by Mallory Kane
She shivered, sending ripples through him. "Prophet. She called herself a gross prophet."
"Well, then, that settles it." He unwrapped himself from around her and let his lips replace his fingers on her cheek, which was still damp, still cool with tears. Then he urged her up and pushed her toward the hole. "After you." Suddenly, he heard the unmistakable whir of blaster fire, and at the same instant the tunnel lit with green and a searing pain ripped through his shoulder. He cried out involuntarily.
"Rider! What?" Kristen cried as he whirled, grabbing his blaster from his waistband and returning fire.
The silhouette of their pursuer shadowed the pale light of the bulb they had left behind. Rider fired again, his jaw clenched against the burning agony in his shoulder, and pushed Kristen toward the hole as the green ribbon of light burned all too close to her.
"Get going, Doc. I'm fine."
"You're hurt! I can smell—"
"Damn it, Doc! Go!"
"You're coming?"
"Yeah, now go!"
The tunnel was still lit with fading green light as he saw her sneakers disappear into the hole. The blaster jerked in his hand as he fired again at the dark figure and hit him. The bastard didn't even flinch. Metal reinforced body armor, he thought grimly. Damn!
He set off a long blast, watching to see how much damage it did, trying to aim for the guy’s hand. He heard a guttural cry as the tank stumbled backward from the force of the blast. Whirling, Rider ducked into the hole, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling. He half expected to feel a green burning blast rip him in two, but nothing happened. His shoulder was a wall of fire, fuzzing his brain as he doggedly crawled after Kristen.
She was crying softly, but she never faltered. "Rider, you okay?" Her voice was nearly absorbed by the dirt all around them, and weak with fear and pain. "Your shoulder." She slowed down, turning back toward him. "Let me—"
"Move!" He slapped her on the bottom. "It's nothing, Doc. A flesh wound. Go! Fast as you can!"
She sobbed once, but she kept going.
They could have crawled for days. Rider was oblivious to time, and apparently so was Kristen. They didn't talk, they just doggedly continued. Sometimes the passage got so narrow he wasn't sure he was going to make it. Despite what he'd told her, the pain in his shoulder stole his breath. His flesh continued to burn long after the green light had faded. He clenched his jaw and tried to ignore it, but it just kept on, searing deeper and deeper, until finally, aeons later, it let up.
He did his best to keep from scraping the sides of the narrow tunnel, but when he couldn't avoid it, the cold wet wall of dirt set off the searing pain again. Even in the chill that existed thirty feet below the surface, his face and body poured sweat.
Kristen whimpered and stopped. He ran into her.
"What is it, Doc?" His jaw was still clenched against pain and he sounded grim and bleak to his own ears.
"Can't —" she whispered, her breath catching on a sob.
"Come on." He deliberately lightened his voice as he groped in the darkness for her. He touched the small of her back. "Just a little further. You can do it!"
Her body was shaking with silent sobs. "No, no, no."
"Don't give up on me, Doc," he begged, patting her back. "Talk to me. What is it?"
"Too—narrow. Can't—"
She was almost incoherent. If he was cold, with his layers of muscle and thicker, tougher skin, she must be freezing. In the cramped space, there was nothing he could do but urge her forward. Horror lay its icy fingers on his spine. What if the passage was too narrow? If she couldn't get through, he knew he couldn't. They'd be stuck. Doomed.
No! Rider stiffened, allowing the resolve that had kept him going all this time to override his compassion for Kristen, his fear, even his good sense. He would not be stuck here like a cartoon character in a hole too small. He shoved her, hoping he wasn't pushing her over the edge into a complete breakdown.
"Get going, Doc! Get your damned ass in gear! I'm the one back here with a damned bulls eye painted on mine. Get a move on!" He shoved her as hard as he could, allowing the anger to suffuse his brain. If he touched her, would his anger, his resolve, transfer to her? Could she use it? He felt resistance, and it terrified him. The passage was getting narrower, ominously narrower. Still he kept a constant pressure on her shapely bottom, and he kept up a constant barrage of crude remarks designed to infuriate her.
"I can't believe I got myself stuck in a damned tunnel with a debutante! Move it! Get that fat little bottom out of my way so I can get out of here!" If they hadn't been in such dire danger, if they hadn't been buried thirty feet underground, in the darkest darkness he'd ever known, he'd have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He'd love to see her face.
"Crap, woman. My hair grows faster than you move!" He punched her bottom lightly, prodding her gently onward. "Hard to drag all this bulk around, I guess?"
"Rider, if we don't die, I'm going to kill you!"
He almost laughed aloud at the quavery, defiant voice. A sense of triumph inundated him. They were going to be fine. He leaned forward and kissed her behind with a huge smack. "Way to go, Doc!" he said, then groaned when his shoulder brushed the wall. The passage was narrowing again.
"Keep it moving!" he gritted out through jaws clenched against the fire in his shoulder. He'd said his shoulder was just a flesh wound. As badly as it hurt, he was pretty sure that was true. Just a graze. A deep one, probably a half inch of flesh and muscle had been plowed, but a graze nonetheless. It just burned like hell.
Somehow, the passage didn't seem so narrow all of a sudden. Rider breathed a wary sigh of relief and continued crawling, no longer able to feel his knees, hardly noticing the searing pain in his shoulder.
Kristen stopped short in front of him. He hadn't even realized his head was down, his eyes were closed, but when he looked up he saw light. "What is it?" he asked, trying to peer around her.
She crawled a little further, and suddenly disappeared.
"Doc!" he shouted, lunging toward the pale glow that blinded his dark-adapted eyes. He put out his hand to pull himself another foot forward, and encountered nothing.
He overbalanced, his breath gone and his heart slamming against his chest, and tumbled down a slimy, curving wall on top of her. He rolled and struggled to stand, but his arms and legs cramped so much he couldn't move for a moment, could only writhe there on the floor until the muscles gave up and relaxed. Kristen was already upright, stretching her legs and back and crying softly.
"It stinks in here," she whispered, looking at him through her tears.
Rider laughed. He laughed until his gut hurt. It felt so good to laugh, so good to stand up straight, so good to be with her. "Of course it stinks, Doc. It's a sewer." He pulled her close and kissed her, scratching his lips on the grit on her face, filling his mouth with the taste of dust and grime mingled with her flavor. "You did it, Doc," he muttered against her mouth.
"No," she whispered. "You did." Her eyes flashed brilliant gold in her dirty face. "And if you ever say anything else about my butt, I'll kill you."
He hugged her, molding her to him, dirt and all. He didn't want to ever let her out of his sight. Ever.
"So, you made it."
Pushing Kristen away, Rider whirled, raising his blaster. It was the girl from the tunnel. "Just who the hell are you?" he demanded breathlessly, shocked by her sudden appearance.
"Name's Darwin," she said, grinning.
He took a good look at her. She was tiny, probably no more than five feet tall. He'd thought she was a child the first time he'd seen her lit only by the pallid bulb, but now he saw that she was definitely a woman.
Darwin's compact, perfect body was encased entirely in a black, shiny substance that looked molded to her. Her hair was black and pulled into a topknot from which a straight black braid hung down her back. Her face was gamine, the kind that was ageless, with a child's translucent skin and naturally red lips.
Her eyes,
though, were deep black holes, old as the universe.
"Darwin? What kind of name is that? It's a joke, right?"
"Not at all," she responded, and danced toward them.
Rider stared. There was literally no other word for it. Her step was so light, so bouncy, it could be called nothing else.
Kristen stared too. "Why are you following us?" she said suspiciously.
Rider hadn't lowered the blaster, and his finger tightened on the activator button as he waited for Darwin's response.
"Somebody had to."
"Who are you?" he said again. For some reason every word she uttered irritated the hell out of him.
"I told you. Darwin."
He took a step forward, pressing the blaster into the soft top of Darwin's breast. "Tell me more, and stop talking in riddles, damn it. We don't have time for games."
An exaggerated sigh escaped her lips and she pouted like a child who's been told to come inside. "My name is Darwin. I'm from the future. I'm here to help you."
"Great," Kristen muttered. "Like the government."
"What?" Rider said, not wanting to be distracted from his careful observation of Darwin, but not wanting to miss what Kristen was saying either.
"Never mind," she said. "Why are you here to help us? And why were you following me?"
"Where in the future?" Rider asked, fear and hope suddenly battling within him. Had she come from the future? And if so, how far? The questions raged within him, especially the one, most important one. Could they go back?
"Much, much farther forward than you, Rider."
He assessed her through narrowed eyes. "You know me?"
She nodded.
"Then you know why I was sent back here."
"Yep."
"Do you also know why I didn't accomplish my mission?"
"Yep."
"Well, what about our friend back there? Do you know what's keeping him?"
"Yep."
"Look, Darwin. I'm beginning to get real tired of your monosyllabic answers." Rider ignored a snort of amusement from Kristen and pressed the nose of the blaster just a bit more firmly into Darwin's breast.
"Okay, sorry." Darwin pushed the blaster aside with a finger and Rider let her. "You kind of messed up his shooting hand with your blaster, although I see he didn't do badly with your shoulder either."
Kristen looked at Rider's shoulder when Darwin gestured. "Oh, Rider. Look at you."
"Don't worry, Doc. You haven't had the pleasure of the full effect of a blaster wound, but when you do, they're sort of self-cauterizing." He shrugged, wincing at the pull of burned flesh against fabric. He hadn't looked at it yet, didn't particularly want to see a half-inch furrow plowed in the flesh of his shoulder, or check to see if bone had been burned. No tendons had been severed since he could still move his arm. "Not that it usually matters to the wounded party whether a blaster wound is cauterized or not. Anyhow, this one's okay for now. So what happened to our friend?" He turned back to Darwin.
"He stopped to patch up his arm with plasmanique, then he'll probably go outside and try to find a way in here from up there." She jerked a thumb toward the top of the huge pipe they were standing in.
Rider studied her, his brain whirling too fast for coherence. "Probably? Why don't you know? Don't you know what's going to happen to us?"
As he spoke, he thought he saw a shadow cross her face, but it was gone so quickly he thought—he hoped—he might have been mistaken.
"No. It can get pretty complicated," Darwin said, spreading her hands.
Rider thought complicated was a mild term for what it could get.
"You see—" Darwin went on, looking at her hands. "We can't know more than we know. In other words, I'm from the future, and I'm here right now, so right now is all I can know about your time. Tomorrow, I or someone else from the future, can know what happened up until then."
Kristen pushed her hands through her hair. "But what if you went back to three weeks from now yesterday. I mean—"
Rider turned to look at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Darwin threw Kristen a sharp glance, then laughed. "I know. See what I mean? All I can say is I can't know what's happening here until it happens. And if something were to happen that changed the future, then I wouldn't know it because it would have changed the future, which would have changed what I had done, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam."
"I don't understand," Kristen said.
Rider agreed with her, sort of. He didn't understand a lot of things either but he'd seen the glance Darwin had thrown her. He was certain at least part of what the tiny woman said was a lie. One thing was perfectly clear though. These people could travel to the past and back again. They apparently could control where they went pretty accurately. His brain was having trouble with the implications of that.
If he'd thought he was confused before, when he'd tried to analyze his feelings for his angel doctor, it was nothing to the turmoil in his brain now. If he could go anywhere, forward or backward in time—. With an effort, he forced himself to concentrate on Darwin's words.
"What are you two going to do now?" she asked.
Kristen assessed Darwin, not quite sure of the sensations she was receiving from the other girl. There was something peculiar, something not quite true about Darwin. It wasn't that Kristen didn't trust her. That was just it. Kristen had an overwhelming urge to trust Darwin. But she couldn't figure out where the urge was coming from, because she couldn't feel a damned thing from Darwin. And she had the very definite notion Darwin was holding her feelings back deliberately.
Dismissing the thought, she turned to Rider. "We've got to get out of here before Darth Vader figures out where we are."
He frowned. "Who?"
She nodded back toward the hole through which they'd crawled. "Him. Your psychotic buddy." Kristen didn't think she was getting through to him. He was distracted. She put her hand on his arm and gleaned bewilderment within him. Bewilderment, fear, and a devastating hope that ripped at her heart.
"I know," she said. "It's confusing. But Darwin is here to help us."
He stared at her, the frown still creasing his brow. "That's just it," he said, glancing at Darwin. "The stuff you told the Doc, how'd you know what to tell her if you can't know what's going to happen in the future? She said you told her to watch out for the electric company."
Her heart pounding as she realized the truth of his words, Kristen looked at Darwin. "And that the morgue would be safe this weekend," she said quickly. "That's right. How did you know?"
Darwin looked decidedly uncomfortable. She shifted her gaze to her hands, then back to Kristen. "I can't tell you. Like I said, it's really complicated. Look, I've got to go—"
Rider's face darkened ominously. He grabbed Darwin. As Kristen watched in astonishment he twisted her arm brutally, eliciting a cry from her. "No! You're going to stay right here until you explain something to me."
There was an edge to Rider's voice that had never been there when he talked to Kristen. Even when he'd threatened her. He sounded ruthless, virulent. She could see the cold-hearted resolve the TAINCC had conditioned into him, and she was afraid for Darwin. Looking at his face, she could almost believe Rider would kill the girl if it served his purpose.
Darwin laughed nervously. "You haven't quite gotten it yet, have you, Rider? You can't keep me here if I want to leave. You'll be left holding a fistful of air."
He yanked her arm up behind her while Kristen watched. "Rider," she said, her empathic sense mirroring the pain in Darwin's arm, even though she still wasn't receiving anything else from the other girl. "You're hurting her."
"Damn right I'm hurting her," he growled. "And I'm going to hurt her more if she doesn't tell me the truth."
"About what?" Darwin's voice was strained.
"About time travel. Can we go back?"
Kristen's heart lurched and sudden hot tears stung her eyes. Here it was, the thing she had been afraid of. She had kno
wn it was coming. She had no reason to be upset. She'd thought she was prepared, ever since the moment when she'd realized what the possibility of returning to the future would mean to him.
"Back where?"
Don't, Darwin, she wanted to shout. Don't play with him, you don't know what he's been through. But didn't she? She caught Darwin's eye and saw a shadow there, a shadow of sadness, or regret? It was decidedly uncomfortable when someone from the future looked at you like that.
Rider tweaked Darwin's arm and Kristen winced. She knew how those little tweaks could hurt. "Back into the future."
Kristen had thought her heart was already sore, but his words wrenched it until she expected her chest to bleed. Back into the future. She knew what he meant. Back home.
His words were so wistful, so full of desperate hope. Home, where he wanted to be. Back with his wife.
It was what she'd known would happen. No contest, Doc. She could almost hear him say it. No contest. His wife would win. It was the way it had to be.
Darwin gave Kristen an unfathomable look, then twisted her head toward Rider. "There's a possibility," she said, her voice still strained by pain. "For you."
He let her go, as if he couldn't stand to touch her any more. He gazed at Kristen for a long moment, and she could almost read the thoughts behind those blue eyes. "Are you saying Kristen couldn't go?"
Darwin had her eyes closed and was carefully manipulating her arm, her face blank. "That's what I'm saying," she said. "Look. You can't stay here much longer. And I sure can't. I've got to go."
"Darwin, wait!" Kristen rushed to her and caught her hand. Darwin gave her a shocked look and recoiled immediately, snatching her hand away as if she'd been burned, but not before Kristen felt it. She was buffeted with sensation. As much as from Skipper. Almost as much as when she touched Rider.
The echo of Darwin's touch reverberated down Kristen's spine. Love, pain, regret, heartache, a profound pity, and something else, something familiar but elusive, which nagged at her memory like a whiff of a forgotten scent. Kristen tried to shake off the shock of that touch, tried to lighten her voice. "You can't go yet. Don't you have any more gross prophecies for me?"