Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 2

The ACME-HUB (orbiting space satellite)

His head was pounding. He was laying down, flat on his back. On a hard surface. There was no noise. He opened his eyes ... slowly.

He was still in the room that he and Ginny had been in when the big guys rushed in.

Or maybe it was a different but similar room.

Ginny wasn’t there.

He still had the small, moulded earpiece that Vicky had requested for him. Since he had given Vicky over to Ginny, he had re-inserted the earpiece, just in case Vicky needed to contact him and he wasn’t within earshot.

“Vicky?” he said, very quietly.

“We are here, Gabriel,” Vicky said. “We are still in room 8. They took you out after they knocked you to the ground.”

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, we are both ok, Gabriel. Ginny is being questioned right now. They think that you guys were involved in the data corruption. I will get back to you when they have finished with Ginny.”

“Ok, Vicky. I understand,” said Gabriel, but just then the door to the apartment opened and two men walked in.

Gabriel half-closed his eyes again.

“Welcome back, sunshine,” somebody said. “You been sleepy-times, then?”

It was a low rumbly voice. It sounded a bit like somebody crushing boulders. It didn’t sound sympathetic.

Cold water splashed onto his face. Some went into his nose and mouth. He began to choke.

He turned onto his side and coughed the water clear.

The action of the movement and the coughing made the pain in his head worse.

“How did you do it, then?”

A different voice. Gentler. More conventionally pitched. Inquisitive. Just asking a question. Asking a polite question.

He was pushed onto his back and a wet towel or something similar was laid across his face. Then more water. He choked again.

“No need for that,” the gentler voice said. “I think he’s going to tell us without any of that.”

He was hauled up off the floor and sat in a straight-backed chair. His arms were tied behind him. His face was wiped down with a dry, warm towel.

He opened his eyes and looked around.

Two men were standing in front of him. They were wearing uniforms. They each had a badge labelled “SECURITY”, and below that they had their name tags. “Smythe” and “Rust”. They were both about the same size. They were big men.

Gabriel guessed that he was in what looked like another of the client apartments. It was maybe adjacent to the one they were in before.

“Where’s the girl?” Gabriel asked.

“She’s ok,” said Rust. He was the one with the gentler voice.

“For now,” snarled Smythe, in his gravelly tone.

“So, how did you do it?” Rust repeated.

Smythe looked behind him and picked up Gabriel’s backpack. He unfastened the top and tipped the contents out onto the floor. He rummaged through; items of clothing, the SEG journal, a small silver block.

Smythe picked it up and pushed it in front of Gabriel’s face, running the shiny surface down Gabriel’s cheek.

“What’s this then?” he said.

Gabriel looked at the shiny silver block. He didn’t recognise it. He had no idea what it was.

“I’ve never seen it ...,” he said.

Smythe slapped him viciously across his face.

“Ok, Mr Smythe,” Rust said in a conciliatory manner. “The lad says he’s never seen it before. We know it’s a data slug. Maybe it’s what he used to compromise our coordinates. Who’s to know?”

Rust winked in a friendly way to Gabriel, as if to show that he was on Gabriel’s side, and would soon clear up this misunderstanding.

“Come on, Mr Smythe,” Rust said genially. “Why don’t we just play the data slug. Then we’ll all know what the game is.”

Smythe took the silver block and walked over to a section of wall which seemed to be littered with media-related devices. He pushed the silver block into a slot and stepped back. Instantly a large video image appeared on an adjacent wall.

The image was about ten feet wide, maybe six feet high. The video showed two men standing in a small room cluttered with bits of machinery and tools. One of the men was holding his hand. Blood was pouring from the stumps of his fingers. Both men were watching a small tube as it rolled along the floor away from them.

“It’s ... it’s Steve and Roy,” Gabriel said.

Roy was watching the tube as it rolled along the ground.

“Holy fuck,” Roy said. “It’s a ...”

Roy rushed forward as if to try to catch it, but as he did so the tube turned into a small ball of flame.

Gabriel saw Roy’s movements had slowed right down. He realised that the video itself had been slowed down. Roy’s hand could be seen to be slowly making its way to the tube; then slowly the tube blossomed. It bloomed into a slowly expanding ball of orange fire. The noise it made, slow as it was, sounded like a lion’s roar.

The flame engulfed Roy’s hand, then covered both Roy and Steve in a fiery wrath.

Roy and Steve both began to scream. They were covered in flames. The entire room was filled with flames. They ran to the walls, scrabbling to find somewhere, anywhere not filled with flames. They fell to the ground. They writhed. Their backs arched and twisted. Their screaming seemed to fill the room that Gabriel was sitting in.

The scene changed. They were looking in long-shot at someone standing looking quietly pleased with himself.

“God, that’s Patty,” Gabriel said, his voice shaking.

The video shot of Patty moved into a close-up of his face

“I hoped you enjoyed that, Ginny,” Patty said. He smiled coyly at the camera, as if listening to inner thoughts.

“I guess that taught them a lesson for raping you.”

Patty looked down at something and the camera pulled back to a point where the whole top half of his body could be seen. He looked back in the direction of the camera.

“Anyway, Ginny,” he said, smiling. “Got to go ... things to do. I hope that you enjoyed the recording of their last moments. I didn’t know that they could dance. Did you?”

Patty’s smile turned into a chuckle. “Mind you ... now that I think about it ... I guess that you already knew that they had the hip movements.”

The video stopped, freezing the last frame; Patty’s chuckling face.

“That’s a strange little fucker,” Smythe said.

“She said they teleported out ... oh God, Ginny ... oh God ...,” said Gabriel, his voice filled with horror.

Rust touched a finger to his own ear. “Sorry? Say again ... say again.”

Smythe looked questioningly at Rust.

“Team two ... with the girl. She’s got a fucking STU,” Rust said, “and the STU says that Bonnie and Clyde here were on SEG002 at the time of the data corruption.”

“What, the STU had data for the last 10 days?”

“It has data for the last 233 years.”

“Fuck it,” said Smythe. “But anyway, they’ve got no id, no authorisation to be here. That’s how we picked the fuckers up, entering a room with no id.”

“Even so, this sort of changes things,” said Rust. “I know we’ve had no reason to apprehend anybody since ACME INC started this op, and I know you’re keen to do some ... security stuff ... but even so, this guy’s done nothing wrong.”

“As far as we know,” rumbled Smythe. He looked over at Gabriel, who seemed to be transfixed by the final frame of the video, “’cept maybe helping to burn those two poor fuckers.”

“Sounded a bit like rough but appropriate justice to me,” commented Rust.

Smythe grunted.

“One more thing,” said Rust. “I think you need to get this guy down to the MED bay ... oh ... and maybe a little apology wouldn’t do any harm.”

“Fuck that,” said Smythe.

“The girl’s STU ...,” said Rust.

“Yeah, what about the fucking STU?”

“The STU said that these two brought it back to the HUB. It was one of the ones screwed by the bad coordinates.”

Smythe looked unconvinced.

“If that’s true,” continued Rust, “I think that ACME INC might feel they owe them gratitude at least. Those little fuckers are expensive.”

“Oh yeah. Owe them what?” said Smythe.

“Well, maybe a bit of MED treatment after you’ve beat him up ... that at least, I would have thought.”

Smythe walked over to Gabriel and began untying him from the chair.

Gabriel seemed oblivious of the conversation that had been going on and flinched when Smythe jerked him to his feet.

“Ok, lad,” Rust said. “Let’s get you to the MED bay.”

“Yeah, you’ve taken a bit of a fall, haven’t you?” Smythe said, grinning.

Rust gave Smythe a look of caution.

Smythe bent down and re-packed Gabriel’s stuff back into his backpack. He extracted the data slug from the socket on the wall and dropped that back in as well. He handed the backpack over to Gabriel, who took it and cautiously slung it over his back.

“C’mon lad,” Rust said, taking Gabriel’s arm and guiding him out of the room. “Let’s get you down to the MED bay.”

“Where’s Ginny?” Gabriel said as they walked.

Rust pinched a device on his ear and began talking. “Get the girl down to the MED bay. We’re on our way there now. No, I don’t care about that. Get her down there now. See you there ... two minutes.”

Rust escorted Gabriel down a swathe of corridors. Smythe walked behind. Nobody spoke. There didn’t seem to be much to talk about.

“There’s the MED bay,” said Rust, nodding in the direction of a large neon sign saying MEDI-CARE. “There’ll be somebody from ACME INC in there who can patch you up a bit.”

Gabriel looked at Rust, then across at Smythe.

“It’s up to you if you want to make a big deal about ... about Smythe’s enthusiasm,” Rust said, “but there’s a lot of people ... a lot of clients have died as a result of somebody buggering up our coordinates database. That may not mean much to you, but ...”

Gabriel guessed that Rust was concerned that a complaint about Smythe would maybe come back to Rust, who he thought was probably the team leader or some such thing. He gave Rust a non-committal shrug of his shoulders. He thought maybe he was starting to get used to getting roughed up. He didn’t think it was worth making a big deal about it.

Rust observed Gabriel’s gesture. “C’mon Mr Smythe,” he said, turning away from Gabriel and walking away down the corridor. “We still don’t know who did it. That’s what they are paying us to do, so let’s get fucking on with it.”

Gabriel watched as Rust and Smythe walked away down the corridor. Then he remembered what Patty had said on the video. And he knew that Ginny must have decided not to tell him. He had found it hard to believe when she had said that Steve and Roy had teleported back to the Earth. He couldn’t think of any good reason why they would have done that ... and that was because they hadn’t.

And that was, presumably, why Ginny had been so off-hand with Patty. She must have seen what he had done to Steve and Roy. And even though they had raped her, she didn’t feel easy with what Patty had done either.

He couldn’t imagine Ginny’s inner strength. What she had needed to do to see her through the last few days.

And to think that he had been cross with her because she was snapping at him. He felt very unworthy of her.

He pushed open the door into the MED bay. There were two people, a man and a woman. They were sitting on stools against a side wall. They were holding disposable drink containers. They turned and stood up as he walked in. They both looked about mid-thirties. He was of medium height, trim, with a light beard. He looked self-assured. She looked quite pretty, very slim, with blonde shoulder-length hair. Her med-bay uniform short jacket and trousers fitted her nicely.

“I’m Gabriel,” he said.

“We’re expecting you,” the woman said, putting her cup down and walking over to him. “I’m Sara,” she said, and that’s Zackery,” nodding in the direction of the man.

Gabriel nodded.

“You took a fall?” Sara said.

“Have you seen my friend, Ginny?” Gabriel asked.

“She’s on her way, I believe,” said Zackery. “While we’re waiting for her, let’s take a look at you.”

Sara took Gabriel’s arm and led him over to a device that was similar to the MED unit they had had in their starship. This one, though, looked far more expensive and complicated.

The lid on the unit opened up.

“Please lay down on the cot,” Sara said. “The machine will carry out a diagnostic on you.”

Gabriel nodded again. “Yeah ... I’ve seen one,” he said. “In fact, I’ve used one. So has my friend, Ginny.”

“Really?” said Zackery. “It’s very expensive gear, you know. It’s not normally ...”

“We had to use it to amputate her legs,” Gabriel said.

Sara looked shocked. Zackery looked like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it.

“She lost her legs when we were trying to bring your STU device back here,” Gabriel said.

Just then, the MED bay door opened, and Ginny hovered in. She saw Gabriel. She hovered over to him, ignoring the two others in the room.

She put her arms round him, hugging him close to her.

“You look like you’ve been in the wars again,” she said, lightly running her fingers over his bruised face.

“We’ve both been up against it,” he said.

Ginny looked at him curiously. “Yeah,” she said. “Cuts and bruises, eh? Still, could have been worse.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel said. The pain from the side of his head where Smythe had hit him with his rifle seemed to be getting worse.

Ginny hovered backwards away from Gabriel, looking at him steadily. She was still ignoring the two others in the room. They were far less important to her, and they were currently standing there not saying anything. They seemed respectful of Ginny’s conversation with Gabriel.

“Has Vicky been talking to you?” she asked.

“About what?”

“Oh, you know? Cuts and bruises and things.”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“I haven’t told him anything,” Vicky said quietly. “You asked me not to, so I haven’t.”

“Ginny ...,” Gabriel said. He felt unsure what to say. He guessed that Ginny had told Vicky not to mention about her being raped, but he didn’t think that this was the time to discuss it. He stepped back, away from Ginny. He looked over towards the two medical staff.

“Ginny,” Gabriel said. “This is Sara and Zackery. They can maybe patch us up a bit.”

Sara looked very relieved that the conversation seemed to have moved onto an area that they could contribute to.

“Gabriel,” Sara said. “If you want to jump up onto this MED unit here, we can run a few checks. We can make sure there’s no lasting damage from when you ... when you, er, tripped and fell.”

Ginny looked incredulously at Gabriel. “You tripped and fell?” she said.

“Maybe it was more like ‘pushed hard’”, Gabriel said.

“Yeah ... I saw them push you.”

“ACME INC have told us to apologise for any ...,” Sara said. She looked embarrassed and looked over to her colleague for support.

“ACME INC is aware that you have brought them back a STU,” Zackery said. “They said for us to thank you. They said they will send someone down to see you, but they are all ... well ... I don’t know if you are aware, but ACME is in the middle of a crisis. Everyone is ...”

“We can imagine,” said Ginny

“So, anyway,” continued Zackery, “we have been told to give you any assistance you may require. To both of you.”

“What happens to the STU we brought back?” Ginny asked.

“I don’t know,” Zackery said. “They didn’t tell us.”

“Ok,” said Gabriel. “So maybe you can check us over ... patch us up.”

“We can do that,” Sara said. “You know, Gabriel ... you mentioned that Ginny had to have her legs amputated whilst you were journeying here?”

Ginny looked at Sara, who was suddenly looking very uncomfortable having raised the topic.

“If you had her leg dimensions, we could build new legs to exactly match her old ones,” Sara said.

“I’m only here,” Ginny said. “You can talk to me about it. They were my legs after all.”

“Sorry Ginny,” Sara said.

“And we do have her leg dimensions,” said Vicky. “The MED unit we used for the amputations took precise measurements, which of course it sent to me. I can provide that information, if it will assist you. Which device would you like me to send them to?”

“That one, B6, over there,” Zackery said.

“Hey, Ginny,” Zackery said. “If you want to get into the B6 unit ... do you need help getting the spacesuit off?”

“I’ll do it Zackery, thanks,” Sara said.

Ginny hovered over to the B6 unit. She laid back on the bed and Sara helped her pull her spacesuit off. Gabriel walked over to the unit and stood beside her. He watched the unit’s lid slowly close over her. He gave her a smile of encouragement. She smiled back, but her smile seemed to betray her anxiety.

“You might has well get into a med unit yourself,” Sara said, pointing. “There’s nothing more you can do for Ginny until the procedure is complete, so you might as well get checked over.”

Gabriel walked over to the other MED unit and laid down in it. Just laying down seemed to make the pain in his head pulse even stronger. He watched as the lid closed. A pale crimson mist filled the unit. He felt a light drowsiness overwhelming him. His eyes closed. He felt warm and safe.