Deadly Designs (Design Series) (19 page)

"I'll be there in three hours, maybe four. I want you there when I get back, do you hear me? You mother and I have been worried sick. There's been a mess of weird storms going on, communications have been down all over the place. I know our phone hasn't been working but that's no reason for making us worry."

Storey didn't know what to say. Thankfully she didn't appear to need to say anything as his irate voice rolled right over her. "Stay home. We'll get there as soon as we're done working. I'm going to phone your mother right now and let her know you're okay."

Storey made what she thought might have been the appropriate response as he hung up a few seconds later. She shook her head. "What the heck. He said they've been having weird storms, communications down? That's not because of us, is it?"

Eric waved as if to brush off the idea, then paused, his hand in the air. His face twisted with concentration. "I'd have said no, until I remembered the time travel." He stood with his hands on his hips contemplating the flooring. "With that, it is very possible. Think about it. We can't just move through time-space without a reaction of some kind. Energy has to shift and change, atmospheres have to adapt, the time–space continuum has an order and we've disturbed it." He shrugged as if expecting her to understand all that he'd spouted off. "Weather anomalies could easily be experienced with those changes."

She winced. "Great. So we're screwing with the weather patterns, too. Is nothing going our way?" she muttered the last bit under her breath, but Eric still heard her.

"We're doing fine. We're back to the time period we belong in, now the stylus can help us to get Tammy home."

She brightened. "Let's ask. My parents are going to be home in three hours, four maximum. Possibly earlier. We need to be gone, and hopefully back again before they get home."

Eric motioned toward the bedroom where Tammy stood in the doorway a worried look on her face. Storey rushed forward, a reassuring smile on her face. "It's okay honey. Everything is fine." At least her tone of voice had to help even if Tammy didn't understand the words.

Coming up behind both of them, Eric ushered them into the bedroom, closing and locking the door behind them. "Let's get this done."

Storey pulled out her largest sketchbook from the closet. Seeing an older backpack stuffed in the back, she grabbed it too. Then she sat cross-legged with her stylus. "Stylus, we need to get Tammy back to her family. Not just any Louers but to her mother and father. How do we do that?"

The stylus jerked in her hand, Storey slapped the tip on the paper. She read the answer out to Eric. "Going back in time is dangerous. Going to her family in their new dimension right now is also dangerous."

Eric shook his head. "Staying here isn't an option. Tammy needs her family and because of you, she trusts us to take her home."

"Which option do you want to choose?" She studied Eric's face looking for an answer.

"Which is the least dangerous?" Eric countered.

Going to her family now. You won't have to factor in all the dimension shifts from a time change.

"Fine. Let's do that then. Give us the coordinates for her people, preferably her parents, so that we can land, give her to them, and get out again. This time in and out. No landing us in weird spots or other time frames. Clean and simple."

Storey took note of the determination in his jaw as he spoke. She wished it could be so easy.

The humming filled the air, this time louder, more intense as if the stylus was trying to actually transport them there himself. Storey looked over at Eric, one eyebrow raised. He shrugged. They both waited.

Tammy sidled closer, slipping her hand into Storey's hand. The two girls leaned against each other as they waited. She figured the stylus had to be communicating with the other styluses. Or it was recharging. Shrugging it off, she concentrated on the problems at hand. Time was running out.

"We'll need to change clothes," she said abruptly.

"Why? I haven't."

"You can't," she said wryly. "There aren't any other clothes here that will fit you."

An odd light flashed in his eyes and it matched the grin flashing across his face. Standing, he pulled a flat object out of a weird side pocket just below his knee of his ranger pants. "I forgot. They missed this when they emptied my pockets. Not that they'd have known its value anyway." At her frown, he laughed. "Exactly. You have no idea what this is, do you?"

She studied it for a moment. As it was too small to be anything but a plastic business card or credit card, she couldn't see any other purpose to it. Especially being as thin as it was. "Nope."

With a huge grin, he said, "Watch, you're gonna love this." He pulled a clip off the outside of his pants pocket. It was the size of a small cell phone. She'd thought it had been a decoration. Typical. He connected the clip to his small envelope looking thing, then tapped the small flat surface several times. Musical notes sounded, almost in a melody she recognized. Even Tammy came rushing over at the tune.

Then Eric held the small package slightly away from his body. The package, apparently unlocked by the music, swelled and reshaped into a large rectangle as if folded under pressure. By the time it stopped moving, the package was now several feet long and a good foot wide.

The process had taken less than a minute.

Her astonishment made him laugh. "If you tell me that there is a full change of clothes in there, I'm so going to get me one of those."

Eric laughed as he opened the package to pull out pants, a shirt and what looked like socks. "I've got several spares on me all the time."

She gasped. "And you didn't offer me the same thing?"

He said apologetically, "I never considered it. I wondered why you were putting all that stuff into your bag. But it's your dimension, your house, your system. I've been trying to learn how you do things here."

"I did that because I didn't have another choice," she snapped, exasperated. She stopped, a cool idea coming into her mind. "Does that only work with material?"

He frowned, not understanding.

"Could you do that to my sketchbooks, papers, food, anything?

"Everyone in my dimension carries things this way. And yes, we could carry blankets, clothing, sketchbooks. I don't know about food as I've never tried."

Storey bent and upended her bag of collected goodies. The mess rolled everywhere. "Go for it."

Eric gave her a shuttered look but bent obediently and separated the items into perishable and nonperishable. The nonperishable items he converted to a small bagful almost immediately. Once he had things sorted, he took the same cell phone thingy, clipped it to a corner of the bag, tapped several different spots, producing a different musical tune and the magic happened in reverse. While Storey watched in amazement, a long brown film stretched over the end of the stack and within seconds it had compressed and shrunken to a small envelope size.

Eric stood and held it out to her.

She studied it, turning it over and over, all the while shaking her head. "Wow. I don't know how much you can put into a package like this but my world needs this technology."

"It's tied to our codex technology. This way people can carry what they need to travel."

"Right." Her frown deepened. "So we can't have it. How can I open it without that little musical thingy? What's it called anyway?" She couldn't believe how fascinating and practical this system was. She so wanted one of those tools.

"It's a codin." He laughed lightly. "We all have them. Several in some cases."

"Is there a way to open it if we get separated?"

His grin flashed again. "I suspect the stylus would be able to open it for you if I'm not around."

"Except I need the sketchbook in here to communicate," she said in exasperation.

"Not quite. You seem to do fine even without paper. I wonder if there's a way for you to become telepathic with it?"

"Yes. I just don't know how yet." Unfortunately. "Can you do another of those little packages up? To hold spares of everything and another for food?"

Eric pulled another clip from his knee pocket and attached it to his codin.

Boy did she want to have that technology for herself. "Do you know how much easier it would be to travel if I could do that with all my stuff?"

"It has limits, but for the most part, it's a wonderful convenience."

She snorted. "Ya think? What's the limit for this type of thing?"

Eric assessed the food stacked in front of him. "I've only used it for packing clothing and personal items." He grinned sheepishly. "That spare has been in these pants for awhile now. We could have done this so much earlier, but honestly, your system worked so well, I never considered looking for an alternative."

What could she say to that? Nothing. With time marching against them, she quickly drew a portal to Paxton's lab while Eric packed clothing and food in separate parcels in case they were separated or captured again. In the packets Storey included two portals that they could use. The one they'd use to bring them home and the one to Paxton's lab.

Now, prepared with these, Storey had to admit the concept of going back with Tammy wasn't so daunting.

The deck was stacked in her favor for once.

"A
re you sure you want to leave before your parents get home?" Eric waited for her answer patiently.

She'd been warring with herself for the last ten minutes over that same issue. "Yeah. I can't even begin to explain you three being here." As much as she'd like to smooth things over and leave on a good note, how could she without bringing up more problems? She didn't even know this man who called himself her father. He might use the same name…but that didn't make him the same man. Which he obviously wasn't as he'd stuck around in this reality.

Making a sudden decision, she walked over to her desk and wrote a note on the pad of paper sitting there, reading it out as she wrote. "Sorry. I have to leave. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

Staring at the message for a long moment, she decided it would have to do. Hopefully she'd be back in time to ditch the note before they ever saw it.

She marched back over to where Tammy, holding Skorky tucked firmly under her arm with her hand in Eric's, waited for her. At Eric's questioning look, she shrugged. "I don't know what else to do."

His lopsided grin flashed. "It's pretty messed up, isn't it?"

"Ya think," she sniffed. "Do we know what we're doing this time? Do we need to meet with Paxton? Get another codex?" Eric frowned, considering. "It would be a good idea. If nothing else we should report in."

Storey glanced at Tammy. Paxton wouldn't be happy if she returned with them. "Before or after?"

He grimaced as he understood her meaning. "Before would be better, but afterward would be easier on Paxton."

"We can't forget the missing portals and codexes. A second team to retrieve those would be easier on us."

This time excitement lit Eric's face. "Now that would be awesome."

"I know." Still she felt a cautionary note was needed. "Do you have any idea what happened to your father?" She frowned and walked over to the pad of paper on her desk. "Stylus, please send a message to Paxton letting him know where we are and the problem we had of the time dimensional issue."

"He knows," she read out loud. "I've kept him informed." She shook her head. "Oh. Good, I guess. So he knows we're at my house with Tammy still?"

No. Telling him now.

Storey waited. "Could you also ask if Eric's father has been located?"

No sign of him yet.

Storey and Eric exchanged worried looks. "I don't know if I should be worried for you or happy for me," she said in a wry voice. "I don't want anything bad to happen to him, I just want to have him be nice to me. Or better yet, have nothing to do with me."

Eric bent his head to the paper, as if waiting for another immediate communication. "I know. I don't like this though. It's been days. There's no place he could go."

"Could he go to another dimension?"

"He'd be scared to come here, and the Louers, well, he was in a panic the one time I helped him and the others escape from there. I can't see him willingly going back."

"So where could he be?" Storey shook her head. "I'm an idiot. Stylus, where is the Councilman?"

She rolled her eyes at Eric. "How could we not have asked it?"

Humming filled the air. It fascinated her as the stylus had no source of power or speakers. "How can it make that noise?"

"Just another of the wonders of the stylus."

The humming stopped and Storey's hand jerked as it started writing. She closed her eyes, almost seeing the message in her mind. With a little practice she could probably get the message without needing paper. But to create portals she'd still need paper – at least she thought so. At the rate her skills and knowledge had developed, who knew?

The Councilman is not in Eric's dimension.

"Oh shit."

She stared at Eric in shock. "Stylus, which dimension is he in?"

The new Louer home.

Eric reached out a hand and gripped Storey's shoulder. "What? Is that really possible?"

"Stylus? How did the Councilman get over there?"

He was taken as a prisoner.

Storey closed her eyes. Her stomach sank. This conversation was not going to be good. "What? How?"

He contacted the Louers to have them take care of you. You escaped, so they snatched him instead.

Swallowing painfully at the hard truths, Storey asked, "Stylus, please relay this information to Paxton."

Eric stumbled back several feet to the window. Storey knew if the truth had hurt her, it had to have devastated him.

"Which group of Louers took him as prisoner? And how did he contact the Louers?"

The ones that grabbed Tammy. Paxton entered the new coordinates from Eric's codex into the database. The Councilman used those to program his codex.

Storey sighed and stared at Eric. So much for a quick in and out trip. "How could he possibly communicate with them?" Storey wondered aloud. "Then again, we didn't try to talk to them very much, did we? We judged their communication abilities based on Tammy."