Week 29.1 – The Cluster

Previously: Twain was preparing to travel through time and seduce Yi Fan when a woman in a Chinese dress tried to attack. And as he was throwing the juice into the woman’s face, Twain realized the woman was actually Digger. And now…

This was ridiculous, Twain thought as the woman faded from sight. That couldn’t have been Digger. He’d left Digger with no powers, no money and no identification half a world away. He couldn’t possibly be here now.

Beyond the spot where Digger had disappeared, Twain saw a Chinese man walking toward him wearing some sort of odd powder-blue vest. As he drew closer, Twain realized that the vest was the outer skin of the car he had seen in the street an hour earlier, on his way to buy the juice, somehow shaped to the man’s torso. “You’re trespassing,” Twain shouted in Mandarin, hoping his uniform might intimidate the intruder. “State your business.”

“Is your name Twain, dude?” the man asked in English without a trace of Chinese accent.

This was getting worse every second. Twain didn’t even try talking further, but simply drew the high-powered taser from the rear waistband of his pants and shot the man in the thigh. The fellow looked down at the electrodes on their almost invisible wires as if he couldn’t quite believe they were quite so close to his balls. He opened his mouth to protest, and Twain hit the button for the ultra-high-discharge capacitor.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”] Twain…simply drew the high-powered taser from the rear waistband of his pants and shot the man in the thigh. The fellow looked down at the electrodes on their almost invisible wires as if he couldn’t quite believe they were quite so close to his balls…[/blockquote]There was a loud pop and a smell of burning. The man writhed and stiffened and fell to the ground. He shivered and shook as if having a seizure.

***

Digger stumbled forward through the rushing sound that was becoming all too familiar to him, and when he looked up, he was outside the damn flea market again. He realized now that he was the Chinese woman who’d helped him get back to the present on his last trip to the past. He wondered if maybe every single person in the building might be him on successive trips to the past when he ran into a man wearing a black leather coat. “Sorry,” Digger said, almost afraid to look at the man’s face, thinking he might see his own.

But he just couldn’t help himself. He met the man’s eyes and gasped.

***

Twain pulled a zip-tie from an inside jacket pocket–Biryukov had apparently carried some at all times–and bent to bind the man’s hands before he could recover from the effect of the taser. The man’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed Twain’s wrist in a super-strong grip. “Boy, did you pick the wrong guy to use that on,” he said, and then Twain was shocked into unconsciousness.

***

Cole Chen stood and plucked the barbed taser darts from his pants leg. He was almost disappointed at how easy everything had been. First, Digger had spotted the man just wandering the streets as they’d been standing by their car, argiung over how best to proceed. And then this Twain fellow had been no challenge at all. Cole bent to secure Twain’s hands with the dropped zip tie when something growled behind him.

He was hit from behind and flew forward to smash through the wall of the mansion.

Well, I think I know who that is. Nothing’s ever easy, is it? And what’s up with the guy in the black leather? Don’t miss tomorrow’s thrill-packed episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…