CHAPTER EIGHT
It was just a few clicks on the screen, just as Ric had said. And Paris was just as Jeanell had always imagined. No time or distance could change the ancient majesty of that timeless city. Notre Dame was untouched, grand support pillars reaching up to support that dream of man’s spiritual heart.
They strolled through The Louvre, the statue of the Greek goddess Athena looking down on them in her stone majesty. The goddess of war, she was calm and beautiful with perfect features, sending them messages of love and confidence and mutual indulgence. She may as well have been Bacchus, the Greek god of pleasure, indulgence, and wine.
The Mona Lisa smiled at Jeanell as the world was flooded behind her, a serine mistress in the midst of tumult and impending doom. And she was smiling.
Jeanell knew exactly how she felt.
Walking with Ric, Jeanell felt somehow complete, whole, as if her travel had been to some greater purpose. But whatever that purpose, traveling from masterpiece to masterpiece, Jeanell found it harder and harder to take her eyes off Ric, tall and perfectly built behind that stretchy white fabric, his body as graceful and elegant as any of those timeless works of art.
Just an hour later, they ate escargot, chewy and drenched in garlic butter, sumptuous and savory, and washed it down with champagne directly from the region for which it is named.
Jeanell said, “So, I don’t get it. If I can travel anywhere, why don’t we just hide out here? Why doesn’t everyone just, y’know, go to Paris or Hawaii or wherever? It’s easy enough… thanks to me.”
“Also thanks to you, the chancellor can also reach out anywhere in the world. Nowhere is safe. Your only sanctuary is time… any time other than this one.”
“Mine… alone?” Ric smiled but didn’t answer. Jeanell asked, “How long do I have?”
“Hard to say. But as long as we’re traveling like this, I think we’re okay. They’re going to come after you, let’s not make any mistake about that. But they’ll have to track you down, and the more we travel, the harder that’ll be. We’re a step ahead of them as it is, probably more than one. So that gives us some breathing room.”
“I see.” Jeanell tried to hide her little smile. “Then… what shall we do next?”
Ric smiled too. “Anything you like, I suppose.”
Rome was amazing; the ruins lit up, spanning the ages. What Jeanell noticed most was the lack of the big clear capsule buildings that dominated Colorado. “Things weren’t as bad here in Europe,” Ric explained. “For better or worse.”
“Better,” Jeanell said, “definitely better.” After a thoughtful pause, she asked, “So, I don’t know anything about you, really. How did you and Graham get to know each other?”
“He’s…” Ric looked Jeanell over, the last vestige of suspicion leaking away. “He’s my father, actually. But he’s known by the chancellor, respected; he’s one of the reasons I went underground, to protect him.”
“Because you had to rebel, and that would endanger him.”
“Yes. I don’t blame my father for laying low, of course. We both agreed that was the best way for him to serve the resistance.”
“Then why didn’t you follow suit? You didn’t have to live underground, obviously. You might have found a place in the government.”
Ric said, “I never could have played their game, I wouldn’t if I could.”
“But you could change things from within. Isn’t that a better strategy?”
“I suppose it’s one way of looking at things. But I just couldn’t play along to stay along. Some things, you just have to stand against.”
And Jeanell knew he was right, and that her time to stand against evil had finally come, sixty years after her own lifetime. But this wasn’t a night to reflect on her grim future or her sad and strange past. And it wasn’t a night to worry about the future, so much in doubt. This was a night to travel the world in the company of a beautiful and mysterious man.
A swipe of the screen put them in a flash in a disco in Prague. Lights pulsed and music thumped, loud and droning and constant, matching the pace of her heart. The synthetic music had a hypnotic quality, flashed of spoken-word vocals or drum kicks to interrupt the grinding rhythm. It jolted up from the dance floor, driving up her legs and into her swaying hips. Jeanell couldn’t resist the primal temptation of that pounding beat. Though her life had been turned upside down, though everything she’d ever known had been ripped from her and replaced with things she may never understand or even survive, a girl still existed in her who hungered to live, to love, to dance.
And in a lot of ways, Jeanell had already given herself up for dead, so she wasn’t above indulging in the pool of life, even if just for one or two days more. She’d tried to resist it, but the wonders of Paris, the power of instantaneous travel, which she herself had created, was a heady combination that she simply couldn’t resist.
And there was Ric, a man like she’d never known and would never know again. He danced before her, graceful and sexy, eyes locked on hers as their hips ground together. His powerful hands found her hips, resting gently and subtly guiding them. Without his long hair, he looked like an entirely different man—a bit more menacing, less primal. But Jeanell knew that he was no threat to her; he could have killed her ten times if he’d wanted to, or turn her over to whomever was willing to pay the most.
But that time had gone. He’d won her trust, and now she wanted nothing more than to give it to him, and not only that.
His crotch was bulging with his increasing lust for Jeanell, and she couldn’t help but notice it. A long, thick shape pushed out from behind the stretchy white material, and it was all Jeanell could do to keep from reaching out and grabbing it right there and then. She could imagine how hard it was, how good it was going to feel once it was inside her. But there was still the music, the lights, the scent of perfume and sweat intermingling as lovers swayed and danced around them. Jeanell felt as if she was surrounded by a kind of faux orgy, simulated sex acts happening all around her, a mass of lovers in perverse public displays.
And Jeanell felt good to be one of them, and it felt even better to know that some things never really changed, though Jeanell knew that she wasn’t one of them.
She definitely did feel different, and Jeanell knew there were so many good reasons for that. She looked different, like a sexy secret agent from some old TV show. The pretty blonde she’d always been was a recluse, afraid of what her beauty might inspire in others, even in herself. But the new Jeanell was ready to dance, ready to fight, ready to live and love. The new Jeanell felt like the real Jeanell, the better Jeanell, and more and more she was willing to turn herself over to it, to him, to it all.
She was also more willing to turn herself over to Ric.
But something caught Jeanell’s eye; no, not something, someone. Jeanell muttered, “Brad? Is that Brad?”
Ric spun to peer through the lights and the crowd just as Brad ducked down, suspicious and devious. Ric said, “Oh shit!” before grabbing Jeanell’s hand. “We gotta go!”
“What? It’s Brad!”
“Just run!”
He led her through the crowd, suddenly thick and hard to penetrate. The bodies were close together, grinding in ignorant bliss to the tune of their own requiem. Ric ran faster, his fist tight around Jeanell’s. They ducked down low, pushing through the crowd toward the exit, which seemed to get further and further away the more they tried to reach it.
Even above the scramble and the music, Jeanell asked, “Why are we running?”
“To stay alive!”
Ric finally found the door and pushed hard, angry customers balking as he shoved them out of the way, screaming, “Run for your lives!”
But by then it was too late. Jeanell looked back through the still-open front door to see a flash of light, a crowd full of terrified screams, and then the sudden absence of activity… and people… inside the club.
“Oh, my God!”
“He’s not here,” Ric said, pulling her out onto the street. “Neither is anyone else!”
They ran out onto the street and kept running, the medieval block of old Prague stretching out before them.