The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) (4 page)

With a calming, deep breath, Donovan rushed the back door
and kicked the area above the knob with all his might. Despite the decrepit
look of the house, the door had been secured with several locks. Donovan’s
powerful kick sent the door sailing several feet into a big dark room.

A rustling sound came from somewhere ahead of him. From the
way the sounds echoed around the walls, he guessed that there were people in a
back room. He turned on the light on his e-gun, shining it rapidly into every
dark space, eyes scanning his environment quickly and efficiently. The place
was completely filthy. Broken dishes and torn furniture lay everywhere.

Form the back room came a hulking shape. It was a man twice
Donovan’s weight. Heavy flabs of stomach rolled down the front of his body. He
was mostly bald, with only a few strands of hair clinging to the side of his
face. His large white t-shirt was covered in greasy stains.

The man held an old fashioned .32 caliber revolver. Donovan
wasn’t sure who he expected to hurt with that thing. He pointed it vaguely at
Donovan while he used the other hand to cover his eyes from the light. This man
was an Organizer?

“Who are you?” he said in a wheezy voice that he strained to
make loud. “Come any closer to my family and I’ll shoot!”

“Where’s the girl?” Donovan said evenly. “Give her to me.”

“What girl? There ain’t no girl here! Get out of my house or
I’ll shoot.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you hand the child over. I
know you have her. You stole her from a family on the west side.” Donovan held
his gun steady, ready to fire if he sensed danger.

An older woman’s voice came from behind the man’s girth. She
sounded like she smoked a lot of cigarettes. Donovan could just barely see a
piece of her through the doorway. “We ain’t got no kids here. Please, man, don’t
kill us. Just leave our house. We won’t even complain about the door.”

Suddenly doubtful, Donovan took a step back. “Why would someone
tell me that the girl was here?”

“We don’t know!” the woman said, desperate. “People ‘round
here always stirring up some trouble. Maybe they thought you’d kill us and then
they could have our stuff.”

Donovan raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Got a boatload of
diamonds do you?”

The man looked at the woman angrily. “Shut your mouth, girl,”
he whispered.

It was instinct.

Donovan acted on his most basic nature. Something just
wasn’t right. He rushed forward and hit the man solidly in the throat, crushing
his windpipe. The gun dropped from his fingers and he slid along the wall to
the floor, landing on his side. He clasped his throat as if that would reopen
the airways.

The woman was quick—she dove for the gun. She raised it
above her, shooting wildly toward the light of Donovan’s gun.

The bullets landed in the walls and ceiling. The woman found
herself out of ammunition.

Donovan kicked the gun from her hand. Instantly, she reached
for another weapon, and her fingers clasped around a shard of glass.

She lunged forward. In one swift movement Donovan slid his
foot forward, unbalancing her, and used her own weight to push her to the
floor.

Donovan tackled her, holding the arm with the weapon away
from his face. She was surprisingly strong. She screamed and kicked at him, her
rancid breath blowing into his face.

“You dirty bastard! You killed my husband! You kidnapping
bastard, trying to come for our little girl!”

It was the smell more than anything that almost made Donovan
let go.

He held his breath and pushed his full weight onto her. He
was too heavy on her chest for her to breathe. He risked releasing the
weapon-free hand.

As soon as he let it go, she reached for his face.

But Donovan was a highly trained soldier. He was too fast
for her. Before she even knew what was happening, he pushed two fingers firmly
into the side of her neck, knocking her out cold. She wouldn’t wake up for a
couple of hours.

Donovan rolled over onto his back, sweat dripping over his
face. He allowed himself only two seconds to recover. He jumped to his feet,
waving the light of his gun back and forth over the house. He turned full
circle twice before he decided that no one else was going to attack him in the
main room.

He edged down the hallway, stepping over the fat man who was
still struggling to breathe and keeping his back to the walls. He searched each
room, the silence pressing down on his ears as he crept around.

A door creaked to his left.

He swiveled to face the sound. Down another short hallway, a
door had inched open. Donovan saw a pair of eyes in the crack, round with fear.

As soon as the child realized Donovan had seen her, she
pulled away from the door, leaving a black chink behind.

“It’s okay,” Donovan said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I want
to get you out of here. Take you back to your family.”

The door squeaked open a little further.

It was her. The little girl he was looking for. She matched
the picture he had memorized exactly.

She wore a dirty gray dress that used to be pink. Her round face
was covered in black smudges, of what substance Donovan didn’t know. He could
tell she had been crying recently because there were clean streaks left behind
in the filth on her cheeks.

Unavoidably, Donovan’s eyes fell on the ugly gash across her
face. It zigzagged back and forth on its way down from her left temple to the
right side of her jaw.

This child had fought. Had screamed.

Donovan felt a crushing pain in his chest. He forced away
the image of a cluster of hands holding her to a table, all of them eager to see
her bleed for x5.

“Please.” He lowered his gun and reached out a hand to her.
“Come with me. I’ll take you to a safe place. And then we can find your
family.”

“You can take me to Momma?”

“Yes, honey. Come with me.”

Tentatively, the little girl came out. Donovan saw that the
door led down into a basement.

“Was there anyone else down there with you?”

She shook her head.

Donovan was relieved. He had no desire to see the horrors
that lay down there.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mae.” Her voice came out softly.

“That’s a pretty name, Mae. Are you ready to leave this
place?”

She nodded.

“Good.” Donovan smiled and held out his hand.

Mae didn’t smile back, but she put her hand in his. There
was something sticky and black on her palms, but Donovan ignored it and clasped
her hand firmly.

He ducked into the backyard, aiming his gun in one hand and
pulling the girl behind him. They crouched behind a small tree. When Donovan
saw no sign of attackers, he crossed into the yard of the neighbors behind and
walked along the side of the house, trying to look as if he belonged there.

Before they emerged onto the street, he bent down next to
Mae.

“I’m going to have to carry you now.” Donovan took off his
hoodie and pulled it over her head. It fell to her knees and she almost
disappeared under the hood. “We don’t want anyone to see you and try to take
you back, right?”

Mae nodded. Donovan scooped her up. In his muscled arms she
weighed no more than a pillow. He carried his load onto the street and headed
in the direction of his skycycle which he had hidden in a copse of trees in a
remote part of the city.

It wasn’t long before people started to stare. He kept
walking, eying them cautiously. Why were they looking at him like that?

Donovan heard rapid footsteps behind him. Someone was
following.

He picked up his pace.

As he turned a corner near a grocery store, a woman leaning
against its wall called out to him.

“Nice watch you got there.”

Donovan’s heart almost stopped. He cursed himself. How could
he forget to take off his watch?! A stupid, rookie mistake. He ignored the
woman and kept walking. But she had called the attention of others nearby. Even
more people looked his way.

Donovan walked a little faster and listened carefully to the
pursuers on the sidewalk behind him. One… two… three people. Two were average
weight and the other was really small. He could tell by the different sounds
their shoes made when they hit the ground.

“Can I see that watch, Pops?” a young boy said as he rode
his bike in the gutter alongside Donovan.

“Where you from?” an older man leaning on a lamppost asked
him. “You not from around here.” Luckily, the man didn’t feel like pursuing the
matter. When Donovan did not slow or acknowledge him, the man spit on the ground.
“Don’t come back here again.”

The boy on the bike still trailed him. “You don’t belong
here,
pris
. Get out of here before you get hurt. Leave that little girl
here. She’s one of us.”

Should he just run for it? Or should he put the girl down
and fight. He ruled against the latter option. How long before other people
started to jump in? He could probably take down fifty men on his own but only
five of them at a time. If he turned and fought right now, even with the element
of surprise, Mae might get caught in the scuffle. He might lose track of her.
If he ran, he could probably make it. He was fast, and he could already hear
one of them breathing heavily behind him.

He had to do something.

Donovan made his decision in an instant and slipped into
action. He shifted Mae in his arms. “Mae, no matter what happens next, I need
you to hang onto me and not let go. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you have a good grip?”

He felt her hair brush his face as she nodded. Felt the
sticky substance from her hands touch his neck.

“On the count of three, I’m going to run. Hold on tight.”

Donovan looked around. More people had emptied into the
streets—news of his presence had spread like a deadly virus.

“One…two…”

Before a crowd could form around him and block him in,
Donovan broke into a run.

“Three!”

A long moment passed before anyone reacted. It was the
perfect amount of time for Donovan to disappear around another corner into a
less populated alleyway.

There were three more turns before he reached his skycycle.
The distance was about five blocks. He heard people behind him shouting, “He
went that way! Over there!” The followers had figured out where he had gone and
now others in the neighborhood had joined them.

Who were all these people who wanted it out for him so
badly? Were they after Mae? They couldn’t possibly
all
know her.

Donovan shook the puzzle out of mind and focused on speed. Luckily,
some of the heavier ones couldn’t keep up with the cardio and quickly fell
behind. He could run at his current speed for fifty miles. None of them were
able to keep up. He doubted any of them ever exercised, and the neighborhoods
here were flooded with processed foods. It was the only stuff they could
afford.

Donovan turned sharply around another two corners. Mae
almost slipped from around his torso. He could feel her hands beginning to
sweat against his neck. Suddenly, the group of people decided to give up
chasing him. He slowed his pace but kept running.

“Don’t worry, Mae. We’re going to be all right. We’ll make
it out of here.”

He had relaxed too soon.

A heavy body crashed into him from the left, throwing both
him and Mae to the ground. His head banged against the cement, blurring his
vision. He found his way to a standing position. He looked around for Mae and
was surprised to see her leaning causally against the wall. She looked him
directly in the eyes and smiled.

It wasn’t the grin of a child—there was no joy in her eyes.
She flashed him the smile of a coy adult. He frowned at her. “Mae?”

The man who had delivered the amateur tackle was slowly
getting to his feet, drawing Donovan’s attention. He whipped his e-gun out of
the holster and pointed it at him. The man did not seem disturbed by the
weapon—he just looked into the alleyway from which he had emerged.

“There he is, boss,” he said. “Donovan Knight.”

How does he know my name?

Who was Donovan Knight to the slums of Bakersfield? Why did
he matter to them? Donovan turned the e-gun toward the alley and spotted a man
as much out of place as he was. He was short but beefy, dressed in a black suit
with a purple tie. He had a prickly mass of short grey hair on his head. His
black shoes shined against the dirty pavement.

Donovan backed up several steps so he could have both men in
his range. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else was there.

The suited man flashed him a toothy grin. “You should be
honored, Donovan. You’ve been selected to serve as my example to the Army and
Space Force what I think of them. It was me who sent the man who reported Mae’s
location.” He chuckled heartily. “I’m going to kill you.”

Donovan held his gun steadily on the suited man. He was the
more nonchalant of the two—very relaxed and poised, but there was a catlike way
to his mannerisms. The man was in a state of false tranquility—he appeared
completely at ease, but he was ready to spring at any moment.

This man was an expert fighter, Donovan knew just by looking
at him. No wonder the tackler stood back. His boss didn’t need his protection.
He had just needed his servant to get dirty for him. No man in a suit that nice
was going to tackle another man to the ground.

“Who are you?” Donovan asked.

“Why,” the man looked astounded, “I’m the leader of x5, of
course. My name is Petridge.”

Donovan was stunned.

“Yes, yes, everyone always has that reaction. The Organizers’
initiation markers are a little more subtle.” The man pulled up his sleeve to
reveal a long, ropey scar that stretched from his wrist all the way to his
armpit. He shook the sleeve down.