by James McEwan
The drops of water were huge and it was not long before everything was soaking wet. St. Claire laughed. “Just seems we can’t seem to say out of the water.”
She pulled him across a fairly large street to a building that looked like it had once been a large fuel tank of some kind. The outside was highly polished and in large neon letters “Bob’s Fuel Tank Bar” lit up the dark street. They ran up steps and ducked under the bright red and white striped fabric canopy that covered the front porch.
She opened the door and pointed her arm towards the inside. “After you.”
St. Claire thought it was strange for a bodyguard to let the protectee enter without sweeping for dangers first. “Shouldn’t you check it out first?”
She smiled. “I already have, trust me there is nothing in here you need to worry about.”
“Okay.” he said and walked past her and into the building. The inside décor was that of diners from the 1950’s Earth. Bright shiny metal complemented with brightly colored plastic and neon signs. There was a bar complete with stationary stools, but Kára chose a booth against a wall where she could sit back to the wall and still see the exit.
“The place is owned and run by a Terrellian. No one can pronounce his real name so we all just call him Bob.”
As if on cue, the large one-eyed alien appeared from the kitchen. As he moved his massive bulk, his tentacle arms wiggled as he walked. Once he reached the table, he opened his wide mouth. “Ah, Kára, it is so nice to see you again, and I see you have brought a guest.”
She smiled at him. “Good to see you again Bob and yes, this is my friend Dominic.” She said, making sure to be polite. The Terrellians are awfully big on etiquette and it was best even for Eli to be polite to them.
“What brings you to my humble eating and drinking establishment?”
“We are here for your wonderful food and drink. Please, if you would be so kind as to bring us a bottle of your fantastic mead wine.”
“It would be my pleasure.” he bent at the waist and made a grand flourish with his tentacle arm.
Bob left to get the wine and glasses while St. Claire looked over the menu, not recognizing anything on the menu. “So what do you suggest?”
“Ah, I see that you have never had Eli food before.” Kára said, watching his confused look as he looked over the menu.
“Nope, can’t say that I have, but there is a first time for everything. You order. I trust your judgment” St. Claire said, hoping that some of the dishes listed didn’t turn out to be space octopus asshole or something like that.
“For a Terellian he has mastered Eli cooking and his is the only one other than an Eli cook I would trust to even try to cook Eli food.” she said as Bob returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
St. Claire was not real familiar with Terrellians and he was very impressed with his ability to handle the glass and wine bottle without fingers. Kára ordered a number of different dishes to give him a wide range of food to try.
While they waited, he tried the mead wine and having never had it before he found that its sweet taste was very pleasant.
“So Kára, like as in the Valkyrie Kára, the wild storm?” he asked as he enjoyed the wine.
“No, not like Kára. I am Kára, the wild storm” she said.
This floored him. “That’s impossible.”
“Not impossible, just highly unlikely. Some of my people live an awfully long time.”
“Yeah, but that would be an incredibly long time.”
“Well I’m nearly two thousand years old, I think, lost count sometime after nineteen thousand” she said, as it was a normal fact.
“Well you look fantastic for a two-thousand-year-old, but how is that possible? I have heard of Eli living well into their two hundreds and one case I heard of one Eli that lived to be three hundred ... but come on, thousands of years?”
“About that, well…” She hesitated. “Something happened to me many years ago. Some have called me cursed, while others call me blessed.”
Fascinated, he found himself wanting to know more. “So what happened?”
Many years ago, my people were in a war with a dreadfully evil race of giants who had the power to move through time. My people eventually won the war and a few Eli had learned the secrets of time travel. However, over time those secrets were lost until the time when I was young. I was studying at what you would call a university. I was sent down to the basement of the tech labs to retrieve something for my professor. However, when I couldn’t find what I was sent to find, I started to look into anything and everything. I went through every box and container I could find.
I was just about to give up when a metal box covered in years of dust fell off the shelf. The box was extraordinarily heavy, even for me. Well, it smashed into the floor and smashed through it. As it turns out there was a room underneath the basement.”
He started to understand where she was going with her story. “And being curious, you went down there and found something.”
“Yes, what I found changed my life forever. The room was an old lab covered up and forgotten Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. I looked around and finding nothing of interest, I was about climb back up to the basement when I saw a glimmer of gold on the bottom of a glass cabinet. What I found in that cabinet is what changed my life.”
The first of the food arrived and the smell was unbelievably good. When St. Claire tasted the food, he was in heaven. It was like a mix of Asian and Mediterranean food he had before on Earth. It had just the right balance of spice and flavor. Even though the food was incredible, he still wanted to know the rest of the story. “So what was it?”
She sucked up a red colored noodle. “Ah yes, it was a small gold box. It had strange writing engraved on it. I tried to open it, but I could not figure it out so I placed it my pocket and left. Well, I never did find what my professor wanted me to find, so I returned to the lab and no one was there. I had to walk past a large power source that we used to power experiments to get to the professors’ office. When I walked past the power source, something happened to the box. It started glowing and the box completely drained the power source.” She paused to shove more red noodles into her mouth.
After she was done chewing, she continued her story. “So there I was standing in the lab with my pants glowing. I took the strange box out of my pocket and when I touched it, this time, a bright golden light emitted from the box. I found myself surrounded by the light. The next thing I knew was that I was standing on my home planet. Only it was almost one hundred thousand years earlier. I found myself in the middle of the war with the giants called Nephilim. That is where I got the armor I wear today. The reason you have never seen its like before, is because it is tech that has been lost even to the Eli of this era.”
St. Claire could hardly believe what he was hearing. Nevertheless, he was engrossed in the story. “So let me guess, you got pressed into the fight.”
She smiled at him and downed another glass of wine. “Yeah, I arrived right in the middle of a major attack. The spot where the university is located used to be an ancient fort. I grabbed a set of armor and a weapon and joined the fight. I shoved the box under my armor. The fighting became especially intense when the Nephilim stormed in one of them shot me with some kind of high energy weapon which should have blasted me out of existence, but...”
“But it didn’t, did it?” he asked as he took another sip of the wine.
“No it didn’t. The box absorbed all of the energy and I time jumped again, but this time something was wrong and the box exploded while I was in the middle of the jump. When that happened, I was lost in what I can only call the vortex of time. I have no idea how long I was in the time vortex. You see, time has no real meaning in the vortex.
“Wow, that must have been amazing.” St. Claire was wondering what it would have been like.
“It was amazing and terrifying all at the same time. But like any vortex, I eventually was thrown out
of the vortex. When I landed, it was about three hundred years after the day I found the box. I appeared in the middle of a ruin that was once my university. Something happened to the world and everyone was gone. I was all alone on the planet.” Kára stopped to reflect on that day.
“So what did you do next?” he asked, as he slid his hand across the table and took her hand in his.
“I wandered for a while and after a few years,I found a shipyard. Luckily for me, all of the automation still worked. So after I restored power to it and with some minor repairs I got it to make me a small starship that I could pilot by myself. I left, and I have never looked back.”
“That is quite a story, but that doesn’t explain how you have not aged a bit and how you have lived for almost two thousand years.”
“That is because I don’t know! However, ever since I was thrown out of the time vortex I have not aged a day, it is if I somehow stopped being affected by time. I experience time just like anyone else, just time has no effect on me.” she said as she squeezed his hand. “Oh look ... the dessert has arrived.”
St. Claire thought he was going to burst, he had eaten so much, but the dessert looked so inviting he just had to try it. He took a bite and the only way he could think to describe the taste was it was a bit like having one's brain smashed out by large gold brick covered in sweet chocolate with a twist of lime.
“Kára is not a normal Eli name is it?”
“Kára is the name the people of Earth called me when I visited so many years ago. I like it better than my Eli name.”
He had to know. “So what is your Eli name?”
“Shellac Burr, but many human males like to call me Ball Crusher. For some reason, they think my name is funny. I don’t care to be called Ball Crusher, so I chose to be called Kára.”
St. Claire couldn’t help but laugh and when he did, she frowned. “I guess I misjudged you. You are like the rest of your race ... stupid and mean.”
He understood that he just hurt her feelings. “No, I’m sorry you misunderstood me. I wasn’t laughing at you, but at the fact that your name is an anagram.”
“An ana-what?”
“Anagram, it is when you take the letters of one or more words, rearrange them to spell something else and it just happens that the letters of your name spell out Ball Crusher.” He spoke fast trying to repair the damage he had done by laughing.
“I see. Like the letters of your name, Dominic St. Claire, when rearranged, spell out Comical Disinter. That is kind of funny.” she chuckled.
“I guess.” he didn’t find it so funny.
“Now you know about me, how about you?”
St. Claire picked up his wine glass, swirled the last few drops before downing them. “Me, not much to tell. I always wanted to be a cop so when I was old enough, I ran off and joined the 101st Rep Com Police Corps.” She gave him a blank look when he mentioned the name of the unit. “It’s an elite military police unit. They specialize in helping local governments inside the Rep Com and the Federation who don’t have the resources to deal with large scale policing events.”
“Like what kind of policing events?”
“Like the riots on Adelpha Four or when a Nekton crime syndicate tried to take over Sky’s End City on Ray’s world. Events like that, where the locals need help. When we get the call, we show up, handle business and then when things under control, we leave.” He picked up the empty bottle of mead wine. “Damn it! The bottle is empty.”
Kára waved at Bob who brought over another bottle and refilled their glasses. “Sounds exciting.”
“It had its moments. Most of the time is was a lot of standing around and waiting. Anyway, after ten years I was too beat up to make it to the full twenty so I left the corps and joined the New Dallas Police Department. Twenty-three years later and two months from retiring, I had to take one last call before the end of my shift. Now I’m in a world of shit, with only one hope of getting out of it. Even that is a long shot.”
Kára drained another glass of mead. “What is this long shot you are referring too?”
She offered to fill his glass again, but he placed his hand over the top ofhis glass. He had heard of the Eli’s legendary ability to consume mad amounts of alcohol, however, he was no Eli. “I think I’m done with the mead unless you want to carry me back to the hotel.”
She gave him a funny look. “I can do that if you want.”
“No, I was kidding.”
“Okay if you say so, but I can handle it if you change your mind. Anyway about this long shot what is it?”
“It is bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I have to find three men that I have little information on.”
“Are these men here in the city?”
“I hope so, but I’m not sure. The last time I saw them, they were heading this way across the plains on three stolen grav-bikes.”
Kára smiled. “Then it is no problem at all.”
Not sure if it was the alcohol talking or if he just had problems with is hearing. “Excuse me?”
“Not a problem, just give me their descriptions and if they are in the city or enter the city I will find them for you.”
Even though he was not sure how she was going to find them, he thought it was worth a shot. He described them to her the best he could.
Later Kára dropped the heavily intoxicated St. Claire on his bed. She undressed him and pulled the covers over him. “Lightweight.” She left him to sleep off his drink while she planted herself at the desk and started making calls.
Chapter 28
On The Lightning, Thad sat on a table in the sick bay. “This might pinch a little.” Doctor Hammer said as he injected Thad with a silver metallic looking fluid.
“Do I want to know what you are injecting into me?”
DoctorHammer looked up over his glasses. “probably not, but don’t worry it won’t hurt you. It is designed to work with your Nano-bots. Together with this little guy.” he held up a small black box no larger than a smartphone.
“What is that?” Thad asked.
Doctor Hammer handed it him. “It emits a low level, wide spectrum electromagnetic beam that with the serum I just injected you with should hold your particles here in this universe.”
Thad didn’t like the word should. “Should hold my particles?”
“Sorry, should is the best I can do here with this equipment.”
Thad hopped off the table. “Well then, it will have to do.”
“Not to worry my boy, you have the good fortune to know that my should is far better than most people’s one hundred percent” Doctor Hammer said with a smile. “Now that you are solid for now, let’s go find our wayward Mr. Jones and get out of here.”
Thad stopped cold. “Solid for now?”
Doctor Hammer laughed and put his arm on Thad’s shoulder. “I’m kidding! You will be fine.” They left the room with Doctor Hammer’s arm still around Thad’s shoulder, his other behind his back, figures crossed.
They found Quincy knocking back beers about as fast as the bartender could pour them. Vergil was sitting on the bar waving a mug back and forth singing “Whiskey, you’re the devil”. When Vergil saw Thad and Doctor Hammer, he stopped singing and held up his mug. “Quiet!” But people were still singing. “Pipe down! Damn it!” The singing stopped and Vergil stood up on the bar, which made him about the same height as Thad.
“My friends please join us, the beer is warm and the food is cold. Wait! That’s the beer is cold, oh you get the idea.”
“Thanks, Vergil, but we are just here to collect Quincy.” Thad said.
“Ah, you are leaving already?”
Quincy was already drunk and having a hard time keeping his beer in his mug and off of his shirt. He saw Thad. “Dude, you have to have a drink!”
Thad smiled. “I would love to, but I’m afraid we are working against the clock my friend.”
Disappointed, Quincy set his mug on the bar. “Damn clock! It has ruined a perfectly good
drunk.”
Thad collected Quincy and with the help of Doctor Hammer, the three of them made their way back to the flight deck where somehow Vergil had beaten them there. Thad pointed at the little man. “How did you?”
“I know this ship backward, forward and few other ways to boot.” Vergil said.
“I should have known.”
Vergil waddled over to his new friend and held out is hand. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Thad shook his hand. “You’re welcome, even though I didn’t really do anything. It was all Doctor Hammer.”
“I know and that is why I have already ordered a year’s worth of Jack Daniels to be sent to his home.”
Thad threw his head back in laughter. “He will love it, I am sure.”
Doctor Hammer heard the laughter and walked over to the two men. “Do you mind if I ask what has caused Thaddeus to come down with a sudden case of the giggles?”
Vergil laughed. “Nothing you need to worry about. You will find out soon enough, I am sure.”
Confused by his answer, Doctor Hammer stood there trying to understand what the little man meant when Thad threw his arm around his shoulder. “What Vergil is saying is that he has a little gift of appreciation waiting for you when you get home.”
Doctor Hammer raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
Vergil padded him on the lower back, which was as high as he could reach. “No worries Doc it isn’t a Slendorian Stripper or anything. Let’s just say that you will be able it to enjoy it for a long time.”
“Oh.” was all Doctor Hammer could think of.
After they said their goodbyes, Doctor Hammer took the controls of one of the bikes while Thad strapped the rather drunk Quincy Jones behind him. It was late in the night when they departed, not that one could tell what time it was by the sun. Because they were heading away from the sun, it appeared to dip a little in the sky.