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Going Places 

Christopher Kempke 

Copyright (c) 1989 


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Shifter 

There had been eleven attempts on the ambassador's life in the past week, and his bodyguards were taking all possible precautions short of cancelling his appearances. The ambassador himself had vetoed that solution, claiming his absence would serve his enemies as well as his death. Therefore, Richard was hardly surprised when a team of armed guards appeared and began frisking members of the crowd, directing them to another building after the short but thorough search. The crowd complained; Richard didn't. His weapon would not be found by a search. A guard frisked him and found only some change in his pocket, and a camera. The camera the guard took from him, mechanically informing him that he could recover it at such and such a time at such and such a place. Richard ignored him under a facade of listening intently. His camera did not concern him, since he could obtain another almost at a thought, and the change the guard considered harmless lay in his pocket. It was still there when the guard motioned him toward the building. Richard thanked him and moved to the door.

``Name?'' asked a still another guard at the door. The guard carried only a clipboard and pen in his hands, but two pistols were holstered at his side, and his face said that he wouldn't hesitate to use them.

``Richard Johnson.'' It was a statement of fact, as though it were the name he was born with. It wasn't. Richard wore his name like an old jacket, comfortably, but it was easily discarded for a new one if necessary.

He stepped through the door and into a large hall. The crowd that had come to hear the ambassador speak wasn't much of a crowd. Only a few hundred people dared risk the public threats of violence, and there was a distinct air of nervousness about those who were present. In an attempt to dispell this fear, or perhaps to increase it, the khaki-camouflage uniforms of the guards were present everywhere among the crowd and in the balconies of the building. Richard's impression was that the guards outnumbered the spectators; certainly the numbers were close. The security was as much a relief to Richard as it was to the ambassador inside; he was no more immune to stray bullets than other men.

A man appeared on the platform and began to speak. Richard was attentive for only a moment; he was not the ambassador. The speaker's eloquent introduction went unheard; a soft buzz at the edge of Richard's hearing had attracted his attention. The man on the platform spoke for several seconds more, then stopped, a puzzled look on his face. As the sound became clearer, the droning of plane engines approaching, he went white. His hands gestured frantically, motioning the people in the hall to the floor. Some obeyed, others ran for the door, oblivious to placing themselves in the crossfire. Richard hesitated a moment, then chose the group running for the door. He listened for the sound of artillery before exiting, but the planes were still too far away.

The planes were in fact just becoming visible. It was obvious from the faces of the guards that they should not have been there. Richard didn't want them there either. Somewhere in Richard's childhood, he had found an ability none of his friends shared. He called upon it now. A darkness filled his mind, formed by his thoughts and framed in light. Carefully, he placed the darkness over the image of the planes in his mind. With a twist of his mind, the planes and darkness switched places. The darkness he dropped, the planes he hurled to a position hundreds of miles away beneath the surface of the Pacific.

Where the planes had been now stood only empty space. A rumble of thunder rolled over the spectators as the air rushed in to occupy it. In that place, the planes may never have existed, but a few hundred miles away a brief flash of light signalled their destruction as they appeared under water moving at some thousand miles an hour.

For several moments the spectators continued to stare at the sky, until in a slowly growing patter of speech they began to speculate on what had just occurred. Richard used the time to return to the chaos of the hall. He sat down and waited, relating the events outside to group of bewildered spectators who had remained inside.

Eventually the old man returned to his introduction. After several minutes, he stepped aside. The spectators began to clap. The ambassador appeared on the stage, bowed in recognition of the applause, and began to speak. Richard listened, feeling respect for the man on the stage and what he stood for, almost a twinge of regret.

Finally, he reached into his pocket and drew out the handful of change. Richard selected the heaviest coin from the bunch, and let the rest slide back into his pocket. Prepared earlier, this particular coin contained enough cyanide powder to kill a couple of horses. Richard waited until the speech neared its end, then teleported the contents of the coin directly into the ambassador's body. This time, there was no thunder. Instead, the coin collapsed in on itself as it's interior became a vacuum. Richard let the coin drop to the ground. The ambassador himself took no notice of the new substances even now rushing through his body, nor would he for some hours, which would give Richard plenty of time to get out of South America. His speech ending, the ambassador's last words were drowned in applause. He smiled, bowed again, and left.

The clapping died and the spectators were led out. Richard took the provided bus back to the heat-infested mire that served as a city in this part of the world, and walked to the airport. An hour after the speech he was on his way back home. 

Richard walked in the front door of a small office building, barely glancing at the faded sign that read ``Eidel Distributors.'' Within was a sparsely furnished office, its walls covered with pictures of athletes that Richard did not recognize. The photographs were yellowed with age, and the years had taken their toll as well on the wooden desk that occupied the center of the room. Contrasting the room was a young man seated behind the desk. He looked up as Richard entered, then nodded and pointed to the only other exit from the room, a beaten-up wooden door bearing an unreadable nameplate. ``They're waiting for you, Mr. Johnson.'' Richard nodded back and smiled, but his mind had clicked on the word ``they.'' His business should have been with Eidel alone. Nothing in the young secretary's voice had signalled danger, but Richard was used to working with men like Eidel, and caution never hurt. Carefully, he opened the door. Beyond the door the appearance of the office changed. The walls here were mirror-bright steel, and a heavy steel door on the other side of the small antechamber guarded Eidel himself. A small screen was set into one wall. Richard went up to it, and punched the attention button. A moment later the screen lit up to display a stern man sitting behind a mahogany desk in an elegant office. Two other men sat on a couch behind him, but moved to get out of the view of the camera almost immediately. Richard didn't like the way they looked. ``Mr. Eidel,'' Richard said softly, ``I believe a mutual acquaintance of ours died last evening, as we discussed? I've come to pay my respects.''

The face in the screen did it's best to give a warm smile. It looked rather hideous, but Richard was searching it for things other than comeliness. He found nothing, but hadn't expected to. Briefly, he glanced at the light on the steel door. It remained dark; he was safe for a time. More than long enough. ``Indeed,'' Eidel replied. ``Which entitles you to a payment of three million dollars, which I have here. Come in; the punch code for the door is 65537.'' The screen went blank, but not before Richard saw him glance quickly at something offscreen, next to the door.

The punch code clinched it. Eidel could open the inner door from the desk inside, without effort. No need to have Richard do it.

Richard smiled slightly and left through the same door he had come in. Positioning himself against the wall beside it, he summoned a mental image of the inner steel door. With a twist of thought, he teleported it into the front office. A brilliant flash of light rolled over him, and the sound of thunder filled the office. The secretary looked up, then dove under the desk as a sound of gunfire filled the back room. Richard, too, moved behind the desk and waited. In a few moments, the two gunman stepped through the door into the front office. Richard teleported them, naked, about seven blocks away. Bending, he grabbed one of the fallen machine guns and teleported himself into Eidel's office, his finger lightly on the trigger. ``Good day, Mr. Eidel,'' he said smoothly as the thunder rolled away. ``As I believe I told you when we met, I am very good at what I do. And for my services in removing those two pests from your office, my rate just went up to six million. The remodeling is free.'' Richard fixed Eidel with a meaningful stare.

Eidel had been in business long enough to know when he was beaten. He slid a suitcase across the desk to the Richard. ``There's only three million there. I'll have to get the rest from the vault tomorrow.''

Richard waved his hand dismissingly. ``Don't bother. I'll help myself.'' He wouldn't, he knew, since money wasn't a problem for him and he didn't know where Eidel's vaults were located. Still, he appreciated the look of terror that crossed Eidel's face for the merest of moments before the businesslike exterior covered it completely again. Eidel had just witnessed two of his men defeated by this unarmed hitman, and Richard appearing in his office in a flash of thunder and light. Eidel despised theatrics, but Richard was obviously dangerous. Richard turned and walked out of the office, and Eidel did nothing to stop him.

Outside, Richard stumbled and fell twice before managing to flag down a cab. The driver awoke him at his destination, then stared speechlessly at the two bills that Richard handed him. Moving slowly and deliberately toward his house, Richard decided the effort wasn't worth it. Exhausted with the effort of teleportation, he collapsed on the front lawn. It was several hours before he began to dream the awful nightmares of his power. 

A knock on his door startled him. There had been none for several years, save the occasional minister or salesman, and it was too late in the evening for that. Richard frowned, turned off the stove under the soup he was cooking, and went to the door. Just as he reached it there came a second, more insistent knock.

``Open up in there. Police!''

Richard opened the door. Outside, two guns were facing him, held by a couple of uniformed police officers. Behind these officers stood about a dozen more, and several police cars were lined up along the long driveway to his house. ``Richard Johnson?''

Richard nodded absently, thinking.

``You're under arrest for murder. You have the right to remain silent.''

Richard shrugged. He had been arrested before, several times. There was nothing that they could do to him if he did not resist. Prison, even a death sentence, meant nothing to him. He could escape with a thought. Better to let the process run its course. Richard put his hands above his head and let himself be led away. The trial was over quickly. Richard had an impressive record of prison escapes, and so was convicted and sentenced to several life sentences without the prosecution even having to bring up murder. In fact, Richard never discovered which murder he was arrested for. In his mind, it didn't matter. The judge was particularly aware of his prison breakout record, and ordered him into maximum security. Richard grinned as he heard it; no prison could contain him. He was led away under heavy guard. He awoke at midnight of his first night at prison and waited for the guard to pass. Stepping to the back wall, he twisted himself to a pre-selected spot about three quarters of a mile away, then lay there panting, regaining his breath after the teleport. If anyone on the nearby road had seen the flash of light which announced his arrival, they ignored it. After a short interval, he began walking toward the city, following the road a safe distance to the side. Several hours brought him back to freedom. He could not return to his house, but he had other houses and other names in other cities. No one stopped him as he entered the airport and boarded a plane, and the security guards watching for him in the airport noted nothing unusual that night. A sound of thunder was passed off as the rumble of a departing jet. 

Richard stepped out of the elevator on the thirty-third floor of an impressive office building, and introduced himself to the receptionist at the desk. She looked him over carefully, almost critically. Apparently he passed the examination, because she pointed toward a heavy wooden door with the name ``Emily Brandon'' in raised while letters on it, and spoke precisely. ``Through there.''

Richard smiled at her and opened the door. The plush office on the other side of the door was occupied mostly by a huge desk and some chairs. A middle-aged woman sat behind the desk. She smiled and looked up as he entered.

``Good day sir. What can I do for you?'' She stood and extended her hand. Richard pointedly ignored it, and helped himself to a seat. Emily Brandon remained standing as he spoke. ``You `advertised' for a bit of extermination work, I believe? The rates quoted to me were quite high.'' She met his eyes. ``Important target, and difficult to find unguarded. Name's Dinash. Edgar Dinash. You know him?'' Richard nodded, but looked away from the scrutinizing eyes. ``Television producer. New York, I believe? Shouldn't be any problem.''

She held up a hand.

``Not quite so easy. I also need certain documents that are in his posession returned to me, and they need to be returned before he dies. I don't want them found by people looking through his personal effects.'' She paused. ``I will pay you ten million dollars, half in advance.'' She opened her desk, pulled out a key, tossed it to Richard. ``That will open a safety deposit box at the address listed on it. One million will be placed there each workday next week. You start next Saturday, not before. Agreed?''

Richard stood up and dropped the key on her desk. ``I never take payment in advance. I will recognize these documents when I find them?'' Her need was plain to him; he met her eyes again, this time with cold superiority.

She nodded.

``I'll see you in two weeks, then.'' Richard opened the door, looked back over his shoulder once, then left. The receptionist smiled at him as he re-entered the elevator. The doors slid closed with a soft click. 

Teletrix 

Martin Kendall sat down at his kitchen table, and slid one of the two mugs of coffee he carried to his wife. Smiling, she accepted it, and pushed a small plate of rolls to him, then waited expectantly. Kendall selected one, buttered it, then put it down and looked at his wife. June continued to look at him expectantly. Kendall scratched his head and frowned contemplatively. Eventually he gave up. ``Yes, Mrs. Kendall?'' They had not been married long enough that the name had lost its strangeness, and he liked it's sound. ``The paper?''

``Ah, yes,'' Kendall's smile returned. ``I knew I forgot something.''

The morning paper appeared silently on the kitchen table, mere inches in front of his wife's plate. She jumped, then narrowed her eyes at him across the table.

``One of these days I'm going to get used to that,'' she said accusingly. Kendall just smiled back at her. Lowering her eyes, June took the paper and opened it, and Kendall returned to his breakfast. June read for several minutes in silence, then pulled a single page free from the paper, folded it to highlight a single article, and handed it to him. Kendall wiped his chin and accepted the offered paper. The article in question was immediately interesting to him. ``..whose real name is still unknown, escaped again from the maximum security installation. This escape marks the eleventh known breakout of his career, all by unknown means. Johnson was stripped of his clothes and all possessions, and thoroughly searched by prison personnel before admittance. The door to his cell was still locked, and there were no signs anywhere of a forced exit. Police are completely baffled. One officer commented to us: ``Until I saw it today, I would have claimed that it was completely impossible.'' This breakout marks the first one at the prison in eight years, since ...'' Kendall nodded. ``He's a teletrix. No doubt about it.'' ``What are you going to do? He's known to have killed over two dozen people. The man's a professional assassin. Who knows how many more they just haven't caught him on?'' Kendall threw up his hands. ``What can you do about a Teletrix? If you catch him, he teleports away. You can't even kill him unless you manage to surprise him, and in his profession that's difficult to do. You can hardly hunt down a man with that ability.''

His wife continued to stare at him silently. He resisted as long as he could, then nodded guiltily. ``You're right, of course. I can't just let him go on killing people. The academy, I'm sure, won't release their records, so I'll have to find him myself. Would you call the office for me? I'm going to be out of state for a while.'' ``You call the office,'' June said firmly. ``I need to change. I'm going with you, of course.'' Kendall's face registered surprise briefly. ``Of course,'' he echoed. June smiled and Kendall shook his head slowly. He rose from the table and made his phone call, then got dressed. By the time he had returned to the kitchen, June had put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. She kissed him once. ``Where are we going?''

Kendall had worked it out while dressing. ``The prison. I need a better picture of him than that newspaper photo, and maybe an address. The police will have searched his house, of course, but at least it's a start.''

Kendall closed his eyes, and the yellow lines of a shimmering grid filled his mind. He selected a location, envisioned it, and was there, so smoothly that his wife didn't even stumble. They stood on a roadway beside a lighted ``STATE PRISON'' sign, out of sight of the main gates. Kendall let go of his wife and the two travellers set off down the road, closing the distance to the entrance in a couple of minutes. A guard stuck his head out at their approach, lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

``Visitors,'' Kendall said. ``We're here to see the warden.'' The guard nodded, ``just a minute.'' Moments later, a second guard arrived, searched them, and led them to tidy office with the name ``Tim Gardener'' on the brass doorplate.

``Please, have a seat,'' the guard requested. ``Mr. Gardener isn't in yet this morning, but he should be here in a few minutes. There's coffee and maybe even some donuts in the next room.'' He pointed to a door, then turned and left. It was almost a half an hour before the warden walked through the door. He was somewhat of a heavy man, with a face lined from too many years at his job. He extended his hand to Kendall, then June. Both took it silently. The warden seated himself behind his desk, and lifted a pair of glasses to his face. ``How may I help you folks?''

``My name is Martin Kendall; this is my wife June. We're private investigators. We'd like a look at Richard Johnson's file, if we may.'' From his shirt Kendall produced an ancient private investigator's license that he had gone through some trouble to obtain several years before. Cautiously, to keep it from falling apart, he handed it to the warden. The warden examined it for a few moments, handed it back to Kendall, then walked into a back room. When he returned about two minutes later, he carried a manilla folder.

``Here it is, a heavy one, too.'' He handed the folder to June, and sat down again. ``If you don't mind my asking, who hired you for this? I wasn't aware that there was a private party interested in Johnson's case.'' His voice betrayed a little more interest than the words. Kendall wasn't surprised; prison breakouts didn't happen all that often, especially ones as smooth as this one. Kendall smiled winningly. ``Actually, we're not currently working for anyone. This is sort of a personal thing. Richard Johnson is big news right now. If I can catch him, it will be great for my business.'' The warden smiled. ``I don't really approve of your motives, but I'd be happy to get Johnson back in my hands. I'd love to see him escape from our underground solitary confinement cells! The next time we catch him, we're going to keep him.'' ``I'm sure you will,'' Kendall lied. June had finished copying down something from the folder. She passed it to Kendall, open to Richard Johnson's prison pictures. He noted it carefully, then glanced over the other pages. ``You've got his address?'' June nodded.

Kendall closed the folder and handed it back to the warden. ``Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Gardener.'' The warden didn't lose his smile. ``Good Luck. If you find any leads, though, don't forget to report them to the police. And be careful - Richard Gardener is a murderer, and a cold one at that.''

Kendall nodded. ``We will.'' 

Richard looked up from the pile of papers he was reading when he heard the click of a key in the lock. He stuffed the papers back into the drawer, as dishevelled as he had found them, and teleported back to his hotel room with a sound of thunder and a flash of light.

Once there, he ordered a sandwich from room service and lay down on the bed to think. All of the obvious places to look for Dinash's documents had failed to reveal any interesting ones. Mostly, the man seemed to collect only contracts of various television personalities, and a few letters from exotic countries that Richard had never even killed anyone in. His safe contained money and jewels, which interested Richard not at all, and the safety deposit box at his bank contained only his will. Richard was running out of places to look.

But he wasn't running out of time. It was still three days before he was even supposed to be on the job, and he couldn't kill Dinash before then. If he could find the documents early, recovery later would be easy, but he had little else to do. As a last resort, Dinash could be tortured into revealing their location, but such actions weren't really to Richard's liking. A knock on the door announced the arrival of his sandwich. Richard paid the bellhop, tipping him with a hundred-dollar bill, and sat back to eat. There were still a couple of places he could look, but they could wait until the following evening. He finished the sandwich and turned out the light. 

The house was surrounded by a fence and a locked gate, but it posed little problem to Kendall. Still legally owned by Johnson, it was not for sale, but neither had any upkeep been done on it in some weeks. The front door was unlocked, so Kendall and June slipped inside, closing it quietly behind them. The house had been searched by the police, but the two investigators went over it equally carefully. Except for a pot of soup moulding on the stove, the house contained little of interest. No documents in the house had been spared by the police. Kendall disposed of the soup, then joined his wife at the table.

``Well, where do we go from here? He could be almost anyplace.''

June shrugged resignedly. ``I guess he'll have to show up someplace.'' She drummed her fingers on the table absentmindedly, staring at one wall of the kitchen. Suddenly, she got up and left the room, Kendall staring questioningly after her. She reappeared a moment later, smiling. ``Martin! There's another room here! Look.'' She indicated the back wall of the kitchen. ``There's no doors leading in there, but that's not the back wall of the house, either. There must be about a ten foot space behind that wall.'' ``How come the police didn't find it?'' ``They might have looked for a secret room, but one without doors? What's more useless than a room without doors?'' Kendall smiled. ``Not useless to a Teletrix, of course. You're a genius.''

She took the praise silently, then made a gesture of impatience. ``Well, are we going in?'' Kendall shook his head. ``I'm not going to TP us into an area that I can't see. Let's bring whatever's in there out to us.'' He stepped back and cleared an area in the kitchen. A moment later a suitcase appeared in it, covered by a pile of loose bills.

June's eyes widened. ``There must be a million dollars there.''

Kendall squinted at it expertly. ``Closer to a hundred million. Richard is a rich Teletrix. Take some.'' He bent down and opened the suitcase. Inside was more money, which Kendall ignored. On the inside top of the suitcase was a small engraved plate, which read Antosh Eidel. Beneath it was an address. ``Bingo.'' Kendall said. 

The night watchman looked his way again. Richard was getting a bit tired of avoiding the man's view, so he teleported him down thirteen stories, then remained motionless for a minute or so to be sure that the thunder didn't attract anyone's attention. It didn't. He walked down the hallway to the office which read Edgar Dinash, and teleported himself inside. Again, we waited until the thunder in the hall died down. Still, no footsteps could be heard. He panted quietly from exertion, then looked around.

Only one of the drawers in Dinash's desk was locked, so Richard started there. All he found were life insurance policies and contracts for a couple of very big television names. Cursing, he opened the other desk drawers. None contained the information he was looking for, but if the insurance policies were all valid, Dinash's family would be very rich in a few days. Richard sat back in the chair and put his feet on the desk. The office was twenty stories in the air, and probably expensive for that reason alone, but was relatively sparsely finished. Around the room were photographs of various actors in roles that Dinash had apparently cast them for, including one large framed one of an actress that Richard did not recognize, her face not particularly pretty or memorable. It didn't feel right. He stood up and went to the wall where the picture hung, and lifted it carefully down. Behind it lay the gleaming steel of an expensive wall safe. Protection against nearly any device man could invent, it took Richard a mere fraction of a second to defeat it and lay its contents out on the desk. He read a few sentences at the top of the documents and smiled; there was no doubt that this was what he had been looking for. He looked at his watch. It was just after midnight, so today was Friday. By noon on Saturday, Edgar Dinash would be dead. 

The elevator door opened, and a receptionist looked up brightly at Martin Kendall. He looked back without a trace of warmth, his eyes daring her to comment. ``Thank you, but I know the way.'' He turned toward the office door.

``You can't go in there right now, sir. Ms. Brandon is busy.''

``No she's not,'' Kendall smiled menacingly, and opened the door.

Emily Brandon looked up from her desk at the intrusion, and the beginning of an angry comment came to her lips. When she saw Kendall's face, she stopped.

``Where is Richard Johnson?'' he demanded. ``I've never heard of any Richard Johnson,'' Emily said quietly. ``I think you should leave this office before I notify security.'' She reached toward an intercom on her desk, but it vanished before her hand contacted it. She stared at the empty space in disbelief. Kendall stretched his smile still further. ``I received your name from a Mr. Eidel, Ms. Brandon. He seemed quite confident that you know where Richard Johnson is. Seems he recommended him to you for a little job you need done. A very illegal job.''

``You have no proof of anything, and I don't know who Richard Johnson is.''

Kendall shrugged. ``I don't need to offer you proof, Ms. Brandon. I have something far more valuable to you.'' A moment later the office had vanished, to be replaced by the windy building roof. Emily Brandon found herself looking over the edge of her skyscraper, forty stories to the ground. She shook her head violently. Kendall sat next to her on the ledge. ``I assure you that this is not a dream, Ms. Brandon. Where is Richard Johnson?''

``I don't have to tell you anything. My receptionist saw you come into the office. You'll be found and locked away for murder if you kill me.''

``Suit yourself,'' Kendall said just loudly enough to be heard over the wind. He gave her a gentle push, toppling her over the edge of the building. There was silence for a moment as she grabbed for a hold, then a drawn out scream as she tumbled over and over away from the building.

Kendall watched, let her fall almost a dozen stories, then teleported her back to the roof, carefully cancelling her velocity. Emily Brandon lay in a barely conscious heap on the top of her building.

``Where is Richard Johnson?'' Kendall repeated. ``New York City,'' she said breathlessly, wide-eyed. ``He's there to kill Edgar Dinash.''

``And when's the hit supposed to be?'' ``Saturday.''

``Where?''

``I don't know. Honest to god I don't know.'' Kendall nodded. ``Ms. Brandon, the information you have given me had better be accurate.'' A moment later, he vanished. Emily Brandon lay sobbing on the roof of the building for almost an hour before she made her way slowly back to her office. On the first floor, Kendall came out of the men's room. June looked up from the magazine she was reading. ``Well, did she tell you where he is?'' Kendall nodded. ``Yep. She fell for the idea right away.'' June shivered. 

Endgame 

Edgar Dinash found a couple of visitors on his doorstep when he arrived home Friday evening. There was no obvious explanation for how they had gotten there, past the electrified fence and the two guards, and neither the visitors nor the guards seemed inclined to offer any. One of the intruders stepped forward and offered his hand. Edgar ignored it.

``This is private property and you're not invited guests. Please leave these premises at once.''

He was ignored in turn. ``My name is Martin Kendall, and this is my wife, June Kendall. We're private investigators, and we have reason to believe that your life is in serious danger. May we come in?''

Dinash considered. ``Guards!'' he called finally. ``Make sure that they don't have any weapons on them, then let them in.'' He waited until the guards had frisked them, then opened the door for them. Together, the three of them stepped into Dinash's home.

``Explain yourselves,'' he said simply, and gestured toward several plush chairs sitting around the room. Kendall and his wife sat. June spoke. ``We have reason to believe that a contract on your life has been put out by an Emily Brandon.''

Kendall saw the look of interest come onto Dinash's face. Not surprise, just interest.

``It's very possible. She and I don't see quite eye to eye.'' June nodded. ``In any event, the hit is supposed to be sometime tomorrow. We don't know when, but the man who is supposed to do it is extremely effective. Your guards won't be any good against him.''

``So what do you suggest I do?''

``Take a vacation in the city. Go to a cheap hotel, register under a false name, take your guards with you. Leave us and the police to handle this man at your house.'' Edgar Dinash looked up at one of his guards, suspicion plainly evident in his face. The guard shook his head, however. ``No, they are really legit. I had their licences checked out. They're in good standing, and it's certainly a believable story they have. You should have seen how they got in here. I think we should do it.''

Dinash turned back to June. ``I had the feeling when I got up this morning that it was going to be one of those days. Okay, I'll leave for tomorrow. But if this house is damaged, or anything is missing . . .''

Kendall raised his hands. ``Then you have our names and current addresses from our licence. You really have nothing to lose.''

Dinash remained silent. 

Richard looked at his watch. Midnight. Teleporting the materials out of the safe once more, he packed them carefully in his briefcase and returned to his hotel room. There he changed clothes and packed his bags. Downstairs, he hailed a cab and was back on the streets.

Minutes later, he was in the back yard of Edgar Dinash's house. He looked up to the upstairs bedroom window, where a light still shone. Richard settled back to wait. There was no rush, now, and everything to be gained by waiting until Dinash was asleep. An hour went by, as other lights in the house turned on and off. Eventually, the bedroom light went out. Still he waited, as another long hour crept by. Then he stood slowly and approached the back door. Richard knew from previous exploration of this house that there was a security alarm on the door. Stepping back, he teleported to the other side. Upstairs, a sound of thunder caused June to look up suddenly from the chair on which she sat. Kendall moved quietly to the window, looked out at the sky, and frowned. A thoughtful look came over his face.

A slight noise came from downstairs. Kendall gestured for June to remain where she was, and teleported himself silently to the other side of the bedroom door.

Richard moved as carefully as he could across the sunken living room, but he bumped one of the tables even so. The vase that was on it did not tip, only slide slightly. He paused, but heard no sound above. After a few seconds, he began his slow march across the living room again.

He was not prepared for the light to come on. The blinding illumination was not enough to hide the man who stood against the opposite wall of the room, but Richard just stared and shook his head for a second or so.

``Hello, Richard,'' Kendall said. ``I've been waiting for you.''

Kendall was dressed in nothing but a loose robe, and his hands were empty. Richard made a decision quickly, and drew his long knife from his belt. Holding it in his hand, his mind twisted it into Kendall's chest.

Nothing happened. Kendall noted the effort but descended into the living room without comment. Richard looked at the knife in disbelief, and tried again. Kendall sat down. ``You can't kill Edgar Dinash, Richard. I won't let you. Even a Teletrix will have some difficulty killing him where I've put him.''

The battle began and ended in an instant. Kendall tapped a grid of energy, Richard gathered energy from within himself. In a single instant, Richard vanished, and Kendall's mind snapped out toward him.

A sound of thunder filled the room, and a scream of agony came from outside the walls of Edgar Dinash's house. The upstairs door opened and June came running down the stairs. The first thing she saw when she reached the bottom was the bloody lump that lay in the center of the carpet. The second thing she saw was Kendall.

He was sitting in the chair with a look of shock on his face. When his wife sat next to him, he looked up with a kind of pity in his eyes.

``Thunder,'' he said quietly, carefully. ``The air filling in the space he vacates when he teleports. There's probably a flash of light at the other end to disperse the energy.'' June looked at him. ``So?''

``He's an amateur, not a Teletrix. The academy somehow never found him.'' Kendall fixed her with a stare. ``He's never been trained in using a grid. Odds are he's teleporting on his own energy; he must have incredible endurance. Certainly he doesn't know how to protect himself.'' Kendall pointed toward the center of the room. ``That's his hand. I teleported it off of him as he was leaving.''

He stood up. ``We had the advantage of surprise, and now I blew it. He'll be prepared the second time. We need to find him, and kill him.'' Kendall hugged his wife. ``And soon. Or he'll keep on killing.'' 

Richard pushed the darkness from his mind and regained consciousness in a hospital bed. Gently, he examined his arm. The bleeding had stopped, and the flesh at the end had been sewn together, leaving a battered stump; there was no feeling at all in it. On his other arm, blood flowed into him from an I.V. unit.

Shaking his head carefully, he pulled the needle from his arm and sat up. He had lost a lot of blood, but he was still alive, and needed to get out of here before his enemy found him if he wanted to stay that way. Richard sat for several minutes, then stood up slowly, leaning on the bed for support and waiting until the darkness in his head receeded once more. Moving to the window, he looked out. Across the street he could see a fast food restaurant. Summoning all the energy he had in him, he teleported there in a flash of light and thunder. Kendall heard the thunder just as he reached the door of the hospital room. He cursed softly under his breath as he opened the door.

``Missed him. But he can't have gone far.'' With June, he crossed to the window on the other side of the room. All of New York twinkled in front of him, a thousand lights on a city that could hide a million men.

``Far enough, though,'' he concluded. 

Richard looked at the ad again. It read, quite simply: 

           RICHARD JOHNSON, I WILL BE ON TRAIN NINE
           OF THE  SUBWAY SYSTEM AT EXACTLY NOON ON
           THURSDAY.  WE CAN NEGOTIATE  THERE.  THE
           TRAIN IS NOT RUNNING,  NO ONE ELSE WILL
           BE PRESENT. -- EDGAR DINASH

For the hundredth time in as many hours, Richard lifted the stump of his left arm and looked for his watch, the pang of loss cutting deep into him as he realized his error and looked at his other wrist. The time was eleven thirty, fully a half an hour before the meeting. He felt as though there were only a half an hour left of his life.

Clearly, the message was the bait to a trap. But a strange, new man had entered Richard's life, the only person in the world who he could fear. Until one or the other of them was dead, Richard would never be safe, never be confident that his power was unique and able to pull him out of any situation. He would always feel hunted. This message might be the only chance he ever had to win the battle. Looking for a long moment at the stump of his arm, Richard knew that he would win. And the man had given Richard knowledge. The trick, of preventing the teleportation of Richard's knife into the other man's body, was not very difficult; all it took was for Richard to know it was possible, and the solution almost immediately presented itself. Mainly, it was a process of continually teleporting oneself to the same spot, preventing intrusion of foreign matter into it. The process was exhausting, but Richard could now do it for almost a minute at a time. He should be safe as long as he didn't take chances.

As the appointed hour approached, some spectators appeared, the inevitable result of the meeting's public announcement. Richard told them to leave, quietly at first and then emphatically as some of them began to argue with him. After two of the men identified themselves as also having the name Richard Johnson, Richard got fed up and teleported them to the sidewalk above. None returned.

Richard checked his watch again, felt a wave of confidence as he unconsciously picked the correct wrist. Five minutes to noon; time to move. He twisted his mind and body, filling the silent subway train with a roar of thunder.

Two people were already inside the train car when he arrived. One was the man he had met in the living room of Dinash's house, the other a young woman that he did not recognize. Neither appeared concerned at the method of his arrival. Both were seated on low benches. The windows were covered with heavy black plastic sheets, probably to prevent outsiders from observing their conversation. The only light in the car came from two electric lamps sitting on the floor. Richard stood firm and gazed at them for a few moments, his newly learned shield operating at its fullest potential. ``You said something about negotiating?'' he asked, not wanting the shield's implied time limit to show in his face or voice.

Kendall nodded. ``What will it take to get you off of Edgar Dinash's tail?''

Obviously there really was some negotiating to be done. The trap was baited neatly, if it really was a trap. Perhaps they simply feared him and wanted a way out. Richard seated himself on a bench and looked at Kendall.

``More than you can pay. I don't back out on a job. I never have.''

Far away there came the sound of an approaching train. Kendall opened his hands in a friendly gesture. ``We can pay a substantial amount, Mr. Johnson. More than you might imagine. In fact, enough to make you quite comfortable for the rest of your life.''

``You don't understand. Money is not the object. If I want money, show me any bank in the world which can prevent my taking it. I have been contracted to kill Mr. Dinash, and I will. I won't be bought out.''

The distant train drew closer.

``How much will it take to make sure you never kill again? We can't stop you, the best we can do is pay you to keep the peace.''

Richard smiled. ``You can't.'' He was beginning to enjoy the game, but equally aware that his shield time was running out. At best, he had another three quarters of a minute, less than that if he didn't want to totally exhaust himself. The rumble of the train began to pass them, shaking their car. Kendall smiled ever so slightly, and made two small adjustments to reality. The bench that Richard was sitting on vanished silently. In his sudden fall, Richard did not notice the slight change in the noise, the minor differences in the shaking. Richard looked at Kendall in surprise. ``You did that silently.''

``Of course. You abuse your ability by using it as a weapon, Richard. You force people like me to hunt you down.'' Kendall was more powerful than Richard realized. And his words implied that there were others like him in the world. Suddenly, he felt less confident about the interview, but didn't let it show.

``Hunt me? You can't touch me any more than the police can. Just because you know of my ability and understand it doesn't mean you can stop it.''

Kendall's smile vanished. ``Your arm, I believe, is testimony that I can indeed hurt you. That could have been your heart. Next time it will be.''

Richard smiled broadly. ``But you can't do it again, thanks to a trick you yourself showed me. No, I think you probably have the most to lose from a showdown.'' He drew a knife from his belt, calm again.

Kendall looked at it uncertainly. ``You know that that won't hurt me.''

Richard smiled. ``No, but it will hurt her.'' He gestured toward June, and the movement made him aware how much energy he was losing. He could only stay a few more seconds. The knife vanished from Richard's hand, appeared in Kendall's. ``No, it won't. I can protect her as easily as myself. And do you trust your protection enough to challenge me? I think we have nothing more to say.''

The train car still shook with the rumble like the passing of a train.

Richard nodded. ``Indeed. Except this: Edgar Dinash is a dead man.'' He turned away from Kendall, twisted energy in his mind. A roll of thunder filled the car, echoing. Kendall cringed briefly in sympathetic pain, then sat down and hugged his wife.

``He got away again,'' she said simply, sympathy in her voice. ``No, he didn't.'' With an offhand gesture he teleported the curtains off of the windows, allowed her to see out. ``We're moving,'' she commented.

``Absolutely. I started us when the other train went by. TP is wonderful for avoiding such nusciances as acceleration. The shaking isn't the other train, it's us.'' ``But so what?''

``Richard Johnson didn't understand his power. He never used the grid for energy or direction, or enough air would have been shifted back from his destination to fill the gap he left. But he couldn't have known that, or there wouldn't have been so much thunder when he teleported. He wasn't aware that we were moving, so when he left, he wouldn't know to bleed off the excess velocity. Wherever he went, he was stationary with respect to the train. To the rest of the world, he was moving at 120 miles an hour. I just hope he didn't hurt anyone as he died.''

``Are you sure he's dead?'' June said softly.

``Completely. And you will be, too, if you watch the news this evening. `Man smeared on pavement'. I'm sure it will be a top story.'' Kendall didn't sound happy about it, only resigned. He stood looking out the window of the train for a long time, searching for something in the blurring buildings. He stopped the train, returned it to the station, derailed but functional. An instant later they were in their own kitchen.

``I think I need a good nap,'' Martin Kendall said.



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