Chapter 10

Dean Lifante

4:00 AM

Dean was lying on the hard ground near the door. The cement was digging into his back. He'd been this way for a couple of hours and was stiff. Groaning, he opened his eyes, but still couldn't see anything. He rubbed them with his fists. Whatever that light was, it wouldn't leave them. He could make out a blurry somebody, but not who.

"Who's here?" he said and reached over. He touched a smaller shoulder and ran his fingers through the hair. It was long, coarse and thick. "Ming, is that you?" he asked and was rewarded with a groan.

"No. Stop playing with my hair," Barbie mumbled. "My eyes hurt."

"Dammit. I'm worried that light fried my brain." He blinked. The light spots were fading. There were only two other people left in the room. The one to his left was Ming. The second blob was a smelly mass. Dean kicked the chair, "Wake up, you rocker wannabe." Bobby jumped and slumped out of the chair, sprawling on the floor.

"Maker. Are you all right?" Barbie pushed past Dean, rushed to Bobby and grabbed his head. She frowned and leaned forward. "No! It can't be." She turned to Dean. "Check on the woman."

Dean went to Ming and shook her shoulder, but there was no response. He reached down and pulled up her eyelid. Still no response. A dread filled his voice. "Ming. Wake up." He shook her shoulder a little harder. She felt cold and lifeless. He'd been around bodies before, and they were just like this. "Ming, please wake up," he said, a wobble filling his throat. He grabbed her shoulders. "Ming!"

"You can stop now. She's gone. Along with the Maker." Barbie stood up with her hands on her hips and stomped her foot. "I can't believe he'd betray me."

"What are you talking about?" Dean yelled at Barbie. "Ming can't be dead." Tears welling up, he wiped his arm across his face. He didn't want to deal with this freak right now. Ming was gone, and it was all his fault.

"Don't worry. It's only temporary. If they can return within twenty-four hours and nothing enters them in the meantime, they should be able to get back in." Barbie stuck her hands on her hips and started pouting.

"Huh?" Dean stared at the woman, ready to throttle her, "What the hell do you mean? People don't temporarily die!"

She rolled her eyes. "When the Maker executed the program, it drew his and Ming's souls through time. There must have been a glitch somewhere. I don't know where they went, probably the past. It's easier to get there, especially by mistake." She picked Bobby up and put him over her shoulder with one hand. "We should put their corpses somewhere safe until I can check the code. As I said, I promised my Handler I wouldn't touch the big stuff, but I know a few protection algorithms that should do the trick. And music should stop other people from getting in. Hopefully, the Maker set the timer, but I doubt it. He really needs to learn better techniques." She looked around the room. "Where's his computer?"

Dean wiped his eyes. He was grasping at a freaky lifeline, but he wanted to believe she was telling the truth. He needed to believe it. His instincts and his heart told him to trust her even if she was as loopy as a fried chicken ice cream sandwich. However, if Ming could come back, then there was still a chance, and he was going to cling to it.

He needed to cling to it.

Barbie had already done it once, and now this twig was deadlifting an eighty-kilo man. "How strong are you?" he whispered, shaking his head.

"Very. I have good ears too, but that's not important." She pointed to the table and the open door. "Someone was here. They took the Maker's computer. The code he created was designed to get me home and take him, too. If it did this ---" she pointed to Bobby's body "--- and didn't take me, there was a mistake with it. We need it back to save them."

"Dammit!" Dean went to his desk and pulled up the camera logs. "There's a blackout in the cameras. I can see a shadow before it happened, but that's it." Dean pounded his fist on the desk and flipped through the feed. He stopped on the holding cell.

"Can you speak Russian?" he asked Barbie.

"Yes. Why? Everybody in Greater Vegas can speak at least three languages." She shook her head. "I was surprised to learn that people in this time could usually only speak one."

"Follow me," he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing for her to put Bobby down. He led her into the back room where Ivan was being held. "Be careful. The holding cells are designed to keep people in. It's hard to reach through, but I wouldn't put it past him."

Ivan sat on the bed watching the two of them. Dean drew back, his instincts screaming at him to stay away. How long had he been sitting there? He was still covered in the dust from the broken desk. He'd wrapped his ribs with the blanket, but his expression remained the same.

It was like watching a stone.

Dean and Bobby had dragged him into the cell and locked the door. He had attacked a police officer and deserved to stay in there, but Dean put his hand on his gut. What was it trying to tell him? He wished his instincts came with a manual sometimes.

"Did you see what happened?" he asked the giant.

Ivan nodded.

"Are you going to tell me?"

He shook his head.

Dean sighed and turned to Barbie. "I know he understands me, but there's no way he can talk with no tongue. Can you try Russian?" Dean asked. He patted down his pockets looking for some candy to take the edge off his nicotine craving.

"Fine," Barbie said from behind. She cracked her knuckles. "I'll make him spill the beans on what happened to the Maker."

"Don't hurt him," Dean said and stepped out of the way. He watched the woman step up to the bars and speak in Russian. He had no idea what she was saying, but it sounded like she knew what she was doing. "What will she do next?" he mumbled. "When did I start accepting this as normal?"

Grimacing, he pulled an old, unwrapped candy from his pocket. It had some fuzz on it, but that was easy to brush off. He was about to when something told him to stop. Ming wasn't here, but if he ate this piece, he'd be trading a reduced nicotine craving for a ball-crushing. He tossed the candy into the garbage and went back to his silent suffering.

"Thank you, Mr. Ivan. You were very insightful," Barbie said.

Dean sighed. His candy was gone. He pointed to Ivan. "What did he say?"

"Nothing. He doesn't have a tongue," Barbie gave him a stupid face and stuck her tongue out at him. "However, he did let me know that a man came in and grabbed the computer. He was wearing a suit and, based on his description, it looked like a white guy."

Dean grunted. "I need a bit more than that. A white guy doesn't narrow it down."

Barbie shrugged.

Dean started pacing back and forth. "After the destruction of Bobby's trailer, I ran the plates of the cars going into the park. Most of them were locals, but there was a Jaguar registered to the Shujing."

"That short old man really wanted to find the Maker. He was angry when his man missed him and kept mentioning Slazney," Barbie said, jumping up and down.

It was coming back to that man again. He had to find him and Bobby's computer. It was back to the Shujing.

"How did he say all that?" Dean crossed his arms and gave Barbie an uneven smile. "He doesn't have a tongue, remember."

"I know. But I'm fluent in sign language as well. Keep up, old man. I can't hold your hands forever. Now come-on. We have to put the Maker somewhere safe." She spun around and walked back to the squad room.

Dean pulled out his recorder and turned it off. The battery was almost dead again, and she talked way too much. He was going to have to check it soon.

✦

6:00 AM

Dean got into the driver's seat and buckled up. He connected the portable battery to his recorder and let it charge. "You sure they'll be safe at my place?" he asked Barbie. He stared back at his low-rent bungalow. Located near Bobby's trailer, it was the only safe place he had. "Won't the neighbours complain about the noise and the smell?"

"They should." Barbie shook her head and frowned at Dean. "'Generation Swine' was the worst thing Motley Crue ever recorded. I'm not surprised the police lost and found had it. I can't believe whoever took the computer stole all of the Maker's CDs as well."

Nodding, Dean rubbed his fingers in his eyes and let it go. He knew better than to argue with a crazy person. A few hours earlier, she was as innocent as apple pie. Now she was going all gung-ho.

That would include me as well. I'm going along with this farce. He needed to hold on to the hope that Ming would come back. It was the only thing keeping him going.

He could hear the music from the car. It was still early; the walls were too thin, and there was no insulation. Why the hell did she have to play that music on a loop? There would be a mountain of complaints tomorrow.

Dean stared at Barbie. Most of what she was saying sounded like gibberish. He should drop her off at the mental hospital and forget about her. His gut was telling him to trust her, though, and that was all he had left. When he moved Ming's body, it was becoming stiff. Soon, complete rigour mortis would set in. According to Barbie, once that disappears in normal people, their souls can no longer return. He checked his watch. It had been about four hours since they had gone on their trip. He had twenty left, give or take.

"You're going to the Shujing, aren't you?" Barbie said. "To talk to that old man. I'm going with you."

"What makes you think I'm going there?" Dean was. She was still a suspect. Hell, she was the victim. "You still haven't told me what happened to you at the Shujing. Was your death a joke? I saw your body. How did you survive that?" Dean asked.

"No, I was dead," Barbie smiled. "I can't remember who killed me, though, but I can say it was important. I may even have done that myself, but I couldn't tell you why." She stuck her finger on her lips and looked up. "The nanites in my system helped bring my body back, twice. However, I can't check their memory here. They're everywhere in the future, thanks to the Maker. With them, time travel is so much easier. The code usually deposits a batch with the traveller to repair any damage that might be in the body. "

"I see," Dean said. "Is that what happened to you?" Why was he having this conversation?

"Yes, although I'm a bit different. I was born outside the time stream and absorbed the code directly into my soul. It even lets me shift my personality to match the situation. I'm usually in waif mode, but now I've added but-kicker. My Handler says I'm special and do things others can't." Barbie bit her lip. "She doesn't want me to learn more, though. I think she's scared of me."

He closed his eyes and let out a breath. "I'd trust my ex-wife's lawyer if he could get Ming back," he said under his breath. Time travel was a scientific myth. Outside of a good story, it was just fiction.

"That's nice," Barbie said. "Trust is good."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's go. Yichen is probably up by now."