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nostrils.
Ryan felt his teeth grind in frustration as he realized another odor was mixed
with the gateway's stench the bitter smell of defeat. Jamaisvous was gone,
long gone, the empty floor tiles creaking, mocking Ryan, as they cooled.
"Go after bastard," Jak spit, stepping up the steps into the chamber behind
Ryan.
"Use button: Last Destination. Follow him."
"Not a good idea," Mildred called from outside the gateway interior. She was
standing next to a flashing comp monitor screen on the lower floor where the
control readouts were downloading.
"Worked before," Jak insisted as he left the chamber.
"Won't work. Not this time." The stocky woman was leaning over one of the flat
tables and staring at a monitor. Despite the uncertainty of the situation,
J.B. shot her an approving look. Since she was still wearing the antique
clothing provided by Jamaisvous, Mildred was displaying a generous sampling of
cleavage in the low-cut dress.
Mildred didn't notice. Perhaps if she had, the whitecoat's words on dressing
to attract your man would have come back to her.
Symbols and numerals flickered on the comp's monitor screen, creating row upon
row of single-spaced coded information. "I think Jamaisvous expected us to try
and track his moves. If we go after him, there's no telling where we might end
up."
"Or when," Doc added disdainfully. He was now standing, leaning on Dean and on
his swordstick, which Krysty had retrieved from where it had been thrown
across the room.
"Exactly, or when. I'll have to try and shut down the system, reboot and keep
my fingers crossed everything comes back on-line. Otherwise, we're either
going to have to go native and share the island with the chupacabras
, or else find a boat
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"Doubt there's many of the chupacabras left," Krysty said. "We found the nest.
They were coming out of the redoubt in El Yunque."
Mildred pointed a finger at a block of blinking numbers in the upper right
corner of the monitor. The numbers were in a constant state of motion, the
numerals flickering as they changed back and forth. "He's using some sort of
randomizer here. I don't know all the redoubt codes and destinations, but even
if I did, we'd be rolling the dice with little chance of following him."
A beeping sound caught the woman's attention and she crossed over to the
fallen
CPU and monitor that Doc had broken. The screen was still functioning despite
the large crack running down the face.
"What happened here?" she asked, kneeling as best she could, trying to avoid
cutting her bare knees on the broken plastic and glass. "Doc?"
"Pulled it down& trying to get back to my feet."
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"I think you might have done more than knock over a computer," she said,,
tilting her head for a better look at the comp. "This one was acting as the
guidance system for Jamaisvous's destination. He didn't enter a code manually
at the gateway. He was operating it from a preset in here. You took it offline
at the same time he jumped out of here and it switched over to the back-up
system, the same one running the randomizer."
"Meaning what, Millie?" J.B. asked.
"Meaning Jamaisvous is going to make his chron jump, but when or where I have
no idea. I'd say wherever he ends up, it won't be where he thought he was
going."
"What about us?" Dean asked. "We stuck here?"
"No. Like I said, I'll have to try and shut all this down. Doc, you can help
me.
Once we reboot and bring it all back on-line, any presets should be erased."
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"Do what you have to do, Mildred," Ryan said wearily. "When you think the
system is safe, we'll try another jump."
"Any danger of our boy Silas popping back here?" Krysty asked. She was
standing next to the open door of the gateway.
Mildred shook her head. "There's always a possibility, but I doubt he'd return
here so soon. Besides, we keep the door open and he can't reuse this gateway
anyway."
"If does, take care of him," Jak said, grinning. "Take care of him good."
A DAY PASSED before Mildred gave the word they could use the mat-trans chamber
and be on their way. She'd changed back into her usual clothing, leaving the
gaily colored dress and the shiny baubles behind. Her target pistol had been
recovered from the control room undamaged. There would be little or no use for
finery where she was going, and after Jamaisvous's treatment of Doc and
betrayal of the others, including the poor locals who called Puerto Rico home,
Mildred had no interest in hanging on to memories or souvenirs.
Save one.
Dean watched with interest as Mildred touched a small button on the front
plate of a desktop comp. A drawer slid out of a recessed area when summoned.
In the drawer tray rested a single compact disc. The disc was silver and
clean, with no identifying marks or words. The woman carefully removed the
disc from the drawer between thumb and forefinger, taking care not to touch
the shining surface, and placed it snugly within a waiting nondescript jewel
box cover.
"What's on the disc, Mildred?" Dean inquired. The boy had seen both computer
disks and CDs with recorded music during his education at the Brody School in
Colorado, and knew they were used for information storage and retrieval.
"Got pretty good with comps at Brody's," the boy said casually, peering over
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