?”
“A stray cat, I think.”
“Hmmm. Must have been some cat to make you that jumpy.”
“You have no idea.”
“So, Jim, I have to ask. Do you always shout at stray cats? Telling them that it’s not what they think?”
“Oh, I take it you heard that.”
“Yes, I did. And so did the residents two counties over.”
Jim didn’t respond. He didn’t have the words.
“Was it her? The girl?”
Jim nodded. “That’s not all. I’m almost positive I spotted another one of those Orange Men. I only caught a glimpse, but he may have been carrying one of those briefcases. You know, the kind that go boom.”
Alison’s eyes flared, then he pulled a semi-automatic Glock from the holster on his hip. He held the weapon up and racked the slide, injecting a round into the chamber.
Jim stepped in front of him. “Stand down, Marine. If he was there, he’s long gone by now.”
“Still, I need to call this in. We should have a team sweep the area, just to be sure. Do you think he’s working with the girl?”
“I seriously doubt that. No, there’s something else at play here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
January 7, 2015
5:01 p.m.
“For the third time, kid, the answer’s no. N-O,” Harry Striker said to Derek with a smug look on his face. Striker was a six-foot-three rail of a man with thinning, salt-and-pepper hair and a matching thick mustache that covered the entire area under his nose and then curved down around his mouth. It reminded Derek of the bristles on a massive push broom.
Striker was also the newly appointed general manager of the Quick-Mobile Arena in downtown Phoenix, a brand-new sports complex that was home to a minor league hockey team, the Phoenix Ice Dogs. Derek was in Striker’s office hoping to receive a special, one-day press pass to interview the head coach of the visiting hockey team for that night’s game: Tank Jackson of the Stockton Wranglers.
Derek had taken Emily’s advice and decided to do an interview for his Comp/Lit project. Emily was right—the interview was a much better choice to help launch the new Derek, and he planned to get it. He’d managed to talk one of his group home monitors into lending him his smartphone so he could record the interview, and then obtained approval to leave the mandatory homework session early.
Striker continued his diatribe. “This is not the time or place for rank amateurs, and I certainly don’t want any of my VIPs getting hassled by punks like you. And believe me, Tank Jackson is a VIP, and you are a punk. That’s right, Morgan, I know who you are. I have friends on the force and they’ve filled me in on your little escapades around town. The last thing this city needs is more freaks like you being granted early parole, and then being coddled by another one of the state’s failed rehabilitation schemes. Do you know why our taxes are sky-high? It’s because of pricks like you. Shit, it never ends! Every time I turn around, I read about another cock-sucking liberal handing out more tax dollars for programs that don’t work. Once a criminal, always a criminal, in my book. You can’t fix stupid.”
“But, sir. That’s not who I am anymore.”
Striker leaned forward in his chair, resting on his elbows as his face turned a dark shade of red.
“I really don’t give a shit! It doesn’t concern me, or my staff, or my VIPs. You probably don’t know this but that law enforcement officer you assaulted in the alley with the garbage can is a damn good friend of mine. In fact, he was the best man at my wedding. So, what I need you to do is take your personal redemption quest and get the hell out of my office and then off this property. I have more important things to do than cater to a deviant turd like you. Now, get out of my sight before I call security—I have an arena to run.”
Derek wanted to respond and set the record straight, but held his tongue. Everything his temper wanted to say would just get him in trouble and it wouldn’t change a thing. It didn’t matter anyway, because what Striker didn’t know was that Derek had an alternate plan, one that didn’t involve dealing with an arrogant prick like him. Derek grabbed his backpack and stood up.
“I appreciate your time, Mr. Striker. I’ll let myself out.”
He left the GM’s office, passed the man’s secretary, then walked through the waiting room and into the hallway. He went to the bank of elevators, punched the down button, and waited for the lift to arrive. When the elevator door slid open he entered, hit the button for the ground floor, then slipped out before the door closed on him. He hurried around the corner and watched the hallway leading to Striker’s office. Nobody seemed to notice his deception, so he crossed the hallway to the emergency exit stairwell and followed it down to ice level, where the team locker rooms were located. He needed this interview, and he wasn’t going to let one man get in the way.
The lower levels of the arena were a maze of tunnels and hallways, allowing the staff to travel where they needed to go without interfering with the fans attending the games. Derek followed the sound of voices until he located the locker room area. He figured he would hide somewhere near the Wrangler’s locker room, then approach Tank as the team went by for the pre-game skate and warm-up. He found the perfect position—down the hallway and around the corner from the visiting team’s locker room, then settled in for the expected ninety-minute wait.
He thought through his list of interview questions. Tank Jackson was a legendary minor league coach, and had been an enforcer for seventeen years with the Boston Bruins. However, he was also just as famous for his prickly demeanor with the media, and rarely gave interviews.
That reputation wasn’t going to stop Derek. If there was one thing he knew about, it was hockey, and if there was one player he knew about, it was Jackson. Derek planned to blow Tank away with his knowledge of Jackson’s personal stats, and hopefully convince him to chat for a few minutes.
Derek was anxious to begin his writing career by setting the tone with an A on his first field assignment; but even more, he wanted to impress Emily. For some reason, she believed in him, despite his flaws and long list of bad decisions. He wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t matter. He was going to make her proud, and nothing was going to stop him. Not Striker, not Tank, and not the juvenile corrections system.
* * *
Emily sat on a wooden bench in Glassford Park to people watch as she tried to piece together the insanity that was her life.
She’d spent the previous night in the shelter with Junie, whose mom still hadn’t shown up, and woke up again with Shroedy purring on her belly. The quantum kitty’s affection was comforting, but it wasn’t enough to rid her of the nagging discomfort swirling around inside about what she had discovered the night before.
She couldn’t believe what she’d seen through the window of Jim Miller’s restaurant. His betrayal had wounded her deeply, and she was
having trouble focusing her thoughts on anything else. Every time she tried to rise above what had happened and move on, the vision of Jim sitting with Alison took over her mind. The more she dwelled on it, the more confused and angry she became. More than anything, she felt stupid for trusting him and letting her feelings of friendship cloud her judgment. She knew better. Life had taught her that.
“Don’t get involved,” she mumbled, knowing deep down that it was hard not to do just that. She was human and had feelings, just like everyone else. The emotional bond that came with connecting with others was like candy for her soul. Even so, she needed to be strong and give up on things that only made her life more difficult. That meant Jim.
Junie was trustworthy and so was Derek, but she wasn’t sure about Duane and Sheldon. So far they’d done nothing but help her. Maybe both of them were okay, too.
She was also frustrated because she had no plans with Derek. He’d left the library in such a hurry the night before, they hadn’t had time to set up a time and place to meet. She figured she would just go to the last place they’d been together, at the same time: 7:00 p.m. at Burton Barr. Maybe he’d come to the same conclusion and decide to meet her there by default.
Emily needed something to take her mind off Miller and how he’d betrayed her, so she’d spent the day in the library, combing the Internet for more information about her condition. However, that proved to be difficult. She couldn’t just search for “Time Jumping Teenager” and come up with all the answers, so she had to get creative and try related search terms and connected articles. Studying information about time travel and neurobiology seemed to be her best choices. Everything she could find about aliens seemed crazy—not that what she’d been through was normal. But all the websites about abductions seemed to be written by people who sounded unhinged and completely bent.
Then again, if she were to tell her entire story to the world like that, everyone would think she was nuts, too. How can seventy-seven percent of the US population believe in aliens, yet when you come clean about what happened when you were taken, nobody believes you?
She was no scientist, but she’d read and studied enough to know that if you need to prove something, you need facts and evidence to back it up. Real evidence. And to prove your theories, you needed experiments to demonstrate your findings based on the Scientific Method, complete with mathematical analysis to back it up. Without all that, you had no hope of convincing anyone of anything.
There were two things that all the alien-themed websites seemed to have in common: no verifiable evidence, and no math. In other words, no proof, even with all the cell phones and video cameras on the planet. Just personal experience and shame. You’d think somewhere along the way, somebody would have captured something on their camera.
She’d also been wondering about the direct telepathic link she shared with her abductors. The entire time she was jacked in, their thoughts came to her in English. Why English? The more she thought about it, the more that fact didn’t make sense—English-speaking aliens? Her research showed that there are somewhere around 6,500 different languages spoken on Earth, so what are the odds that travelers from another world would speak English?
It was possible that some type of translator technology was involved, but a telepathic translator? She knew anything was possible, and after what she’d seen and done in her life, that was exactly how she felt—anything was possible. Though now, she had more questions than answers.
For example, why did the Orange Man outside of Miller’s house look human, when the giant ugly heads on the ship didn’t?
Why was he carrying a briefcase full of amazing futuristic technology, but the weapon he carried looked like a gun that was made by humans? Everything seemed to contradict itself, almost as if the aliens weren’t aliens at all. But they had to be, right?
Maybe the aliens were doing their best to imitate human form and technology so they could blend in—maybe the Orange Man was an android, or some kind of clone. It would explain some of it.
Before she could consider the next thought, she heard a sharp meow from the ground below the bench. She looked down. It was Shroedy at her feet, rubbing and purring against her legs. She was happy to see him, but not surprised. After all, he was the quantum kitty that seemed to follow her around, and do so across space and time. Another fact that she couldn’t explain. She wasn’t imagining him since Junie could see him too, so he was real, just not like any other cat she’d ever heard of.
There were a thousand and one things in her life that were baffling—to name three, there were alien abductions, time jumping, and how she felt about Derek. A quantum kitty was the least of her worries. Besides, she thought, he’s really cute and soft. She reached down and scratched him behind the ears.
“Hello, Mr. Impossible. What have you been doing with yourself all day?”
She picked him up and held him in her lap. “Maybe you have all the answers. Do you have all the answers, little Shroedy?”
* * *
Derek heard footsteps coming down the hallway outside the locker room, accompanied by loud, garrulous voices—it sounded like four or five people. He realized they were coming right for him, and though he was tucked away and out of sight, he wasn’t exactly hidden. He decided to change position and duck behind two rolling laundry gurneys and peer through the gap to see who it could be.
Shit.
It wasn’t Tank and his team or assistant coaches. It was Mr. Asshole himself, Harry Striker, accompanied by two arena security guards—both imposing black dudes—and an older, grizzled-looking white guy with a bent nose wearing a maintenance uniform.
They went by without seeing him, passing a brass-colored flask between them as they walked. Makes sense, Derek thought. They’re loud ‘cause they’re half-drunk. He watched them go by and disappear through the doorway to the service stairs at the end of the hallway, the same set Derek had come down earlier.
Derek exhaled, relieved.
Then something caught his attention. Something totally out of place—the faintest whiff of a familiar odor. Skunky. Sweet and pungent.
What the—? Weed? Down here? Could Striker be drinking and smoking blunts while on duty with two rent-a-cops and some other dude from his staff?
Maybe Derek could use this fact against Striker. Wouldn’t hurt to have something on the jerk, in case he needed it. Not only that, but it would make an even bigger story than an interview with a minor league hockey coach. If he captured their activities on video, he could expose Striker’s drug and alcohol problem. He could say that Striker and his staff were putting the safety of everyone who attended events at the new arena in serious jeopardy. Probably get them all fired, and maybe even prosecuted. He smiled, thinking about Striker becoming a stupid criminal himself. Talk about poetic justice.
His excitement shot up a level. He was starting to like his new career. A breaking story like this would certainly get everyone’s attention, including Emily’s. He could almost taste the A+ he was about to receive for his first major scoop.
He slipped out from his hiding place, ran down the hallway to the door to the stairwell and put his ear to it. He heard muffled voices, but it didn’t sound like they were directly on the other side of the door. Up one level?
He cracked the door open half an inch and looked around. Nothing. He opened it all the way—slowly and quietly. The voices were louder now, but he still couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were definitely one level up.
Derek crept through the door and over to the stairs, staying focused and alert. He took the stairs one at a time. When he reached the first landing where the stairs reversed direction, the four men came into view. They were on the level above him, standing in an open doorway. He could see a parking lot outside the arena.
They were passing a blunt, sure enough. Derek guessed they were standing there to blow the smoke outside, but they weren’t doing a great job of it. Besides, who was going to bust them? The security guards and the GM
of the arena were smoking together. Who’s gonna stop them or report them? Surely no one from Striker’s staff, not without fear of losing their new job.
Striker took a long drag, then offered the doobie to the maintenance guy, who declined and took a swig from the brass flask instead. Striker shrugged and handed it to one of the security guards, who took a quick hit.
The maintenance guy said something Derek couldn’t make out, then handed Striker a Ziploc bag. It was hard to tell from where he was standing, but when he put it together with the odor and the fact that they were passing a blunt around, he figured it had to be weed. He knew from his brief time running with the West Side Locos that it was about half an ounce.
Derek edged closer, being careful to keep out of sight. He also took out the borrowed phone and started the video camera app and turned off the light.
“This what we got,” the maintenance guy said in a thick, Eastern-European accent.
Striker opened the bag and sniffed the contents.
“Just a grand? This is good shit.”
“Yes. Bargain-basement price. Have many more where this comes from.”
Derek was psyched. He’d gotten the whole thing on video—maybe not high-quality sound, but the pictures would be compelling. His night had just changed dramatically: only minutes before, he thought he was going to get an exclusive interview with a hard-to-corner, ex-NHL player turned minor league hockey coach. Now, he had video evidence proving that the general manager of a controversial new sports arena was drinking on the job, smoking weed, and better yet—conspiring to sell weed.
Scoop!
He shifted his position slightly, trying to get a better angle, but then the phone rang with a screaming rendition of the Evil Empire theme from Star Wars and Derek dropped it, startled. It clattered to the floor and broke to pieces. The four men jerked their heads in his direction and saw him standing there.
Glassford Girl: Boxed Set (Complete Series) (Time Jumper Series) Page 32