June 26, 2014. Thursday.
Sally, John, and George stood on the lawn in front of George's house. The first sun rays were slowly emerging from the horizon, illuminating dew on the long uncut grass surrounding the trio. Sally was in her uniform, her weapons and holsters put in the backpack, John wore the baseball cap and 'Metallica' shirt, and George was in his casual white long shorts and a white crumpled blouse which carried a smell of a washing machine.
It was the beginning of a beautiful day only for the two of them.
Not for George. Perhaps he got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or came to his senses when it was finally the time to act because now he had a bad feeling deep in his gut about the whole 'save the world' idea. The joy and excitement about the upcoming day John and Sally carried did not catch on to him.
"Not used to get up so early in the morning." George yawned, stroking a strand of hair to the side, his eyes half open.
"Same," added the other two.
For George, who currently was in a very gloomy mood, the careless smiles of his friends' faces did not appear charming at all. The situation he found himself in felt unsettling. He would give up many things if Alfonso and Sally had not come and made his life more complicated. He always preferred to go with the tide, avoid unnecessary risks, but here he was about to take one with a companion he met only a day ago.
"Ok, John, it's time we split. Here are the keys." George put a bundle in John's hand. "No matter what comes through the rippling hole I trust you to take good care of them and show hospitality. Be patient and polite."
"Of course."
Before leaving, George added, "Call me if the situation becomes too difficult to handle."
"I will! Make sure you keep the phone close to you. Good luck you two."
"See ya John. You'll make a great host." Sally winked her eye.
The two up-and-coming heroes (or martyrs) walked the empty Milltown's streets toward its center, toward the train station. They passed the time sharing ideas on how Alfonso could be stopped. Sally assessed the situation in a straightforward manner. Her plans mostly consisted of the direct approach. One of her suggestions was to burn Alfonso's house to make him leave and then surprise him with a sneak attack involving blunt objects used as weapons. The laugh Sally gave George after telling the plan horrified him.
Another proposal she had included fighting their way through by entering through the main gate. She boasted about how the non-lethal handguns, now lying in her backpack, could drug or make victims suffer in most humiliating ways with various side-effects for extended periods of time.
George rejected both ideas. "Since we both want to live through this experience," George spoke as persuasively as he could. "We should be more careful. I say we observe his house for a day or two and think of a way to sneak in. Perhaps we could dress up as pizza deliverers. We drive into his garden, say we got some pizza. He goes out to take it and then, bam! We zap him, press the teleporter on his belt, send him back and take him out if he ever attempts to return.
"And weapons, Sally, I'm against weapons. They should be the tools of the last resort. I don't want anyone getting hurt while we're doing this. I have this idea that if you don't shoot first, people don't shoot back at you."
Sally found George's plan to be a bit too complicated. She had so many questions about the pizza, about the cab, about where would they hide their weapons, about what should they say so that their cover would not be blown. George tried his best to assure her that the plan was truly plausible but failed in the end. There were just too many questions. And she found the whole idea of restraining her use of weapons stupid, but she agreed to try.
Then they argued for a long while until a compromise was reached involving best parts of their plans. The hour of the walk went by in no time and soon they found themselves inside the Milltown's train station.
When George went to get the tickets he left Sally by a coffee machine and gave her instructions on how two cups should be bought, but when he returned the time police girl was nowhere to be found. He asked around, but no one had seen or noticed where his friend had disappeared. While he wandered around the station searching, he was greeted by a large man wearing black glasses and a black suit. The man glanced into the picture he held in his hand, then to George.
He said, "Mr. Bottlemore I presume?"
"Yes. Who's asking?"
"My friends call me Tango." The mysterious man pointed at a shiny silver pin with the word 'Tango' attached to the left side of his chest. "Now, Sir, if you'd just follow me. There are many things we have to discuss."
"Follow you where?"
"Just round the corner. Over there." The man pointed to a corridor, which, George knew, led to a dark place.
George had a feeling on how this was going to end. He had seen many movies and action series. Even though this was real life, he found no problem to apply his theoretical knowledge to this particular situation. That particular moment he did not feel threatened, he was still in a dreamy state similar to the one he entered playing the computer. Oblivious to danger, he said, "Of course if you'd just show me the way, please."
"Here."
The man in black walked first, and George followed in such a way that he stayed out of the brute's field of vision the whole time. The corridors they passed got darker and darker. Silently he took out a thing or two out of the backpack and slid them into his pockets. Surprise awaits you, mister, George talked to himself and grinned. But it was him whom a small surprise awaited first.
With hands cuffed in front of her, head bent down, Sally stood in the far corner of the dim lit room. Another man, almost identical to the one that led George to this place, pointed a pistol to the ground and stood beside her, his face straight serious.
"Well done, Papa," said Tango. He then slid his hand inside the jacket and turned to George, but was frozen the moment he was about to take out the gun. He only managed to take a glimpse of the weird pencil-like thing George pointed at him. Tango fell to the ground in agony and began to jerk, the ago-nizing pain showed up in his face. He spoke with what appeared to be an incredible force of will, "This.... Was.... not... supppppposed.... to... 'apppppen!"
Papa pointed his gun at Sally. He whispered to her, "Nothing personal, it's just my job." then looked at George and spoke to him. "Leave my associate alone. Or she gets it," he wiggled the weapon.
"Damn it," George walked to Tango keeping his voice cool. Now that the fog of surreality from his eyes had disappeared and adrenaline had kicked in, his hands began to shake. He took the gun out of Tango's hand and pointing the pencil at Papa asked, "What do you want?"
"We want you to go back and forget it all. Forget Alfonso, forget meeting us, and forget you ever wanted to leave this city. Or else,—" Papa shrugged once, shrugged twice. "Ha." Shrugged for the third time and laughed very seriously, "Ha, ha, ha. It tickles... Hahaha!"
Sally giggled too, in her girlish "Ke, ke, ke..." Tears came to her eyes, she squeezed her belly and fell down. The closer George walked to them, the more Sally cried, the louder her attacker laughed.
He took Papa's gun, lifted Sally by the elbow and led her out of the room, leaving the two attackers behind, one in agonizing pain, another in an intense state of happiness. He threw the guns into the first recycle bin on the way towards the train platform. The strange thing he noticed about the guns was that there was something off about them. They did not appear to be as threatening as the one Alfonso carried. The cuffs on Sally's hands proved to be only a little nuisance. Using a pin from her hair, she easily freed herself. Then she straightened her already stained suit and fixed her hair.
It took time for George to understand what had just happened and what he just did. Together with Sally, he sat on a bench of the train platform. Leaning his back against the hard wood, he looked to the sky and sighed. "I feel it's too much for me, Sally. I really don't feel like doing this. Why can't we just go back and ask for backup?" He turned his eyes to his shaking hand. "If I wanted excitement I'd rather do something else. Go to ride a quazilopath for example."
"Well, we could ask for backup if the task would prove to be too difficult. But for now we are doing just fine, aren't we?"
"I truly don't think so."
"Agreed to disagree." She gave him a wide smile, her narrow brown eyes shimmering with optimism.
George shook his head and thought of no words to add.
"You see, 'the backup' is more like an army and you don't call an army when the police can handle it. Do you?"
George sighed once again and evaluated his position. A self-loving man, risking his life to help this not very reliable girl to save the world. He knew there were two types of people would throw themselves into the danger: either heroes or fools. Perhaps he was a hero after all. He did not have much time to reflect on his position since the alarm of incoming train broke the sequence of thoughts.
"How did you get kidnapped anyways?" George asked entering the train.
"He said he would lead me to a tasty bun shop and I better spend the money on buns. To persuade me, he even added that coffee was not healthy for me. As I followed him through the dark corridor, someone hit me from behind. I let my guard down, George. I'm sorry. It won't happen again," she said sincerely with a flavor of disappointment.
George chose to restrain himself from any negative reply as he himself had always believed in honesty of others, only perhaps not as naively as Sally. He had gotten burned more than once when blindly trusting people.
"Is it true?" asked Sally.
George settled down in a chair and looked at his companion. "What's true?"
"That coffee isn't healthy for you."
"Well, the science has yet to prove it. It is you who should know the answer."
They silently stared through the window. The city ran by them, then the fields, fields of sunflowers, fields of corns, and fields of rye. A streak of bushes swinging from the wind flew by every now and then. There was some hypnotizing magic when one looked through the window, and George gave up to it. Slowly, his eyelids were closing.
"What a beautiful girl." He heard Sally say. "What a tiny tiny nose. Did you know, that it's not safe to walk alone without parents? You might get lost." A long pause went by. "Now if you'd just return to them..." With one eye opened George witnessed Sally flick the child's nose. The girl cried hysterically and ran away. Echo of her cry could be heard coming from distant wagons, getting fainter and fainter. George found her action inappropriate but was too tired to do anything about it. In the background of the dream, he still heard almost everything what happened next.
The kid returned holding her large mother by the hand. Eyes wide she said to Sally, "Hey, girl, what do ya think, flicking my kid's nose? Want me to flick yours? Or perhaps want me to shake ya a lil?
"Ya, shake 'er mum, shake 'er!!!" the child shouted.
"Please, miss, I just wanted your kid to have a lesson," Sally replied politely.
"I'm her mother. I teach her lessons. Who do you think you are?"
"I'm a police officer miss."
"Then where's yer badge?"
"Here, Sally pointed at the whitish picture of a mechanical watch on her chest."
"What kind of police is this? The one of the watchmakers? Ha! Not funny!" The lady touched Sally's shoulder and tried to squeeze it, but her hand jerked away.
"What have you done to me?" The woman shouted, "What have you done?!"
"What is it mum, what has she done?"
"My hand, girl, my little finger just broke."
"You tramp!" The girl shouted at Sally. A few eyes from the cabin now turned their attention to the escalating situation.
Sally put the bag on her knees, searched for a while and after taking a little syringe out of her bag stuck it into the leg of the large lady. "So unkind of you," she said. The gaze of the lady became blank. With an open mouth, she stood there, not saying a word, not moving or twitching. Sally continued with her kind voice, "You will go back to your seats and stay there for the duration of your travel."
The lady instantly calmed down. Saying nothing, she led the girl away, to the direction they came from.
"Why didn't you flick her nose, mum?" asked the girl as they left wagon. Her mother did not reply.
"What the hell, Sally? What did you do here just now?" George murmured half asleep.
"Told you, brought some stuff with me."
"Shouldn't use it on the ordinary people..."
******
"Wake up!"
George opened his drowsy eyes. Through the window, he saw a train station. A sign 'Crossroad' slowly passed in front of his eyes. Five men in black suits stood waited at the platform, one of them holding a white paper with 'George Bottlemore' written in capitals.
George murmured, "Well that's a little troublesome."
With a self-confident tone, Sally assured him, "I will deal with them. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. The thing you are about to see is called martial arts. Sally will show you that you don't need no guns when you know how to kick butt." She walked to the exit. George followed.
As soon as the door opened and George stepped out, a blur of gray rushed to one thug, flew up, slammed into the chest and sent him flying off the platform. Then, the blur rushed to another target. It unleashed a flurry of fists, yet did not manage to connect at least once.
"Who needs a weapon when he knows hand to hand combat, right?" said the guard as he grabbed Sally by the elbow, the name 'Quebec' on his pin. Two men rushed to his aid and locked Sally's hands behind her back. Before letting go of the hand, Quebec added, "I like your approach. Only a fool trusts his life to a weapon."
The man with the greeting paper in his hand came closer to George. His pin with the word 'Whiskey' reflected sunlight into George's eyes. He said, "Well, well, well. If it isn't the devious George Bottlemore. You should have listened to my friends. Should have stayed at home, because now you're in trouble, mister."