Renaissance
A Tale of the Voyagers
by Yvonne Jocks, ©September, 2000
Kat woke with a start, suddenly afraid.
Nothing unusual there. For one thing, shadows loomed all around her, strange
and threatening -- she still wasn't used to the little cottage where she'd
been stashed, up here in the Oregon woods, and since she'd fallen asleep
on the couch the summer sun had set so that it seemed even more alien. For
another, it had been months since she'd NOT felt fear hounding her every
move, devouring her life, turning her into a non-entity.
In fact, that's why her cheeks felt sticky and tight, even now. She'd hit
an all-time low and given way to frustrated tears that only stopped when,
exhausted, she drifted to a restless, hunted sleep. She knew she'd done the
right thing in testifying against the Cali cartel. She hadn't done it for
any kind of a reward . . . but neither had she thought her good deed would
blow up in her face this badly either.
. . . we're sorry, Ms. Perry . . .
. . . released on a technicality, Ms. Perry . . .
. . . help you keep a low profile until we can relocate you . . .
They -- the people from Witness Protection -- had even stopped calling her
Ms. Perry, because by the time she left this secret cabin in these thick
woods, she would be someone else. Someone who could never see the families
and kids she'd kept track of, taken care of, ever again. Someone who wasn't
allowed to live in Texas anymore, or even be a social worker and health care
provider.
Someone whom, hopefully, the Columbian drug cartel wouldn't be able to find,
much less make an example of. One agent had even told her she should be glad
she had no family, that she was alone. He thought that would make it easier
to start over. He didn't realize how much she'd come to hate being alone,
how much she counted on the families she saw on her rounds, how much she'd
relished being needed.
Nobody needed her anymore. Thanks to the Federal Witness Protection Program,
Katharyn Perry had effectively vanished, out of space and time, and someone
who mattered even less would reappear somewhere else, like a magic trick.
Poof.
Her eyes felt hot. If she wasn't careful, she would start to cry again.
That's when she heard something -- no, something ELSE -- from the cabin's
bedroom. She stood and took several steps in that direction, then stilled
when she recognized that what she'd heard were voices.
The shadows weren't the only reason for her to wake afraid.
"Smart kids give me a pain," grumbled a male voice -- now that she was listening,
she could hear him clearly. "That would have been a dream job."
Agents were protecting the cottage perimeters, but she had been left to her
privacy. There should be no voices in the bedroom, especially not low, rumbly,
male ones that sounded just a little plaintive.
Good imagination?
"You've already got a job," scolded a much younger voice, confusing her.
"I could MOONLIGHT."
"Hey, I did you a FAVOR back there," protested the kid, defensive. "Don't
you remember what kind of men get to guard the sultan's harem?"
"LUCKY ones?" The more mature, more male voice bristled with a friendly sarcasm
that, under better circumstances, might've made Kat smile. The fact that
he was probably a friendly, sarcastic ASSASSIN countered her sense of humor
pretty thoroughly.
Why else would anyone be here? How else could they even GET here?
She didn't have this good an imagination.
"EUNUCHS," clarified the smart kid. "That's who."
The original voice lost some of its bluster. "Eunuchs. You mean guys who
don't . . . I mean . . ."
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"YEAH oh." No wonder smart kids gave the older guy a pain.
Kat stood there in the unfamiliar hallway, surprised at her resigned calm
-- she was about to die, and here she stood, eavesdropping while the people
who were going to do her in bantered like John Travolta and Samuel Jackson
discussing Le Royale with Cheese in PULP FICTION. Though maybe this didn't
count as eavesdropping. They were in HER bedroom.
Well, the government's bedroom. But it currently held HER stuff . . . what
she'd been allowed to take with her, anyway.
Bedroom. Appropriate place for the more mature, rumbly voice in particular.
It sounded like a blanket, the kind of voice to wrap around you on a cold
night.
Kat reminded herself that wait a minute, 'scuse me, THERE ARE HITMEN IN YOUR
BEDROOM YOU IDIOT! Just because she was tired of running, tired of caring
right now, didn't mean that ten years from now she wouldn't appreciate having
stayed alive. She began to back out of the hallway again. The agents had
ordered her - strictly -- to stay inside, even to stay away from the windows,
Just In Case. But she suspected those rules changed when the bad guys suddenly
got inside with her.
Surely they were bad guys, right? Just because they both sounded congenial
and one sounded way underage didn't mean they'd stay that way -- well, congenial
-- once they found her. After all, the older one was no eunuch. She had her
theories about testosterone and violence.
"At least we had a soft landing for once," the kid's voice said, and Kat
realized she'd stopped moving again. Apparently she really DIDN'T care. She
could clearly hear her bedsprings squeak a few times, like when a kid bounces
on them, or . . . well.
"Stop that," scolded the deeper, sexier voice, half-hearted, like a fond
parent trying to do his duty. The noise stopped. "It isn't yours."
"Sorry."
Did hitmen talk about things not being theirs? Maybe they were just
trespassers.
Trespassers who somehow got past all the DEA and Witness Protection security
and didn't bother to knock. Riiiight. Kat made herself creep backwards, back
toward the living room.
"So where are we?" asked the kid, his voice getting closer even as she moved.
(How could he not know where they were? Was this some ploy?)
"Woman's bedroom. I can recognize 'em a mile away, kid."
"Bogg! Check the omni -- where ARE we?"
Kat ducked out of the hallway and into the living room, right before the
man's voice changed in volume, indicating that he'd stepped into the hallway
a split second later.
"Oregon, December 1, 19 . . . 96?" He smacked something. Twice. "Bat's
breath!"
The kid laughed, throaty. "You're reading it wrong. We can't go that far!"
"Well then YOU read it."
In the momentary silence, Kat could hear a faint beeping sound, like a watch
alarm.
"1996." The boy's voice fell hushed. "Woooooow."
"Stupid omni." With a click, the beeping stopped. "Red light, too. Any idea
what we're --"
"How would I know? Can I tell the future? I'd be twenty-four in 1996. Do
I look twenty-four to you?"
"Nope. Way too short for anything over fourteen -- if you live that long."
"Big guys give me a pain," griped the kid agreeably, and now the guy
laughed.
They seemed to be heading toward the living room, like her, so Kat ducked
into the kitchen and behind the counter island. Their conversation made no
sense at all . . . unless that was the point. Maybe they were here to distract
her. Or maybe they were here to frighten her into running outside into the
snow where someone could pick her off. Maybe that's why she didn't take those
last five steps, unbolt the kitchen door, and break for the treeline.
Or maybe she was just a lot more lonely for the sound of a kid's quick, brassy
conversation than she'd suspected. Witnessing against the Cali cartel aside,
she wasn't the sort of person who would risk her life so easily. Sure, as
a girl she'd dreamed of adventure and excitement. But her latest stand for
truth, justice, and the American way had taught her the vicious lesson that
it wasn't worth it. Screw adventure. Individuals couldn't make a difference.
Big organizations, legal or illegal, just squished you and went on as if
you didn't count.
Which really, you didn't.
Maybe that's why she was hiding here behind the kitchen island, instead of
running. She finally knew she didn't really count.
Or maybe she was dreaming.
Or maybe she'd finally gone crazy from the solitude. That would explain the
strange, not-quite-ticking sound that seeped into her awareness and wouldn't
go away. It was hardly a sound at all, more like an electric pulse, felt
more than heard. She was probably imagining it, too.
The kid's cheerful explorations of the cabin would fit into the idea that
she'd gone crazy. The fact that he was a kid at all probably clinched it.
"Hey, look at this stereo! That's funny. There isn't any turntable."
"Don't touch anything," warned the man. So as not to leave fingerprints?
"Look at that TV! WOW, that's big. Let's see -- how do you turn it on?"
"Don't. You. Dare."
Finally the kid came into view -- and he really WAS a kid. Until she saw
him with the one eye she let peek past the island, Kat guessed, maybe suspected,
it was a man with a particularly high voice, or a woman with a particularly
shrill one. But this really was a little boy. No more than eleven or twelve
years old, and small even so. Bright faced, with curly black hair that fell
in his dark eyes. Red and white striped shirt, like in Where's Waldo, and
jeans, and sneakers.
He looked like a nice kid, inquisitive and healthy. Did that make him an
even more effective assassin? "Come on, Bogg," he protested, hands spread
like a salesman making a pitch. "There isn't anyone here. We might as well
make ourselves comfortable while we wait for whoever it is to get back, right?
I haven't seen TV in forever!"
Kat smiled at his confidence. Maybe she WAS dreaming. Or going crazy. Pulse,
pulse, pulse went the electric non-sound near her ear.
Or maybe Killer Waldo was just THAT GOOD at his innocence act.
"NO," repeated the man -- Bogg? -- firmly, and Kat found herself yearning
for a glimpse of him, too. Despite the scream of logic, her fear had faltered
at the sight of the boy. Maybe the sight of the man would bring back enough
to break her out of this paralysis. Besides, his voice fascinated her, thick
and rich and in control. If he did kill her, maybe he'd talk to her a little
bit first, and she could drown in the voice. "Something's wrong here," he
mused, almost a purr.
"Of COURSE something's wrong -- we're in 1996. But the omni's messed up
before."
"Only once like this and that's how I ended up with you."
For a long moment, the kid's bravado sank with his shoulders. Then the Bogg
person apparently noticed the silence, because he finally stepped into view
to clamp a comforting hand on the boy's narrow, red-and-white striped shoulder.
Even so, Kat could only see the man from the back, his vest and full-sleeved...
pirate shirt? He was large, really tall with the proportionally wide shoulders
and slim hips of a football player. Tangled, bronze hair. One helluva cute
butt under some odd beige pants, tucked into knee boots. His size went perfectly
with the voice.
Pulse pulse pulse. That was sooooo annoying, that non-sound. It reminded
her of a tick tick tick, but without volume.
"Okay, so that turned out great," reassured the man encouragingly, and the
kid's whole being unwilted back into freckled confidence. "But something
else is going on here. A Voyager can sometimes sense these things."
A WHAT?
They really weren't acting like assassins.
Tick tick tick. Kat finally realized that the intrusion wasn't her own madness,
but something tucked under the overhang of the island counter, and she looked
at it.
She stared. A glowing red digital display flashed 00:52. 00:51. 00:50. And
it had wires leading away from it. She realized for sure that she wasn't
afraid of the guys in the living room when REAL fear washed through her.
Real fear felt cold, cold as death.
The boy said something about going out and looking around.
The Bogg said something about not being sure they should go too far.
Kat dropped out of her crouch to her knees -- ow, her thighs and calves were
NOT used to this hunkering stuff -- and crawled slowly around the other corner
of the island. She wasn't sure why she had to investigate it. It wasn't like
she could look at the wires and putty-like substance attached to the counter
and know whether it was real plastique or not. She was just a social worker,
an educator, a health-care provider. Well, she used to be.
In under a minute, she would used-to-be a lot of other things too. Like
alive.
She stared back at the display. 00:39. 00:38. 00:37.
The little boy and the man with the cute butt were going to be a lot of ex-things
too. She didn't think ex-assassins was one of them, unless the Cali cartel
splurged on two separate sets of assassins, and didn't mind blowing the second
set up.
00:33. 00:32. 00:31.
Unable to speak, she stood up into the open, unable to tear her gaze from
the countdown of her remaining seconds of life.
Bogg was saying something, his low rumble of a voice the only comforting
thing breaking through Kat's single-minded focus on the bomb. He stopped
only because of the boy's interruptions.
"Bogg," the boy was saying, and peripherally Kat realized the kid was staring,
wide-eyed, at her. He drew the name out into several insistent syllables.
"BOGG!"
"What?" Finally the man turned . . . and damn her luck, Kat couldn't take
the time to savor whatever it was he might look like from the front. She
was backing toward the outside door from the kitchen, and trying to make
her mouth work.
00:27. 00:26.
"Hey!" Even without raising her gaze to the man, Kat caught a flash of white
teeth, an outstretched hand that she suspected was meant to be comforting.
"Where'd you come from?" asked Bogg. "We didn't mean to scare you . . ."
Kat finally achieved voice. "Run."
The man, who had begun to move toward her, stopped as if confused. "What?"
The kid, apparently catching on faster than his companion, started to circle
the island in search of whatever-it-was the crazy lady was staring at.
The crazy lady herself finally made it to the kitchen door and fumbled at
the locks as best she could, considering that she couldn't wrench her focus
away from the numbers.
00:19. 00:18. 00:17.
"Please run," she managed to say. Idiot. As if good manners would motivate
them faster.
AND WHY WOULDN'T THE DOOR UNLOCK!?!
The kid, wide-eyed, said his most multi-syllabled "Booooooooogg" yet, almost
sing-song in its horror.
"WHAT?" The man came around the counter too. The two of them smelled like
perfume and incense, kind of exotic. Kind of how she imagined a harem would
smell. Which was in itself crazy.
00:14. 00:13.
"Uh oh," he said. "Is that what I think it is?"
Kat finally made herself look away from the counter and fight the door. She
hadn't missed any of the locks. Something else was wrong. She slammed her
shoulder into the door, wrenched at the knob. No go.
The kid was suddenly beside her, trying the knob too, their hands tangling
in their panic. "It's a BOMB, Bogg!"
Truth finally dawned -- they were locked in from the outside. Oh God. The
windows weren't big enough to get through, even. The other doors were probably
locked too. Whoever had done this, had done it well.
00:09. 00:08.
Maybe the BOY could fit out one of the windows over the sink? Even if she
and Sexy Voiced Bogg couldn't? With a sudden burst of energy, Kat grabbed
the fire extinguisher from its holder by the stove and smashed it through
the window; fresh air rushed in at her. Tight fit, and he'd get cut up some,
but he might make it. Maybe. Better than in here.
Oddly, the kid was insisting, "The OMNI!"
"No kidding!" snarled Bogg.
"Come here!" commanded Kat in her best teacher voice, reaching a hand, fingers
splayed, for the boy. Even as she did, she saw the counter. 00:04. 00:03.
She realized she wouldn't get him out in time. That was the cruelest blow
-- the biggest proof yet of her uselessness. She couldn't even save the boy,
whoever the boy was.
The big guy acted as if he could, though. He scooped the kid up onto his
shoulder with one arm and lunged at her, something round and brassy in his
other hand.
00:02.
Kat looked up into the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, pale rings around black,
dilated pupils. She sensed, more than saw, the next almost-click.
00:01.
"Hurry!" wailed the boy.
The man's strong arm swept her up at the waist, pulled her abruptly against
his broad chest --
And the world exploded into a zillion stars.
End Part One