The Parallel Conspiracy: A Mystery Adventure of Alternate Worlds

 

  Shrouded in the charged field of passion, the steps when they came went unheard. The words when spoken broke the trance they were in, causing the lovers to snap around towards the alien sound.

  “Well, now I’m sorry to break in on you two at such a tender moment, but we have some business that’s a little more pressing,” said McAndrews as he came along side of them. Phil, Franz and Bobby flanked him, all of which held guns.

  “Shit,” was all Fuller could say, his heart feeling like it had dropped into his stomach.

  Sue, wiping the tears from her eyes said, “You better get the hell out of here while you can, McAndrews. I told my uncle all about what you’ve been doing, so it’s only a matter of time before he catches up with you.”

  He laughed, elbowing Phil in the side. “If only you knew how ridiculous your weak little threat sounds.”

  “Yeah we’re terrified over here now,” quipped Phil, chuckling too.

  The humor left McAndrews’ face as he glared at Fuller. “Can I assume this is the great John Fuller we’ve heard so much about from Julian Placidia?”

  Sweat formed on Fuller’s forehead while his heart raced inside. All he could choke out was, “Yeah.” Then something took hold inside. Though he may be about to die, he wanted to fight back however he could. “You mean the Placidia who’s chained in one of the emperor’s deepest dungeons?”

  McAndrews smiled. “That would be him, but don’t go patting yourself on the back too soon, Mr. Fuller. After all, in a world of infinite universes, there are also an infinite number of Placidia’s to choose from. You may have delayed us, but don’t even think you’ve stopped us.”

  Fuller’s mind raced for options to get them out of this predicament but could find none. The best hope lay with Jen, who was still connected to the Internet and would not know this was happening. He cursed himself for ever getting her started on the foolhardy project. He needed her now more than ever. A few seconds of Jen with a particle gun would bring a quick end to this.

  McAndrews pulled a gun from under his jacket and held it towards them. He commanded, “Phil, go in the house and get the other one out here. We’re going to the barn.”

  “All right,” said Phil, strolling towards the house.

  “Okay, both of you get to the barn,” said McAndrews, waving his gun in that direction.

  When they walked around the side of the house, the small barn door swung open and out emerged Bechler. His initial smile left his face when he caught sight of McAndrews and his crew. It looked as though he would run for a second but then froze when McAndrews called to him, “Hold it right there or I’ll shoot! Okay. Hands where I can see them. Bobby, go search him.”

  McAndrews held Fuller and Sue at bay. When Bobby completed the search, he stepped back with Bechler’s handheld computer.

  Bechler looked at his two friends. “I guess I didn’t pick such a good time to visit.”

  “No, you didn’t,” responded Sue.

  “All right, all of you shut up and get in the barn—now!” blared McAndrews. Once inside, he asked Bechler, “Okay now, who are you?”

  “Just one of Sue’s neighbors,” responded Bechler.

  “Ah bullshit. Not coming out of this barn you aren’t,” McAndrews grumbled. “You’re Vince Bechler; the agent from the other universe.

  Bechler raised a brow. “You seem pretty well informed. How is that?”

  “You don’t worry about that.”

  “I’m afraid you have the best of me. Who did you say you are?”

  “You don’t worry about that either.”

  Gritting her teeth, Sue spat out, “He’s Agent Larry McAndrews of the DAP. Soon to be former agent when my uncle gets a hold of him.”

  “Ah. So I can assume you’ve talked to your uncle then?” asked Bechler.

  “He knows. I told him last night.”

  “I see…” said Bechler.

  “All right. Every one of you just shut it. Now I want to go back to your machine there and fire it up,” said McAndrews, motioning to the quantum shifter with his gun.

  “What for?” shot out Sue. “You can’t hope to escape into another universe with it. You’ll only bounce right back here.”

  “Oh no, Miss Manders. You have it all wrong. You see what you never realized is that you invented the perfect device to dispose of your enemies with,” McAndrews said with a twisted grin. “Here’s how it works: I put all of you in the booth, I set it to shift you to another universe and I kick the power up on full so you stay put forever. The only unfortunate consequence is that you’ll be dead on arrival. That’s fine with me, you see, because at least I don’t have to worry about your bodies ever turning up. Very tidy. Don’t you think?”

  “Your killing us isn’t going to help you…” started Sue.

  “Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say,” McAndrews cut her off. “But let’s just say I’m eliminating some very damaging witnesses. Now go over and get it set up.”

  “You’re so damn smart and have all the answers, do it yourself,” fumed Sue. “I certainly won’t.”

  “Well, I know how stubborn you can be, so I wasn’t depending on you. I’m depending on one of these gentlemen to assist.”

  “Fat chance,” said Fuller. “You’ve got the gun and can kill me, but there’s no way I’m going to help you get rid of my body. Do it yourself.”

  “I don’t dig my own grave,” asserted Bechler.

  “I’m being misunderstood again,” said McAndrews as he went to one of the workbenches. He grabbed a small screwdriver from its holder. “You see, Mr. Fuller, savior god of the empire, I saw how close you are to our pretty scientist over there, so I’m depending on you to help her out. In fact, I’m going to take this screwdriver and see how many times I have to gouge her with it before you do help her out. I like to start with the eyes. That should get her screaming loud enough to get your attention.”

  “You gonna screw the lady there, Larry?” asked Phil, closing the barn door behind himself.

  “That’s very funny, Phil,” said McAndrews, rolling his eyes. “Where’s the robot?”

  “Not in the house. I checked every closet and under every bed from basement to attic. It’s not there.”

  “Okay fine. We’ll have to get rid of it later then,” responded McAndrews. He turned back to Fuller. “Well, John, I’m waiting.”

  “All right, you don’t have to do anything to her,” said Fuller, going over to the machine.

  “I was hoping you’d see it my way,” said McAndrews, placing the screwdriver back on the bench. “I’m not an animal you know. I don’t want to do anything like that to her. It’s just that I do what it takes to get the job done, no matter how distasteful.”

  Fuller turned the machine on. “Okay, it’s on. Where do you want me to set it for?”

  “Why not the empire? You have friends there. I’m sure the emperor will give you a funeral suitable for a god,” said McAndrews. He walked over to the machine and watched Fuller’s manipulations.

  Fuller set the controls as instructed. “All right. It’s ready to shift.”

  “Show me how to adjust the power levels now. And remember, John, I’m not stupid. I’ve operated the machine at Gladstone plenty of times.”

  Fuller cursed to himself. He had hoped McAndrews would not remember and they would only shift for a few hours. Instead, he showed McAndrews where the setting was and turned it up all the way.

  Fuller could see huge dips and spikes on the power graph. They had never set it this high before so he did not know if it was normal. He was not about to point it out to McAndrews though because the machine may not even function like this. Better yet, it may do like he had hoped before, only shifting them for a few hours.

  There was a sudden crack at the door. Fuller’s head snapped towards it when black flack-jacketed men came barreling in. They shouted for everyone to freeze, but it was to
o late as shots rang out.

  McAndrews raised his gun to fire, but Fuller’s hands shot out, grabbing the other man’s arm. With all his strength, he thrust the agent’s arm upward, the shot cracking off but going into the ceiling beams above. While the chain reaction of other shots continued, Fuller became too engrossed in his own struggle to pay any attention.

  McAndrews clutched at Fuller’s arms, and the two men struggled to gain possession of the gun. Although McAndrews had a height advantage over Fuller, in a wrestling match it was of little advantage. Fuller allowed the other man’s arm to drop but still held on while he dug his shoulder into the bottom of McAndrews’ rib cage. Almost lifting him from the ground, he drove the man backwards into the corner of the shifting booth entrance. Fuller could feel the agent’s arms fly apart when his shoulder blades wrapped around either side of the glass.

  McAndrews groaned in pain from the polycarbonate driving into his spine, the gun flying from his hand. It bounced off the back wall of the booth and clattered as it came to rest out on the barn floor. McAndrews recovered and brought up a knee. He aimed for Fuller’s groin but missed, glancing off his leg instead. Fuller had not been in many schoolyard fights, but he knew it was a filthy business and that he should expect anything dirty the other dished out.

  Fuller still clutching the arm that had once held the gun, McAndrews threw several punches into his face with the fist that was free. Given the close quarters, there was little power behind them, and Fuller ignored the blows. Instead, he was able to concentrate on his next move. He yanked down on the arm he held with both hands while he pivoted his body towards the sidewall of the booth. He extended his arms out from his body and brought his back to the inside wall of glass, thus catapulting the agent towards the opposite sidewall. When Fuller did not let go of the agent’s arm immediately, it wrenched behind McAndrews with an audible crunch. When Fuller did let go, McAndrews went pummeling into the polycarbonate wall opposite him, bowing it outward with the impact.

  Not wanting McAndrews to have time to recover, Fuller charged forward. With the other’s back as his only target, Fuller laid several heavy kidney punches into the agent, but he recovered quicker than Fuller expected and spun around to grab at his throat. As Fuller attempted to twist from the stronger man’s grasp, he tripped over his own tangled feet and went crashing down towards the front corner.

  Fuller’s head hit the panel of buttons, and the all too familiar nausea struck at him like a steel rod forced through the top of his head. At first, he thought the queasiness was from the impact of his head, but when it continued, he knew he had pushed the shifting button.

  The nausea he felt seemed different from the other times he had experienced it, always having been a constant din. This time he felt it ebb and flow. At times, it would ease off and he thought it was ending, but then it would increase to an unbearable level. The pressure would increase like his head was ready to pop from the screw of a turning vise then ease off, giving hope it was over. As the vise cranked farther than ever before, he fell unconscious.

   

  *****

 

   

  Fuller awoke with the blaze of light and chest-thumping boom from a nearby lightning strike. He was wet and covered in mud, the mire sucking him downward when he attempted to rise. When he broke free and rose to his feet, the heavy rain washed him with its stinging impact.

  A more distant flash illuminated the surroundings enough for Fuller to see he was alongside Sue’s house. He was unsure of how he got there or how long he had been lying in the mud. Although he knew he had shifted, it seemed odd he was here instead of in the universe of the empire.

  Neither Sue nor Bechler had been close to the control console when the fight began, but it seemed one of them had changed the parameters during the scuffle. However, if that were the case, why was he not in the barn and in the booth itself? He decided not to concern himself with these puzzles for now. Since the lights were off in the barn but on in the house, he decided to go there. He would find out what happened from Sue.

  He walked to the front of the house. With another flash of lightning, he saw two men a dozen yards down the mud-swamped drive fighting. He ran to them, almost losing his footing in the greasy mire. When he drew closer and another flash lit the tableau, he could see the face of McAndrews as he sat on another man, throttling him with steel gripped hands. Could the other be Bechler or Sue’s uncle? Neither one matched the size of the unknown man. Whoever it was, it would be easier if they both took up the fight against their common enemy.

  When close enough, Fuller punched McAndrews’ jaw, almost knocking him over. The agent released the other man to fight off Fuller, but when another flare lit up the sky, the agent exclaimed, “What the hell?” He shot from the ground and backed off several paces for no apparent reason. While McAndrews continued his retreat, the man in the mud came to his knees, clutching at his throat with his own hands.

  Fuller called to him, “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” he croaked, his voice almost buried in the din of the storm.

  Fuller’s eyes kept glancing toward the withdrawing McAndrews to see if he would renew his attack, but when another burst of lighting struck, its powerful blue flash illuminated the face of the man kneeling beside him. His eyes remained transfixed on the injured man.

  A tsunami of realization struck Fuller with such force he became lightheaded. It was himself, or a parallel version John Fuller, kneeling on the ground. At first, he could not accept it, a mere trick of the light. However, several flashes of lightning later he was certain. It was himself!

  The memory of that first night outside Sue’s house flooded back to him. This is how it was. Only then, he was the man on the ground and now he himself was the man who came to his rescue. He had not only traveled back to his own universe but also returned at that earlier time.

  Fuller could not ponder it further. While he had been staring at his other self, McAndrews renewed his attack. The agent threw his entire weight at Fuller, causing him to fall into his other self on the ground. Or so he thought. There was an initial thud of impact, but as he continued to fall, it felt more like he was descending into a vat of jelly. Then there was nothing when he blacked out.

  When conscious again, Fuller was still falling, sliding into a black void with no bottom. The lightning had ceased and the darkness was total, the silence around him complete but for the distant pounding of his heart. There seemed to be no consistency of rhythm though because it appeared to slow to one beat per minute for a period then race to several hundred. The odd feeling he had, however, was that his pulse was steady just his sense of time ever changing.

  The weightless feeling of rapid descent continued. It either felt like he was plummeting several thousand feet after jumping from an airplane or was in a universe all of his own, devoid of light and gravity. The greatest surprise of all though was that he felt no panic. There was no hint of fear at all, only calm and tranquility.

  At first, he thought that McAndrews had succeeded in killing him, but then he realized that his heart was still beating and the sensation of a body remained. Given this, he could not be dead then but was in some type of bizarre universe different from any other.

  He remembered Bechler’s warning regarding the machine stabilizing before a shift and felt that where he was must be a result of this. That the machine transported matter from one universe to another was known, but with the instability of the power levels he had observed, it had somehow tapped into a further unknown potential. It seemed that what Sue had worked on so long and hard had a power greater than any she had imagined, the ability to transport not only to parallel universes but through time and space too. With further study and knowledge to control this power, it appeared one could go anywhere, in any time, in any universe.

  This explained the circumstances of his recent life. The erratic shift he had made with McAndrews started it all when it had s
ent him back in time to the night he first walked up to Sue’s house. He knew well the phenomenon of how when placing clothes or other items in boxes it would drag their atoms back through the gateway with it. This is what happened to him. He must have struck the earlier version of himself kneeling on the ground the moment he and McAndrews were about to shift. They had dragged him through the portal with them, depositing him in the universe that Sue lived in.

  What started as the worst of nightmares though had become the most exciting adventure of his life and, being with Sue, the happiest. If this were death, he would at least have those moments with her to warm him for eternity. As time stretched on, he did relive these memories and an immeasurable number of others. Eventually, the black universe vanished though.

  With an abrupt onrush of awareness, Fuller felt his body plastered to the hot ground, never having hit it with an impact but just there. In sharp contrast to the place that he had been, the landscape here was aglow in yellow light all around. Despite the great change, he did not blink or squint, his eyes seeming to adjust with no lapse. When he rose to his feet, he looked at the vast emptiness of the sandy desert, and knew he could not remain here for long. With the intensity of the sun blazing on him, he could feel his temperature rising and perspiration beginning to exude.

  The ground around him was not flat. Dunes of sand undulated to a mountainous horizon hundreds of miles off. His best option for now was to climb the highest of the mounds close to him. It would give a better vista to observe signs of civilization. At minimum, he may find relief of some kind from this shimmering hell.

  He trudged through the loose grains. It was a greater effort than imagined with the lack of solid traction and the lightness of head that began to grip him. It was ten minutes or more before he reached the base of the largest dune within sight. The small effort it at first appeared to be now seemed like a day’s long labor, his mouth parched like he had eaten dust by mouthfuls. The challenge of climbing was even greater though. For every stride he went up, the ever-shifting hill would push him back down by over half as much.

  After many more minutes or maybe even hours—he couldn’t tell because the wooziness he felt had transgressed to an almost somnambulistic state—he was cresting its peak when a horrifying sight struck him. McAndrews was climbing the opposing side, a look of fury exploding from his face.

  “It’s you!” he attempted to yell, but his throat’s dryness choked his words.

  The maniacal agent came over the top, hands and feet pounding at the burning sand as he clawed his way up. Fuller stood there, not sure the wavering specter before him was real or imagined. He came to life though when the other descended upon him, a fistful of sand let loose towards Fuller’s eyes in an attempt to blind him. Although his dreamlike state continued, Fuller shot sideways with unexpected speed as the glimmering particles shot past. He was not able to dodge McAndrews’ wild punch when he came past though, and it connected with sufficient force to dislodge his footing.

  Both men went over, tumbling end over end down the hill and skidding to a stop alongside one another at the base. When Fuller recovered from the stun of a near neck-snapping jar, McAndrews was already rising, shoving sand backwards as his legs thrashed to stand. Unable to lift himself fast enough, Fuller brought his knees to his chest and thrust his feet at the charging McAndrews. The contact was not solid and glanced off his side, spinning the agent to the ground.

  Fuller rolled towards him, and in a flash was on top. His legs straddled McAndrews and his hands clenched the agent’s throat. One of McAndrews’ arms was pinned underneath them, but the other was free, and it flailed at Fuller’s face, punching, scratching and gouging into eyes with panicked speed but little strength.

  When the flailing subsided and Fuller felt sure of his success, the agent disappeared. As he knelt on the barren sand, the landscape around him changed. Like in a dream where there is no detectable splice or transition, the scene shifted and the desert was gone. In its place was a wooded forest: the familiar chirp of birds, hum of insects, a light wisp of wind through leaves—the sun fluttering through as it did so—and the faint gurgle of a brook as it trickled by on its journey to places unknown.

  Fuller looked up from his still clenching hands, his mind accepting the transformation around him with no shock or surprise. His head still seemed to radiate and his throat was still dry from the desert inferno despite transport to the now cool dampness of the early morning woodland. When able to stand on his still-shaky legs, his head spun from side to side, attempting to heed the direction of the babbling water. It came from his right, so he headed in that direction, stumbling drunkenly as he lurched forward to quench his thirst.

  When upon the shallow slash of the flowing stream, he fell into it. His wide-open mouth sucked in its cool wetness, his tongue savoring it like it was the sweetest of confection. He reveled in its chilly freshness as he rolled his body around, washing the granules of dust still stowing away under clothes. The polished round stones of the riverbed massaged his assaulted muscles.

  When the water had completed its refreshing therapy, he stood again, this time feeling stronger. He looked around his new world in wonderment of its peace and beauty but questioned how long it would be here for him. Would it last an eternity like the dark womb he had been in or only a matter of minutes like the barren wasteland from which he had just come? He did not wish to contemplate it. With his thirst quenched, he was hungry for the first time in what seemed a millennium.

  As he foraged around, the day progressed and the cool mustiness of the morning forest burned away. It dried to pleasant warmth, sweetening the smell of the air around him. It was more fresh and clean than what he had ever known before. He came across berries and small tart fruits that were like early season apples only more tender of flesh. While none of it was quite filling to him, it was enough to satisfy the sharpest edge.

  With the worst of hunger quieted, he rested for a while on the trunk of a fallen tree, pondering the next steps to take. Without knowing how long he would be here, he was uncertain whether to find shelter for the night or continue with the hunt for food. He decided on the latter because even if darkness fell, the peacefulness of the surroundings seemed to forego the necessity of the former. He could see no large animals, only small squirrel-like rodents that scurried away at his approach. Given the short time he stayed in the desert, it was more likely he would shift before darkness came.

  He walked on, continuing to scavenge for anything edible. He came upon a large grouping of mushrooms sprouting from the rotted pile of an ancient tree. He walked away though in suspicion of the brownish green tops and the evil countenance of blood red gills in the cap’s underbelly. It was when he walked away from these that his mind changed about shelter.

  As luck would have it, a warm breeze had picked up speed in the late evening hours. The tree leaves swished around like the crackle of radio static, the din of it masking the sound of his movement. The wind blew toward him when he emerged from behind the clot of trees where the toadstools grew, and it was then that he saw the fearful pack. What they were he did not know, but they looked like a blend of wolf and hyena, massive jowls with piercing canine teeth.

  He hid behind the group of trees, watching the dozen or so as they moved off perpendicular to his path. When out of sight, he blessed his good fortune. If the wind had not been driving towards him, the scent of his body and sound of his movement would have meant his undoing.

  As he breathed a sigh of relief and looked toward heaven in thanks, he saw the answer to his dilemma. The clump of trees had intertwined their branches in the closeness of growth and formed a basket of sorts maybe twenty feet above him. While a formidable distance when looking from the ground, he felt it was climbable given the lay of the lower branches. He would need to strip away some of the limbs above though to fill in the gaps where light filtered through. However, it would form a secure bed high enough to keep him safe from the wolf-like
creatures.

  It took him many minutes to climb to the perch, his heart skittering several times when he almost fell. When he reached his new bed, he pulled at branches overhead, snapping and twisting them around in an effort to tear apart the cordlike fibers of the soft green wood. It took half an hour of groaning, branch twirling and yanking to fill in the gaps of the basket, all the while balancing like a circus acrobat so as not to plummet to his death.

  The reddish-orange glow of dusk filled his new bunk when he lay in exhaustion. The breeze had died and a calm silence rained down on the woods until the orchestra of crickets started one by one, the sawing of their chirps filling the air. As the crimson sky first turned purple and then black, Fuller drifted off to sleep, safe in his treetop cradle.

   

  *****

 

   

  Fuller awoke with a start from a yelping down below. His eyes were unable to penetrate the inky black pools at the base of the trees to see the source of the uproar. When he awoke further, he realized it was the mob of wolves hunting for prey, whipped into frenzy from Fuller’s scent high above their reach. He gazed up through the gaps in the branches above at the wash of stars in the sky. His eyes accommodated to the blackness, the individual sparkles of lights filled the heavens with a virtual haze of glowing radiance. It was the depth of night in a forest, unlit by any sign of man, yet Fuller felt secure in his nest. He drifted back into his dreams once the whining beasts moved off in search of easier prey.

   

  *****

 

   

  Sue’s head snapped around at the crack of the entry door slamming into a shelf. At first too stunned to react, she finally did when the thunderous shots began to echo off the barn walls. Her knees were just buckling to lower into a crouch when her body accelerated as Bechler yanked her to the ground. While she descended below a workbench next to her in what seemed like slow motion, she caught sight of Fuller hurling McAndrews into the wall of the shifting booth.

  When below it, the thick timbers of the bench formed not only a shield from the bullets zipping overhead but also walled her sight from what was happening in other parts of the room. Despite this blindness, she surmised that Bobby was the first down once the corner where he had been was in silence. In contrast, the direction where Phil and Franz stood boomed with gunfire for a time longer. However, the tactical team with their overwhelming firepower brought down the two men. Although it seemed longer due to the surge of adrenaline pumping through her, the melee ended in well under a minute.

  While they darted around securing the building, one of the men pulled her up and Sue noticed DAP lettered on his clothes. “All clear!” a man at the door barked out, and others filed into the barn. One in particular caught her eye.

  “Uncle Bob!” Sue shouted as she ran to him, dodging around benches, shelves and men.

  He held his arms towards her. “Sue, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied, her voice muffling when she dug her chin into his chest. “I knew you’d take care of everything.”

  “Thank God we got here in time. I was so worried we wouldn’t,” he said, a noticeable quiver to his words. He held her for a moment before continuing on, his words more firm. “I had one of the agents I still trusted tailing McAndrews, and when he called me to say he followed the bastard here, I came as fast as I could. Where is he by the way?” His eyes shifted about the room, looking for the agent. “I’m personally going to put a bullet in his head,” he grumbled.

  Sue pulled back from him and pointed in the direction of the shifting booth. “He’s over there,” she said, looking towards it. “John grabbed him when the fight started.” Her head spun around looking from person to person to find him, but she could not. A pain stabbed at her heart like a sharp knife when she realized Fuller was nowhere to be seen either.

  “I’m sorry, Sue,” said Bechler, walking up to them. “I saw him and McAndrews shift out during the fight. I think they bumped the controls while they were struggling.”

  A knife seemed to be twisted then withdrawn from her and all the lifeblood with it. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed as she ran to the controls. The power still bobbling near full, she knew what it would mean to shift at that setting. Her face became a pale white horror.

  “Oh my God, John!” she cried, falling to her knees. She buried her face in her hands as tears wrenched forth. “How could this have happened now?”

   

  *****

 

   

  Fuller stirred from the twitter of the birds and the prickle of a branch in his back, opening his eyes to daylight when he did so. He was in full morning light so had slept longer than he wanted but was refreshed because of it. Not wishing to stir just yet, he lay there looking down on the world of his temporary existence. If not for the pangs of yearning for Sue, it may have been a pleasant place. However, the sudden spasm of hunger in his stomach was a signal that any appeal was only a mirage.

  The snap of a branch then the crackle of brush under foot interrupted his thoughts. He lay there holding his breath, only his eyes shifting around to the direction of the approaching sounds. When its source drifted into view, he realized at first it was a man, and then that it was McAndrews. He walked through the growth of mushrooms as he came out from under Fuller’s perch. He looked around when he strolled past, a long wavy stick with a sharpened point in his hand.

  Fuller remained like a statue, only breathing a sigh of relief when the myriad of tree trunks obscured the distance between them. With Fuller’s camouflage, it was doubtful the agent was searching for him. More likely, as with Fuller, food was the main motivation for his wandering search. Despite this, he remained in his nest longer than needed in case the other should double back.

  As he lay there, more sounds made him take further pause. This time though they were more subtle. There was no snap of branch or loud crinkle of leaves, just the faintest of intermittent rustles. He was about to conclude it was only an unfelt breeze when something came into the periphery of his vision.

  A half dozen men walked below him. They were more cautious and quiet yet somehow advanced faster than the preceding McAndrews. They were naked except for thick patches of body hair and were shorter and stockier than the agent. The weapons they carried were stone-tipped spears. With long smooth shafts and needle-sharp points, they would fly truer and penetrate much farther than McAndrews’ makeshift device.

  Fuller was thankful for his caution. He was unsure whether these men were friendly, but if not, they would certainly overwhelm him with ease. In a way, he hoped they were hostile. They would soon overtake McAndrews and would then take care of the agent for him. In another sense though, this complicated things for Fuller too. If they were unfriendly and he stayed in this universe, they would make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to survive.

  Fuller pondered whether to stay in this area of the forest or to move on and find somewhere more remote. Where was that though? Without knowledge of the surrounding area, it was impossible to tell. For all he knew, he could be in an area remote from these men, and they had only come here to track McAndrews. He had wandered around for a good part of the day yesterday and had seen no one. Since there could not be a heavy population around here, he decided it best to stay put and keep vigilant while he foraged.

  When he felt safe, he descended from his perch and worked his way back to the stream. After drinking his fill, he stripped down to bathe properly this time and to wash out the remnants of sand from his clothes and shoes. The icy chill of the water which the day before had refreshed him, now made him rail as he wished for a hot shower instead. Despite this, he was glad to feel clean again—or at least as much as he could without soap. When satisfied the grime was gone from his body, he went to work on his clothes. He turned them inside out and rinsed off the last of the clinging granules. Once dressed again, he went about the busines
s of that which appeared would take the bulk of every day while he stayed here, finding food.

  Things to eat seemed abundant enough but strewn about in a nibble here and there. The one exception to this was the “apples” he found. These grew in clusters of trees, and there was a large clump on the opposite side of the stream from his perch. The problem he found after eating a few was that his stomach rebelled from the tart pulp. He ate his fill then went to find other fare.

  While his foraging led to food, it never seemed enough. It was not the volume though but the type. Although he knew it was possible for his body to exist on a vegetarian diet, Rita having forced this upon him at times, he was a carnivore at heart so craved meat.

  As he became familiar with the surroundings, he caught glimpses of animal life beyond the flocks of birds and scurrying “squirrels.” At times, he glimpsed several larger hoofed animals that looked like small deer. The size of a large dog, they were slender and graceful like a gazelle and could maneuver with lightning swiftness. Since there seemed no way to chase one down, he thought of snaring one.

  They grazed in groups of three or four and hovered over a low bush-like tree with small scaly leaf clusters that were tender and had a light pine scent. He could draw one into a trap by using it as bait, but the problem was how to construct a snare. He had no tools and only the materials he could find around him. When he returned to the stream for more water to drink, an idea came upon him.

  Along the shore of the stream, a vine grew that spread out in great patches. The plants were sometimes several yards long and were supple but strong. He had found that out firsthand when walking to the stream and he caught his foot in them. He tried to break them but found the vines so tough he had to untangle himself instead. With even a single strand of the vine almost impossible to tear apart, it was the ideal raw material to make a rope. With this discovery, he could make a snare.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon, first finding a stone whose edge he could chip away to form a knife-edge, then cutting and collecting lengths of the vine. While he did this, he would strip leaves and trim off side shoots of the vine, leaving only the long central fiber.

  It was sunset when he quit and went back to the safety of his perch. As he slept from another day’s long exertion, the second night was like the first. The growling pack awakened him with a visit at the base of the tree. They soon gave up and left him in peace to finish his slumber.

  The next several days seemed to go much faster for Fuller as he worked hard to make his rope and anticipated the carnivorous meal that awaited him. There was no further signs of McAndrews or the other humans, so he settled into a peaceful life of labor. His mornings were spent collecting food and the afternoons in the manufacture of rope.

  He first made lengths of twine from the vines, overlapping and twisting them together as tight as he could so friction would keep the individual fibers from pulling apart. Once he made a half dozen of these, he braided them together, staggering the ends of the strands along the entire length of the rope. When complete, he tested his handiwork and found it very strong, able to not only hold his full weight but also keep from pulling apart when he tugged it with all his strength.

  The trap he made was simple in design. He hoisted a small boulder up into a tree, propping it there with a short length of heavy branch. To this, he tied a length of twine that ran to a perch in another tree thirty yards away. The free end of the rope he made into a lasso that was suspended from the tree. He then put his bait at the base of the tree trunk and stacked masses of brush from other trees on either side. The tree trunk and brush formed a U-shaped opening, forcing the animal to put his head through to access the food. In doing this, it would also put its head through the noose held open by strategic placement on the surrounding brush. Once the animal went for the food and its neck was through the noose, Fuller would pull on his length of twine. This would release the block under the boulder and cause it to fall from the tree, tightening the noose around the neck of the animal. The idea seemed sound in principle but would it work was the question.

  It did not seem to. The first afternoon Fuller set his snare, several of the animals came near it. They sniffed the tasty bait but moved off without falling for the trap. They seemed to smell something wrong, and he was sure they could detect his scent around the snare. The second day he spent the afternoon pounding the leaves of the pine smelling plant between two flat rocks. Once he smashed them into a paste, the odor of the plant became overpowering. He rubbed the paste on the rope and every surface around his trap, spreading it on the ground too. After he finished masking his scent, he attempted trapping them again.

  It was midafternoon of the next day when a group of five animals came up to the trap. This time they were not spooked and two of them stood side by side with their heads through the noose while they ate. Fuller knew he had them, but when he pulled on his twine, nothing happened. He grimaced as the small block was so tightly wedged under the rock that it would not come out. His muscles tensed and he cursed to himself as all the days of hard work were coming to nothing because that damn block would not pull loose!

  He knew the twine was strong and should not break under the strain, so he shifted his body around to get better leverage. He leaned back along the length of the limb, digging his heels into the jagged crevices of its thick bark. When he did so, the scraping sounds he made alerted the animals. They all perked up their heads, ears twitching back to localize its source. He froze, waiting for the animals to relax again. When he could see they were about to move off, in desperation he pulled with all his strength. The block popped from its anchorage.

  While the boulder descended, Fuller was not watching. The sudden release of tension on his trip line sprung him backward and his body started to spin from the tree. He caught his arm around the large limb before going over, his shoulder snapping back as he dangled fifteen feet over the ground below. He hung there for a moment to gain back his senses then dropped himself to the ground in an inelegant roll. He shook off the stun and looked at his trap to see the result. While all of the other animals had long since vanished, a lone deer swung from the tree.

  He let out a whooping, “Yes, yes!” as he got to his feet. He ignored the twinges in his arm and legs and hobbled over to look at the fruit of his labor. He stared while it swung hypnotically overhead, the grin on his face growing to ever-larger proportions. He had never fancied himself an outdoorsman and had spent little time in nature. This was a great accomplishment for him.

  Still glowing with his success, he untied the rope from around the boulder and lowered the deer to the ground. He knelt over it as though posing for a photograph with his prey. He had never quite understood the rationale of the hunter in his own universe, but now he did. There was something rewarding in proving your mettle in the battle of man over beast. There was also a satisfaction from fresh meat on the table brought down with his own hand. However, in his hour of joy, a scowl came to his face when he realized there was another small detail of being a hunter he had not thought of before. Now that he had the animal, how did one go about dissecting it into something edible?

  He did not have time to ponder this difficulty for long, as a movement from ahead caught his eye. He froze, perspiration dampening his face and body, when one of the native men came around a tree and stood gawking at him. The initial fear subsided when he saw the man was not staring at him but at the animal. While the man continued to look, Fuller soon got the idea. He wanted the animal for his own.

  The man held one of the spears he had seen the other natives carry, so Fuller did not believe he would have a chance in a fight. Forcing back all his internal objections, Fuller rose and backed away from the animal, looking around to be sure there were no other natives. There were none so he continued, retreating slowly so as not to startle the other man.

  When Fuller was clear of the animal, the native walked to it and held it up. Fuller cursed the man when he cut the rope s
everal feet from the animal’s neck with the razor edge of his spear. He would have to make another rope now that this one was ruined. He said nothing as the man stood and hoisted the animal over his shoulder. The native looked at Fuller again, his head cocking. He motioned to get closer.

  Fuller stood his ground while the native shuffled towards him, every few steps motioning for Fuller to draw closer. When only a half dozen paces away, he started to point at Fuller, then himself. He drew his fingers together and put them to his open mouth. By his motions, the native implied that they should both eat the animal. When he mimicked the other’s gesture, the native smiled and nodded, motioning for Fuller to come close.

  While he thought it best not to go near the man, he could not help but consider it. He stared at the beast, savoring its flavor with his eyes. Damn it, the animal was his and he had worked for days to snare it! As reluctant as he was to follow, he could not let the native walk off with his prize. The local did not seem hostile. With his mind set, Fuller walked to the man then followed when he moved in the direction of the stream.

  They walked farther downstream from where Fuller’s tree nest was. When they got close to the bank, a woman appeared, startling Fuller. After jumping backwards half a step, he relaxed when no one else followed her and the man went to her in recognition. Although she looked younger, Fuller assumed she must be his mate. When she caught sight of the animal, the young woman’s face lit up and she ran to meet them.

  The man stopped and swung the animal to the ground when the girl reached them. She fell to her knees beside the beast and stroked its brown fur. The two began to flash hand motions amongst themselves, and Fuller realized that they did not speak but used hand signals instead. While he had never learned sign language, it was apparent that the gestures they used were not as complex. Their stout fingers did not seem nimble enough to form intricate figures; however, they were able to communicate nonetheless.

  As the two conversed, Fuller examined them more than he had before. The man did not even come up to his shoulder but was stocky and well muscled. With the bearded face, it was difficult to tell his exact age, but he seemed to be somewhere in his early twenties. The woman was younger. Even shorter than the man, her body was thin with narrow hips and small breasts which gave the impression that she was in her late teens at best. He would have thought her even younger if not that her hardened face gave an appearance of maturity.

  It was difficult for him to estimate the age of either though because the heads and therefore faces of both were distorted from that of the humans in his own universe. They seemed vertically compressed with heavy sloping foreheads and wide, thick jaws. Their brown eyes, though much larger than his own, were deep-set in heavy brows and protruding cheekbones, causing their apparent size to be diminished. By his own standards, they were not an attractive pair, but then to them, he probably was not either.

  The conversation ended, and the woman dragged the animal in the direction from which she had come. The man motioned Fuller to follow. It was only a few dozen yards before they stopped at a campsite near the edge of the stream. Stone tools and animal skin bundles lay around a small pile of branches clustered into the makings of a fire. It was in a small dirt-covered clearing far enough away from the stream to be clear of the vines but with no low-hanging branches for the fire to spread to.

  The woman leaned over, took a stone knife from one of the hide bundles and continued dragging the animal downstream from them. Fuller was going to follow when the man held his hand in front of him and motioned to stay. The native sat down beside the woodpile, producing several stones from one of the bundles. He struck them together several times, sparks flying into a pile of dried moss at the edge of the wood. Nothing happened at first, but after several more hits, a light wisp of smoke rose from the clump. The man nursed it to life with a few light breaths. As the fire grew, he fed it, first blades of dried grass and then small twigs. Soon the flames were growing large, and the heavier branches of the main pile were beginning to ignite. The native sat back, a hint of a smile showing on his gruff face.

  Meanwhile, Fuller could see that the woman had stopped dragging his kill and was slashing it with the knife. He was glad she was not too close, because the little he could make out was gruesome enough. When she had accomplished the gutting, she carried the carcass back to the campsite and continued the rest of the skinning and butchering in his plain view. Her knife-wielding hand flew over the animal in long, expert slices. Though the tool she held was of primitive material, it was as sharp as a steel scalpel, and she cut through the heavy sinew with the precision of a surgeon.

  Now that he knew what was involved, he was glad he did not have to butcher the animal. If not for the fact that he could look away from time to time, he would have vomited.

  When the bulk of the job was completed, the girl extracted two chunks of organ meat and gave them to the man. He attempted to hand one to Fuller, who shook his head. He had never developed a taste for liver or kidney and was not about to try now. Instead, he pointed to one of the legs and the woman sliced it off for him. Fuller held the leg over the fire to cook it while the native did the same with the liver.

  While the two cooked, the woman brought the rest of the carcass to the river and heaved it in. At first, Fuller began rising to scold her for discarding the rest but then realized what she was doing. He knew the temperature of the stream was quite cold from the previous baths he had taken. It was better suited to preserving the meat than the much warmer air around him. It was the Stone Age equivalent of refrigeration and should allow the meat to remain edible for several additional days.

  This section of the creek was deeper than where Fuller bathed, so she was able to submerge the carcass and stack large stones around and over it to protect it from hungry animals. While he watched, he held the leg of the deer creature over the fire, the aroma rising as the heat did its work.

  The girl sat next to her mate when she finished concealing the rest of the carcass. The man tore off a chunk of the liver and gave it to her, afterward taking a cautious bite of the steaming meat himself. Fuller could see the interior still oozing as they ate, but he turned his focus to the cooking of the leg. He had always been a well-done man and shied away from meat that was even the slightest bit rare. Many times Rita had complained when he had forced the maître d’ to bring back his “well-done” steak for further cooking.

  Several times, he took test nibbles to discover if it was ready but ended up holding it back over the fire. His two companions had long since finished their meal and twilight was falling when he determined the meat was done and he began to eat. The flesh, while a bit gamey, was quite lean, and he enjoyed it even more for the berries and sour apple fare he had been forced to eat these last days.

  Fuller took a large bite off the leg and had just begun to chew when the man rolled over and mounted the young woman, the two having sex in full view. He sucked in air in shock and started to choke when a piece of meat went down the wrong way. He spit his mouthful and coughed away for half a minute to clear his lungs. While the couple had stopped for a moment to look at him, they soon continued when they saw he was all right. But Fuller was not.

  He continued to hack and turned his reddened face, not sure if it was from the coughing or from embarrassment. When his fit subsided, he was sure it was the embarrassment, because he could feel his face still burning. While he was no longer looking in their direction, he could still hear the sounds of their activity. He was about to walk away when it became silent. Although he assumed they were done, it was several minutes before he dared to look. When he did, they were sitting apart looking into the fire.

  Still shaken, Fuller gazed into the fire himself, nibbling on the bone. Producing a stone hatchet from one of the packs, the man rose and walked off. Several times, he glanced over at the girl, who was looking at him, a shy smile coming to her face whenever he did. After several minutes, the man returned with a sizable tree branc
h and began to strip away branches and throw them into the fire.

  Fuller threw the gnawed bone into the fire too and watched while the other finished with the smaller sections and began to chop away at the larger portions of limb. The girl rose and walked to Fuller, standing over him for a moment before sitting on the ground next to him. He threw her a quick glance and could see a smile on her homely face. He focused his attention back to the man but snapped his head around when he felt her stroking the sleeve of his shirt. When his initial surprise wore off, he could see her focus was on the colored cloth. She had never seen anything like it, and she was curious as to its makeup. It was innocent enough, or so he thought.

  When the fascination with the cloth wore off, she began to caress first his arm and then his chest. His eyes seemed ready to burst from their sockets as Fuller snapped his head back and forth between the girl and man. The two were mates, so her attentions on Fuller were sure to enrage the man. He seemed oblivious though and continued chopping at the branch, looking at the two for a second then focusing back on his task.

  The girl became more aggressive in her desire and began to tug at his clothes to remove them. At the same time, her face was getting closer to his, and he feared she was about to kiss him. He rolled away from her and stood.

  “No! Stop it!” Fuller asserted, shaking his head at her.

  She grunted a few times, her head hanging low when she backed off from his reprimand. He was a giant towering over her, and there was no way she could force her will. Fuller almost felt bad as she sat with eyes staring into her lap. There was no way he would change his mind though.

  He sat on the ground, not too close to her, and marveled at the turn of events over the past weeks. Here he was, the man who women found repulsive—the man who thought he was lucky to have any woman, even Rita—now seemed to be the man who attracted them. First Jen, then Sue, and now this primitive, Neolithic girl. When he thought about it, he began to laugh out loud at the irony. He looked over at the dejected girl and could see a pained grimace on her face as though he were laughing at her. He crawled over to her while he continued to chuckle and laid a hand on her hers.

  He smiled at her and nodded. The anguish left her face and was replaced with a smile. When she moved towards him again, he shook his head but kept smiling. He took her rough hand into his, patted the back of it with his other, and said, “No, I don’t want to, but I appreciate the offer.”

  She seemed to get the idea and relaxed into a seated position, smiling back at him as she gave a squeeze to his hand. She let go and signed something to him but he had no idea what she was saying. It did not matter though because she seemed content nonetheless.

  As nighttime fell and its blackness enveloped the forest, Fuller could hear the yapping of the wolves on their nightly prowl. The sputtering crackle and bright dazzle of the fire held them at bay not far off. As he lay down on his side, the compacted ground jabbing into his ribs, he waited for slumber to come. He wished for the comfort of his treetop nest but soon forgot it once the soothing warmth of the fire lulled him into a semiconscious twilight. As sleep descended on him, he felt a light touch at his back when the girl curled up behind him for refuge from the murky night.

   

  *****

 

   

  “I don’t want any right now,” muttered Sue. She turned her head from the cup of tea Bechler offered.

  She sat in the overstuffed chair in her living room. They had brought her there several minutes earlier in an attempt to calm her down. She had been hysterical for a time in the barn, the grief of yet another loss in her life almost pushing her to the point of breaking. So consumed in a fit of crying, Humboldt and Bechler had gotten on either side and dragged her into the house.

  “Okay. I’ll just leave it here for you,” soothed Bechler, placing the cup on the table beside her.

  Her face an emotionless blank, she pushed the steaming cup to the opposite side of the table, a secure distance from her carefully positioned novel. She leaned back and sat in silence, the muscles of her forehead, cheeks and jaws hanging limp in exhaustion from the earlier outpouring. Her mind circled with thoughts of what had happened—the joy she felt with Fuller’s declaration that he loved her, and the loss of that love so soon after. She felt neither the love nor grief now though. She only examined them in her thoughts like she was reading down a column of numbers from the results of one of her experiments.

  Even in her deepest anguish at her father’s death, she had not experienced the detachment she encountered now. The emotion had poured out, but now it was like the spigot had been turned off and the flow stopped. Or was it that the vessel had been completely drained, and no matter how much one tried to open the spout, there was nothing left inside. Would she ever feel anything again? Maybe her remaining days would be better if she did not.

  She felt the gentle squeeze on her hand when her uncle tried to console her. From the corner of her eye, she could see as he sat on the couch, still grasping the back of her hand. At one time, she had felt love for him too, but now she would no longer. He would also be leaving her someday, so it was better not to experience yet more love only to have it torn away.

  A conversation started up behind her. Though her ears heard the sound, her mind filtered out the content of what was said.

  “Vince, what is happening?” asked Jen as she came into the room.

  “Where have you been all this time?” asked Bechler.

  “I have been in the office connected to the Internet doing some research.”

  “Something bad has happened.”

  As he explained everything, Humboldt rose from the couch and walked over to them. When Bechler had finished the story, Humboldt asked, “Who is this?”

  “I’m sorry, Director, this is Jen. She’s from the universe the conspirators were trying to steal technology from,” said Bechler.

  “You mean this is the robot Sue told me about?”

  “Yes, I am a robot,” Jen responded, letting Humboldt take her hand into his.

  “This is remarkable,” exclaimed Humboldt, turning her hand over to examine its surface. “If no one had told me you were a robot, there’s no way I could tell.” When he let go of her hand, he looked at Bechler. “You are sure of this, aren’t you?”

  “I know. I didn’t believe it at first either.” He looked at Jen. “Show him your power supply.”

  Jen lifted her shirt without hesitation and opened the invisible compartment in her breastbone. Humboldt’s eyes bulged. “I’ll be damned. It is a robot!”

  When Jen sealed the compartment and lowered her shirt, she looked at Bechler. “Vince, you said the power was turned up all the way on the quantum shifter?”

  “Yeah. McAndrews wanted to transport Sue, John and me to another universe and keep our bodies there to remove any evidence.”

  “I am aware of how unstable the machine can be for a time at normal power settings. Does it not fluctuate even more at full power?”

  “Well, yes,” replied Bechler.

  “How much time had lapsed between when John set the parameters and he shifted out?”

  “Hmmm. I’m not sure with all the distraction, but I’d say it was less than five minutes.”

  “Just as I suspected,” said Jen. “The field did not have time to stabilize; therefore, we should not assume the worst possible scenario.”

  “What do you mean?” questioned Humboldt, his eyes narrowing.

  “Because of the field’s instability at the time of John’s shift, the quantum gateway field strength could have been anywhere from zero to the maximum level the machine is able to produce. Since John would be able to withstand transport at the lower end of the field strengths, I would estimate there is a thirty percent chance he would be able to survive transport under the scenario given.”

  Sue, who had only been peripherally listening to the others, snapped out of her secl
usion. She sprang from the chair and exclaimed, “You mean he might still be alive somewhere?”

  “Yes, that is a possibility. However, before we can draw any conclusions, I would like to examine the quantum shifter log files so we can determine the exact values at the time of the shift.”

   

  *****

 

   

  The deer sniffed the air for a moment, its delicate, black nose quivering while it decided if there were strange scents approaching. When satisfied, its slender neck dipped back down and it began to gnaw on the branch of tender leaves it had left a moment before.

  Fuller let go his bated breath. His fist relaxed on the haft of the spear he was holding when it became apparent the deer would not bolt. He and the young native girl, who he now called “Jane,” had spent the last several minutes waiting for the native man, who he called “Tarzan,” to work his way into position. She was some forty yards from Fuller behind another tree, waiting like himself for the signal from Tarzan to flush the deer towards his position.

  He glanced at Jane to check that she was still at her post and, as usual, she was staring at him. She waved with a bright smile on her face when she saw him looking. Without thinking he held up a hand in acknowledgment. Always seeming to be gawking at him, he had almost become oblivious to it. The only time he became uncomfortable anymore was when she and Tarzan, without any warning, would have sex. It was common for them to do it several times throughout the day. Whenever he would walk away to give them privacy, the girl’s eyes would follow him like she was wishing it was Fuller she was with instead of Tarzan.

  She was a very oversexed young woman he thought. More often than not, she would jump Tarzan rather than the other way around. Even though Fuller made it clear he was not interested, she kept trying to coax him with her flirtatious manners and outright advances. What surprised him, however, was that if he looked past her obvious unattractiveness, she was a very pleasant girl when not trying to seduce him. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked back at the deer to make sure it was still feeding.

  It was several weeks since his arrival, and they had long since consumed the deer he snared. They were back to eating berries and the small squirrel creatures they could catch, but these were most unsatisfying in comparison to the venison. The rodents, while more plentiful and easier to entrap, were barely enough to fill the stomach of one, let alone all three. They were scrawny creatures, and the flesh they did have was tough and stringy in comparison.

  The one saving grace in this time had been that the poisonous-looking mushrooms he had seen the first day turned out to be edible. Jane had shown him how to skewer them with a small twig and roast them over the cooler parts of the fire. When cooked, they took on a beef-like flavor, albeit with a much different texture. He would have eaten them more often, but they were coming into the dry season, and the mushrooms were getting more difficult to find.

  They had made several attempts at hunting down deer prior to the one today, but all had proven unsuccessful. The problem was that the creatures were far too alert and fast to get close enough to bring one down with a spear. Tarzan had been able to hit several, but at the distance he had thrown from, the penetration was never deep enough to do much damage.

  Fuller had learned much of the sign language the natives used so knew that the usual way of hunting the animal was what they were doing now. The difficulty lay in the number they had for the hunt. With only the three, it was almost impossible to get the animal heading in the right direction so it would run close enough to a spear thrower. The animal would bolt off in the wrong direction, and it could be days before they would get another opportunity. With more hunters, they could better circle the animals with throwers and get it no matter which way it went. This was not an option for them though.

  Once he had learned enough of their sign language to communicate, he discovered why only the two of them were out here alone. They were from a small tribe a day’s journey from the forest they were in but had been outcast from it several seasons before. The girl was the daughter of the chief, who had promised her to a man of another tribe. That was until she and Tarzan were caught together.

  For their shameful behavior, the tribe had banished them. It was their responsibility as outcasts to avoid other members. If a tribe member saw one of them, the best they could hope for was to have stones thrown at them until they ran off. At worst, the tribe members could beat them as payment for the insult of seeing them. This was the price they paid for being allowed to live after their transgression.

  Again, Fuller shook off his thoughts and went back to the deer. Damn it, where was Tarzan anyway? He knew it would take time to circle wide around the animal and to stay quiet while doing so. Not this long though.

  Before he could catch himself, he looked over at Jane again. The girl still gaped in his direction and gave a slight twist of her hips while she reached up to coyly wave at him, her smile setting her face aglow. He smiled and thought she was somewhat endearing in her persistence even if not in appearance.

  As he looked back towards the deer, the animal moved, causing another spasm of tension. His hand tightened on the spear, readying it in case the animal should dart in his direction. It brought its head up and shuffled around several steps before settling back down to another fresh patch of leaves. Where the hell was Tarzan? Another few minutes and the animal would have its fill and leave!

  Fuller shifted on his feet and tried to remain patient as his thoughts drifted again. Since it had been so successful before, he thought of making a second rope to snare another deer but decided instead to construct a bow. Tarzan had shown his skill at spear making and had fashioned one for Fuller, but he knew that without the almost lifetime of practice that Tarzan had, he would never become as proficient. Instead, he focused on building a bow, which he knew he would be able to use. He had taken an archery class in college and had gotten quite accurate with it. While there was no way he could construct a compound bow under his current conditions, he had hopes of fashioning a serviceable short bow.

  First, there was the task of finding a branch both strong enough and in the right thickness to make the bow. Then it took some days to convince Tarzan to assist him in shaving it into a usable form. The man had no concept of what Fuller was trying to accomplish and only shook his head in puzzlement when he attempted to explain. Tarzan began to help though and had made a half dozen arrows. He laughed at their small size and also at Fuller when he signed that one of these tiny spears would bring down a deer.

  When Fuller started the process, he thought that making the arrows straight enough to fly a true path would be difficult. It turned out that this was the easy part. With Tarzan’s skill at constructing spears, it was child’s play for him to make the arrows. The bow was a different matter. They had made several attempts to construct one, but each time the branch crackled then snapped when he stretched the bowstring across it. When he tried a looser bowstring, there was no power behind it. They had another bow in process using a wood that seemed better suited than the others.

  The birdcall of Tarzan, which signaled he was in position, interrupted Fuller’s thoughts again. Fuller shot a look at Jane, and this time she nodded at him that she had heard too. The deer was shuffling around again from the shrill of the bird sound. It stood its ground though while Fuller brought his arm up then snapped it down as a signal for Jane to move out.

  The two came around their trees in unison. Fuller yelled, “Ha! Ha!” while he ran in the direction of the deer, Jane grunting as she sprinted towards it. The deer shot off in Tarzan’s direction. Fuller thundered after it with spear held high, his feet pounding as he ran faster than he had ever tried to before. The beast was too swift though and bolted out of any range he could hope to throw, but he continued nonetheless, praying that Tarzan would drop it with his spear.

  A moment later, the prayer went unanswered when Tarzan emerged and launched his weap
on. The throw was too late and whizzed past the tail of the speeding creature. Fuller eased his pace as words flew from his mouth, “Son of a bitch! You threw it too late!”

  As he came up to Tarzan, he slowed and then stopped in front of the stout native. He was about to let loose a fusillade of obscenities but caught himself when he saw the look on the native’s face. Tarzan was angrier with himself than Fuller could ever hope to be as he grunted and banged fists to his head. Fuller knew Tarzan’s skill at throwing and was also aware of the speed and maneuverability of the deer. More likely than not the throw was good but the animal had altered its speed at the last second as it dodged around the trees. Besides, Fuller and Jane had not driven it in the exact spot, and Tarzan had to throw it farther than anticipated. When came down to it, it was no one’s fault.

  Fuller put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault.” He signed the same message with his hands.

  Tarzan’s arms and hands flew about in response, but Fuller was only able to catch the first part because the signs were going by faster than he could interpret. Jane came up alongside them, and she too tried to comfort the agitated hunter. Fuller caught the sign from Tarzan that he no longer wished to discuss the matter and stormed off after his spear, picking it up and continuing into the forest away from them.

  Jane stood there looking after him for a moment then turned to Fuller. She asked in sign, “What you say him?”

  He signed back, “No his fault.”

  She nodded and signed, “He angry; he go.”

  “Come,” he signed and started the walk back to their camp.

  The afternoon was heating up, and Fuller was sweating in streams from the intense chase. He stopped for a moment to remove his shirt, mopping the perspiration from his face and chest. He tied the garment around his waist before continuing on the journey.

  It was an hour at a steady pace before they were back at the camp, and by then he could walk no more. He collapsed at the foot of a tree to catch his breath, but Jane went straight to the stream and waded into the water. She crept into the cool tributary, her lean body shivering with each advancing step. Soon she was in to her shoulders and bobbed her head under, her teeth chattering when she shot back over the surface. Smiling at Fuller, she waved for him to come. “Tum, ohn.”

  Fuller smiled as she tried her hardest to say, “Come, John.” She was doing this more, and Fuller had encouraged her rough speech. She was quite intelligent and quick to learn the other things he had taught her, but she was having trouble with talking. He thought it must be a physiological limitation, but she persisted nonetheless.

  When she made another attempt at vocalizing her request, he said, “What the hell, it’ll cool me off, and I can use the bath anyway.”

  Having become used to Jane’s prying eyes watching, Fuller stripped off his remaining clothes and went to the edge of the creek. The crisp water was a delight to his swollen feet when he padded onto the silky smooth silt and rounded river stones. After he was in over ankle depth, he paused as it became more difficult to advance into the chilly stream. When he leaned down to splash water onto his calves, a sudden splatter of iciness struck his body full on. The shock of it stung and he tensed every muscle against the onslaught of the cold water. Once the initial distress faded, he could hear Jane’s giggles and the whoosh of the water when her hand came forward in another splash. His head was already rising to look in her direction, so this time the water not only caught his body but his face too.

  While his heart thumped from the extreme cooling, Fuller began to wipe his stinging eyes with the backs of his hands. Jane’s giggle transformed into a full cackle as he mopped his dripping face. When he wiped his eyes and opened them, she put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to smother the laughter. It was no good though. As the blur of his vision cleared, he could still see the smile on each exposed cheek and the tremor of her body with each convulsion of dying laughter.

  “Why you little…” Fuller called to her.

  He bolted into the cold rivulet, ignoring the remaining nip it carried, only slowing when the water’s resistance grew against his forward progress. Jane screamed when she saw him charging, and she turned downstream, plodding along as best she could. His stronger muscles and longer legs won out, and he snatched her up, her shriek intensifying as he heaved her into the cold depths. Her light little body sailed through the air before hitting the water with a resounding splat.

  It was Fuller’s turn to laugh when her head emerged with a swell from the glossy surface, globs of hair plastered over her eyes and face. She pulled the tangled mass back to clear her vision. When the sight and sound of his laughter sunk in, she charged him, hands shoving water at him as fast as she could. Fuller splashed back, and soon they were both laughing as each was able to get in their fair share of spattering hits.

  Fuller ended the match when he dove into the water and swam to the opposite shoreline. When she tried to follow, she stopped when the water rose to the level of her chin then turned back, her lips quivering and eyes darting about. It was plain for Fuller to see that she could not swim, so he walked back to her, his head remaining above the surface.

  When he got alongside her, he signed to her, “You no…” He didn’t know the sign for swim so leaned forward and began to make swimming motions in the air. Jane shook her head so he signed, “I show you.”

  He took her hand, brought her back to a deeper part of the water, and signed, “Kick legs.” He crunched up his body in the shallow water and showed her. She did the same but stopped when she almost fell forward, propping herself up with a hand to Fuller’s chest.

  Fuller signed to her, “Move hands back and forth.” Again he demonstrated by crunching up his body and treading the water. He would teach her the finer points later, but if she could at least tread water, she could maneuver a little. She learned fast and was soon able to doggie paddle. The inefficient swim was tiring work though, and after a time, she was unable to continue.

  Jane reached out and snatched at Fuller to keep from going under, her hands clutching him around the neck.

  He chuckled. “Gets tiring after a while, doesn’t it?” His hands under the water, he was unable to sign this to her but she nodded, seeming to understand nonetheless. Her big brown eyes gazed into his for a moment then she eased forward and kissed him.

  In previous times, she had always come at him aggressively, causing him to recoil. This time her manner was different and the change gave him pause. He kissed back, her eyes closing when she melted with his returned affection.

  When she pulled back, he thought that her primitive features were something he could grow accustomed to. In fact, the more he knew her, the less important the physical differences were. While she was not attractive by the standards of his world, there was a profound beauty to her nonetheless.

  When she smiled, her whole face illuminated as though her soul were ready to burst with joy. When he became depressed from missing Sue or his temper flared because of a splintering bow, Jane could always pull him from his doldrums with a simple smile. There was something so contagious in it that it ignited cheerfulness in him and the entire forest around her.

  The more he thought of it, the more he realized she was no less attractive than Rita, and far more pleasant. She was a very bright and intelligent young woman who was anxious to learn. Forever with her pleasing disposition, she worked hard when needed. In times like these, she was very playful, and her laughter was contagious. If he had to stay for the remainder of his life, he could do no better than her.

  Jane’s lips moved close to his again, and she began kissing him. Fuller again returning it. At first, she was gentle like before, but when her hunger grew, the kiss became more passionate. Her body molded itself to his as she wrapped her legs around his waist. With some trouble, Fuller tore himself away from her embrace. Her clutch was not what made it difficult. It was his passion.

&nb
sp; It had been weeks—it felt more like years with all that had happened—since he had sex with Rita, and the desire for it was there with great vigor. Part of him wanted to ravage the young woman as much as she wanted to ravage him, but he could not. While Jen had been as persistent as Jane was and much more beautiful physically, it had never been this difficult to resist her. He was not sure why though. Was it just the longer time lapse since he had any sexual release or was it the more animal-like existence he had lived these past days? He did not know. He only knew it was almost impossible to pull away from her.

  When he did though, Jane was not upset but radiated with a grin as she stroked his face with her hand. He gave her a shy smile back and pulled her legs from around him.

  He said, “Okay, time to get off.”

  She did and Fuller walked back to the shore, dressing himself with downturned eyes. He could not look at her just yet, the desire still too powerful. He sat under his normal tree then glanced up to see where she was. She had likewise come out of the water but was lying in the sun on a patch of the vine at water’s edge. He found himself looking at her in a different light now and had to concentrate to keeps his eyes off her body. He had not found the slim straightness of her figure or the small swell of her breasts appealing before, but now for some reason they were enormously so.

  Given time, he would surrender to desire but could not do so now. There was still too much hope that his existence here would end and that he would again be with the woman he loved. He had dreamed of Sue many nights, the dream where he was making love to her. He had wished his entire life to find a woman like her and had forced himself to settle for Rita. Having waited so long before, he would not give up hope and surrender to mere impulse. He looked at Jane and wondered if that is all it was.

  To take his mind off the dilemma, he went to his unfinished bow and began to take up his work on it. It was almost done, another afternoon or two finding it complete. He picked up his handiwork, placing one end on the ground holding the other end with his hand. With the back of it facing him, he pulled the handle towards himself to tiller it. This was the process used to verify that each limb of the bow flexed the same as the other and to test its overall draw weight. Fuller also listened for any cracking noise, being hypersensitive to this from his earlier failures. He heard none and the tension was about where he needed it. One limb flexed less than the other so needed fine-tuning to achieve balance.

  He clutched his stone tool and sat on the ground, shaving at the wood in the manner that Tarzan had shown him. The rock’s surface was rough like a fine-tooth wood rasp and wore down the material in an even manner. The swishing sound of the stone as he drew it across the wood was hypnotizing.

  He had been working for some time when Jane walking by distracted him. She smiled at him when he looked up from his work. The edge of his mouth curled up despite his best efforts, but he moved his eyes back to his work. As she sauntered past and began to build the evening’s fire, he shot quick glances at her. After looking several times at her narrow hips and petite derriere twisting about in work, he forced himself to concentrate on his task.

  As he rhythmically swished the stone along the surface of the bow, he wondered how long he could wait. Would another month have to pass before he was sure he was stuck here? Would he give in to his and Jane’s urges and try to find some small happiness away from the love he would never see again?

  He did not know when. For now, he was not ready to give up on returning to Sue. If he had to stay here though, he would need the bow he was working on. His scraping took on renewed vigor when his mind was eased, if even only for a short time, by the decision he had come to.

   

  *****

 

   

  Fuller awoke with the sting of smoke in his nose from the dying fire. He was in the position he had become accustomed to these many mornings: on his side with Jane’s body crunched next to his and her arm thrust around him. Even though the sun had not risen, the sky was aglow with the early morning light, and the sound of chirping birds filled the air as the young nestlings made their breakfast hunger known.

  When Fuller stirred, he could feel Jane’s body tighten in response, her hand digging into his chest. Her fingers relaxed once she became conscious, discovering it was his movements which had awakened her. When Fuller sat up, he scanned the area for Tarzan and became concerned again when the native was not there.

  As the two ate their breakfast of the apples and purple berries, Fuller became aware of someone approaching. The rustling was almost imperceptible, but his ears had become tuned to the natural sounds of the forest. Jane too picked up the noise and gazed at him with a tentative look.

  Grabbing the haft of his spear, Fuller stood in preparation to fight but relaxed when he saw Tarzan emerge. Jane shot from the ground and ran to him, seeming relieved by his return. The two signed amongst themselves, Fuller only able to pick out bits and pieces at the speed they were conversing.

  When Fuller gleaned there were other men involved, he interrupted Tarzan and asked him to slow down so he could understand. The stocky native nodded and began to tell his story again, this time slower.

  When Tarzan had stormed off the previous day, he came across a hunting party from their old tribe, forcing him to circle around them. As he attempted to do so, he realized that he had gotten into the middle of the party and spent hours trying to avoid them. By the time he was able to clear himself from their web, darkness was falling so he spent the night in a tree nest like Fuller’s. At morning’s first light, he started back.

  To avoid any contact with the hunters, the three decided to move their camp farther into the forest. They collected their tools and remaining food and started upstream in search of a shallower crossing point. They had only been moving for several minutes when Tarzan froze in his tracks.

  “What?” Fuller signed in question when he came from the rear.

  “One hunter there,” Tarzan motioned.

  Fuller strained his eyes and saw a man drinking water by the edge of the stream. While he watched, another walked from behind a tree and stood next to the first. Tarzan tugged Fuller around a tree for cover. While the hunters had not been looking in their direction, they would see them if they did.

  Tarzan signed, “We there.” He pointed in the direction they had come.

  They moved back downstream but stopped again when Fuller spotted another hunter. Luck was not with them this time because the hunter saw them as well. He let out a screech as a warning call and soon other men of the tribe began to assemble.

  Had Fuller been alone, he would have jumped into the stream and crossed it. While he had given Jane swimming lessons, she would be too fearful to cross on her own. Tarzan could not cross without his assistance, and there was no way to get them both over in time. The only option was to fight, so Fuller dropped his pack and pulled out his bow. While he had not finished balancing it, he would have to use it in its present state.

  He fastened the sinew bowstring he had made to one end then hooked it to the other. He had strung the bow the day before to test it but had not fired it. He would do so now if forced to, but he would have to be very conservative in his pull. Given his previous efforts, he feared the untested weapon would break before making a single shot. While he nocked an arrow, someone shouted from downstream.

  “What do you know? It’s John Fuller.”

  Fuller froze in mid-pull, and his head snapped in the direction of the voice. There stood McAndrews, a twisted smile on his face.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” called the agent.

  He was fifty yards away, stone-tipped spear in hand. This was the last thing Fuller expected, as he had assumed the other man was dead. It seemed the hunting party had not killed McAndrews that first day but had welcomed him instead.

  Fuller said in a shaky voice, “Me? Why have you been looking for me?”

  McAndrews walked
closer, flanked by several of the tribesmen. “We have a score to settle. After all, I have you to thank for deserting me in this Godforsaken, Stone Age, shit hole, don’t I?”

  The bow quivered in his shaky hands. “No. I think you have it backwards. It’s your fault that we’re here. You’re the one who made me set the machine, and you’re the one who was going to kill me with it. I was only trying to defend myself.”

  “Only trying to save your worthless life, were you? Well, all you did was delay the inevitable. Did you think just because you’ve been hiding out of my sight that I’d forget about you? Well, I haven’t. I was able to convince the chief to give me some of his men to hunt you down. It’s amazing what some of the technology I’ve been able to give them will buy.”

  “I’ve been working on some technological advancements of my own as you can see,” said Fuller, bringing up the bow and pulling back the string. The firm feel in his hand and the fact that it was holding up under tension gave him a burst of confidence. “I wouldn’t come any closer.”

  McAndrews paused for only a second before continuing his advance. “Well, Fuller, I know you’re good, but even you aren’t that good. You may be able to get me and a few others, but I have more than a dozen men closing in on you. You can’t kill them all with that toy bow and arrow set.”

  Fuller’s eyes scanned around and saw that McAndrews was not bluffing. There were more than a dozen hunters advancing on all sides. He began to shake again but decided that if he was going to die anyway, he may as well take McAndrews and as many of the others with him.

  He pulled back more on the bow and steadied his aim, fearful of the wood crunch he had heard the times before. When it did not come and the bow held, he took final aim. The agent in his sights, he let go the string with a thrum and the arrow zipped home to its target. Unfortunately, it did not hit the right target.

  The man to the right of McAndrews let out a terrifying scream when the arrow buried itself into his stomach. All but McAndrews froze at this strange and magical weapon that could throw a small spear with such force. None would advance any farther and some even backed off, to McAndrews’ dismay.

  “Get moving, you cowards!” yelled McAndrews. His words were futile though. First, they did not understand a word he said, and second, even if they did, there was no way they would listen after seeing the frightful demonstration.

  Fuller nocked a second arrow as the agent grabbed the man next to him and tried to shove him forward. The hunter grunted and broke free, running away from Fuller and his terrifying weapon. McAndrews’ face grew red as he thrashed his hands through the air. He was too distant for Fuller to interpret, but he did not wait to see if the agent could rally his troops. Instead, he pulled back on the bowstring again, this time farther, the first shot having emboldened him. He aimed to the left of where he did before and let loose another arrow to the thrum of the bowstring.

  This time he struck a man to the left of McAndrews. The arrow sliced through the man’s arm, half of it protruding from behind. It seemed the bow had plenty of power but no accuracy. He had not gotten a chance to perfect the weapon, but at this point, it did not seem to matter. It was holding them at bay anyway.

  “Son of a bitch!” screamed McAndrews, spinning towards the yelping man.

  Tarzan patted Fuller on the back and signed to him, “It strong weapon.”

  Tarzan’s grin was big, but Fuller did not have time for the native’s compliments. As he nocked another arrow, McAndrews made his move. The agent charged towards him, spear at waist level. Fuller pulled back his bowstring and waited for the agent to get closer. He would not miss his mark this time. If he did, the agent would run him through.

  Although the distance was closing fast and every fiber within him said to shoot, he waited. Fuller’s skin crawled as sweat rolled from it, his arm quivering from the tension of the bowstring. When McAndrews was mere feet away, he let loose and the arrow drove home. Hitting the agent in the shoulder, higher than he wanted, it did not stop the charge in the slightest. Although he could see McAndrews was in great pain, momentum, anger and sheer hatred of Fuller seemed to drive him onward.

  Fuller’s eyes widened when he realized his arrow had not stopped the attack. He regained his senses in time to dodge aside as McAndrews tried to sink the spear into his heart. Its razor tip glanced past, but the agent’s body rammed into Fuller, driving the arrow farther into McAndrews then snapping it off. The tip of the spear dug into the ground, buckling in its center as the weight of both men continued driving it downward. They tumbled to the ground, but McAndrews landed on top, knocking the wind out of Fuller.

  Both were dazed, Fuller gasping for breath and McAndrews clutching his shoulder from the searing pain of the arrow. It was several seconds of recovery before the fight continued, McAndrews the first to regain his senses. He got on his knees and pounded Fuller in the face with his left fist, the right being unable to deliver any force due to the arrow.

  Fuller threw a punch into the agent’s shoulder, causing him to relinquish his attack as he howled in pain. He shoved McAndrews off and tried to stand. Before he could get to his feet though, the agent spun around and grabbed Fuller by the legs, tripping him so his forehead slammed on a rock. Fuller saw stars before his eyes and almost passed out, memories of the blows to that same spot months before flooding back to him.

  Too weak to resist, McAndrews flipped Fuller over and throttled him with his single good hand. Fuller grappled at the man’s arm when the extreme nausea hit. At first, he thought he was passing out from oxygen deprivation, but then he realized that the two of them were shifting.

  The stars before his eyes constricted in an ever-tightening circle. When he was looking down a long, sparkling tunnel with the pained face of McAndrews at its end, he began to hear Jane’s grunting cries. She wailed his name, “Ohn, ohn!” as he faded from her existence forever.

   

  *****

 

   

  The thick fog in his mind lifted and he became aware of being plastered on the ground. As he moved, the pain in his forehead renewed. It worsened when he opened his eyes to the orange glow of a timber ceiling. A rhythmic pounding in his ears synchronized to the thump of his heart but soon dissolved into the resounding ring of metal striking metal, no longer in time with his pulse.

  The pinging strikes stopped and rasping breaths from some unknown beast replaced them. Fuller ignored the sharp throbbing in his skull and spun over onto his hands and knees. The jagged points of the coal pile he rolled onto dug in, pinching flesh to bone.

  As adrenaline snapped him to full awareness, he realized he was between a mound of black coal and the gray, timeworn wall of a timber building. Being in no imminent danger, he took several deep breaths to slow his heart and gain time to absorb his surroundings.

  When the strange rasping breaths stopped and the metallic strikes renewed, Fuller crawled to the edge of the coal pile and peered around to see what was causing the sound. From the light streaming through the open double doorway, he caught sight of a large, muscular man swinging a thick cross peen hammer high. He slammed it down on a glowing bar of metal splayed out on a massive steel anvil. Although Fuller had never been in one before, it was obvious that he was in a blacksmith’s workshop in some bygone era.

  After several more strikes of the hammer, the blacksmith lifted the cherry red ingot he was shaping and brought it to his forge, placing it amongst the fiery yellow coals. The wheezing of the bellows started again when he pumped its handle, its strong breath bringing the fire to a blazing white heat.

  The blacksmith’s back towards him, Fuller rose as quick as his sore head would allow and rushed towards the large doorway at the front of the building. He was halfway there when a figure appeared in its opening. He was about to turn and hurry back to the hiding place when he froze in recognition—it was McAndrews.

  It took several seconds for the other man’s eyes t
o adjust to the dimmer interior. When they did, he looked around the shop and saw Fuller. His eyes narrowed as he yelled out, “Fuller!”

  McAndrews charged him. His right arm hanging at his side, the gash from the arrow still evident. Fuller hunkered down low as the agent came at him. When the two impacted, McAndrews almost spun over his shoulder and brought them both crashing to the ground.

  Fuller disentangled himself from the other’s legs and spun around, ready to defend himself against a renewed attack. The voice of the blacksmith boomed out, not pleased with them for fighting in his workshop. Fuller had no idea what he was saying or even what language he was saying it in.

  Still dazed from the tumble, McAndrews was just recovering when Fuller sprang on him. He kneeled on the agent’s good arm and pummeled him in the face. From nowhere a hard blow struck the side of Fuller’s head, sending him reeling several feet. It was a number of seconds before he realized what had hit him. The blacksmith, in an attempt to break up the fight, had let loose a powerful fist.

  As Fuller lay in a daze, the blacksmith stood over him yelling in the strange tongue. Ignoring the verbal abuse, he sat up and looked over to the agent. The arrow wound and beating taking its toll, McAndrews staggered to his feet.

  Fuller looked back at the blacksmith when he felt a kick in his leg. Although not hard, it was enough to get Fuller’s attention. The blacksmith was yelling and pointing towards the door, ordering them to leave he presumed. Now it was Fuller’s turn to raise drunkenly, his vision blurring from the blacksmith’s blow. When on his feet, he sidestepped towards the door, his eyes fixed on the blacksmith to be sure he would not throw another punch. With the massive man between himself and McAndrews, he could not see where the agent was until the last second.

  “Look out!” Fuller cried, pointing to McAndrews behind him. The hammer slammed into the side of the blacksmith’s head with an audible thud. As the giant man crumpled to his knees and fell over sideways, McAndrews almost dropped the hammer from the recoil of the impact. He stumbled sideways but remained standing and started towards Fuller.

  Although he was slow to advance, Fuller was in no better condition and was unable to outrun him. Instead he looked around for his own weapon and went for a four-foot steel bar several steps away. He was almost unable to lift it due to its heavy mass. He pulled it towards his body with all his strength then spun around to meet the approaching McAndrews. Knowing he would not be able to swing the bar, Fuller decided to thrust it into the agent’s chest instead.

  As he brought the bar forward with all his remaining strength, the agent swung up with the hammer in an effort to deflect the blow. The clang of metal rang out as the weapons impacted. The sound was dampened though when it sank into McAndrews’ throat, his parry causing the impact point of the bar to shift upwards. The agent’s hand snapped open, dropping the hammer. He staggered then thudded to his knees. Likewise, Fuller released the bar, the end just missing his foot as he stumbled sideways.

  A gurgling came from McAndrews’ crushed throat, his left hand slapping over the gouge. Fuller backed away from him, his stomach turning when blood bubbled through the injured agent’s splayed-out fingers. Not only had the bar’s impact done its damage but its corner had penetrated the agent’s neck and nicked his jugular vein.

  Fuller looked into McAndrews’ panic-stricken eyes, the knowledge of his own impending death showing. Although he was not the first man Fuller had killed, this was by far the worst. Even though he was justified in protecting himself, and McAndrews deserved what he had gotten, the spectacle before him was sickening.

  Fuller became woozy and went down to his hands and knees, his eyes still glued to the suffering agent. McAndrews pulled his hand from the wound and blood sprayed out from the exhaled breath blowing through it. He stretched his hand in a plea for Fuller’s help, but as he did so, his eyes fluttered and he fell forward, the loss of blood overcoming him.

  The bite of acid rose in Fuller’s throat, and he threw up in great heaves. The whole room started to spin, the pool of vomit below him blurring; another shift was starting. As Fuller fell sideways and consciousness slipped away, he wondered where he would end up next and if this continuous shifting would ever end.

 

 

  CHAPTER 15