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eyes narrowed to slits as he tried to find the lost blaster, but he didn't see
it. What he did see was Dr. Tanner determinedly crawling toward him.
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"You just don't get it, do you?" Jamaisvous snarled. "You never did." And then
he lashed out at the crawling figure, using his good leg as support to raise
his other, bleeding leg in a kick and driving home the point of his polished
dress shoe right into Doc's chin, snapping the man's head back and causing his
upper body to go high before slamming down painfully face-first to the hard
floor.
"Sorry to chat and run, but I really must make this important date,"
Jamaisvous said in a breathy voice, and followed up the statement with a peal
of hysterical laughter. "For, 'I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!'
So late! Too late!"
Nearly unconscious, Doc still managed to drag himself up to watch as
Jamaisvous entered the mat-trans chamber and pulled closed the armaglass door.
Now, even as the cycle began, and the burst of light erupted within the room
and the peals of fog came slithering out from the shimmering metal disks that
broke down the molecules of whatever, whoever was inside, Tanner made it up to
his side, using one arm to prop himself in a secure position while his other
hand splayed awkwardly on the desktop next to him.
His fingers felt, searching until they came across the plastic surface of the
keyboard. Doc pulled it toward himself, twisting his hand in the mire of
cables behind the monitor linking the comp, pulled it hard, using what was
left of his fading strength along with his body weight.
Then, with a final Herculean effort, Doc yanked down, bringing the central
processing unit and monitor onto the hard floor, where they both erupted on
impact into a mass of sparks, impacting at precisely the same moment that the
long figure standing inside the mat-trans unit ceased to exist& at least, at
this particular location at this particular time.
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Chapter Nineteen
"Shit."
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"What?" Krysty asked. The Armorer was almost always a study of grace under
pressure. For him to allow himself the luxury of a curse meant he'd hit an
unexpected block.
"Shit, shit, shit. This will take a moment," J.B. replied, fishing through his
jacket pockets for the needed implement as he continued to speak. "This is a
mag lock.
Not the hardest kind to navigate past, but they can be triple-damn annoying
minus the proper tool. I need an electric wand to reverse the polarity. Once
that's taken care of, we'll be on him in no time."
"You got one of those wands?" Dean asked.
"Please," J.B. said, sounding offended.
"Sorry."
"No time, indeed. No time is what I fear the most, John," Mildred murmured,
lost in her own inner thoughts. "I never should have allowed Doc to
participate in
Jamaisvous's mad experiments."
"I imagine you didn't have much of a choice. Doc's his own man. Always has
been," Ryan said. "He'd be willing to try anything to get back to his wife and
kids."
J.B. twisted the end of the cylinder-shaped handle of the wand he was
manipulating and pushed at the locked door. "Wrong frequency," he said to
himself and took out a second device, working with it and trying to keep
focused.
"How much longer?" Mildred asked.
"Ease up, man's workin' on it," Ryan said.
"What, now you're preaching patience to me, Ryan?" Mildred retorted.
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Ryan grinned. "Guess so."
"Got it," J.B. announced. The Armorer had brought forth the necessary tool on
the third try and had inserted it into the join between latch and door. Using
both hands he twisted it back and forth, and was now rewarded with a loud
ka-thak
, indicating the sliding sec door was loose in the frame.
Ryan gestured with his chin and Jak stepped up to cover him as he slid the
heavy door into the recessed area in the stone wall. "Anything?" he asked the
albino, who was positioned better to look inside. Jak shook his head no.
The one-eyed man held up a hand and counted silently with his fingers.
One& two& three, and he stepped inside, Jak and Krysty both backing him up.
Inside, the control room appeared immaculate at first glance, same as before
until one looked closer and saw the disarray of a dropped file of sheets of
paper, along with a splattering of blood on a comp keyboard and farther down
on the floor itself, a prone Doc Tanner, who was still bleeding from the nose.
"Gaia, Doc. Are you okay?" Krysty asked as she and Dean both knelt next to the
elder man.
"How do I look?" he asked weakly.
"Like hell," Dean said.
"Perfect. Exactly how I feel, my boy," Doc replied. "Is Jamaisvous& ?"
"Yeah, he's gone," Krysty replied.
Inside the shining blue of the tinted armaglass chamber, the unique heavy
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vapor created during and after a jump was dissipating and only a few sparks of
electrical energy were zipping about, lightning blasts among the thinning
clouds. Even through the thick armaglass, Ryan could see the gateway was
empty. Running over, he pulled open the door anyway, lifting up the latch and
pushing it inward.
The unholy arid smell of burned ozone mixed with wet cloth that was always
left
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