Dimension Shift (Hammer's War Book 2)

by James McEwan

  Thad looked down to see the hole in his suit and the red stain around it. “Dammit, I just got this suit, and you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get it.” Doctor Hammer pulled back Thad’s suit jacket to see the wound better. He was looking at it when he noticed a black body suit under the shirt. Thad tried to pull away. “I will be fine.”

  Quincy, still on edge, yelled over his shoulder “What? Ah never mind. I should have trusted my instincts and dumped your ass with the police.”

  “Well, I for one I am glad you didn’t.” Doctor Hammer said, as he was looking at the wound in Thad’s chest and much to his surprise watched as the wound healed before his eyes. “Well isn’t that interesting?”

  Thad pushed his jacket and shirt sleeve up revealing the small interface screen built into his body armor. His fingers flashed across it. In a second a green light flashed and a heavy cone rifle appeared on the seat next to him.

  Doctor Hammer, still concentrating on Thad’s wound, said “No one can do that without my...”

  “I know.” Thad said as he pulled the charging handle on the rifle.

  “But how?” Hammer asked.

  Bullets tore through the cab again and Thad shoved Hammer back down to the floor. “Not now!”

  “Stop shooting up my cab damn it!” Quincy yelled, fear being replaced with anger. “Shoot that son of a bitch in the face, will you!”

  Thad shouldered the rifle. “I will do my best.”

  The assassin had jacked a car and was now in pursuit. He was driving with one hand while shooting out the front window with the other. He donned dark sunglasses so the wind would not blind him. He fired a burst from his machine pistol, however, Quincy’s driving with his mad bobbing and weaving through traffic made it damn near impossible to hit what he was aiming at.

  The assassin didn’t care about the cars in front of him. If they got hit, oh well! Copper and lead filled the air as bullets were tearing through just as many cars as they were tearing through the cab. A burst meant for the cab, hit a car carrying a mom and her three kids. Luckily, none of the bullets hit anyone, but the shattering glass scared the crap out of all on board.

  Thad, on the other hand, was more concerned about the people on the road and held his fire until he felt he had a good shot. When it came, he squeezed the trigger letting loose a rain of rocket assisted rounds. Half of them missed slamming harmlessly into the road, the other half-slammed into the chase car. The rounds tore up the hood and completely decapitated the passenger’s seat, but none hit the driver.

  “Hold it steady damn it! Your bobbing and weaving are making it hard to hit him.” Thad yelled over the commotion.

  “It’s my bobbing and weaving that is the only thing keeping us alive!” Quincy yelled back.

  The shootout between vehicles seemed to those involved to go on forever, but in reality was only a few seconds. Several rounds of fire were exchanged between the two vehicles until Thad got lucky and hit the chasing vehicle’s antigravity generator. Without antigravity, the pursuing vehicle dropped to the ground grinding to a stop in a hail of sparks.

  Finally, the gunfire was over and Doctor Hammer was able to sit up. The back seat looked like Swiss cheese, there were more holes than seemed humanly possible for everyone to still be in one piece. Thad had taken a few more hits, but within minutes, he healed fully.

  “Quincy, find a car park now!” Thad yelled over the wind noise that was now almost deafening due to the wind rushing through the numerous holes.

  Quincy didn’t reply, instead,he just drove looking for a turn-off. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for and took a sharp right turn into a car park. His turn was so sharp that Thad and Hammer found themselves holding on so as not be thrown up against the bullet-ridden door. “Sorry about that.” Quincy said.

  “Take us to the top.” Thad said. Quincy drove them to the top of the car park where he parked in a corner slot. “everyone out.” Thad said. They all exited the cab.

  Quincy looked at his poor bullet-ridden smoking cab. “Oh my baby what have they done to you?”

  “Back up.” Thad commanded, and then he pulled the pins on a couple of plasma grenades and tossed one in the front and one in the back. In a flash of heat and light, the cab was engulfed in fire.

  “What in the Hell are you doing?” Quincy screamed as he slammed his hands to the sides of his head.

  “I’m sorry Quincy, but we cannot leave anything for him to track us with. Now wait here and I will find us another ride.” Thad said, as he walked away looking at the other cars in the car park.

  Quincy and Doctor Hammer stood and watched, as the cab burned, leaving nothing but a molten mess of metal and plastic. Doctor Hammer spoke first “Sorry about your cab son, but can you tell me what in God’s good name is going on here?”

  Quincy turned to Doctor Hammer “That’s a good question! One I would like to know the answer to as well.”

  “Well it seems that our mystery friend has all the answers.” Doctor Hammer said. “I am Doctor Julius Hammer.” he held out his hand.

  “Quincy, Quincy Jones.” he shook the doctor’s hand. Doctor Hammer lifted an eyebrow at his name and Quincy knew what he was thinking. “Don’t ask, it is a long story involving my mother, a bottle of Rum, a bunch of chicken feathers and old record collection.”

  Doctor Hammer was intrigued but chose to let it go because Thad had just pulled up in front of them with a black midsize BMW hover sedan with tinted windows. The doors popped open and Thad jumped out of the driver seat. “Quincy, do you mind?” Thad asked pointing to the driver’s seat.

  “Let’s see you get me shot at, my cab burned to the ground and now you want me to drive what looks like a stolen car, is that right?” He said.

  Thad shrugged. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  “Right! You must be crazy!” Quincy, blurted out.

  “I might be, but look at all the fun and excitement that I have brought into your life.” Thad said.

  “Yeah. A little too much, if you ask me.” he replied.

  “I’m really sorry I got you into all of this, but I need you to trust me because, like it or not, you’re part of it now. If you listen to me, you just might make it out of this alive and when this is over I will be sure to make it right for you.” Thad said, pleading with Quincy.

  “Listen to you? You just nearly got us killed.” Quincy was still unsure of what to do.

  “You're still breathing and with all your parts intact and I don’t see any new holes so please get in the car.”

  “You know that you don’t instill a lot of confidence telling me I might live through this.”

  “Look, Quincy, you can stay here and die if you wish, but if you come with me you stand a good chance of living. I will tell you everything I promise, but we are running out of time. We need to move. If you want to live, trust me and drive.” Thad pleaded.

  “When you put it that way, it looks like I have no choice, but to trust you.” he said as he sat down in the driver’s seat. Then he popped up again to come face to face with Thad. “But if you get me killed I’m going to be really pissed at you.” He sat down and shut the door.

  Thad turned to Doctor Hammer. “Do I need to give you the same speech?”

  “Nope.” he said as he climbed into the back seat. Thad followed him and closed the door.

  Quincy said over his shoulder “Okay boss, where to?”

  “We have to get out of the city. Drive around the city making your way towards the outer edge and don’t take a straight route.” Thad said.

  Quincy nodded and eased the BMW out of the car park and into traffic. Doctor Hammer sat next to Thad and was not going to wait anymore. “Okay son, would you mind telling me how you got my experimental Nano-protein into your system and where you got your hands on my multi-dimensional storage technology?”

  “You are not going to believe me when I tell you.” Thad said.

  “Try me.” Doctor Hammer interrupted him.
r />   “You gave them to me.” Thad said.

  “Excuse me?” Doctor Hammer was floored.

  Thad had finally worked it out and was ready to share his theory. “Look, I’m not from this dimension. In my dimension you and I were very close friends, you might even say that you were a father figure to me.” he said.

  Doctor Hammer sat there still looking at him as if he was crazy. “Okay, so if you are from another dimension, then how you did get here and why do did you say that you and I were close friends? Did something happen to the other me?”

  Thad sighed. “Yes, in my dimension you were murdered by a drunken space pirate.”

  “Oh, so I hung out with space pirates, did I?” He was finding all this just a little hard to believe.

  “No, it was a case of wrong place at the wrong time.” Thad said.

  “Well,I’m glad to hear that ... after all, I have a reputation to maintain, even if it is in another dimension, as you claim.” he said.

  “I know this is a lot to take in, but it’s all true and I can prove it, but not here.” Thad said.

  Quincy had been listening to everything, and there was just one question on his mind. “Another dimension, or not. What in the hell is all the shooting about?”

  “I’m not sure about that one, just that I think somebody doesn’t want the good doctor here to share his newest creations with the universe.” Thad said.

  “So you think that my unveiling of the new nano-protein is why that maniac is gunning for me?” Doctor Hammer asked.

  “I think so.” Thad replied. “But don’t make the mistake thinking that he is anyway a maniac ... far from it. The man that is hunting you is a stone cold killer ... a professional who will not stop until the mission is completed.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this professional hit man.” Doctor Hammer said.

  “He is not your run of the mill hit man, he is the best at what he does, and he is run by a super secret military organization. He will not stop until you are in a body bag.” Thad said.

  “How do you know so much about this guy, after all, you say that you are from another dimension?” Quincy asked interested in the conversation.

  “That is a good point. If you are really from another dimension how you would know this man?” Doctor Hammer added.

  “I know because that man is me.” Thad said pausing to let the information sink in. “At least it was me as I was years ago and in a ...”

  Quincy cut him off “Another dimension, we get it.”

  Chapter 3

  It was getting late on the clock, but because the city of New Dallas was on rails and always moving in sync with the rotation of the planet, the sun was always in the noon position. This would be a problem if not for the city’s night cloak. The city founders thought that sun twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week was just too much. That much sunlight had a habit of messing with people’s sleep, which led to some of the poor people throwing themselves off the city edge to their deaths while others went on shooting rampages that ended not only in their deaths but also in the deaths of many innocents. Therefore, in response, the city planners built a special force field that blocked out the light. To enhance the experience they projected an image of the night’s sky on the force field.

  “Find us a cattle yard.” Thad said.

  “A what?” Quincy asked.

  “How is it that you drive a cab in New Dallas and don’t know what a cattle yard is?” Thad said.

  “I know what one is, thank you very much, and I know where they all are, I just don’t understand why a cattle yard.” Quincy snapped back at him.

  “Because, my friend, our salvation lies in our ability to become cowboys. It is time to put your spurs on.” Thad said.

  “Oh boy, I wonder what my mother would think of me now?” Quincy said.

  “I’m sure she would be proud to know that you helped save one of the greatest minds in the universe.” Thad said.

  “That is a little presumptuous of you, don’t you think my boy?” Doctor Hammer asked.

  “I wasn’t talking about myself.” Thad responded.

  “Oh, I see.” Doctor Hammer said, realizing that Thad was referring to him.

  There was no more conversation between them. Quincy found a cattle yard. It was closed for the day, but that did not stop them.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, in an office building in the heart of New Dallas, Marcus, the assassin, stood before his boss, former General George Thorne. “So you are telling me that some mystery man came out of nowhere, and saved the target at the last second. Then spirited him away and in the process was able to stop you from following him, is this right?”

  Marcus stood there at attention. “That is my report, Sir.”

  “So what do you think? Some kind of last minute security detail?” Thorne asked.

  “No Sir, I think that this is something completely different. I bumped into him at the hotel before and there were a lot of things strange about this man, but I didn’t have time to find out who he was.” Marcus replied.

  “Would you care to elaborate on that statement?” asked Thorne.

  “Well Sir, to start, he was wearing our battle armor and by the looks of it, he had been through one hell of a firefight. Then it was the way he moved and looked. It was if I was looking at myself, but different. It was weird.” he said.

  Thorne raised an eyebrow. “Really. You see a man that reminds you of you and is wearing our battle armor, and it is heavily damaged. And you don’t think that warranted investigation?”

  “Sir, I was on an exceedingly strict timetable set out by you, and as weird as it was I needed to be in place or the messy public assassination that you ordered would not happen and if it wasn’t for the mystery man it would have gone off without a hitch. So don’t go blaming me for not doing my job when I did it to the letter.” Marcus came right back at Thorne.

  Thorne was unhappy about the botched job, but he knew that it was not Marcus’s fault, he had never failed to complete a mission, and he believed that he would finish this one. “I know, Marcus; it’s just frustrating to have your perfect record tarnished. It’s bad for business. Now where do you think they have gone?”

  “My guess, would to be out of the city. If I were them I would head for one of the other cities to get off-world. I need to find them before that, or it will be a lot harder to track him down. If it were me, I wouldn’t try any of the regular means of leaving the city. It would be too easy for us to watch and track them. No, I would try getting out through the only other means that would raise no questions.” Marcus said.

  “And what, pray tell, would that be?” Thorne asked.

  “With the rangers, of course.” Marcus paused to let Thorne think about it. “You see, they can get out on grav-bikes with no questions asked as it is the cowboy tradition.”

  “Yes, but this late no one would be open so where would they go until morning?” Thorne asked.

  “I don’t think that they would wait, I would think that they will steal what they need. We need to alert the local police that a theft is about to occur and have them check all the cattle yards for us.” Marcus said.

  It did not take long for Thad to hack the security system of the tack store, which happened to sit adjacent to the empty cattle yard. Once they gained entry, they split up to find clothing in their own sizes. They needed the new clothing because two men in suits and one dressed like a Rastafarian would stick out like teats on a bull.

  Thad chose a nice outfit that seemed to fit him well. He got dressed in blue jeans with a wide strip of soft brown leather sewn into the inseam. The leather was there to fight the wear and tear on the pants that long hours of riding grav-bikes inflicted upon them. He slipped on a white cotton long sleeve shirt, and then he donned a tan leather vest with silver buttons. On his feet, Thad pulled on plain brown cowboy boots with silver spurs for show. A hat was the last thing he needed. He found a wide-brimmed black hat, that reminded him of the one he liked
to wear when he was the assassin.

  Thad was in the process of buckling a black leather dual gun belt covered in silver decorations when Doctor Hammer came out of the dressing room. He was wearing black jeans, a purple cotton shirt, and black skinny western bow tie. He chose a long black duster coat, which was so long that you could barely see the tan snakeskin boots he was sporting. On his head was a nice white cowboy hat.

  Thad looked over the doctor’s outfit. “Nice threads doc, but I would choose a better color for your hat. You might find that white, while not only hard to keep clean on the range, can be seen for miles, and when one is trying to hide from an assassin, white hats aren’t the hat of choice.”

  Doctor Hammer took off the hat. “Oh! Good point. Let’s see what else I can find.”

  He was looking through the hats when Quincy stepped out of the dressing room. Thad and Doctor Hammer took a good long look at Quincy’s choice of clothing. He was dressed head to toe in a light tanned deer hide outfit, but that was not what drew their attention. It was the rhinestones and rows of fringe that hung off of just about everywhere on the outfit. Quincy saw the looks on their faces. “What, something wrong?”

  Thad couldn’t hold it in any longer, and burst into laughter, which caused the Doctor to lose it and he started laughing as well. Quincy looked down at the outfit and then looked back up. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

  Doctor Hammer spoke. “Son, I don’t think that cowboys wear much fringe out on the range, in fact, I doubt they wear much fringe at all. Where did you find that?”

  Quincy pointed over to the women’s section. “Over there, I thought I would get something off those racks to save time instead of waiting for you two to get out of the way.”

  “Totally reasonable, but you should have looked before grabbing.” Doctor Hammer said as he pointed to the sign above the racks. It read ‘Women’s Wear’.”

  Quincy looked up at the sign. “Ah shit, no wonder it’s so damn tight in the crotch.” He looked at Thad who was still trying to compose himself. “Oh, shut up, you. How was I supposed to know? It is damn near pitch black in here.”