Original Fiction: JACKED Book One, The Origin Dime Chronicles, Episode 10

In this episode, a hot Aedapt girl helps Jack escape Killer giant Cockroaches!

Jake was peering through cracks between the plaster laths back into the room where they guard stood.

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“No, we’re not that smart when we’re under. We can really only do what we hear them telling us to do.” Jake whispered, calmly as the big guard moved within inches of the wall, snorting. The guard turned, blasted a hole in the ceiling with his gun and charged back into the hall.

They heard him blasting the door of the next room open.

“We can’t stay here. I’m guessing you’ve got this one on a signal blocker and there’s not much time.”

The girl turned and ran to a corner, where an iron hand rail rose up out of the floor in a curve. She disappeared through the floor and as Jack followed, he found a narrow, spiraling stair that led below.

He lost his footing and slid down the stairs, narrowly missing the girl. She stood in the room below, with ear to the door that led into the hall.

Jake followed close behind. The girl with the violet eyes opened the door and stepped out into the hall with the awakened Nosher right behind her and Jack bringing up the rear. Jack had no idea what to do next, but the girl seemed to be in her element, and willing to help.

Hopefully, she was not leading them into more danger.

He followed her past one door, and into the darkened room where they had first started. It was empty, which could only mean one thing. The Noshers who had recently occupied it were upstairs right now with the ugly guard. They were looking for Jack and the others and would soon head back down.

“Shouldn’t we just get out of here?” Jack said. He stood with his back to the wall and the door opened a crack so that one eye could see down the hall toward the upper stairs.

“Not without these,” the girl walked to where the guard had been and pointed up at the weapons, suspended above. She ran a hand along the doorframe, “It ought to be along here somewhere.” She said.

“What is?” Jack hissed, shifting as her body pressed against his.

She ran her hand along the top of the doorframe. He froze; she smelled good. It had been a long time since a girl had gotten this close to him, junior prom, in fact. He did not have a lot of time for dating with his work schedule.

To top it off, the smell of burnt fries that clung to him even after an hour in the shower was hardly an aphrodisiac.

The girl put one hand on his chest and stood on tiptoe, pressing tight against him. “Oh, don’t kid yourself; you just happened to be in my way.” She laughed, scornfully, and pressed a hidden button at the top right corner of the door. Weapons rained down with a crash, and she quickly chose two handguns, handing one to Jack.

She pressed the button again, and the remaining weapons zipped back up into position. Jack had to grip the gun in his hand firmly to keep it from joining them.

“Electro magnet,” she said and opened the door, moving out, weapon first.

“I knew that,” Jack said. He flattened himself against the hallway wall, like a TV detective. The magnet had occurred to him, but in his addled state, he had not really grasped the concept. Mostly he just did not like the idea of her being smarter than he was.

“Keep up” he hissed to Jake, who had managed to grab a revolver.
The three moved quickly down the hall and turned toward the front door. The two roaches Jack had seen earlier, peered out from either side.

They had weapons leveled in his direction.

The girl crouched and moved forward as if she were still a Nosher. It worked. Jack followed suit, and Jake did his best. His human consciousness was getting stronger by the minute.

He had even started getting color back in his cheeks, and Jack was beginning to notice that the man seemed oddly familiar, the more human he became. “Could be a side effect of this Nosher thinking," he guessed.

“They're right behind us,” the girl hissed to one of the roaches. “Blast the next thing that comes down those stairs, you got me?”

The bug clicked and hissed.

Jack assumed it was a yes, because the two giant insects moved in and took up positions on either side of the hall.

Jack bolted out the door and was relieved to see the Rabbit zip up just in time. Phineas sat behind the wheel, and the Things were nowhere in sight. Behind them, they heard the roaches open fire, and then a huge blast echoed down the hall.

A gust of wind barreled out the door, raining cockroach guts over the three escaping figures. Jake stumbled, and Jack picked him up and shoved him into the back seat of the Rabbit.

He turned back to let the girl in, but she was gone. Phineas stood up on the running board, slapping the roof of the vehicle furiously. “Get in the car! Let’s go man!”

By the time Jack had slid into the passenger seat, Phineas had the Rabbit patching out. They were up to top speed in a matter of seconds.

“Find a me a safe dime!” Phineas yelled, standing as he worked the pedals and tried to see over the steering wheel at the same time.

“What?” Jack yelled over the whine of the engine.

“Dime, a dimension, get us out of here.” Phineas pleaded.

Jack opened the glove compartment and fiddled with the controls, but nothing happened.

“Damn, guess I have to do everything, Phineas grumbled, “here, take the wheel.”

The Leprechaun ducked under Jack’s arms as he grabbed the steering wheel from his position in the passenger’s seat.

Phineas leaned across the stick shift, his feet working the pedals as he started manipulating the glovebox controls. Jack’s view through the windshield changed every few seconds. It was making steering from the passenger’s seat even more of a challenge.

Meanwhile, Jake hunkered down in the back seat. From where Jack sat, he was not looking so good. He wondered how much time they had left.

Jack swerved to miss a slow-moving vehicle that had just appeared as they shifted dimensions. Finally, Phineas settled for one that put them on a narrow two-lane country road.

The town disappeared, replaced by rows of fences. Phineas braked and turned off onto the shoulder of the road, rolling to a stop.

Jack’s heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Meanwhile, Jake sounded like he was winding up in the back seat, his voice rolling into a high-pitched whine, perforated with short puffs of breath, like a woman in labor on a late-night sitcom.

“You okay, back there?” Jack asked, climbing out onto the shoulder.

Jake launched himself out of the back seat, landed face down in a shallow ditch, and promptly lost the entire contents of his stomach in a single

“ralph”.

Jack turned away, pulling his elbow up over his nose to avoid the horrendous smell of vomit. Meanwhile, Phineas dove around the hood of the car and into the ditch, pawing through the puke as if he was panning for gold.

A few seconds later, he came up for air, triumphantly holding the thumb drive.

He stood, wiping his hands on Jake’s jacket, and then looked at his watch. “It’s past time,” He said, pulling the transmitter from the man’s neck. Jake lolled into the ditch; his eyes fluttered, and Phineas shoved Jack toward the driver’s seat.

“Let’s go. We don’t want to be here when they come to collect him.” He said, climbing into the passenger’s seat.

Will Jake see the girl again? What about his Nosher friend, what becomes of him? Will they ever get the smell out of the ALICE? Stay tuned!

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