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26
Easy-Peasey
Mimi
"Whatdoyoumean,Time is here?" Agent Dawson demanded.
In a prim and contrite manner, I said, "I've said too much already." I mimed sealing my lips and throwing away the key. The fact that the handcuffs rattled while I was doing that only added a little dramatic flair to my performance.
The shouts were getting louder; closer. I could hear thepop-pop-popof guns going off and the sizzle of something electrical out in the LCC. I winced a little at that. I wasn't sure who was coming for me, who Time had sent, but if it was one of Dave Sander's Security people, I felt a little bad about that.
They would be trying their hardest not to fire a non-contemporary weapon in contemporary time. The chances of one of them getting hurt because of that were quite significant. Guilt wheedled its way into the previous emotions of anticipation and relief.
But I didn't want to stay here. This wasn't my time anymore. Without my family here, there was nothing for me. Without Jack, I was heartsore.
I had to get back to the 23rd century. Time, thankfully, agreed with me. God knows why, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
A thud sounded on the door to the interrogation room we were in, then. Both agents just about jumped out of their skins. Their hands didn't shake or anything. They were more experienced than that. But I had set the scene rather spookily. I decided maybe a little more encouragement on that front was warranted after all.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock. The mouse ran up the clock," I sang sweetly. It wasn't quite the right lyrics, but they got the picture. "In this particular instance, boys, you're the mouse, not me," I added. "Although come to think of it, maybe Icouldbe the mouse and running up the clock represents escaping." I hmmed for a bit as I pretended to think. "Would that make it twice or three times now?"
Carter swung his gun around to point it at me, but Dawson decided to go one better. He rushed across the room toward me, gun muzzle getting larger and larger the closer he came, and grabbed the back of my neck with one hand, pressing the gun to my temple with the other. He turned us toward the door, him standing behind me for cover, his pistol snug against my head in full view of whoever was about to come smashing through it.
My heart missed a beat and my palms became sweaty. I swallowed thickly, trying futilely to pull away from the hard, unforgiving press of the gun's muzzle.
"Now, now," I said, breathlessly. "No need to be rude."
"Shut up!" Dawson growled, rattling me about with the hand on the back of my neck. "Just shut the fuck up!"
"Shutting up now," I murmured.
"How many are there, do you think?" Carter asked.
"How should I know?" Dawson growled. "You heard the shouts and gunshots. There has to be at least twenty."
"Then we don't stand a chance."
"You don't maybe," Dawson sneered. "I've got my ticket out of here, right where I need her." He shook me again, making the muzzle scrape across my temple painfully.
"Let's talk about this reasonably," I tried.
"I told you to shut up," Dawson growled. "Do I have to knock you out?"
"Be hard to use me as a shield then, wouldn't it?" I offered. "I'm hefty when I'm dead weight. Just ask my Flight Team."
"Would you shut the fuck up already?!" he screamed.
It must have been what the assault team had been waiting for. Dawson's loss of control drew Carter's attention away from the door, and rather than smashing the door to the interrogation room down, they simply picked the lock, turned the handle, and swept in on silent feet.
For a moment, I believed thereweretwenty of them, but the first man through the door, dressed in what I thought might be army fatigues, was across the room and disarming Dawson in a blink of the eye, while the second man used a taser on Carter, rendering him unconscious immediately.
Dawson took a little more convincing. Clearly, my rescuers hadn't wanted to taser him while he was holding onto me. That dead weight issue all over again, I should think. But the guy at my side dressed in army fatigues wrapped an arm around his neck, took Dawson to the ground with him, a leg wrapped around his gyrating body, and held on for the count of sixty.
Dawson's face got redder and redder, his movements weaker and weaker, and then finally the fatigue-wearing soldier released his hold, rolled away, and started for the door, taser once again out and at the ready.
My handcuffs rattled at my side and I turned my head to see Jack unlocking them with a key he'd presumably taken from Carter.
"Did they hurt you?" he said in greeting.
