Original Fiction, CAR JACKED Book 2 of The Origin Dime Chronicles, Episode 2, Interdimensional roadtrip

In this episode, Jack is headed off to an interdimensional prison, with our favorite leprechaun to rescue a transdimensional bank robber!

***If you missed the first episode, find it here. ***

“Jack?” Someone was whispering. Where were they? He couldn’t tell. “Jack, wake up!” He was drowning; he opened his eyes and blew out. The voice had doused him with water, but Jack saw no one. “Hey, stupid, down here!”
Jack glanced down to see a red bearded man with a rather sinister looking knife.

The leprechaun smiled.

“Have you out of here in no time.” Phineas quickly cut through the zip ties, and Jack stood. His head spun, and he had to sit back down before he fell. His gaze went to the now empty chair across the room.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“The gate keeper?” Phineas asked. “In the next room making tea, she’ll be right as a gold pocket watch in no time. That’s one tough kitty.”

“No, not her.” But Jack could not remember the girl’s name. He could see her face, but nothing came. He felt the back of his head, which was throbbing. A lump the size of a golf ball was rising at the top and something gummy matted his hair below it. He must have been hit in the head. No wonder he couldn’t think straight. What was her name?

“The girl?” Phineas asked.

Jack smiled, which hurt, bad! “Yeah, her, where is she?”

“Not here, long gone, the gate keeper told me.” Phineas said.

Agnes came through the door with three styrofoam cups and a small tray of cookies.

It seemed an odd time to be having tea. Nevertheless, Jack had to admit the warm liquid seemed to be helping. After a few sips, his head stopped throbbing. Agnes brought a first-aid kit and cleaned Jack’s wound.

“They took the girl,” Agnes said, in a voice that was softer than her fierce demeanor indicated. “Not much else I can do with this lump. I suspect you’ll live.”

Jack smiled again, prepared to wince. The tea had done its job. His head no longer hurt, which was a vast improvement. He managed to sit still as she finished cleaning the cut.

Jack stood and moved toward the door. He was shaky at best.

“Sit down, young man. You’re in no condition to go rushing out of here,” Agnes directed. She pushed him back to the chair, and he sat.

“We have to save Madison,” Jack said. He took a sip of tea, wincing.

“They’re going to kill her.”

“And you’ll kill yourself if you go crashing around out there right now. I think you’ve got a concussion.” Agnes frowned.

“Besides,” Phineas said. “They won’t kill her, not when there’s a chance to assimilate an Aedapt into the nosher ranks. They want her alive for bigger reasons than you or I do.”

Jack looked at Phineas. “How did you get here?”

“I called him,” Agnes said. “We knew you were coming, so when the noshers started knocking on my door, I barricaded myself in and called A.N.G.E.L. headquarters. They sent Phineas.”

Jack looked puzzled, “Why, are you an Angel? I can’t see your wings.” Jack tapped his ear to access the Beans, the dimensional filtering device that allowed him to view multiple dimensions from a single location.

He gave up after two taps. Changing dimensional frequencies had made the pain come back fiercely.

“No, but since they knew what the toll was, they sent me,” Phineas smiled.

“How’d you get past all the noshers? Did you take them out?” Jack asked.

“No,” said Phineas. “I waited until they were all out front, then came through the dog door in the back. Pretty handy trick, pays to be small.”

“So, you know this Hollofield guy?” Jack asked

Phineas grimaced. “You might say,” he said.

Jack accepted more tea and a cookie. He was beginning to feel more like himself.

“Hollofield runs his own crew. We were rivals, you might say. But, I have a score to settle with this wee bastard.” Phineas said.

“Score?” Jack was intrigued.

Phineas swore, “He’s the one that did the job that got me sent up, framed me for it and got away with the gold.”

Jack stood, without the room tilting. That had to be a good sign. “What are we waiting for?” He headed out through the door and stopped when he reached the spot where the Rabbit should have been waiting. It wasn’t. Jack felt his pocket.

The keys were gone. “Damn, they stole ALICE!”

Jack stood looking at the spot where the white Volkswagen Rabbit had most recently been parked, when he and Madison had arrived at the tollbooth. There was no sign of it now, except for some faint tire tracks in the dust on the pavement.

“It’s just gone,” Jack said, deflating. He felt as if the one bit of resolve he had maintained to this point had been in the glove compartment of that car.

“I was about to say as much when you stormed out,” Phineas said. He was standing on the small stoop that led into the tollbooth.

He finished his tea, mopped his mustache on a napkin, and handed the cup and napkin to Agnes. He kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll be okay here alone?” he asked.

His hands rested on her shoulders that were only a little higher than his own.

“I’ll be fine. You boys run along and save that girl and stop those bastards before it’s too late. If I had had my pistol on me, they never would have taken me. Got it now. If they come back this way, I’ll be ready for them,” she said, with a smile.

“Well, then laddie, come this way. I have some alternative transportation around the back.”

Jack walked around the corner expecting to see another car. What he saw instead almost made him laugh. A bright orange motor scooter, complete with sidecar, sat parked near the back wall of the tollbooth.

“Don’t laugh yet, son. You’re in the sidecar. Here, wear this.” He handed Jack a black helmet. Jack put it on and adjusted the strap.

“No offense, Phineas, but Madison’s life is at stake and this,” Jack pointed at the scooter, “Is not something you take when you’re in a hurry.”

“Oh, that, well, see, where we are exists outside of the continuum. While you’re down here, there’s no time passing from the outside, so, I think we’re okay. They’ll really have no idea how long it’s taken.”

Jack climbed into the sidecar. Phineas fired up the bike and they headed off down a road that led away from the back of the tollbooth. They gradually picked up speed. “Hold on, boy!” Phineas yelled over the noise of the engine and the wind.

Jack did.

It seemed at least an hour before Jack could feel his hands again after their ride. The scooter had vibrated violently, and Jack gripped the edge of the sidecar cockpit fiercely with both hands to maintain his seat.

Not to mention, he was convinced that sitting folded into the sidecar had permanently cricked his back. They were back in the open air, in a place that looked like Jack’s dimension, but felt slightly off.

“Feel that queer feeling in your spine?” Phineas asked. “That’s how you know when you’re in a dimension where you don’t quite belong and your other self is nearby.”

Jack looked around, nervously.

“What’s the matter boy? You’re about as jumpy as a pig in a bacon factory!” Phineas laughed.

“My Doppelganger is somewhere nearby. Shouldn’t I be nervous? If we meet, doesn’t one of us cease to exist?”

“Well, that is a common misconception.” Phineas replied, approaching the small building they stopped outside of; it looked like a bar.

“ You’ve watched one too many time travel movies. That part of the theory only applies to models of yourself from another time in the same dimension.”

Jack relaxed a little. “So, what are we doing here?”

“We’re going to meet ourselves,” Phineas said.