CHAPTER 22

  "Leave your steppingstones behind there

  Something calls for you

  Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you

  The vagabond who's rapping at your door

  Is standing in the clothes that you once wore

  Strike another match, go start anew..."

  -Bob Dylan

  ...

  "I'm going to fall if I have to hold this position any longer!"

  Sharon looked at Carl with a sneer.

  "Ooooh...You are big man, yes?"

  "An even six foot, not that big."

  "You know what I am meaning! Switch foots!"

  Andy chuckled as the two men put one leg down, and raised the other.

  "You mean "feet"?"

  "Do not sass me Andrew, you will hold position longer!"

  Carls leg was shaking, the sweat was starting on his forehead. He closed his eyes, breathed out and tried to focus.

  "How is this supposed to help us?"

  "You lay in bed like lazy dog for too many days, body must be active. This how we get muscles active again."

  Carl was breathing through his gritted teeth, his leg was about to give out when she finally snapped her fingers.

  "Now, on floor, sit and put feet together. Yes, yes, like that. Now press on knees."

  Both men groaned as the muscles in their legs stretched.

  "Hey guys, how's the rehab coming?"

  Penny stood in the door, her arms crossed, a grin on her face.

  "NO! You leave now. Pretty face is distraction to silly men."

  "Hey!"

  She turned to Carl.

  "You, focus! Silly man."

  Penny grinned and held her hand to her mouth to suppress a laugh. She gave Carl a little wink and left. She kind of liked seeing the two of them be dominated by Sharon, their rehab coach. The woman couldnt have been more than four and a half feet tall. She snorted with laughter at the thought as she walked away.

  “Would you like to know why you’re going to die?”

  “Not really.”

  Nano snapped the helmet shut. Steve spun, grabbed the gun.

  He twisted the barrel toward the man’s face and drove a kick into his stomach.

  Steve pulled down on the gun.

  Fingers cracked.

  He yanked it free and headbutted him, it sounded like two coconuts colliding.

  The man hit the floor.

  Steve turned to the rest of the bar.

  “This is all just a big misunderstanding.”

  He held up the gun and pointed at it.

  “This is his.”

  No one even looked.

  Wasn’t that kind of bar.

  Steve shrugged, tipped his helmet to the barkeep, and left.

  Royles had a checklist now.

  Number one on the list, make contact.

  Yeah. His helmet definitely made contact.

  Number two, acquire new tech where possible.

  He looked down at the pistol.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Passable.

  He dropped out of the rift and landed in the hub world with a thump. Miles Parker, Steve's standby medic was tuning a knob on Matts "Frequency finder version eight point oh".

  Matt kept increasing the power and range, making it bulkier and bulkier with each version. Its only function, to locate Carls frequency.

  "Still no luck?"

  "I dont know, this new version has a digital readout that I dont quite understand."

  "Didn't Matt brief you on it?"

  "Well, yeah, but I got lost in the techno-babble and Matt had another meeting to get to."

  "Nano, can you help us out?"

  "I believe the screen shows the pulses being sent out looking for the matching frequency. It is pulsing at a slightly altered point each pulse. One hour after activation, it will have done a full three-sixty scan."

  Miles scoffed.

  "So I dont actually have to do anything? Thats a relief."

  Steve just cocked an eyebrow and fixed him with an incredulous stare.

  "What? Look at all the knobs on this thing!"

  Steve just rolled his eyes.

  "Whatever, lets get one more rift in and get out if here for the day."

  "Yesssss! Thank you."

  Steve walked over to the next red X.

  "Log rift 187, going through at...uh, 16:32."

  "Copy that."

  Steve flew up to the rift and disappeared into it.

  "...what if it turns me into, like a fish monster or something?"

  Carl held up a finger as he finished chewing and swallowed.

  "I never saw anyone get changed into anything grotesque...fish monster? Thats, uh...why did you go there?"

  They're were sitting in Andy's apartment sharing a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Andy reached for another slice.

  "I dont know, but you understand my concern?"

  "Yeah, of course. Look, I'm not destroying the anti-serum until after we've both taken Matt's concoction...just in case."

  "See! Saying stuff like that doesn't help."

  "Andy. Relax. You'll be ok, trust me."

  Andy stared at him for a second, then his shoulders kind of slumped.

  "Sorry, I'm just really nervous."

  "I know. I was too, the first time."

  "Yeah but you had to take it."

  "True. I think we both HAVE to take it now."

  Andy scrubbed his face with his hand.

  "Whatever, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

  "Ok."

  "You want another beer?"

  Carl shook his head.

  Andy pushed himself up onto his cane and made his way to the fridge. He opened the fridge and grabbed another bottle.

  "I mean, what if its something weird? Like, I dont know...I can talk to beavers or something!"

  Carl laughed.

  "Yeah, I dont know, that could be useful man."

  Andy frowned at him.

  "Ok, well, what if..."

  Carl let out a long sigh as Andy continued to worry out loud.

  Carl was limping along the hallway, headed out of the housing area to go see Matt. The rift alarm was going off, Steve was back.

  New protocols meant that the thick steel door to the rift room stay closed until the decontamination process was finished.

  Carl walked up to the rift and waited for Steve to emerge.

  He was still impressed with how Steve had stepped up. Maybe impressed wasnt the word.

  He was proud.

  He'd been telling everyone there was more to Steve than meets the eye. Steve was proving that for him. He smiled to himself.

  Nano chose well.

  The handle to the door spun and it slowly swung open, Steve stood there, helmet down. Miles was still standing next to the rift, struggling with Matt's bulky device.

  "Carl! Hey buddy, how you feeling?"

  "Steve-o! I'm getting there. Anything interesting today?"

  "Barely escaped a rift with weird morphing tech bugs."

  "Ahh yes, "tech bugs"...dont they have a shampoo for that?"

  Steve laughed.

  There was a grunt behind him. Steve turned and Carl leaned to the side to see. Mile's lower half was through the rift.

  "What the hell are you doing Miles? Miles!"

  Steve grabbed his hands and pulled him back through.

  There were three six-legged robotic bugs crawling up his legs, each about the size of a house cat. Their motors whining and their legs clicking as they climbed the man.

  Carl had moved up behind Steve, he saw the bugs now.

  "OH GOD! GET THEM OFF ME!!"

  Steve still held onto miles, he smacked them off of Miles' legs with his free hand, they landed on the floor and started skittering towards the door.

  Carl reached down, his thumb releasing the snap and pulled the pistol out of Steve's thigh holster in one smooth motion.

  He aimed.

  Three rapid fire shots.

  Shattering them, one by one, in a shower of sparks, metal and wires.

  The shots echoed in the small space. Steve looked at Carl.

  "Holy shit...for a guy still recovering, you reacted fast as hell."

  Carl was looking at the pistol.

  Fuck...that had felt good.

  He blew the smoke from the barrel, spun the gun on his finger and dropped it in Steve's holster.

  "Muscle memory."

  Miles was walking past, a haunted look on his face. He patted Carl on the shoulder.

  "Thanks."

  "Yeah, no problem bud."

  He turned back to Steve.

  "So...tech bugs huh?"

  "Yep."

  "Good thing you kept the gun. How do you like it?"

  "Haven't really used it. Nano tried to show me how it works, but..."

  "You're not about killing. I know."

  Steve shrugged and Carl smirked at him.

  "I'll be glad when its you back in the suit. No offense Nano."

  "None taken Steven."

  Carl started hobbling out of the rift room.

  "Well, I guess I'm part of this debrief now. Come on, lets go see Royles.

  Royles sat in his office watching the monitors. After the "incident" he had them installed so he could keep a closer eye on things. There was a knock on his door.

  "Enter."

  Steve and Carl walked in.

  "Take a seat."

  Steve sat, Carl groaned as he leaned on his cane and fell into the chair.

  "Carl, nice shots."

  "Thank you sir."

  "Steve, what happened"

  "Not sure. I didnt think the tech bugs from rift...uh, 187 could fly."

  "Is there some way we could have prevented this?"

  "Umm...maybe a short waiting period between rift and home?"

  Royles scribbled something on a notepad.

  "Any ideas Carl?"

  "I like what Steve said. Makes sense."

  "Twenty minutes?"

  Steve looked at Carl, they both nodded at each other.

  "Yeah, that should be long enough."

  "I'll have the protocols book updated. Go ahead and sync the bodycam and reset it now."

  Steve held a button on the side of the body cam, a red light blinked three times then turned a solid green.

  "Synced."

  Royles tapped on the keyboard below the monitors and the body cam footage appeared. He turned back to them both.

  "Dismissed."

  Carl limped along next to Steve as he headed to the science wing to turn in the pistol stuck to his waist, the one he'd taken off the asshole in the bar.

  "...should see them. I painted one of these big red lizard things I saw in...uh, rift 58, or 59."

  "Buddy, I got nothing going on. I'd love to see them."

  Steve was filling out the form to log in the weapon. He dropped the pen on the clipboard and slid it across the counter with the pistol and its magazine, the slide was locked open.

  Steve stepped out of the armor and disappeared into his bedroom to change. Carl walked over and put his hand on Nano’s chest.

  "You are recovering quickly Carl."

  "I know."

  "Be patient."

  "I am. You're in good hands."

  "Steve is very competent."

  "Yes, he is, isnt he."

  He patted the armor lovingly and hobbled over to Steve's couch and sat down.

  Steve went to lift the next one from the stack, to show Carl, but stopped.

  "I'm not sure you'll want to see this one."

  Carl had a pretty good idea what it was.

  "Rage monster me?"

  "Yeah."

  "I can handle it."

  Steve flipped it around.

  It was a swirl of blue and Grey's for the background. It showed Carl from the waist up, fists raised, every muscle flexed, head back screaming at the sky. Carl thought it was a damn good painting.

  "Whoah."

  "Too much?"

  "No. Really good...like, scary good!"

  "I probably shouldn't have painted it, but after I saw the video of that night... I'm sorry. You dont want to talk about that."

  "No, C'mon man, you told me about your embarrassing thing. Besides, I still can't remember any of it."

  "Ok, well, moving on."

  He slid it into the "already seen" pile and pulled out another one, this one with the red lizards he told Carl about earlier.

  "Oh wow! The details on that are insane! You even have light reflecting off its eyes..."

  The next morning, carl opened his eyes. The message indicator light was flashing on his phone. He swiped the screen up,

  "The treatment is ready for you and Andy, meet in the lab at 10."

  He locked the phone and dropped it on the bed. "Treatment", Matt was still being cautious, good. He was curious to see what power Andy ended up getting. He got up and reached for the cane, he held it a second before putting it back.

  Nah.

  He took a breath and stood up. The ache and stiffness was mostly gone, but the weeks of rehab had made the muscles sore. A good kind of sore, but still sore. He stretched his legs like Sharon had shown him, then worked on his calves. As mean as she was, she was very effective at her job. He walked around the room a couple times, still a little wobbly, but way better than a few days ago. He tapped his phone, 8:34, he had time to eat and shower before he had to go see Matt, and possibly watch Andy turn into a fish monster. He went to the kitchen grabbed the milk and pulled down the box of "Groovy grains" cereal and poured a bowl at his little table.

  As he crunched away, he couldnt help but think how lucky he was. Sure, he was in the wrong universe, but imagine if he had punched his way through a driveway and emerged into rift 8s world or something. The thought sent a shiver down his spine.

  This world's people were good people. If he had to be stuck in another universe, he couldn't have picked a better one.

  Carl was washing his bowl at the sink when there was a knock on his door.

  "It's open!"

  Penny walked in.

  "Hey, Matt's got the serum ready for you guys."

  "Yeah, he texted me. Said to meet him in the lab at ten."

  "Oh, ok. How you feeling?"

  "A lot better."

  "Good."

  They kind of stared at each other awkwardly while Carl dried the bowl and put it back in the cabinet.

  "I guess, I should leave you to it."

  "You can stay, I've got an hour to kill."

  "What'd you have in mind?"

  "I, uh...well, nothing really. I don't know. I kind of just want to spend time with you. If thats ok."

  Penny smiled at him. Not a pity smile, but a real genuine smile.

  "I'd like that."

  He could feel the color rushing to his cheeks, why did he feel nervous all of a sudden? If he wasn't careful...

  They both sat on his couch, closer than usual. He could feel her warmth.

  "So, what cases you working on? Anything I could do to help?"

  Her eyes lit up. He knew they would, she loved her work, and he loved that she loved it.

  He stared into her ice blue eyes as she talked excitedly about a car theft case that might be tied to organized crime.

  Yeah, he really lucked out with this universe.