Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) (8 page)

       “I travel through time, Rick.”  Mel simply said.

       Rick took a very deep breath. “Oh, brother.”  He hung his head.

       “Well, not time as such.”  Mel began to correct himself.  “You can’t travel through time.  I travel through the reality streams.  I’m a fixer.  I help fix the tears, Rick.  See this black box?”  He held up his right wrist where the little black box Rick had noticed the night before was still attached.   “This is called a REAL-Pro 9000.  It stands for Reality Protector.  It’s what allows me to travel through the reality streams, back and forth.  The other night, the night you picked me up?  It was malfunctioning.  I was caught, and I needed to get away from some pretty nasty people.  I thought your cab was there to pick me up and transport me to my emergency port out spot.   I guess you were just there by accident.  But, then it started working again, and I had to go to finish up something.”

     Once again Rick remained speechless.  He didn’t know how to address this, how to respond to this level of lunacy.

      “Trust me, Rick.  I never intended to hurt anybody.  I was trying to save everyone.”  Mel implored.

       Rick looked at him sidelong.  “But, you did, Mel.  Tell me, did you see your aunt again?  Did you tell her all this garbage?”

      Mel straightened his back like he was stretching the knotty muscles.  “I did,” He said.  “She knows.”

       “How’d she take it?”  Rick pushed.

      “She lives in Arizona now in an exclusive private retirement resort with her own bungalow and her own private plane.  I see her every week.”  Mel spoke softly.  “The Company pays well, Rick.”

    
Rick fell back into a moment of introspection.  “I’ve noticed.”

     Mel watched his old friend struggle with what he knew from personal experience was a very difficult concept to handle.  He remembered the hard time he had with it at first and how much time it took him to adjust to it.  He also remembered what the fixer, the man who saved him in 1984, did to help him cope with it.  He thought about that for a moment.  He didn’t have the luxury of time, and he couldn’t afford to give Rick all the acclimation he needed to move forward.  He would have to do something more drastic and direct.  He needed a visual, something that would help convince Rick that what he was explaining was the truth.   He finally stood back up.  “Okay, look I know how hard this is trust me.  But, I have to get on the move here Rick, and I need you on board.  Do you like fruit?”

      Rick looked up at him confused.  “What has that got to do with this?”  He quickly responded.

     “Do you like fruit?”  Mel repeated the question.

       Rick shook his head in disbelief.

       “Just humor me.  Tell me what’s a rare fruit you can’t get here, but you like?”  Mel prodded him.

       “I don’t know.”  Rick finally answered.  “Bread fruit, I guess.  Why?”

        Mel looked down at his black box and began to dial in a sequence of codes.  The green screen lit up in response.  “I’ll show you.”  Suddenly a blinding green flash filled the room.  It was so bright that Rick threw up his arm to shield his eyes, and he almost fell backward from the sudden intensity of it.    When he finally lowered his arm, the flash had faded away, and Mel was no longer there.  He looked around the room, looked down the hallway, but there was no sign of him.  Mel had vanished, again.  Rick stood in his living room looking around.  Three minutes later a bright flash of green light appeared behind him, and he spun quickly around, shielding his eyes again.  When the light faded, this time, Mel was standing there again, the white towel still around his bare shoulders, his hair still wet and a bemused look on his face.  He was holding a cluster of small breadfruit, a small piece of limb with leaves still attached.  “Here you go,” He said happily. “Bread fruit, fresh from Hawaii, 1640.”  He held out the fruit for Rick to take.

      Rick’s mouth hung open as he reached out and took the sweet young fruit.  He looked at them in his hand in more disbelief.  “This is breadfruit,”  He said, at a complete loss.

       Mel smiled in triumph.  “I know.  I picked them for you.  Pissed off the natives too.”

      Rick looked back up.  “I’m not sure…”  He thought about a thousand things he should say, but none of them even remotely came close to making any sense.

    “It’s okay, Rick.”  Mel looked sympathetic. “I understand.  But, I, we, don’t have a whole lot of time here.  I need you to grasp as much of this as you can and try to move forward.”

      Rick sat down hard, still holding the fruit.  “You’re asking a lot.”

     “I know.  Believe me, I wouldn’t have brought this to your doorstep like this if it weren’t important.  But we have very little time to deal with it.”  Mel was impatient.

     “So, says the man who claims to travel through time.”  Rick breathed hard.

     “Reality.  I travel through reality.  It’s not possible to travel through time.”  Mel corrected him.

      “Sorry,” Rick muttered.  “I just don’t understand the rush.”

      Mel’s smile didn’t disappear.  “Oh, that’s because this reality is about to tear apart at the seam and end all of existence.  That’s all.”  He nonchalantly responded.

     Rick looked up at him dumbstruck. 

     “Really.  I’m not kidding.”  Mel reiterated.  “I’ve been monitoring a problem for a couple of weeks now.”

    “Here?”  Rick was not amused.

     Mel shrugged.  “I don’t know for sure.  I just know it’s coming.”

      “How?”  Rick was still doubtful.  “I don’t see anything…weird.”  Rick looked around.

   “No, I suppose you wouldn’t…” Mel’s voice trailed off as he moved back to the curtains over the glass doors to Rick’s balcony. “But, stuff like that does,” He said, looking down at the parking lot.

    Rick came over to the doors to see what he was looking at “What?”  He quickly said, expecting some earth shattering event.  It was just rainy and gray outside.

    “That’s your taxi down there, right?”  Mel asked.

    Rick looked in the direction he knew he had left it. “Yeah?”

   “And that’s the same one you picked me up in the other night?”  Mel continued his questioning.

    “Yeah, why?  What’s wrong with it?”  Rick continued to be confused by this new sudden change in tack.

     “Well, nothing,” Mel looked at Rick very concerned, “except the other night it was white colored, not blue.”

      Rick looked puzzled, glancing back out at his car sitting there. “What do you mean?  It’s always been blue.”

      “No, I assure you the cab I got into the other night was white.  Something has altered the color. The reality here has altered.  This is the sort of thing I have been trained to notice, Rick.  It’s the sort of thing I fix all the time.”  Mel insisted.

     “What are you saying?”  Rick felt deeply confused.

      Mel remained silent for a moment. “Something has caused this reality to alter, and that is never a good thing.”

     Mel waited for Rick to sit back down in his recliner.  Nothing more was said between them as Rick tried to wrap his mind around what Mel was implying.   He felt like a man slowly waking up from a dream he couldn’t quite shake.  But, the process was interrupted by the coffee maker beeping away.  It was finished.  Mel looked excitedly in the direction of the coffee.  “Ooo coffee!  I don’t suppose you have donuts?”

     Rick waved at him and said absentmindedly, “In the right cabinet, just above the coffee maker.” 

      Mel hurriedly rushed into the kitchen to prepare himself a breakfast he hadn’t had in a long time, muttering the whole time, “Donuts, yes, donuts.”  When he came back into the living room, he had a large plate piled high with multiple donuts and two large glasses of coffee. “I put some cream and sugar in yours, hope you don’t mind.  Say, why is your coffee pot flashing 168?” 

     Rick didn’t bother to explain that he was going to make iced coffee.  He just took the glass and held it in both hands, staring blankly out at his bare wall.  He watched Mel scarf down donuts in a hedonistic frenzy.  “You think that’s a good idea?  Eating all that sugar?”

       Mel smiled again, powdered sugar coating his lips.  “My jet fuel, man.  Besides, it’s been a while since I had any donuts. ”

      Rick watched him lick his fingers and then sip his coffee.  He found it amazingly difficult to talk to his old friend, despite the events of the past few days. He glanced at his wrist, where the small device that Rick had noticed several nights ago was still strapped to his arm.  “I have to get dressed now.  We’ve got to go soon.”  He said.

      Rick was suddenly jolted out of his daze. “Go?  What are you talking about?”

     “The fabric of this reality is altering, Rick.  We have to find out why.”  Mel told him again.

      “What’s this ‘we’ business?” Rick felt manipulated.  “Out of the two people here, I’m not the one that claims to fix reality.”

       Mel looked at him sternly. “You have to come with me, Rick.  You’re part of this now.   Somehow, you’re wrapped up in all of this.  I don’t know how just yet.  But, we have to figure that out.  We have to figure a lot of things out.”

      “And how do you plan on doing that?”  Rick shot back at him.

       “By paying the Seer a visit,” He replied.

       “The Seer?  Of course, the Seer.  Why wouldn’t it be someone called the Seer?”  Rick mumbled sarcastically to himself.

        Mel smiled sheepishly at him. “Don’t be skeptical.  You’ll be happy to see the Seer.”

        “Why is that?”  Rick asked.  “This is starting to sound more like a Greek tragedy every minute.  You sure you don’t have an Oracle or two stashed away?” 

       Mel ignored the attempt at a sarcastic jousting match and just laughed.  “Roger.  Roger is the Seer.”

      Rick sank back in his comfortable recliner staring at the carpet on the floor.  “Roger Parcel?  Tell me you’re not talking about Roger Parcel.”

      Mel grinned broadly.  “Yes, in fact, I am.  I hate to tell you this Rick, but this whole thing just gets weirder from this point on.”

      “Once again, you’re not instilling me with a whole lot of confidence, Mel,” Rick responded.  “Okay, I’ll play along.  How did he get messed up in all of this?”

      “It’s a long story.  But, one I’ll gladly tell you on the way.”  Mel urged him.  “Come on, let’s get going.” He clapped his hands.

       “I don’t know if I can…you know, travel that way, Mel.”  Rick said nodding toward the black box on his wrist.

        Mel looked at it again.  “With this? Nah.  I meant on a plane.  I don’t want to port over there.”

         “Why?  Wouldn’t it be quicker?”  Rick suggested.

        “Yeah.  But, it can also be tracked.  And I don’t want anyone at the Company knowing what I’m up to just yet?”  Mel responded a bit cryptically.

        “Why?  Is it illegal?”  Rick slowly sat back up.

    “No, porting isn’t.  But, breaking in to see Roger without authorization is.”  Mel quickly answered.

      Rick looked up at him with suspicion again but said nothing.

      “Don’t worry.  I’ll explain along the way.  It’s just best the Managers know as little about this as possible, for now.”  Mel explained. “We just have to go there and pay him a visit.  He’ll tell us what to do next.  I’m gonna finish dressing.”  He said and headed back down the hallway toward the bathroom where he left the rest of his clothes.

    Rick looked down at his watch, not sure why. It was something he did habitually when he was nervous.  But, it wasn’t there. He was struck by how odd that was and how absurd it seemed in the scheme of recent events. “Hey, I don’t have my watch.  Where’s my watch?”  He started looking around his seat, expecting to find it there on the floor.

    Mel stopped shy of the bathroom.  “Did you take it off?”

    “No, I hardly ever take it off.” Rick kept looking around the recliner, but it was nowhere to be found.

     “Was it a fake Rolex?  Cheap, brown leather cheap band?”  Mel asked.

      “Yeah, do you have it?”  Rick asked excitedly.

       “No, I don’t.” Mel’s voice lowered. “But I bet I know where it went.”

       “Where?”  Rick’s eyes widened.

        “This reality has claimed it.  It’s something else that has changed.  But, what’s more important is the other thing.”  Mel’s ridiculous smile returned in a moment of self-satisfaction and triumph.

         “What other thing?” Rick didn’t feel like playing games.

         “The fact that this time
you
noticed it,” He said proudly.  “Good job.  Welcome aboard.”  He congratulated him and popped quickly into the opened bathroom.

      The only thing Rick could feel was sheer dismay.  He could clearly remember the watch.  But, now it wasn’t there.  Maybe he left it in the cab?  No, I never take it off.  It could be in the seat somewhere, torn off in the effort to get Mel’s unconscious body into the back seat.  In the white Crown Victoria.  NO!  Blue, it’s a blue Crown Victoria.  An unpleasant memory began to dawn on him “I remember.”  He said slowly and regretfully.