Kevin looked out his window hesitantly. Dark water spread out away from the Wraith Harbor ferry that Mel had booked them two seats on after their escape. Now that he had several multiverse jumps under his belt, Kevin was able to complete interversal travel without hurling. But this was different. He closed his eyes and wiped his clammy forehead and tried not to think about the fact that the “ferry” was basically a decommissioned submarine. A prod to the shoulder reminded him that Mel was speaking to him and probably expected a response.
“Hm, yeah, sure.” Without opening his eyes he could feel Mel’s stare boring into his temple. “Ok, you caught me. I don’t know what you’re talking about, I can barely breathe in here. Can you tell that there’s limited air? I think I can tell.”
“For fuck’s sake Kevin, submarines have been around longer than cell phones. Relax and help me figure out our next move.” Mel tapped at her chin and looked out the porthole window.
“Relax? I blew a man’s hand apart forty minutes ago and cut you free in a utility closet, I think I’ve earned a small uninterrupted panic attack.” Mel held up her hands in surrender and tapped impatiently at the sunglasses case in her hands.
The ferry ran frequently between Wraith Harbor’s undersea docks and a pier in the San Francisco bay area. Mel had ridden it four times before, two trips in and out but found the view of the lights across the Golden Gate Bridge as they surfaced especially exciting this time around. They cruised above the water the rest of the distance and when the hatch finally opened, Kevin was the first one to rush out onto the dock taking long, deep breaths.
“So, you’re a little claustrophobic, huh?” Mel meandered up beside him and took in their surroundings while Kevin shot her a glare. It was still dark out, but the edges of dawn were beginning to creep into the sky. Kevin took one more calming breath and then took in their surroundings. Berkeley was fairly quiet at this early hour. Kevin sighed with relief, finally letting it sink in that he and Mel had escaped the immediate danger.
“How do we find the others?” Kevin asked after they’d watched color and light spread across the sky for a few silent minutes.
“Yeah, I haven't even come up with a half-assed idea for that.”
“How about quarter-assed?” Kevin asked earnestly.
“Not that either. It’s hard enough finding someone on one Earth, hell if I know where they are! We could go back to Dallas but it’s been a whole day now. Would be another full day and night of driving before we could get there.” Mel scrunched up her nose as Kevin turned to her hopefully. “Oh no. No. Fuck no. Kevin, I’m not spending twenty-four hours in a damn car just so we can turn up two days late to a meeting.”
“They’re our friends! They’ll be waiting! We waited for them back in Arizona.”
“Kevin, no, we actually didn’t!”
“Ok, but we left a message! They’ll have left us a message too.” Mel rubbed furiously at her eyes, neither of them had properly slept in a day or two.
“I don’t even know where the hell the Pathfinder was when we were in Dallas, there’s no way we could find the exact spot in a whole city.” Kevin’s face fell at that argument.
“Right, yeah, I suppose that’s true.” They fell back into silence until Mel finally nudged him.
“I’m fucking wiped, Kev. Let’s find somewhere to get a few hours sleep then put our heads together. With food. We’ll get waffles.” Kevin’s face broke into confusion.
“You like waffles?”
“Everyone loves waffles, Kevin. Why wouldn’t I like waffles?”
“I just thought you’d be more into MREs or protein bars or…” Kevin broke off as Mel slowly turned to look at him with dangerous eyes. “...nevermind.”
----------------------------------------
Five hours later, Mel and Kevin sat in a diner south of UC Berkeley with no better ideas than when they’d stepped off the ferry that morning. It was nearly noon and Mel was getting especially antsy. The longer they waited the less likely they’d find their friends. Mel grimaced at the recognition that she considered them friends and did, in fact, want to find them.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“What if we spoke to whichever Elias Thorn lives on this Earth? See if he can track them?”
“Absolutely not.” Mel said forcefully. “Thorn is a real asshat here. Also I robbed him. And shot him with a taser once.”
“Oh, is that all?” Kevin teased her while biting into a biscuit.
“And once with a real gun. But it was just a .22.” Kevin rolled his eyes and looked out the diner’s wide window with a smile that slowly slid off his face as the glasses spoke.
“Impact imminent.”
The window of the diner exploded inward as Kevin tugged at Mel while shouting for her to get down. Kevin shook glass out of his hair and crawled with Mel around the counter as patrons and the lone waitress scattered.
“Melissa! Don’ make this too hard now, c’mon out now!” A woman’s voice called through the broken window in an accent caught somewhere between British and Australian. “An’ I’m not patient neither so before I get ta three.”
“Anna?” Mel called from behind the counter cautiously.
“You know her?” Kevin whispered frantically while Mel shushed him.
“Bugger me! No fookin way! That yoo, Mel?”
“Are you kidding me, Anna!” A male voice shouted from outside.
“Sod off Gerald, I didn’ read the full postin’. Mel how yoo been then?” Mel shrugged at Kevin and slowly peaked over the counter.
“Anna. Gerald.” Mel greeted them carefully. “You gonna fucking shoot me if I stand up?”
“Pshhhttt!” The question was greeted with a loud raucous laughter from the woman and Mel fully stood and gestured for Kevin to do the same.
“Good to see you two got your ride back.” Mel offered as Kevin took in the scene. On the other side of the blown out window a woman was standing in front of a bright pink ice cream truck pulled halfway onto the sidewalk. She wore a long sleeve white jumpsuit with patches sewn all across the chest and had a sleek helmet on that resembled what a racecar driver would wear. It was covered in stickers of cartoon characters Kevin had never seen before but his eyes were drawn mostly to a very large gun she now leaned against her shoulder with the barrel toward the sky.
“Bloody hell, what a goof, eh! Who the fook is this then?” Anna said with a playful tone. Mel nudged him in the arm and he worked his mouth furiously.
“Kevin,” was all that came out.
“Is he on the bounty too, we could take him in for half?” The male voice piped up again and Kevin realized that it was coming from a large rabbit who was perched in the window of the truck.
“Am I seeing a talking rabbit?” Kevin whispered out of the side of his mouth to Mel, who promptly kicked his shin behind the counter.
“This is Gerald, he and Anna are partners.” Mel said, her eyes boring into Kevin.
“Yeah, yeah. Talking animal, get over it buddy, you’re lucky I don’t shoot you myself. We taking them in or not Anna?”
“O’ course not! Mel’s a friend!” The woman in the jumpsuit stepped to the window and began stretching as if to come through with one arm wide for a hug but stopped short and cocked her head. “Shite, bobbies.”
“Everytime you pick the contract it goes caddywompus, Anna!” The rabbit, Gerald, hopped twice frantically as the sirens grew louder then turned towards the front of the truck and called back to them. “Are you guys coming or what?”
Kevin turned to Mel with his brows furrowed but she just shrugged and hopped the counter towards the busted window.
“I’m dead. This is hell.” Kevin mopily dragged his feet out from around the counter and headed for the truck. Anna, with her huge gun under her arm clapped him on the shoulder as he got to the door.
“Don’ worry! Gerald’s a helluva driver!” Anna’s endorsement did not change the sick look on Kevin’s face or the sinking pit in his stomach as he climbed into the back of the ice cream truck and plopped onto a bench seat that ran the length of the truck behind the driver seat.
From farther away, Gerald had looked like a typical rabbit but up close Kevin was shocked by his appearance. He was seated in a near human fashion and clearly had opposable thumbs. He frowned back at the two of them.
“I’d say buckle up, but we don’t have those so good flipping luck back there.” With that he turned and began to drive. After lurching into Mel, who smacked the back of his head, Kevin leaned forward curiously to look into the front. Gerald was large for a rabbit but there was no possible way he could be operating the pedals normally. The front seat was mostly normal, but the pedals seemed to be fitted into some sort of telescoping block to allow them to stretch up to directly under the seat where Gerald could reach them. He also sat on a child’s booster seat decorated with stickers. Kevin glanced at Anna’s helmet and figured that must be her handiwork.
“I hate to be rude.” Kevin started.
“Then don’t be.” Gerald responded crisply before taking a sharp turn that flung Kevin back against the side of the truck. Kevin rubbed the back of his head gingerly and tried again.
“I’m just not sure I understand what’s going on.” This elicited a sigh from Mel.
“What else is new?” She mumbled.
“I’s horrible rude not to do proper introductions, but giv’n the circumstances.” Anna said while she punched numbers into a high tech console where the glovebox would normally be. Catching Kevin’s curious eyes, she tapped the console lovingly and winked at him. “Normal ol’ bobbies won’ follo’ through a jump.”
“A jump to wher…” Kevin’s question was cut off as the familiar tugging sensation made his stomach turn and their surroundings turned briefly into a series of doors and passages. Then just as suddenly, Kevin lurched forward in between the front seat as tires squealed loudly.
“Cripes, come on man!” Gerald shouted out as he wiped spilled Slurpee off his right leg. “I told you to hold on, you dope, they don’t have 7-Eleven on Earth One!”