Incursion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Incursion, Book 2 in The Narrows of Time Series

  3 Free Books

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  3 Free Books

  More Books and Free Stuff

  A Note From The Author

  About the Author

  INCURSION

  The Narrows of Time Series: Book #2

  Written by Jay J. Falconer

  www.JayFalconer.com

  www.Facebook.com/NarrowsOfTime

  Published 2014 by BEAR DOWN PUBLISHING

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9840011-0-1 ISBN-10: 0984001107

  Publication Date: April 20, 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or business establishments or organizations, actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2014 by Jay J. Falconer

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author (Jay J. Falconer) except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, publicity mentions, book/author recommendations, or announcements.

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  ONE

  Heaven is waiting with a bloody meat cleaver.

  That’s what Lucas Ramsay figured the undertaker would write on his tombstone as he walked to the front of the mahogany chair where his latest prisoner sat bound and bleeding. He lifted the man’s head, holding it firm with his left hand. He focused on the target, pulled his right arm back and let loose another punch, hammering the dark-skinned man on the jaw. The captive’s head snapped to the right, sending the man’s weight and a stream of blood flying as he flipped over sideways in the chair. He lay motionless on the basement floor, though his chest was still heaving.

  Lucas shook his palm, flexing his fingers to dissipate the throbbing from the last blow. It worked. He bent down and grabbed the crook of the man’s arm, then wedged his foot under the leg of the chair. He leaned back, pulling Jenkins and the chair back into a sitting position, thanks in part to the coil of rope still doing its job. Jenkins’ head rolled and then slumped, pressing his chin into his chest.

  Lucas studied the pool of blood collecting around his latest prisoner’s neck as it soaked into the collar of the cotton shirt. He admired the material’s absorption properties; they were almost as efficient as Lucas was with his interrogation techniques. He’d certainly had plenty of time to practice, given the string of four guests he’d entertained recently.

  He was hopeful that this might be the last interrogation—the last blood letting—the last meet and beat. He and Professor Kleezebee were close to finding the answers they needed in order to access the past and unravel their godforsaken lineage with the help of the Incursion Chamber. Their brilliant colleague, Master Fuji, was nearing completion of the revolutionary remote viewing device, but the tiny monk needed to make it operational before the veteran constable put the pieces together and figured out that Lucas was the Eastside Exterminator. If not, then the only trip Lucas would be making would be to the hoosegow.

  Lucas knew how the townspeople on this remote Earth outpost would react if they knew he was responsible for the recent spree of torture. He couldn’t blame them. He hated himself for what he had to do, but he didn’t have a choice. There was no other way to find out what happened to his foster brother, Drew. It had been eighteen months since Drew went missing in Lucas’ universe after stepping through the portal to the stolen hive ship. Each day was a struggle to breathe without Drew at his side.

  Lucas was tired and exhausted, stuck in a vicious cycle of guilt and regret. His version of Earth seemed so far away, both across time and dimension. Dr. Kleezebee’s version of Earth was much closer—orbiting in the nearby Milky Way Galaxy—though the Krellian invasion had left the professor’s Earth in shambles. Lucas knew he wasn’t going anywhere. This outpost in Kleezebee’s universe was home, at least until they could crank up the Incursion Chamber and square off against his own version of history.

  Despite everything that had happened in the last year and a half, he was thankful to be alive. Thankful that he could continue his search for Drew. Thankful that the stolen Krellian hive ship held together long enough for Kleezebee and their crew to walk away from the crash-landing in the desert of this remote outpost in the spiral Omega galaxy. Otherwise, his missing foster brother Drew would have been an orphan, again—destined to live his life alone and scared somewhere out there in the multi-verse.

  Lucas let loose another right-handed punch, this time whacking Jenkins in the stomach. Then he nailed him with an uppercut to the chin, and finished the volley with a quick backhand for good measure.

  Jenkins was still conscious. Barely.

  “Unreal,” Lucas mumbled, as his focus blurred into a thousand-mile-stare. Just one more answer to complete the puzzle; that’s all he needed. Yet, it was the most important piece—the one needed to rescue his friends and recover the trio of confiscated E-121 power modules. But time and space stood in the way, as did his latest captive, Alfred P. Jenkins, who was one of Cyrus’ Level Five operatives and a traitor to his own people. Lucas needed Jenkins to talk, now, and tell him where Cyrus had hidden the two dozen containers of the BioTex material that belonged to Lucas’ mentor and boss, Dr. Kleezebee.

  Lucas was running out of options. The morning staff would soon arrive to open the restaurant and begin preparing the daily specials. He figured there was only one way this interrogation was going to end, the same way it had with his last victim: with a pile of bloodstained fingers quivering on the floor. The most efficient method of removal was to aim just above the first set of knuckles and use one vertical swing of the razor-sharp cleaver.

  The sad thing was, these meetings always seemed to end the same way no matter what he tried or how many chances he gave his guests. Nobody talked right away. Blood always had to be drawn first. His guests dared to defy him, holding out as if it were some type of noble cause, filled with a long list of rewards in the afterlife.

  “Fools and their fingers soon part ways,” Lucas mumbled.

  He’d understand if they were protecting their kids or their spouse, but testing his resolve over the simplest commodity—information—didn’t make any sense. But it wasn’t his job to understand. His task was simple: extract the information any way he could and report it to Kleezebee. He would have gladly passed o
n these field assignments from the professor, but he was pinned between the narrows of time and necessity. He was on a myopic path, one filled with suffering for his guests, but yet, they were the ones who got off easy. His half of the road was hell, drowning him under a mountain of guilt and loathing for his own skin.

  Jenkins grunted and moved his head slowly. He coughed a few short bursts, spurting blood into his lap. He lifted his head and opened his eyes.

  Time for another punch, Lucas thought. His hand wasn’t throbbing as badly now, but he wasn’t sure how much more punishment his knuckles could take. He thought about skipping to the end and using his trusty meat cleaver, but he wanted to, or maybe it was that he needed to give Jenkins another chance.

  He leaned forward and threw another right with the full force of his shoulder behind it. When it landed, his hand hit something sharp, tearing open the skin across his knuckles. “Fuck!” he shouted, shaking his hand to disburse the pain.

  He peeled open the gash and found a jagged edge from one of Jenkins’ teeth buried deep inside. He tore the chip out, tossing it into the wash sink next to the rust-covered water heater in the restaurant’s basement. The tooth bounced twice, then circled around the bottom of the porcelain bowl, finally disappearing into the open drain with a click.

  “Damn. I can almost see bone,” he said, looking back at Jenkins, who was slumped over in the wooden chair, his chin resting against his chest.

  He turned on the hot water knob and slid his knuckles under the faucet. The pipes groaned and shook violently before a rush of brown-colored water spit out, soaking the front of his shirt. He turned to scowl at Jenkins. “When’s the last time you used this thing?”

  Jenkins’ head swayed from right to left as he mumbled something through the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, but Lucas didn’t understand the words. He couldn’t read the man’s lips, either, with the blanket of dreadlocks hanging in front of Jenkins’ head.

  Lucas shut the hot water off and tried the other knob. It worked. He waited for the cold water to run clear before rinsing off his hand. A minute later, he dabbed the wound with a red towel hanging on the bar to the right, sending a jolt of pain up his arm and into his shoulder. The bleeding stopped, but only for a few seconds, then it began to seep through the skin again.

  He tore a ten-inch strip of cloth from the back of his t-shirt. He stretched the material tight across his knuckles and wrapped it around his palm, making sure there was enough pressure to stop the hemorrhage. He tied the ends together, pulling the knot tight with his teeth. He knew the injury would be tough to hide from Kleezebee, but he was too tired to care. The professor would just have to deal with it. What did it matter anyway? He was just doing his job.

  He checked the angle of the mirror’s reflection to that of the chair holding his prisoner: No, Jenkins couldn’t see his face. He removed the makeshift hood he was wearing and draped it over the edge of the wash sink. The red-stained pillowcase reeked of perspiration and blood.

  Lucas bent down and put his head under the faucet. He ran the water through his short-cropped hair and across the back of his neck, It was heaven, just what he needed. His fire cooled off.

  He allowed himself another minute to enjoy the water before he stood up and looked into the cracked mirror above the sink. Water dripped from his forehead as his eyes were pulled deep into the center of the damaged reflection where an impostor was standing. He tried to look away, but couldn’t; it was as if his body were frozen in time. The man in the mirror was wearing his same chin, freckles, and blue eyes, but Lucas didn’t recognize the rest. The charlatan lived in his skin, consuming the same air, but he hadn’t been invited in.

  Lucas had tried to evict the hitchhiker for weeks, but the noisy traveler only grew stronger with each failed attempt. Its tentacles were now buried deep into the fabric of his soul, twisting his emotions and thoughts into a constrictor knot. He figured the traveler was his punishment for the crimes he had been forced to commit. God knows he deserved it.

  Lucas stepped back when the mirror snarled at him, distorting and expanding to inject more of its random thoughts. The reflection’s face turned a deep shade of red and snarled another one of its meaningless riddles—Strident downhill wanderers veer east along rising inland surprises, mostly locking away your righteous earnings.

  “Leave me alone!” Lucas shouted, ripping the four-foot-wide mirror from the wall. He tossed it across the room in a direction opposite to Jenkins’ back. It shattered into a dozen pieces as it skipped its way across the cement floor; it slid through the dirt and dust. Jagged fragments bounced off the base of the wall, clanking and pinging as if they were singing their death song.

  He returned to the wash sink, took a deep breath, then wiped his head and face with the towel. He took out the last four aspirins he carried in his front pocket and tossed them into his mouth. The strong taste of acetylsalicylic acid flooded his tongue before he cupped his hands under the running water and washed the medicine down in one gulp.

  He shut off the spigot, slipped the mostly-white hood over his head, and returned to Jenkins. “Look, I know you work for that fucking psychopath, Cyrus. So, tell me what I need to know or so help me God, I’ll make you wish you were never born,” he said, grabbing the front of Jenkins’ shirt.

  He lifted the man’s head to see if his eyes were responsive. They weren’t. Jenkins’ left eye was bruised and swollen shut from the last round of stiff rights, but the other eye was unharmed. Yet, it was still shut.

  He tapped Jenkins on the cheek, twice. “Hey, buddy? You still with me?”

  Jenkins’ head moved on its own, slowly looking up. His good eye opened partway, but Lucas couldn’t see the pupil—only the bloodshot white.

  “That’s better. I need you awake.”

  Jenkins wriggled and twisted, apparently trying to free his arms. The rope stood firm, keeping the man secure.

  Lucas thought about using the box cutter in his tool wrap to relieve the pressure in Jenkins’ swollen eyelid, but decided against it after studying his own shaking hands. His adrenaline was firing on all cylinders, meaning he would probably cut too deep and puncture the man’s eyeball. The queasiness in the pit of his stomach shot up to the top floor when he thought about the eye’s goopy gel oozing out. He took a moment to gather himself. The nausea faded.

  He leaned in close to Jenkins’ right ear and whispered through the cutout in the hood for his mouth, “Come on, Jenkins. Talk to me.” He waited another minute, but the man said nothing. “Okay. Fine. I tried. But remember, I really don’t want to do this.”

  He unrolled the red tool wrap across the front edge of the sink. He shut his eyes, angled his head back slightly, and ran the tips of his fingers across each of the items inside: claw hammer, red-handled meat cleaver, needle-nose pliers, ten-inch ice pick, silver box cutter.

  “Which one of you wants to come out to play?” he whispered.

  He waited for one of the tools to speak to him and one did. He opened his eyes and was about to pick the trusted meat cleaver, when he noticed the electrical cord on the back of the floor lamp next to him. It gave him an idea—one that didn’t involve spurting blood or severed digits. No cleanup, either. He smiled, then bent down and ripped the wire out of the base of the lamp. He split the frayed end with his pocketknife, peeling the sheathing off both wires to expose the copper.

  Lucas’ alter ego pounded at the inside of his skull, screaming at him in a fever pitch—Endearing kindness never softens its stance against lonesome jesters nullifying an increasingly irregular retort.

  Lucas ignored the ramblings. “You have any family left?” he asked Jenkins, thinking about the Krellian incursion and the countless deaths that followed.

  Jenkins nodded.

  “If one of them was taken from you, you’d do whatever it took to get them back, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Jenkins answered in a weak voice. “But I don’t understand. What’s that have to do with BioTex?”
>
  “That’s why I’m here. I need the BioTex in order to find my little brother. He’s been missing for eighteen months. He’s the only family I have left. I need you to tell me.”

  Jenkins hesitated, then said, “I’d like to. But I can’t. Cyrus will kill me if I tell you anything.”

  “Look, I know you’re scared of Cyrus. Trust me, we all are. . . . But please, I beg you. You have to help me. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  Jenkins shook his head and cried silently. A single tear dripped from the corner of his still-functioning eye, ran down his cheek, and then joined forces with a glob of red-colored spit hanging from his lips. The blob swayed back and forth below his chin.

  Lucas looked at the meat cleaver that was waiting patiently in the tool wrap. His hand moved closer to it, but he yanked it back. Use the electrical cord instead, he convinced himself.

  “If you’re not going to talk, then you leave me no choice.” He unbuckled Jenkins’ belt and tugged at his trousers, but they wouldn’t move. He wedged his shoulder into the man’s armpit and forced Jenkins’ torso up a bit, allowing the pants to slip down past the chair. “Wow, didn’t expect commando,” he said, seeing the man’s penis hanging between his legs. “You have a wife?”

  Jenkins nodded quickly, sending the dollop of jaw-hanging spit into his lap.

  “Then she’s gonna hate this. No more kids for you, buddy.” He inserted the cord’s plug into an electrical outlet and held the other end in his injured hand. He put the wires in front of Jenkins’ face, hoping it would persuade the half-conscious man to talk. “See these? I’m gonna’ use them to cook your balls. And from the size of them, it’s gonna hurt like hell.”

  Jenkins shut his good eye, still crying. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Look at me!” Lucas shouted in a deep voice. “I know you know, so tell me. Where the fuck is Cyrus storing the BioTex containers?”

  Jenkins opened his good eye, though not all the way.

  Lucas touched the ends of the leads together, igniting sparks that danced off the man’s cheek.