Mrs. Mallory stood behind the chair of the Seer, Marc Lebeau, the man who had inadvertently pushed Rembrandt alone through the unstable Kromagg portal, as the echoing sound of the collapsed vortex slowly faded to nothing. Diana and Maggie stood in the center of the storehouse, worry etched across their faces. Mallory watched behind them, unable to take his eyes off the now complete heroic flight of his friend.
"What do we do now?" he asked. Maggie slowly put her arms around Diana, holding for desperate comfort. His words hung heavy in the air.
Maggie sat on the couch of the hotel, alone. She was a fair-skinned woman with long brown hair, dark eyes, full lips, and a face that ended in a gentle chin. Portraits of potted plants hung behind her, and the red, black and white striped couch creased under the light weight pressed upon it by her smart black slacks, black jacket, and blue top. She stared blankly at the curtained window ahead of her, thoughts racing.
The door opened. Diana entered first, a chocolate-skinned woman with mid-length brown hair, brown eyes, and a small nose, and was in tight black pants and a white shirt that hugged her figure, as well as a brown jacket. Her eyes shined in prepared determination with a slight smile on her face. Mallory burst in much less delicately, all black and all business: the towering fair-skinned man's close cut, styled dark hair stood up slightly above his long face, his black leather jacket swished with a flourish over his v-cut black t-shirt, and long legs in black jeans rushed past his more level-headed and science-minded companion.
"He's alive," he blurted out, standing directly in front of Maggie. She looked up in hopeful confusion, until Diana shot him an odd look. Mallory, catching up with his own mind and cutting himself short, continued. "We know he's alive, right?" he followed up. "So we work off that." Maggie, still in shock at the events that had just transpired, could only listen intently.
"So I figure we respect Remmy's wishes, hang here, and go with Option 1," he suggested with an authoritative finger held up, taking a seat in front of the couch with his left hand on his left knee. "Mr. Lebeau's got to have family, right? Someone besides Claire, who's probably in the pokey as we speak."
Maggie cough-laughed despite herself, covered her mouth with her hand, then nodded. Diana came to sit down next to her, hands folded across her lap. "So pantsuit rots, and we go interview some of the other Lebeaus out there," Mallory continued. Diana's tilted her head slightly, raised her eyebrows, and nodded in agreement, pointing an upturned hand at him. "That was all him," she added with a somewhat impressed tone. "He was brainstorming like crazy while we were talking to the police."
With a shrug of smugness, Mallory smiled and continued. "This ability he had, maybe it's not just his." He turned up his right hand and waved it out and to his right, gesturing with every example he spoke. "There could be an uncle Lebeau, cousin Lebeau, young Billy Lebeau twice removed down at the chicken shack, a Lebeau-in-law..."
"In-laws aren't related by blood," Diana interrupted. Mallory shrugged and put his hands up. "Whatever, we'll interview them, too." Maggie smiled somewhat, then nodded slightly as Mallory gestured insistently at Diana. "Now you go," he said.
"Option 2, which I'll be working on: I'm going to see what I can do with the Kromagg sliding machine," she stated. "I don't know how far I'll get since Remmy took the Egyptian timer with him, but there might be something else in the facility I can use." Her mind began racing, and she put a hand on her chin, looking to the floor. "Maybe some kind of scanner, or perhaps the force field barrier can be adjusted in some way. But there's the quality of materials inside the device and the stress of a second portal so soon... maybe I can find a way to gather more exotic material over a protracted period of time..."
"Option 3, that Sliders board game?" Mallory interjected, softly enough to not disturb Diana. "The one you were telling me about?" He smiled, pointing at Maggie. "We get a copy of each version of that thing. There might be some ideas on the trivia cards about how to build a new timer, equations Diana can put to use, something like that. Who knows what Mr. Lebeau saw in his visions?"
"...and with a storage device, it might be possible to build up the material more slowly, then let the matter flow through some kind of capacitor to reduce strain on the old system," Diana continued muttering, looking towards the ceiling, as Mallory and Maggie exchanged a somewhat confused, but hopeful, look. "We'll need some kind of a program to pull any test objects back through the vortex on their own, but they'll need to be big and organic enough to simulate a living body..."
"Option 4," Mallory offered next with a wry smile, "Hypnosis. Quinn's already helped once back in Dr. Geiger's lab, remember? It might be possible for me to access some of that genius. Maybe he..."
Maggie gently put a hand over each of her friend's mouths, biting her lower lip to keep her composure. Thankfully, she held it together. "You two... are the best," she said simply, then brought them both in for a hug. Diana threw an arm around her and returned the support.
Mallory looked a bit too happy squeezing in from his position on the carpet. Realizing where he was, he pulled back, stood up, and pulled his leather jacket down in faux seriousness, then lifted his head, eyes on Maggie. He reached a hand down. "Do I have your support, Captain?" he asked. She smiled and took his hand, then he pulled her up. "You bet," she answered.
"Good," he replied, pulling Diana up as well. "Because I have about five more options and could use the backup."
The fans of the Sliders and their Slidology were more than amenable putting in the work, tracking down relations of the late Mr. Lebeau. Mrs. Mallory came along to assist Mallory and Maggie in their travels around the state, writing down interview questions, looking up addresses and directions, and providing refreshments as they went from prospect to prospect. The train was an absolute madhouse in every direction as the two's groupies of sorts booked every seat and followed the every move of the two up and down the west coast.
"Yeah, I didn't know what I was doing!" Mallory exclaimed sheepishly, mouth full of a peanut butter sandwich one of the girls had brought. "Those bot-things had me completely under their control. That Dead Man's Light? Have you ever gotten overheated or pulled a muscle, and had your back Guasha'd at a Chinese massage place? Hurts like hell, but once they leave you scraped up and broken on the table, it's like all the evil leaves your body." A few of the eastern faces in attendance nodded, muttering in agreement to their neighbors. Mallory made a face. "Ok, maybe the light hurt more than that, but you get what I'm saying, right?" he continued, mouth still full of peanut butter, raising the sandwich up. He took a hit from the soda in his left hand.
"Is Quinn still in there?" a long brown-haired tan man with tiny eyes and a big face asked from the back. Mallory stopped chewing, swallowed slowly, and a hush fell over the train. "He..." he started, then tried again. "I feel him sometimes, then he's gone," he said. A few seconds passed. "Then when I least expect it, he's there again," he continued, taking a heavier gulp of the soda. It felt like it was sticking slightly in his throat. A heavy air settled over the train.
Maggie leaned over, whispered something in his ear. Mallory pulled away. "Look, I didn't know she had two husbands!" he exclaimed. The train exploded in laughter. Maggie made a suspicious face, tilted her head sideways, and held up two fingers. Mallory's mouth opened slightly, then he closed it and his eyes suddenly. "'A couple more...'" he suddenly remembered Sam saying. The train had a field day.
Amid the buzz, Maggie lowered her fingers, and the smile slowly faded from her face. Deep in thought, her eyes lingered on her excited companion. Familiar feelings welled up. Her eyes stayed on him just a bit longer than she intended.
Over a month passed, with nothing to show for it. Mr. Lebeau's relatives were amenable enough, but aside from the 40 year old nephew who was obviously faking visions for the crowd gathered in front of him, there were no signs that this was something genetic.
The train rolled through the night, fans sleeping all around them. "Board games next," Mallory said, squeezing Maggie's shoulder as they took the train back to Diana's makeshift lab in the Kromagg storage facility. "The groupies said they'll have some stuff for us by the time we get back." She smiled in response, but it was forced. Too much time had passed. What-ifs were plaguing her nightly. Remmy's haunted eyes...
She made a decision.
"Well, good news and bad news," Diana said, gesturing to the Kromagg sliding device, a large and imposing silver machine that resembled a gun turret with multiple displays upon it. Her olive t-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers said nothing of her brilliance or constant work over the past few weeks, but they did allow for comfort during the long hours at the makeshift lab. "I've managed to modify the force field barrier to buffet the effects of the exotic matter," she said proudly. Maggie reached up a black, long-sleeved arm to scratch the side of her face, and shifted her weight on black jeans above black boots. She looked to Mallory, a groupie's lipstick mark still on his cheek, and still dressed in the tight white t-shirt and blue jeans from the day before. They exchanged glances.
"The force field that kept us from sliding out of here in the first place," Diana explained. "By adjusting the power running through the sliding machine, I reworked and extended it so it would line the tunnel between dimensions." She smiled. "Without the warping effects of the unstable vortex, it should allow a brief window to let someone through the gateway and a... well... bumpy ride out of here."
"'Someone?'" Mallory repeated. Diana nodded. "That's the bad news. All my equations and the simulations are coming up beautifully, but we can't test this thing. It's going to put too much strain on the system, so even if we do prove that it works, it probably won't last long enough to try a second time."
"I'll go," Mallory and Maggie said in unison, then slowly turned to one another. "Into hostile territory, Mallory?" Maggie asked. Mallory raised his head in determination. "We've been through something like this before. The asteroid with the 'Maggs? I was there," he reminded her.
Maggie nodded. "And you did well," she answered. "You brutalized that 'Magg who came after Diana. Saved her life." Mallory opened his mouth to protest, but Maggie cut him off. "And we got there by chance," she continued. "Randomly. You fought because you had to, when we didn't know what we were getting into. But now we DO know what we're getting into."
She glanced sideways, memories pouring in. "It's not just an asteroid in hyperspace on a single battlefield with hungry and desperate soldiers to face down," she said softly. "It's an entire planet under occupation. Well-trained, well-fed, deadly killers. Not by the dozens. Maybe the millions. I was there."
The sounds of shrieking energy came back into her mind. Screams. The charred smell of smoking bodies.
"Otis, Marta... the piles of bodies of people I never knew. The ships in the sky, the 'Maggs tearing down hallways, armed and shooting...," she added softly. Pausing slightly, she turned back to Mallory. "I know you'd put up a fight to protect either one of us," she said in a soft, but earnest, tone, "but if anyone's going to make it through that hell and find Rem, you know it has to be me."
Mallory's mind raced to say something, find any reason to stop her. "Can't you just give it a few days?" he asked. "I've got other ideas, things we can try that don't involve jumping through 'Magg portals into 'Magg wars..."
Closing her eyes for a short time, Maggie shook her head. "It's been too long," she answered. "Tell me you don't remember the look in Rem's eyes when he talked about being in those camps."
Mallory's mouth, slightly open in a vain attempt to find the words to counter her, slowly closed.
Maggie looked straight into his eyes. "You know. You know every minute we waste is another chance he'll be in one of those pits. And you'll let me be the one, because you're just as much his friend as I am," she stated.
A silence fell over the room. They held one another's gaze for what seemed like an eternity, looking from one eye to the other. Blood flushed in her face, and the sound of her heart beating filled her ears. Slowly, gently, Mallory stepped forward to embrace her. It was different from before, an unfamiliar feeling that seemed to well up from somewhere deep inside. There was a stirring within, something that felt both close, but unknown at the same time.
"You'll need..." Mallory started. Maggie pulled away, reached behind her, and pulled out a handgun from her waistband. Exchanging slight smiles, Mallory embraced her once more. From the embrace, and without a word or a thought, he locked eyes with Diana, and nodded to her.
"You're sure?" Diana asked. Without hesitation, Maggie gave her verbal affirmation, and her friend turned back to the machine. "Better step back," she said. Mallory and Maggie pulled apart to turn to the sliding machine.
Flipping a few switches atop it, the machine hummed to life under Diana's touch, and she immediately stepped back to a silver table a few feet away. Her PDL rested upon it, wires extending into the machine, and she tapped the display a few times.
Within seconds, a soft light began to glow around the silver beast, running slowly towards the end of the device. In mere seconds, the machine suddenly blasted out the familiar sound of a portal opening, and then, the narrow red tunnel opened in a small point in space just in front of it. Maggie stowed her handgun in her back waistband, turned to hug Mallory as hard as she could, then drew her lips close to his ear.
"With our lives, our love restore..." she whispered.
Immediately pushing away, she ran to Diana, and squeezed her as tightly and quickly as possible. "I'll see you soon," Maggie shouted over the roar of the vortex. "I promise!"
With no time to lose, she pulled away, and without hesitation, dove head first through the vortex. In mere seconds, the portal closed, and the storehouse was again deadly silent...
...until sparks begin to explode from the Kromagg machine. Stored energy began to heat the metal to a brightening red, and bolts of electricity chained arcs of energy across its length. The floor shook.
Diana grabbed her PDL, throwing a look at Mallory. His eyes were closed in pain, and he was clutching the side of his head. Shouting his name, she grabbed his free arm, pulling him towards the exit in a hurried panic. Mallory cried out once more, stumbling through the open door along with her. Soft mutters escaped his lips, quietly at first, but with increasing volume and insistence. "Professor... Wade... Colin... Remmy..."
He grit his teeth in pain, shaking his head.
"Maggie!" he cried out.
Heat blasted out of the open door. The makeshift lab exploded, rocking the two to the floor.
Diana was a genius: the angry red lining of the Kromagg tunnel was lined a light yellow, turning the path between dimensions into a glowing orange. It was a comparatively smooth slide, at least better than when the timer had been on the fritz, pulling them between worlds or dumping them in the middle of the ocean. But turning to look behind her, Maggie's heart began to beat even faster. The tunnel was contracting and dilating, slowly at first, but with increasing intensity by the second. And the contractions were getting closer.
Throwing a quick look ahead, she thought she could make out a dark spot in the middle of the tunnel before her, but looking back, the unstable tunnel was almost upon her, expanding and slamming down like the maw of an interdimensional monster. She grit her teeth, pulled her legs in to hug her chest, and tried to pull as far away from the violent contortions behind her as she could. They slammed down what seemed to be 15 feet behind her. Seven. Three.
Turning her head in a last and desperate hope, Maggie's eyes flew open and her mouth opened slightly in as shadowed cement suddenly rose up to meet her. In a final motion, she threw her arms up in front of her, then tumbled out of the vortex just before it slammed shut behind her with a mighty thundering sound.
Her barely covered forehead cracked straight into the ground. She tumbled sideways for several seconds, scraping her back and arms on the sidewalk, rolling end over end. Her gun flew from her waistband, and her wild exit was suddenly, and painfully, stopped by a chain link fence surrounding an empty lot, where she lay facedown.
There was silence. The night was hot and heavy, and barely lit by the moon above. Her vision slowly stopped spinning, revealing the sight of a long since abandoned, two floor motel across the street in front of her, no cars in the central lot, and a drooping palm tree on the sidewalk in front of it. The road went right for several blocks with more motels and small parking lots on either side of the street, and left to buildings that seemed to get taller as the road went on.
And then the pain set in.
Maggie softly groaned as she slowly got on her hands and elbows, trying to push herself up, but her body refused to cooperate. She got the wind knocked out of her. She finally gave up, fell on her face and chest, then painfully rolled over to look at the starry night sky.
She breathed heavily for a short while, listening carefully for the sound of approaching footsteps, shouting voices, anything that would kick the adrenaline into gear long enough for her to find somewhere safe to hide, but nothing seemed to be approaching. Her breathing slowed, her heartbeat relaxed, and there was nothing more than the sound of a small gust of wind passing through.
The wind made an odd flapping sound, some kind of rustling that sounded too heavy for leaves. Out of nowhere, a card of some type slapped itself on Maggie's face, sticking to the small trickle of blood and the mask of sweat on her face. She reached up a pained hand to remove it as more cards blew by her, lightly tapping her left arm and leg as they continued their flight down the road. Holding it slightly away from her face, struggling to find her vision under the moonlight, she finally made out the figure on the card: a woman of impressive endowment, of absolutely no modesty whatsoever.
Maggie coughed a quiet laugh, small specks of spittle covering the card despite herself. "Stay classy, Vegas," she muttered, tossing the raunchy invitation away.
Enough time had passed to recover from the rough entry into this world, and Maggie finally sat up to carefully survey her surroundings. The motel ahead seemed like a decent place to hide out and decide on her next move, so she painfully pushed herself up, recovered her gun from the ground several feet away, stowed it, kept low, and stumble-snuck towards the building.
When she arrived at the manager's area, she was relieved to see a single key on the rack, and nobody around to complain about her slipping it off the hook and into her hand. "206" it said, and taking a quick look outside, she could barely make out the rooms "101" and "201" right on top of one another, confirming that her destination was atop some now too-tall looking stairs at the side of the building. She sighed, and began to painfully pull herself up them.
Stepping out of the shadow of the stairs and onto the second floor, she carefully walked past door after door on her way to her coming room of rest and repair. Passing door 204, she stopped in sudden surprise and readiness as she peeked into 205: there was a dark figure moving around in the room next to hers. The curtains might have kept the shadow hidden, were it not for her keen eyesight seeing their flutter, alternately covering and revealing the dark shape as they waved. Maggie pulled the gun from her back waistband, and retreated into the shadows of the stairs.
With nothing but the wind to disturb the shadowed night, she stayed, eyes fixed on the door, listening carefully for any ambush around her. The door opened. A figure emerged into the night air, barely visible wearing a long coat and a beanie, with a long and bushy grey beard covering a tanned face. Maggie stayed perfectly still, and her heart sank to see the old man approaching her. He passed door 203, then 202, until he was close enough to smell.
"Freeze," Maggie said quietly but firmly, stepping partially out with her gun trained on the man. He nearly leaped out of his skin, stumbled backwards, then immediately raised his hands. "D-don't shoot!" he pleaded gruffly. "I just got here! I just wanted to check the vending machine downstairs."
Listening carefully and hearing nothing around her, Maggie chanced revealing her face from the shadows to get a better look. "You're human?" she asked, keeping the gun on him. "Show me your teeth."
The old man opened his mouth with teeth bared. The few that were still there were stained yellow and brown, but otherwise flat. She nodded, and lowered her weapon. "Sorry," she said. "I just got into town and didn't know what to expect."
With a sigh of relief, the old man lowered his hands carefully, keeping them away from his coat. (Smart), Maggie thought. "Just..." she started, putting the gun behind her but not yet stowing it, hands gently gesturing behind him, "...back to your room for a bit, ok? I just want a few answers. Then maybe I'll help you get into that vending machine."
The old man nodded, then slowly backed up into room 205. Maggie, pretending to scratch her back while keeping her handgun at the ready, followed him. He did nothing untoward; he simply sat on a chair in the far right corner, facing her. A large CRT TV sat on a dresser to the right in front of him, opposite two still made beds. Entering, she coughed slightly. It was incredibly musty, really dusty, and smelled like an attic. She took a seat on the corner of the closer bed.
"The 'Maggs," she started, "you see any around here? Do you know if they're still running the camp out in SoCal?" The old man shrugged in response. "Probably, he replied. "All I know for sure is this here's a ghost town. Water hasn't been running since the invasion, casinos shut down..."
Maggie nodded; without constant maintenance, nature would be taking back this little slice of desert in little time. She rested her hands behind her, pretending to rock forward and back slightly, hands near her sidearm and eyes still watching him. "The I-15 still as long and dead as ever?" she remarked with a smirk. The old man guffawed slightly. "Long, of course," he answered. "Don't know about dead, but I reckon so. 'Maggs have mostly been holed up in the big cities, putting down anyone raising their heads. Guess they don't have much use for an old guy like me, but I'd be careful if I were you."
"Don't have to tell me twice," she answered. The throbbing pain in her head fading and things being a little less cloudy, something started to tickle at the back of her mind. Her eyes narrowed in slight confusion, looking more carefully at the man's face: somewhat sunburned, yes, but...
She tilted her head slightly to the side, eyebrows knitting slightly. "Good that you're keeping clean," she commented. The old man's eyes looked up, then he smiled slightly. "Yeah, just got done in the shower," he replied. "Free rooms are at least one good part of this damn invasion, huh?"
A sudden heavy feeling squeezed her temples. With a slight smile and nod, she stood up, right hand behind her back and left reaching into her pocket. She fished a five out of her wallet, left it on the bed, then took a step back. "Thanks for the info," she said, then taking a few steps backwards, stepped out of the room and into the night air. When her footsteps had faded, the old man looked to the bill on the bed, frowning slightly.
Maggie quickened her pace down the stairs, taking to the sidewalk and walking towards the city center. There were a handful of cars parked on the sidewalk, gathering dust and apparently having not been moved in quite some time, and she had about as much luck as she expected trying to get into them. Down the line she went, staying in the shadows, taking quick peeks at the empty ignitions, determined to find some way out of the desert and to the rebels she had met two years before. Remmy had to be there, or at the very least, they might be able to point her the right way.
Minutes later, she reached a parking lot, fenced in on all sides and containing a few more hopefuls. Listening carefully for any sounds of wild animals or approaching soldiers, she scaled the fence and dropped down to the other side, quickly crouch-jogging to the shadow of a nearby silver sedan. Locked, and empty. The blue truck next to it was a similar no-go.
In the distant shadows, a larger white figure loomed. Taking a quick glance around her, she weaved around the sparsely parked vehicles on the outskirts of the lot, circling behind them until she came up on the vehicle's rear. A camper, and decently sized, to boot. Peering into the back window and through the small triangle of glass that the interior curtain hadn't managed to cover, she saw a small table bolted to the floor, flanked by a pair of comfortable white couches on either side with overhead compartments above them, and the empty driver and passenger seats beyond them.
Keeping low and pressed against the vehicle, she moved around to the driver's side, pulled at the handle... and got only a quiet clunk. She sighed slightly, feeling the weight of the handgun in the waistband behind her beckoning. She turned around, taking a quick look, then circled around the front to the passenger side, keeping low. A pull... and a click. With a smile, Maggie slowly opened the door, careful not to trigger a squeak, and peeked her head in.
The table and couches sat silently. There was an empty bed under the back window built into the back of the camper that she had missed, its sheets tightly packed, and a forgotten bicycle lying on the floor next to it. A quick scan for trouble revealed only two potential places: the small bathroom on the right side, and the closet on the left. Both empty it turned out, aside from a pair of hanging coats in storage.
She closed the passenger door and slumped into the driver's seat, taking a deep breath and relaxing for the briefest of moments, and keeping low enough not to present a target through the windshield. Her mind turned back to Mallory and Diana, still on the Seer's world, safe as they could be.
(If anyone can save him...) she thought, an image of her smiling scientist friend flashing before her mind's eye for the briefest of seconds, before another took her place: short brown hair, light blue eyes, dazzling smile, longer nose and face...
She felt a slight twinge of embarrassment for that final moment between her and Mallory, but ever since he had been freed of the nanobugs, and swore that he no longer felt Quinn, hope fled. She hadn't even considered that he could ever be back. There was even that pirate a few months before... But after Dr. Geiger's deception, seeing Quinn's face alternating with Mallory's during the attempted separation, then on the train, the lab... he was wrong. She was wrong, too. He was still there.
She closed her eyes. He was safe, and in the best hands possible. And now, she was here.
Her head tilted back and hit the soft material of the driver's seat. She opened her eyes, then looked up at the sun visor. She smiled slightly; it couldn't be that easy. Reaching up and pulling the visor down, a metallic jangling sound filled the air, and a metal ring of keys with attached rabbit's foot dropped into her lap. It would save her the trouble of hotwiring the thing.
Turning the ring about, she found the camper's logo upon one of the bigger black ones, put it into the ignition, and turned. The camper protested, groaned, sputtered... then finally, the engine turned over. The back of the parking lot in front of her immediately lit up, and with a rush of adrenaline, Maggie immediately killed the lights, throwing the lot into near darkness once more. With no time to lose, she put the beast into reverse, backed into a part of the fence without a padlock, then rolled over it and forced it down, taking to the streets.
"Reno's... north," she muttered, reading a passing sign, turning around and heading the other way. It didn't take long before she found the I-15, and started heading through the long stretch of dusty nothing.
Minutes flowed into hours on the empty road with nothing but the darkness of the sandy desert to take in. She was alone with her thoughts, images of the past three years of multidimensional travel, lost friends, and changed worlds passing through her mind. The Kromagg Commander on the testing base. Thomas in the Slidecage ducts. Guy the AI. The Civil War VR simulation. Diana in the Flapper wig. The T-Rex. Even that scumbag Carlos. She smiled, remembering that that was about the time she and Wade began to patch things up, even looking out for one another. (Despite my 'tude), she quietly chuckled to herself, then dismissed the thoughts. It was time to focus on Remmy.
Her senses were on continuous full alert. It was already too dark to see a Manta flying through the sky, and though they made a telltale rumbling sound as they went through the sky, the camper wasn't exactly a vehicle of modest volume. And without a clear view of the road ahead driving in utter darkness, it made sense to travel more slowly to both keep the noise low, and chances high she could respond to anything appearing more deadly than a wild rabbit running across the road.
And if she wasn't as awake and aware as she was, she might have missed the black sedan on the side of the road, facing west. She untucked the handgun from her waistband and killed the engine, allowing the camper to roll forward in near silence. Peering carefully out of the windshield, two figures slowly came into view, one standing next to the car and looking under the raised hood at the engine block, while the other sat in the driver's seat, head looking out at the first, both illuminated by the soft glow of the interior car light. They didn't seem to notice her.
Rolling even closer, Maggie saw that both the one outside, a man, and the one inside, a woman, had hair.
She pressed on the brakes, bringing the camper to a stop about a hundred feet away. She honked the horn twice, causing the man to jump and hit his head on the hood, then the woman pulled her head back into the car, disappearing. Maggie flashed the lights twice, honked twice more, then flashed the lights twice more, leaving them on.
"Who are you?!" the man called out from in front of the car. Maggie rolled down the driver's side window and called out to them. "Human, if that means anything!" she yelled back. "You need some help?"
The woman's head came back up, nervously looking between the man and Maggie. The man emerged from the front of the car, hands raised. "Yeah, if you can spare it!" he called back. Maggie scooted over to the passenger's seat, opened the door, then sat back, turning the engine back on. She honked the horn twice more. In the headlights' glare, the man smiled, keeping his hands up, and leaned into the car, saying something to the woman. Shortly after, she emerged, and they walked up to the camper.
Maggie kept a welcoming smile as the two drew near, right hand on the steering wheel, and her left on the gun next to her left thigh. "Thanks a lot," the tanned man said from outside. He had a thick dark mustache, wavy black hair, and ears that stuck out slightly, wearing a brown sweater with wavy white lines on it, and a pair of blue jeans. He turned and helped the woman up first, a slender, fair-skinned brunette with blue eyes, a zipped up black jacket, and a pair of blue-green slacks and flip-flops. "Thank you," she said as she moved into the back. The man came up next, his black shoes thudding as they made contact with the metal floor. He went to the back with the woman.
Reaching over to pull the door closed, Maggie turned on the interior lights, then adjusted the rear view mirror, glancing back at the two. Killing the headlights once more, she pulled forward and continued their trek through the empty desert.
His name was Jack Miller, and he and his wife Linda had spent the last several months on the road, trying to keep ahead of the Kromaggs. Stopping only to get supplies from unlocked stores, or raiding the last barrels of gas that hadn't gone bad or been siphoned out at stations, their luck had finally run out on the long I-15.
"I don't know what we would have done without you," Jack said from the seat next to her. He looked out the passenger side window, head resting on a lightly clenched fist. Maggie smiled. "No problem," she answered. "The 'Maggs have hit us all hard, and we stick together, right?"
Jack nodded, and a look of curiosity passed across his face. "So were you scavenging in Vegas?" he asked. Maggie sucked in a little air. "Yeah, something like that," she answered. "I haven't even had the chance to search this little acquisition here. You wanna take a look around, Linda?" she called back to the woman behind her, looking into the rear view mirror.
"Sure," she answered, starting a slight search of the vehicle. Maggie turned her eyes back to the road. "Let me know if you find some aspirin," she added. Jack chuckled. "You sure hit the jackpot finding this baby," he said. "We were just on our way over there when we ran out of gas. If we just had a little more, we might have found something to outdo that little two door back there."
The hair stood up on the back of Maggie's neck. Jack glanced over at her. "So where are you headed?" he asked. "SoCal's overrun. Are you heading west towards Bakersfield? Or out towards Yosemite?"
Maggie's heart pounded faster. Something was...
"Not quite sure yet," she answered honestly. "I think I might just need a place to hide out for a while." Jack nodded. "Sounds like a plan," he said. "Linda and I... I dunno, we're just kind of tired of being on the run all the time." Maggie snuck a glance at him as he looked back at Linda with an exaggerated look of questioning, possibly pleading. Looking into the rear view mirror, Maggie saw Linda smile and nod back at him.
"It's a longshot, but..." Jack started.
Maggie slowly took her hand off the wheel, holding it steady with her knee. Pretending to itch a rib on her left side, her hand moved slowly to her seat belt, pulling it slowly across her lap. The faint smell of rotten beef and old cabbage wafted into her nostrils.
"Do you know someone..." Jack continued.
The buckle slowly went down the side of the chair. The male end slipped quietly into the female end, as the horrendous smell grew stronger. A quiet click coincided with his final words.
"...named Trevor?" he finished.
Maggie's right hand flew back to the wheel, jerking it hard to the left. Jack flew backwards, smacking his head against the passenger door, and he fell between it and the chair. Linda held steady to the table, her hair gone, her teeth sharp points, and a heavier brow ridge protruding, and was wearing the all black suit of a Kromagg soldier as she raised a gun to Maggie's head. Without a pause, she slammed on the brakes, sending the Kromagg woman flying into the windshield, cracking her head on it and leaving a slight spiderweb of fissures behind. She slumped to the floor out cold.
"Jack" dislodged himself from the gap between the chair and door just as Maggie pulled out her handgun and turned it towards him. He lunged at her, grabbing her arm, pushing the gun back towards her head; he was strong... incredibly strong. Before he could finish the job, she pushed the clip release button and fired the single chambered shot out the windshield. The Kromagg looked down at the fallen clip in confusion as she switched feet, hitting the gas as hard as she could with her left foot and slamming down her right on the fallen clip.
Dropping the gun, he tumbled backwards to the ground and into the table behind her. He had only seconds to try to get to his feet before Maggie took her hands off the wheel, scooped up her gun and clip, loaded, chambered, and pointed the firearm directly at his head with her left hand, right on the wheel. He froze with a hand in his vest, she reached her foot back to lightly press the brakes, and then they slowly came to a stop in the dead of night.
"You can hide your face," Maggie said in a deadly tone, "but you can't hide your smell, 'Magg." She glanced back down at his partner, still unconscious, then back to him. "Slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, empty your pockets," she ordered. In complete compliance, the Kromagg placed his pistol, an extra clip, a small metal tin, a card that shined in a slight rainbow color, binoculars, several grenades, and a syringe filled with a mysterious yellowish liquid on the floor of the camper.
Maggie's eyes narrowed. "What's in the tin?" she asked. The Kromagg smiled a pointy-toothed smile, slowly opening the tin to reveal several gooey white orbs within. "Dinner," he answered. She sneered in disgust, her finger squeezing somewhat on the trigger before she got a hold of herself and let off the pressure. "And the card?" she continued.
He suddenly lost the smile, then stared daggers at her. She smirked ever so slightly. "So the old man. A collaborator? One of your agents?" she asked. The Kromagg said nothing. "Did he see me come in, or just detect something before he called you?"
More silence. She continued. "So what, planet's conquered, so it's all about subterfuge and terrorizing the natives?" she asked. She brought her other hand up to hold the gun. "Brutality is done, so now you poison the spirit?" Still nothing.
Advancing a step, she exhaled sharply through her nose in amusement. "All right, clam up, see if I care," she stated. The Kromagg's mouth opened slightly as the handgun came closer to his forehead. Maggie stood a single foot away from him, hands holding the gun tightly. "Just one more thing, though," she said. The Kromagg looked directly into her eyes as she slammed the butt of the gun across his temple, knocking him out.
"Try parking the car the right way next time, idiot."
(To be continued...)