Chapter 1

We were hurrying, knowing our pursuers would soon catch up. Solomon seemed concerned but not panicky, so I wasn’t too worried at that point. We walked briskly down the corridor in the direction of the storage room where we had left the TDM, hoping no one had discovered it.

The end of the corridor was a blank wall, with intersecting corridors going left and right. Without a moment’s hesitation, Solomon turned left. I was glad he was so sure because I hadn’t a clue as to where we were going.

“Halt!” a voice cried behind us.

Needless to say, we ignored him and kept walking, only a little faster than before. We had just started along the new corridor when a searing beam of light exploded against the blank wall behind us, causing a major hole to appear and a blast of heat that almost knocked us over. Solomon turned as white as the corridor walls.

“Great ghosts of Einstein and Planck!” he exclaimed. “Weapons!”

“Either that or one hell of a light bulb just blew. What now?”

“Run!” he screamed, matching his action to his words.

Personally, I thought it was a damn good idea and followed as well as I could. Solomon may have been middle-aged and out of shape, but it was amazing what you could do with an adrenaline rush from the fear of death. I wasn’t exactly a track star myself, but I have to say we both did a great imitation of Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson down that narrow track. Okay, a much slower and weaker imitation, but you get the idea.

Solomon made a sudden right turn and I skidded trying to keep up with him. Not far down that corridor he palmed open a door and we tumbled into the storage room.

“Smash the recognition plate!” Solomon ordered as he leaped onto the platform of the TDM and started flipping switches. “That might slow them down for a few minutes.”

Our pursuers must have been quite a way behind us. No sounds or further blasts of energy showed they were any closer. But I knew they must be following, and it wouldn’t be long before they made a rude and perhaps deadly entrance.

I looked around the storage room for something to use as a club. I spied something that might work and picked it up. It was bulky and clumsy, but a decent substitute for a small sledge hammer. I stepped back out into the hallway and swung it several times as hard as I could against the recognition plate. On the third try, the plate smashed in. I was so pleased with my handiwork I almost failed to notice the door was silently sliding closed in front of me. I just managed to squeeze through before it shut tightly.

I stood there for long moments, breathing heavily and wondering how long we had. Solomon worked feverishly, never even looking up to see if I had been successful. The seconds seemed to tick away like hours. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“How long before we can jump?”

“Don’t rush me!” Solomon complained as his fingers flew over the switches. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

“I know. Sorry. It’s just that I have this extreme aversion to dying.”

“It’s not something I’m looking forward to, either,” he said, his eyes never wavering from the controls.

I needed to shut up while he tried to get us out alive. Okay, time to get my mind on something else. Like how stupid I was to get involved in all of this. How in the world could I have ever groused about the fact that my early life was boring? So what if I ate sardine sandwiches and shared my bed with cockroaches instead of beautiful women? At least I wasn’t being chased by professional killers and scrambling my brain and other body parts by hopping madly though Time and Space...

Okay, time for more productive thoughts.

“Anything else I can do to help?”

“Actually, yes. You could try to block the door with something, just in case.”

Now, why hadn’t I thought of that! That’s why he was a genius, right?

I scrambled around trying to find something heavy and bulky. Economists are known for their brains, not their brawn, and I guess I’m an excellent example. There were only a couple of large objects, and I struggled to get them into place. After that, it was anything I could find. Because I had broken the recognition plate I knew the door couldn’t be opened easily. But after the lighting show in the hallway, I also knew the Security Force might not bother to knock.

The pounding on the door let me know I would soon find out how quickly they could do it. I started wildly heaving anything I could grab toward the door, hoping it might delay them for those precious seconds Solomon still needed. Suddenly the door opened.

“Okay, Sol, I think it’s time to go!”

“I’m not quite ready yet...”

A ray of intense light burned through the debris in front of the door, hit something reflective, and bounced harmlessly in another direction. When several rays burned holes through my flimsy barrier I frantically searched for something else to throw onto the barricade. I had run out of things I could lift.

“Ready or not, we’ve got to go!” I cried.

“Just one more moment...”

A beam of light exploded the floor at my feet. “Solomon!”

“Okay, jump on!”

He didn’t have to invite twice. I threw myself onto the platform just as the entire barricade evaporated. As I hit the platform, I saw two officers take aim. Then Solomon hit the switch, and we jumped.

As I felt the familiar jolt of energy that meant we had teleported to a different Time/Space Continuum, I wondered once again why I had gotten into all of this. Looking at either my early poor days or later rich days, was my life really that boring before?

“Hey, those guys were serious back there!”

“It would seem so.”

“I thought you said nobody had weapons, not even the feds.”

“Barney, it’s a shock to me too, okay? It violates the whole premise of our society. On the other hand, I’ve found out many terrible things about the way the Zaibatsu conduct themselves, and the way the entire World Council runs things. Those shocked me a lot more than the Security Force having weapons and being happy to use them. You want to keep nagging me about things I can’t control?”