Broken Protocols (3 page)

T
hey knew her
name. Dani sank lower in the open closet she’d hidden in as the painful litany of her failed life washed over her. What a horrible dissection of her life. Surely it hadn’t been that bad? Besides, it’s not as if her life was over. She could achieve greatness yet. Couldn’t she?

“It’s not that simple, Milo.”

Dani heard the discussion despite the doors being opened and closed.

The deeper of the two voices spoke again, “She has reasons for what happened in her life. Sure, she might be up for a move a couple centuries into the future. She might consider it an adventure. She might consider it an improvement on her old world. But you didn’t ask her. You didn’t give her a choice, and that makes all the difference. You just yanked her out of her old life. For all you know, she might have a major plan about to come to fruition and you stole that from her.”

“I did not,” Milo protested. “I did my research, Levi. I’m not an idiot. She had nothing. She was nothing. She would have become nothing. Now she is something – special.”

Her heart squeezing tight, she listened to Levi and Milo discuss her life. As if they knew her. As if they knew everything about her. And she meant everything.

“And where in her psych profile, Milo, did it say she’d be up for a complete shock like this?”

“Ahh…” Milo stuttered.

Levi’s voice dropped to an ominous level. “You didn’t get a psych profile, did you?”

“Well, it’s not so easy. They didn’t do them regularly back then. They were quite primitive, remember?”

Levi snorted.

Dani’s chest locked tight. A couple centuries into the future? They were kidding – right? But from what she’d seen outside before instinct had her spinning around and returning to the one space she knew – this room – it was not Vancouver. At least not Vancouver as she’d known it. And she’d lived there all her life. Her city was gone. Her apartment building was gone. Her living room was gone.

She squeezed Charmin tighter against her chest and buried her face against his thick orange fur. Thank heavens he was safe with her. The two of them could have gotten blown up in the blast. “You’re all I have left,” she whispered. And got the next biggest shock of her life.

“Hey. What do you mean all?” Charmin said, twisting in her arms, his paw reaching out to bat her chest. “You make it sound like I’m nothing. And I’m a whole lot more than nothing.”

Dani reared back and stared into her beloved cat’s glowering eyes. She shuddered and closed her eyes briefly. “Charmin?” she asked cautiously. “Is that you?”

No, it can’t be. She felt stupid for even asking the question. There was no way her cat could talk. Then again, there was no way she’d been yanked two centuries into the future either. She dropped her head back. She was losing it. Tears gathered in her eyes. Why her? All she’d ever wanted was to be happy.

Questions rippled through her mind. Terrifying her. Making her heart stall then race like she was being chased. She squeezed her eyes shut again. One tear rolled down her cheek. She turned her head to wipe her face on her sleeve. She needed some normality here. Something real she could grab and hang on to. She took a deep breath and whispered, “Please, Charmin, don’t tell me you can talk.”

And oh God…he actually answered her.

In a deep voice unlike anything she’d ever heard before, Charmin said, “I could always talk. Since when did you learn?”

She swallowed, opened her eyes, and stared down at her best friend. And found find him staring at her, his face only inches from hers, with a puzzled look in his eyes. Such a human look in that gaze. Such a human-sounding voice.

Except the claws in her flesh were all feline.

Her mouth dropped open, and she shook her head in denial. “Not possible. It’s not possible.”

“Well, it’s not probable. I figured you were too primitive, too underdeveloped to learn such a skill.” He brightened, that wide mouth twisting up into a grin. “But you surprised me. You actually learned to talk.”

At last she understood.

She was crazy.

She’d finally turned some invisible corner into a complete fantasy world in her mind. She’d always wanted to be able to talk to animals. It had been a secret dream ever since she was a little girl. Obviously, reality had become too much and she’d retreated to her childhood state. It was almost a relief in a way. To have an explanation for this insanity.

It was either that or she was having a crazy dream. And that was all too possible. Not to mention being a better option.

She beamed at her cat. “I’m going to wake up soon and this will be just a happy memory.”

“I wish I was dreaming.” Charmin snorted. “This little room is nice and cozy and all, but where is the couch? I need my nap.”

“Sleep? You need to sleep?” She shook her head, staring around the tiny closet. “I was trying to get ready to go out on a date.”

“Yeah, great.” Charmin gave a jaw-splitting yawn before tucking into her shoulder. “Who needs a date? Well, okay, you do, but really, I need my beauty sleep.” And he closed his eyes.

She stared down at her cat and whispered, “Please let this be a bad dream. And please let me wake up soon and find everything back to normal.”

“I hope so,” Charmin muttered, “because you forgot to feed me dinner before we time-travelled.”

At the words time-travelled, she forgot to breathe again. “Don’t say that,” she cried.

Suddenly, the door opened. The same two men peered in, but the green Mohawk, so large and long, was all she could focus on.

A scream caught in the back of her throat. But no sound came out.

“Aha. There you are,” said the owner of the Mohawk, Milo, if she’d gotten the names right. “And who were you talking to?”

She wanted to fight. Wanted to kick them both in the teeth so hard they’d never eat again. The older brother, Levi, according to what she’d heard – and not Lawrence as she’d initially thought – peered around the green hair. This close, she could see he looked very similar to Lawrence but there was something younger, cleaner about his features. And maybe nicer. Lawrence had gained a seedy look to his cheeks and a perpetual smirk to his eyes.

As if he was always one up on you.

Which, in her case, he had been. And if Levi wasn’t Lawrence, she had just smacked a complete stranger.

Damn.

She risked a look at Charmin, saw the feline smirk as if to say ‘Uh oh, now you’re in trouble’, and shuddered. In a low voice, she said, “You can bite them in the balls while I run.”

“Not happening.” And damn if Charmin’s voice didn’t drop low to match hers.

Levi reached down and yanked her to her feet. She tugged her arm back, climbing out of her hiding spot on her own. She shot him a dark look. “You don’t have to hurt me.”

He retreated instantly, his hands out in front of him apologetically. “Look, I’m sorry. We’re not going to hurt you. Please. Let’s go sit down and we’ll explain everything.”

She raised one eyebrow and proceeded to repeat everything she’d heard them say. Their eyebrows shot up. She added, “As you can tell, I can hear just fine. Now I want you to tell me how the hell you’re going to fix this.” She glared at Milo. “I want to go home.”

Milo jumped forward, his face earnest and proud at the same time. “See, that’s the thing. We can’t. That’s the beauty of this technology. It can’t be reversed.”

“And that’s beautiful?” she asked ominously, her heart and mind screaming their protests in sync. “How do you figure?”

While she waited, she realized the men were guiding her into a glass cube she hadn’t noticed in the dark room. She could barely see her surroundings, but it looked like a futuristic type of office with huge wall screens she’d never seen before. And some kind of center console. The screen looked kind of see through and had all those weird colors. She couldn’t tell from her position.

Once inside, she sank into the deepest corner of the cube to avoid their touch, holding Charmin tight. He was her one link to normalcy. He stared up at her and opened his mouth.

She slapped a hand over it and glared at him. And realized that if Charmin could talk – there was nothing normal left.

Trying to process the situation faster, she studied the men, waiting for something to happen. Levi pushed something on his wrist and the cube took off. She shrieked, reaching out a hand instinctively to steady herself, only to find the ride smooth and quiet.

She couldn’t help but be reminded of the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story. Except this wasn’t likely to have a happy ending. As the glass cube swept around corners, she realized it wasn’t on rails. In fact, it didn’t appear to be attached to anything. She gasped and squeezed her eyes closed. “Where did the ground go?” she whispered.

“It’s there. Below us.”

She peeked through her closed eyelashes to see the bottom of the glass cube and nothing else. Just a swirling whiteness – as if they were in the middle of a cloud. Her mind spun, grasping for any reasonable explanation – and came up empty. She fell back against the glass, hyperventilating. “Oh, this is not good. This is so not good.”

Milo explained, “It’s just a modern elevator.”

That didn’t deserve a response. His idea of a modern elevator and hers were miles apart. She shifted Charmin in her grasp but dared not loosen her hold. Not that there was any chance of dropping him with the way his claws dug into her arms. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d drawn blood. If she were unlucky, she’d be dripping blood down onto their glass floor.

The elevator changed directions again, sending her lurching sideways. Oh shit oh shit. She felt the beads of sweat rise on her forehead.

“It’s going to be fine,” Milo said with a wide grin. “We’re perfectly safe.”

At the end of his words, the glass box came to a complete stop. And it dissolved around them. As in here one minute and gone the next. The men exited – if there was a cube to exit. They’d barely travelled. It almost looked like the same building – or maybe the same set of buildings? There’d been no sign of the outside world at all.

She straightened, took one step in their direction and without warning, her stomach heaved.

*

“Oh yucky. That’s
so…yucky.” Milo danced away from her, his face a picture of morbid fascination. “I’m calling someone to come clean that up.”

“Fine, but let’s not be here when they arrive.” Levi knelt by the woman’s side, trying to ignore the reek from the mess at his feet. Sweat had beaded on Dani’s forehead, at least that’s the name he thought Milo had called her, and her color had gone pasty gray. Probably a delayed reaction. Rushing forward a few hundred years had to be tough on the stomach, if not the rest of her. That she could even walk and talk and…look half as sexy as she did was amazing. And he shouldn’t be noticing. Now she’d curled into a small ball, her slim frame rocking back and forth. The massive furry critter in her arms was making a horrific howling sound that set his nerves on edge. He might have sympathy for her, but that animal…

Through the noise, he heard her whispering into the animal’s fur, “It’s okay, Charmin. It’s going to be okay, baby.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but you are right. It will be okay,” Levi said, hoping he wasn’t lying to the poor woman, “but there is no way I can agree with you calling that…that thing baby.”

And damn if that furry thing didn’t rear back and glare at him. As if it heard and understood.

Dani froze, lifted her head to stare at him, and then she did something that completely disarmed him.

She started to giggle.

D
ani couldn’t stop
giggling. She tried, but laughter came in never ending waves. She had to stop. If she didn’t, they’d turn into tears soon. And that would be bad news. For everyone.

“Oh brother. What an ass,” said Charmin in that low guttural whisper. “You can pass on this one.”

Her laughter rolled out freely. She caught sight of the two men and the combined shocked looks on their faces. They might have managed to toss her forward a couple hundred years, but she’d managed to shock them. And she planned on keeping them off balance.