She had just left Dr. Connor’s home and was told by a neighbor he would be at this bar every Thursday night. She slowly shook her head as she looked around. Most of the people present were college age or old age. Some even looked underage. The music was loud and the bright flashing lights lit up the dance floor and made the building a beacon next to the shore line. Jillian decided that the huge crowd was drawn to the establishment like insects to a bright light. As she looked around her toe was unconsciously moving to the beat of the music.
A man standing at a table talking to a group of students saw her enter and did a double take. Women that beautiful just don’t appear very often in real life. He looked her over and judged her to be just under six feet tall with a figure that most movie goddesses would die to have. Even the fatigues she was wearing couldn’t hide it. Her long black hair hung to the small of her back and her blue eyes were bright. Her face and complexion were perfect. She was late twenties or early thirties. What was someone like her doing in the military? Perhaps, she was on leave and was looking for a hot night on the town. If so, he was just the one to give it to her. He decided to make his move quickly before the rest of the herd saw her and moved in.
He started pushing through the crowd just as two Alpha Agents stepped through the entrance and stood directly behind her. They had on their camouflage armor and were carrying their guns. Their face lens was down and he knew they were scanning the crowd. He changed his route slightly, looked away, and continued walking past the trio and out the front door. He immediately saw that the crowd waiting to enter had disappeared along with the doorman. Once outside he turned right and jogged away. The presence of fully armored Alphas meant something was going down and he wasn’t hanging around to find out what it was. That lady was here on military business and someone was probably going to get hurt. He wasn’t going to let it be him. He felt sorry for whoever they were looking for.
One of the Agents glanced at him as he passed and had his identity confirmed in the special lens he was wearing, “Jamal Lundquist, possible drug dealer, no arrests, and Class D security risk.” He thought about detaining the departing man but decided his current commander wouldn’t like him to be distracted from their assignment. He glanced at his partner and saw he had also seen the report, but was not going to respond to it. He nodded and they both began surveying the room. Now where was Dr. Connor? He set his search for the file picture in his scanner and started looking around the room.
Jillian stood there and waited. She looked around the room for the young man she had seen earlier at the Patent Board, but couldn’t see him. There were just too many people to see much of anything. She waited for one of the Alphas to find him. Their systems were designed to find someone in crowded places. After a minute she heard Jeff say on her communicator over the noise, “He’s on the far end of dance floor, Sir.”
Jillian looked across the huge dance floor, and after a few moments said, “Which one is he?”
Jeff nodded toward the far back corner, “He’s the one being held up by the blonde with her back to us. He’s hard to see because he’s slumped over and she’s standing taller than he is.”
Jillian moved to her right, pushed a drunk to the side, and saw him. A well endowed blonde in a micro bikini was holding Christopher up as he slumped against her shoulder while attempting to move his feet. The blonde was a real looker, and most of the men at the bar were turned around in their chairs staring at the slow moving couple. The music they were dancing to boomed out a moderately fast beat, but he looked like he was only capable of moving no faster than a funeral dirge. Without the support of the blonde, he would have probably been on the floor. The blonde was about five feet ten inches tall, and was quite a sight. Her hair was tied in a pony tail on the left side of her head that hung just below her shoulders, and she looked like a vision from an underwear fashion show. She felt disgust. Obviously the Professor took advantage of his students.
Jillian shook her head and sighed, “Let’s go see if I can get him to leave quietly.” Jeff nodded and moved to the right of the bar while Bob moved left. As they circled around the bar and out on the dance floor, everyone saw them pass and beat a hasty retreat out of the establishment. Like Jamal, they all knew armed Alphas in full armor meant trouble. It looked a flash flood of humanity flowing out of the building as they moved through the crowd.
Jillian moved through the crush of humanity surrounding the bar and walked out toward the dance floor. She forced her way onto the crowded floor and had already told six men, “No!” as they asked her to dance. She pushed her way up to the blonde and tapped her on the shoulder, “Do you mind if I cut in?”
The blonde’s bikini had less material than three napkins on the bar, and she was quite oblivious to the stares directed toward her. There wasn’t much left to one’s imagination, and she was pressed up tight to Doctor Connor. The blonde looked at Jillian, smiled, and said sweetly, “Back off, honey. This one’s mine. Go find your own.”
The young man she had seen earlier that day looked up and said, “Yeth, this one is herzzz.” He squinted and looked at Jillian and said, “Why arth the two of youz staring at, at ,at me?”
Jillian walked around and took out her badge, then put it in front of the blonde’s face where she could see it, “Are you sure you aren’t going to let me cut in?”
The blonde glanced quickly past Jillian and saw the two armored Alpha Agents walking up in full combat gear staring at her. She also noticed both the dance floor and the bar were now empty. She and Dr. Connor and the loud playing music were the only ones remaining besides the three that had just walked up. She decided it was time to disappear along with everyone else, including the three bartenders that had already lifted in their skimmers. She lifted Christopher’s arms off her shoulders and Jillian stepped in and caught him before he hit the floor. The blonde stared at the Alphas as she moved slowly past them. They briefly glanced at her, as she ran out the front door. Jeff listened to his readout, “Dolly Sierra, doctorate, ancient languages, chemistry, physics and Citizen of Australia.” He glanced over his shoulder at the blonde as she left. Wow, who would have thought it? He stepped up next to Jillian and the Professor.
Christopher watched his former dance partner moving quickly toward the exit and then looked at Jillian, “Was ith somethin I said?”
Jillian smelled the alcohol and leaned back, shaking her head, “No, she probably didn’t want to risk being incinerated if you had breathed on one of those tiki-lanterns.”
He looked at the lantern and laughed, “She would…wouldn….wouldn’t. I tried it already.” Then he laughed out loud.
“Are you Christopher Connor?”
“I think I am. Who’s askin?”
Jillian smiled and said, “Will you come with me? I have something I want to show you.”
Christopher leaned back and looked at Jillian, “Well…look at you. You must be burning up in all those clo, cloot, cloothes. I’d love to see more but, No! I don’t want to miss my dance. Do you mind if I lead?”
Jillian leaned back again and shook her head and sighed, “Ok, have it your way.” She nodded to Jeff, and the two Alpha Agents came forward on each side of Christopher, taking his arms off Jillian, and held him upright.
Jeff said, “Say good-night.”
Christopher smiled and said, “Is it bedtime?”
Bob shot him with a stunner and said, “Yes.”
The two agents held on to the unconscious young man to prevent his fall, and carried him out of the building. Jillian followed, and hoped Doctor Connor was not a drunk. That’s all she freaking needed. There were already too many problems to solve on the project and a drunk wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. She pulled her remote and looked at the unconscious Professor with disgust on her face, “Take him to the center and put him in the clinic. See if Ben can sober him up.”
Jeff and Bob carried the Professor outside and lowered the unconscious young man into a large military vehicle that had just dropped to the street, “Yes, Sir. We’ll take him in the carrier.”
“Notify me as soon as he’s alert.”
Jeff nodded, saluted, and moved forward and sat in the pilot’s seat. Bob strapped Dr. Connor in and Jillian watched as the carrier lifted, rotated, and accelerated over the buildings lining the street. She sighed and punched her remote control.
The Blonde stood on the other side of the street in the shadows and watched the Alphas leave. She immediately turned on her communicator and began talking.
Jillian moved back as her military skimmer lowered from five thousand feet above the street. She looked around and saw that the huge crowd waiting to get in had disappeared. Alphas were always bad for business. She sighed and knew the owners were going to sue for the loss of revenue. The project would probably have to pay it because they were not there apprehending a criminal or preventing a crime. She climbed in the skimmer and said, “Take me to the port.” The small craft lifted and flew in the opposite direction from the two Alpha Agents. She didn’t want to take the Alphas but now she was glad she did. The Professor was too inebriated to discuss anything rationally. The meeting was scheduled and she needed him present to answer questions. She would just have to handle the money demanded by the bar through Arnold. Jillian hoped she was not placing false hopes in Doctor Connor because of her desperation. She knew, at this moment, he was her only chance of success. She shook her head and decided to worry about it later.
The skimmer climbed through the heavy traffic overhead and rose above it to twenty thousand feet. It was a cloudless night and the city was beautiful below and sprawled as far as she could see. The street lights looked like thousands of campfires on the ground and the heavy traffic between her and the streets reminded her of fireflies chasing each other across the sky.
The skimmer banked right and she saw the spaceport ahead. She took the car off auto and slowed to two hundred miles per hour. She was heading toward a giant building located at the far end of the field. As she moved lower she saw a space shuttle lift from the far end of the space port lighting up the night as it left to deliver supplies for the colony on Mars. Another shuttle was landing on the far runway and she heard the sonic boom as it approached. She sighed and wondered if all of this was still going to be here in ten years.
Christopher refused to open his eyes anticipating the excruciating pain that’s usually associated with one of his major drinking binges. He gritted his teeth, slowly opened one eye and then both eyes and squinted at the lights overhead and waited for the on rush of pain, but felt normal. Wait a minute, he didn’t have ceiling lights!
“You’re wondering about the hangover?”
Chris turned his head to his right and saw a man in a white jacket sitting beside him on a stool. He had salt and pepper hair and looked to be fortyish. He was also built like an athlete. “Actually, I was realizing I don’t have lights on my ceiling. If you’re a doctor, I must have really tied one on last night. I’m not at home.”
“Well, yes, yes, and no.”
“You’re a doctor, I tied one on, and I’m not at home?”
“Yes, you did. I’m Doctor Ben Keenan, and I’ve been charged with getting you back to normal as quickly as possible. I think you’ll find your motor functions are working properly. Why don’t you try to stand up?”
Chris sat up and put his legs on the floor. He saw he had been lying on a gurney in an area that’s normally found inside an emergency room. He looked around and noticed the blood pressure module on the wall as well as the various needles and sponges on the table next to the doctor. He stood and felt fine. He smiled, “How long have I been here, Doc.?”
“About six hours.”
Chris lowered his head and stared at the Doctor, “There’s no way I could have metabolized all that alcohol that quickly.”
“You didn’t; I gave you a shot to remove it from your system. I’ve already received a thank you card from your heart and liver. They requested I have a long talk with you about your drinking habits.”
Chris smiled, “I have got to have some of whatever you gave me for medicinal purposes. I know of numerous occasions I could have partied a lot longer if I had something like that. It’s hard to party from the floor.”
“Sorry, it’s reserved only for the military.”
Chris tensed up. He quickly looked around and noticed through the curtain around his gurney that soldiers were passing outside the cubicle, “Is this a military facility?”
“Relax, you’re a civilian.”
“But is it military?”
“Yes, it is.”
“How did I get here?”
“Two Alpha Agents stunned you and brought you here. It seems you wanted to dance some more, even though you just really weren’t up to the task. Gravity was about to claim you.”
Chris thought hard and tried to remember what happened. “The last thing I remember was dancing with Dolly.” Chris looked at Ben and smiled, “You should see Dolly.”
“I have. One of the Agents shared his recording and you’re right; she’s something to behold.”
“You have no idea, Doc. She’s also a Suma Cum Laude graduate of Cal Tech.”
“What’s she doing with you?”
Chris shook his head, “I have no idea.”
“Is she one of your students?”
Chris smiled, “Perhaps.”
“Well, there you go. It seems things haven’t changed much since medical school. The professors always did better with women than us peons.”
Chris smiled, “No, no, Doctor! You have it all wrong. She likes me for my cooking.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed and he leaned in with a small smile, “Now Mr. Connor, you know as well as I do that you don’t even have a stove in your home.”
Chris’ smile disappeared and he stared at the Doctor, “How do you know that?”
“The Agent’s video. They went there to fetch you before going to the bar.”
Chris looked around and began to feel nervous, “Am I free to go?”
“Well, not really. We have someone who wants to discuss some issues with you, and they won’t arrive for another hour. Why don’t we go to the cafeteria and you can cook us something while we wait?”