Lonely
Ben was one of only a handful of people who could get away with saying what he'd said to Eric but that didn't necessarily mean Eric appreciated it. Largely because Ben hadn't bothered to hide the fact that he thought Eric was being a first class idiot.
And the worst of that is he's probably right.
Eric shook his head as he entered Dr Zaskin's lab. He'd grab a quick report then head for home to try and mend a few fences.
"Eric -- good morning," said Zaskin, barely even looking up from his research.
In spite of the situation, Eric only barely managed to suppress a smile. Michael Zaskin hadn't changed at all in the last ten years. He still had all the enthusiasm for a new research puzzle as a child given a new toy. It only surprised Eric that he'd looked up for long enough to identify who'd just walked into the lab.
"How's it going?" Eric asked.
At the direct question, however Zaskin did look up. "Well," he replied thoughtfully, "I'd concur with your assessment...the assessment that you, Wes and Jen made yesterday, these are or -- more precisely -- were Cyclobots."
"You mean before we trashed 'em," said Eric dryly.
Zaskin grinned puckishly. "Trash would be a good description."
"Oh well, next time they're trying to abduct my daughter I'll make sure to leave one intact for you."
Zaskin winced. "Sorry." Eric waved the apology off. "Anyway. What I would say about them is that they're not the same variety of Cyclobots as you were facing when Ransik was here."
Eric stared at him. "What do you mean?"
For answer, Zaskin just tossed one of the chipsets that were cluttering up the workbench in Eric's direction. Bemused, he caught it and flipped it over. "That," said Zaskin, "is a Maplin Schmitt Trigger chipset."
"And I am looking at it because...?"
Zaskin grinned. "Because it's a chipset currently in production." Eric just looked at the scientist. "OK. What I mean is, what you're holding is current tech. It's not future tech -- and in the entire time Ransik was present in this time, I never, ever pulled anything that 'antiquated' out of his robots. Plenty of stuff that was so far ahead of its time it made my eyes cross, sure. But something as off-the-rack as a Maplin chipset..." Zaskin shook his head.
Eric frowned. "You're saying the bots were built in this time?"
"Yep. Looks that way."
Eric pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh great."
"If it's any help to you," Zaskin continued, "I can run some serial numbers through the system and see if any of this lot've been stolen, when and where?"
"Gah. The way this is going, the components'll have been bought legally." Eric sighed and shook his head. "You might as well check, though."
Zaskin nodded. "I might be able to find something even if they're not stolen," he offered. "I have a friend at Maplin who can probably tell me where these chipsets were bought."
Eric nodded. "That might or might not be helpful...gotta be worth a shot." With another sigh, he turned to leave the lab. "Thanks Michael."
But even as he was reaching out for the door handle, his cell phone started to ring. With a grimace, Eric paused and unclipped the device from his belt. Looking at the caller ID, he noted that it was Wes. That didn't automatically mean something was wrong, but...
He accepted the call with a growing sense of disquiet. "Wes -- what's up?"
"The shit has hit the fan," came the response. Then followed the words Eric didn't want to hear. "Whoever this is has just abducted Rick, Lexia and John and there was fuck all I could do to stop them."
~*~
Kimberly groaned.
Her head was pounding and sundry bruises were making themselves felt. The real question was what on earth had happened? Squinting, she realised she was lying on the floor just inside the front door. Well at least that mean she hadn't been...
...kidnapped!
Kimberly forced herself to get to her feet.
Alice!
She groaned again as she finally reached her feet. Whatever the guy had used to knock her out, it had been strong. She could taste it in her mouth -- a revolting, chemical tang that was combining itself with the way the world was now gently tilting and swaying around her to make her stomach heave.
No time...
Using the wall as a guide, she stumbled along to Alice's bedroom door and felt her heart sink as she realised the door was now wide open.
"Kim!"
Kimberly paid no attention to Eric's shout. All she could do was state in dumb horror at the empty bedroom. Alice was gone. It was the final straw as far as her stomach was concerned. As her stomach started to empty itself of its contents, she found her knees giving out and she collapsed to the floor again.
"Oh God...Kim..." She felt Eric's hands on her back as he crouched beside her. "Oh God..."
"Couldn't stop it..." she found herself sobbing. "I couldn't stop him..."
Eric pulled her into an embrace, trying to sooth her. "It'll be...we'll find her...them..."
The words weren't lost on Kimberly. For the first time, she looked at Eric and for the first time saw the signs of fresh heartache. "What else?" she asked, her voice hoarse and strained.
She could only watch as Eric closed his eyes. "Whoever this is," he whispered, "they've got John, Rick and Lexia too."
"No!" Kimberly screamed. "This can't be happening!"
"We'll find them, Kim. We're gonna find them."
"No..." She clung to Eric as if he might suddenly vanish too. "No..."
~*~
The kitchen was crowded, Eric noted as he leaned against the work surface.
It would have made more sense for this meeting to have taken place at SGHQ, but he didn't want to leave Kimberly alone. By the time she'd finished crying, the only option Eric had was to put her to bed and that was where she was presently, sleeping off the effects of her break down. If for no other reason, he vowed that he was going to find whoever had done this was going to pay dearly for the catastrophic effect they'd had on Kimberly.
A look at Jen and Wes, who were sitting at the kitchen table, as they had been the night before, revealed that they felt no better about the situation than he did. Jen, in particular, looked barely one stage away from the emotional collapse Kimberly had suffered, while Wes' expression was tinged with the pain of badly bruised ribs. The Cyclobots had got him good when they'd snatched the triumvirate.
On this side of the table were seated Ben and Taylor. Eric couldn't see their expressions, but from long experience he knew that both would be inwardly outraged, even if it didn't show outwardly. Ben was still in uniform, since technically he was still on duty, although Eric knew well that Paul Miller and Mara Reed -- the two sub-commanders of Ben's squad -- were now in charge of the day shift.
At one end of the table, Zaskin looked grim. With him was Mr Collins who likewise looked forbidding. He absolutely doted on his two grandchildren and Eric knew with certainty that if Collins found out who the kidnapper was before anyone else there, the kidnapper wouldn't live long enough to regret it. Looming like some avenging angel over both Collins and Zaskin was Rocky. Aisha had come over with Rocky but she was upstairs keeping an eye on Kimberly. It hadn't been a hard decision on Eric's part to call the other man in. He was almost a surrogate brother to Kimberly, and right now, he was the only piece of familial support that Eric could bring in. He'd have liked to have called either Cawdron or Peterson but that would have meant explaining the future aspects of the situation.
And the last thing we want to tell someone who's highly connected with the US Military, even if he's not serving any more, is that time travel's not only a possibility but a reality, Eric mused with a faint shake of the head.
The final person present, Lucas, wasn't physically in the kitchen, but was attending via holoscreen, and looked about as impressed with matters as everyone else.
"They're definitely Cyclobots," Zaskin was arguing.
"That's impossible," Lucas objected. "Frax is the only being to have built them, and we know that he's very, very dead."
"How?" asked Ben.
Lucas offered a tight smile. "Because we have his robotic body firmly impounded here in the bowels of Time Force Technical. And," he added, "before anyone points out that Time Force's record keeping can be a little...sketchy, I went down and physically checked it was there before speaking to you. Trust me, it's there, I've seen it with my own eyes."
"How sure are you that Frax was the only being building Cyclos?" Wes wanted to know.
"To the point where we in this century haven't seen an active Cyclobot in a good ten years," Lucas replied. "Up to the point when Ransik escaped to 2001, they were a common sight and a big nuisance."
"But he could have left the blueprints somewhere?" suggested Taylor.
Lucas sighed. "We're looking into it."
"And that doesn't explain why there're 'bots running around here," said Rocky.
"Actually, it might," said Zaskin. "The 'bots are all being built here. If someone had found the blueprint and somehow travelled back in time with it..."
"If," said Lucas. "That's something else that we're looking into here. I'm expecting Hawking to give me a report any time now."
"Lucky you," Jen murmured with sarcasm.
"Make sure you have plenty of caffeine," Wes contributed.
Eric judged the comments to mean that both Wes and Jen had met Hawking and hadn't enjoyed the event. Lucas' expression confirmed that point of view.
"Thanks guys, I know who to come to for sympathy, huh?" Lucas looked at someone beyond his own holoscreen. "Thanks Marissa -- is that from Hawking?"
"Yep." Marissa's answer floated over the holoscreen's audio, although she didn't actually appear on screen.
Eric watched as Lucas leaned forwards to pick up a datapad that she'd presumably set down on his desk. "What's the news?" he asked.
Not looking up from the document he was scanning, Lucas slowly shook his head. "Not good. Not good at all."
"Anyone surprised?" said Rocky dryly.
Lucas ignored the comment and looked up from the datapad. "According to this," he said, "Silverhills in 2013 is a regular little hotspot of temporal anomalies. And worse," he continued with a grimace, "there are all the signs that someone's made at least one unauthorised trip from this time to yours."
"Which means what?" asked Collins tightly. "We have another Ranisk running around here?"
Eric noted the grimace now entrenched on Lucas' face. "That's not the worst of it, is it?" he said.
Lucas shook his head. "No."
"So...?" prompted Jen.
"Someone in Technical," said Lucas, "has just 'noticed' the theft of one of their projects."
Eric wondered if he'd heard Lucas right.
"What do you mean 'has just noticed'?" asked Wes.
Lucas shook his head. "I'm not sure -- that's literally what it says in this report. I'll find out in a moment. The bottom line is the data and prototype for one of TF Tech's weapons projects has been stolen."
"Don't you guys have security procedures?" Taylor asked pointedly.
"We do," Lucas agreed. "And like everything, if someone wants to play the system, there's always a way."
"Anyone want to take a bet where this weapons project's gonna show up?" Eric enquired.
"I don't bet on certainties," said Wes. "Lucas, what was the project?"
Lucas gave a groan. "I don't know. If it was still Doc Bennett in charge of Technical this would have come in a comprehensive report and I'd be able to tell you exactly what was going on. As it is..."
"Bennett retired?" Jen asked.
Lucas shook his head. "Not exactly. Look, I'm guessing you guys don't want to hear about internal politics right now."
"So what can you tell us?" Taylor demanded.
Lucas offered a humourless smile. "Right at this moment? It's the blind leading the visually challenged. I'm in the same boat you guys are. I'm sorry."
"And you're the one who can just look this stuff up," said Ben.
"Not as easy as you'd think," Lucas answered, "and right now..." He shrugged. "When this conversation's done, Trip, Nadira, Marissa and I are going to start breaking heads, believe me. Something big is going on."
Eric watched as that information was digested by everyone in the room.
"And you think this," and Rocky made a vague gesture as if to encompass the whole room, "is connected to the shit flying around where you are?"
"Major Kendall -- Dr Bennett's here to see you, urgently," came Marissa's voice.
"Got to go," said Lucas. "The second I have more information for you I will be in touch. You have my word on that." He hesitated a beat. "Good luck."
And with that, the holoscreen winked out.
"I see, said the blind man not seeing at all," Ben muttered.
"Well that was...less than helpful," contributed Zaskin.
"Nope," said Eric, folding his arms. "On the contrary. I think that told us a lot."
Taylor craned her neck so that she could look in his direction. "What?"
"For one thing," said Jen, "that there's future involvement in this mess."
"For another," Wes added, "that there's an unknown and probably powerful weapons system likely to show up here sometime soon."
"For a third," Eric put in, "there's a faction in Time Force who aren't playing by the rules."
"For a fourth," Collins contributed, "Lucas has just stopped playing by them himself."
"What makes you say that?" Rocky enquired.
Collins smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "I hardly think 'breaking heads' is in the Time Force operational manual when it comes to getting information."
"Where does it leave us?" Ben asked. "What are we going to do?"
"We," said a soft voice from the kitchen doorway, "are gonna find them."
Eric looked up and found himself looking at Kimberly, Aisha standing just behind her. She looked pale. There were huge, bruise coloured smudges beneath her eyes. But there was a hard determination in her expression that told Eric there was no way she was being left out of whatever was planned.
Eric didn't even need to think about what to do. He crossed the kitchen and gently pulled her into an embrace. "We will," he agreed. "I promise."
TO BE CONTINUED...