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Confused, he gazed at the young woman. She was very beautiful. Her hair was long and wavy. It framed her heart-shaped face. He reached out a hand and let his fingers touch it. It was so soft. And the color wasn’t red it was auburn. His mother had had auburn hair. He wondered what color her eyes would be when she opened them then as an image of her flashed across his mind he knew they would be green.
More images came to him as he remembered her from the alley. He quickly looked down at his side and gasped in surprise. The cut the assailant had given him was nearly healed! The wound had closed. There was only a thin red line now. How could this be? He frowned and looked over at the woman again. Had she cured him?
He remembered feeling his life ebbing away and then seeing her above him. Then the pain had been too much and he’d given in to the darkness. Logan raised his eyes and looked around. He was in his room above the tavern. How had he gotten here? He stood and walked across the room to the window. He peered out as he stretched. He felt strong and alert. His senses seemed more heightened then before. Logan heard a sound and turned.
“Good morning,” she said. “You’re feeling better I see. I’m glad the procedure worked. I was afraid it wouldn’t.”
Her voice was the first thing that struck him when she spoke. It was soft and musical. A lilting accent that struck a familiar cord but which he couldn’t place. And that worried him. In his line of work he had learned to place people immediately, to size them up and file it all away, yet this woman with her red gold hair and her witching eyes eluded him.
Procedure? It struck him then as the events of the night before crashed down on him. He drew in a sharp breath with remembered pain and Meghan jumped up in concern.
"No! Wait." And he held up a hand to her as he tried to gain his bearings. "Why am I not dead? I should be dead. I was in an alleyway for heaven’s sake with a knife in me. I KNOW I died. What happened? Where am I? " His voice rose sharply. He stared intently at the woman who was gazing back at him calmly, as though unaffected by his tirade. "I remember you. I thought you came to me in a dream - you know, angel of mercy, that kind of thing. So, what am I doing here now, what "procedure" are you talking about, and what - " lifting up his hand to show the newly formed scar, " - is this?"
Meghan really dreaded this; she’d spent hours last evening trying to think what was best to tell him. She started to explain and was distracted with his eyes. They were the deepest dark blue she had ever seen. They reminded her once many years back when she was on flight duty at the Tempest Space Center. She remembered like it was yesterday, walking down the long corridor until she reached the massive doorway. She hesitated not knowing what she would find behind the door. Why was the commander so eager for her to come here? She was tired of learning the ways of the Time Healers.
She stepped back ready to run, but her heart knew she had to go on, he said it was the final test. Her people needed her. She pushed the control panel on the wall and listened as the doors swooshed open.
Never before had she seen color so vivid in all her life. Before her was a tranquil lake the bluest she’d ever seen! She walked on, heard the door close and knew if she turned around it would be gone. Her feet moved on their own until she reached the edge of the water. She looked down and could see forever. She gazed around at this peaceful setting and knew at once; this was what the commander wanted her to learn. Peacefulness. Serenity.
She sat down on the plush green grass and felt it’s softness and gazed out onto the beautiful lake. She felt the breeze touch her skin, closed her eyes and prayed to the Keeper of the stars. ‘Give me strength I pray, help me on this journey I am to take. Let me follow in your guidance that I will bring a new beginning to our universe. My heart is heavy and I fear that I need your help more than ever to watch over my people and me that together we can build a new existence. Much later as her body felt healed she walked back the way she had came. When the doors opened her commander was standing there with a smile and open arms. She felt herself leaning up against his old body, knowing that it will be some time before she would feel this kind of placidity.
The sound of banging brought her back into focus. His eyes turned to the door and he looked at her with surprise. “Who is it?” he bellowed.
“It’s me Johnny let me in!” Logan went to the door and opened it wide.
“Man, some night you had last night, who was that pretty girl that helped your sorry butt to the house? Man, she’s a looker! You must have been off your rocker to get that drunk with a girl like that. I bet you don’t remember a thing, do you?”
Johnny reached in Logan’s refrigerator grabbing a beer and as he turned around that’s when he notices her standing by the bed. “Oh man I’m sorry I thought, Um... well... I guess I should be leaving. Thanks for the beer, Logan, we’ll talk later.”
The door quietly shut and Logan had never moved. His eyes looked at this woman and he said, "How do you know Big John? Wait! First tell me who you are, and why are you here?”
“My name is Meghan O’Leary, Commander of The Time Healers. I met Big John as you call him last night. He helped me get you in his cab and up to your apartment. And to your question earlier, you were dying until I healed you."
“What? Dying? If I were dying, I wouldn’t be standing here with an almost healed wound,” he said as he pointed to his side.
Meghan didn’t know what to say, and for a split second she thought about not answering him and running to get as far away from him as she possibly could. This man with the amazing eyes and the soft hair scared her more than any Tracer ever had. What was worse was that she knew it wasn’t him it was the way he made her feel.
He stood before her now, expecting, waiting and while she knew he needed her to speak to make everything better she also knew that she could never do that. She understood that whatever she told him wouldn’t make things easy, it would throw his world upside down to know that he would never grow old, that he had been forced to become a part of a world that was at war. That he had been forced into her world.
"Last night you were stabbed. The wound was fatal. I found you on the brink of death in an alleyway and, as I said, Big John helped me bring you here. There was no other way to save you so I made you immortal, like me." She knew as soon as she’d said it that she couldn’t backtrack now.
"Immortal? Yeah right! What is this? Some kind of joke? You made me immortal - what does that mean? Who the heck are you lady?"
"I told you my name..."
"It’s not your name that bothers me, I want to know what you’re doing here and I want to know why I’m not in morgue right now, give me an answer and then we’ll take things from there." He crossed his arms over his bare chest and the movement brought her focus from his face to his tanned and muscular torso. She took in a deep breath and forced herself to look back up.
"Alright, I’ll explain,” she sighed. “I am a Time Healer. My people and I go back in time to help those who become like us cope with their immortality.”
“Time Healers? Go back in time? Are you telling me that you’re from the future?” he asked incredulously.
Meghan nodded, ‘yes.’ “I’m from the year 3256. My brethren are but one faction of the New Interstellar Alliance. Rogue groups in NIA that call themselves Tracers are intent on obliterating my people. Yesterday I escaped the Tracers sent to kill me through a time window and entered your time.”
“Time window, your time, my time...this is impossible. There’s no such thing as time travel! And Immortality! No one can be immortal,” he said as he paced around the room. Logan was confused, he knew he should be dead and this woman, if she was to be believed, had saved him. He didn’t know what to say or how take this woman. He decided to go along with her story, not quite believing it but not knowing what else to say.
"We are a small tribe. The Tracers believed that our immortality is an abomination, that we are impure. They have developed a serum that kills immortals.”
"So why make me immortal?” he asked.
“I made you one of us because I couldn’t let you die," Meghan explained.
“So what you’re saying is that I...that you...How?”
“The procedure is very simple. I mix my blood with yours. My immortal blood regenerates within yours and becomes a part of you. You live when you would have died."
Suddenly Meghan’s face paled and she closed her eyes. Logan thought she was going to faint so he rushed over and pulled her into his arms. Pain knifed though Meghan’s head and she grimaced. The Tracers were nearby she could sense them. She opened her mind and heard their distinct footsteps. The heavy chained boots marching in unison. ‘How had they found her?’ she wondered. ‘She had been so careful.’ They were no longer safe here. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, “They’re coming, and we have to go.”
“Who’s coming?” he asked.
“The Tracers. They’re nearby. Open your mind and you will sense them,” she replied.
Logan complied, closed his eyes and opened his mind. He felt a twinge of pain in his head and was suddenly bombarded with sounds from outside his room. He heard the vendors hawking their wares on the street below so clearly he was amazed. Every little sound drifted into his mind. Then he heard sounds that shouldn’t be part of his beloved New Orleans. Heavy chained boots walking in unison. They were marching and the sound was getting louder taking over all the other sounds from below.
“Heavy chained boots, marching?” he asked as he opened his eyes and looked down at her.
“Yes, that’s them,” she said as she steps out of his embrace and grabbed his shirt and long coat from the chair and threw it at him. Logan automatically caught them and put them on. He was still stunned that he felt no pain when he knew he should have.
"We have to hurry. Is there a back way out of this place?" Meghan asked.
“We can go out the tavern’s back door,” he replied as he retrieved his wallet and gun from the bedside table then pulled on his boots.
They went to the door and Logan pushed her behind him as he opened it and peeked into the hallway. Meghan followed Logan as he led the way down the tavern’s back stairs to the back door. They stepped outside into an alley. Logan pulled out his keys and walked over to his Jeep Cherokee.
They got in and peeled away just has the Tracers stepped out the tavern’s back door. Logan kept his eye on his rearview mirror as he drove down Madison Street. He knew New Orleans like the back of his hand.
He looked over at the woman seated next to him and wondered if he should believe her story. She had been right about someone coming, he’d seen them himself when he’d looked into his rearview mirror. They’d been dressed in some kind of suit that looked like it had been painted on them. They had short hair like he use to have in his army days. They’d even walked kind of like the army. He hadn’t seen their eyes because they were wearing dark glasses.
He cleared his throat and she looked at him. “Who were those guys back there?” he asked.
“They were Tracers,” replied Meghan.
“What are Tracers?” asked Logan.
“Tracers are a rogue group in the NIA, the New Interstellar Alliance. They hunt down immortals because they believe we are an abomination that we are impure and are contaminating society on all the worlds that are part of the NIA. They have managed to create a serum deadly to immortals. Now they’re after me and because I mixed my blood with yours to save your life they are now after you as well,” she explained.
“After me!” exclaimed Logan. “I still don’t believe this cockamamie story about immortals. If there were immortals walking around, wouldn’t everyone know about it?”
“Logan you are a spook, a spy. You’re part of a secret covert organization called Mercury. You answer only to two people, Jake Gaspard and your President. Your missions, when they send you, are to save key people who have been kidnapped, or are threatened by terrorist factions. I could name a lot more if you’d like? You are also an expert researcher in the field of antidotes,” she said with a smug expression.
Logan was stunned. How did she know all these things about him? He slammed on the brakes and pulled out of the traffic and into a mall parking lot. He took off his seatbelt and got out of the Jeep. Logan went over to the passenger side of the car and opened the door.
“Get out!” he said, his voice low and controlled.
Meghan slowly got out of the car. She stood relaxed but ready to defend herself if he became violent.
Logan paced up and down in front of her. He tried to control his mounting panic. How did she know these things about him? How could she know about Mercury, and Jake, his commander?
Logan stopped in front of her. “Ok lady! How do you know so much about me? What do you want?” he asked.
"I’ve known about you for centuries Logan. Your life is all right here on this data crystal,” she said as she removed a crystal the size of a medium sized button. “I was too late to stop the assassin the Tracers sent to kill you and you were mortally wounded. The knife he used was dipped in a poisonous chemical called Waxen. If I hadn’t mixed my blood with yours you would be dead right now.”
“Why do these supposed Tracers want me dead?” he asked.
“Because of your field of research. They are afraid you’ll find the antidote to their serum and stop them from destroying immortals, she replied. “Please help me.”
“Why should I help you? Look what you’ve done to me!” exclaimed Logan.
“Because now you have an incentive. You are now immortal, like me,” said Meghan.
All of a sudden Meghan grew taunt and she twisted her head about scanning the parking lot. She sensed danger. An image of a man with a gun exploded in her mind. She looked over at Logan and knew by the expression on his face that he had seen the image as well and sensed the danger.
"Get down!" she shouted as she grabbed his arm and pulled him to the ground. A bullet flew past just where Logan had been standing.
Logan pulled out his gun from the small of his back and leaned against the Jeep’s passenger side. He sidled to the front of the car and poked his head around it to see who the shooter was. Meghan pulled Logan back just in time as she sensed another bullet coming and watched it go through the window of the blue Pontiac in front of her.
“Friend of yours?” she asked Logan.
“Could be,” he replied, “it could also be a friend yours. A Tracer maybe?”
Meghan shook her head, “No, the danger I sense is directed at you not me. I’m sure with the work you do you have many enemies who’d want you dead.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” sighed Logan. He took another peek and saw a heavyset bald man.
“Clarence is that you?” shouted Logan. “I thought I told you to get of town or I’d feed you to the gators!”
“Ya cain’t give me to no gators if yer dead Dupree,” Clarence shouted back.
"And who's going to shoot me? You Clarence? You can't even hit the broadside of a barn!" replied Logan.
“Why ya lily livered Frenchy! Ya cain't talk to me like dat! I'm gonna plug ya full a holes,” said Clarence as he rushed from cover and ran for the Jeep.
“I’ve had enough of this,” said Meghan. “We don’t have time for this. Keep him occupied and I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” asked Logan as he turned his head to look at her. She was already gone.
Meghan sidled to the back of the Jeep and took out her stunner from the pouch under her shirt. The stunner looked very much like a pencil except it was a long slim crystal with three different colored buttons. The blue button froze a person in mid-stride. The yellow button rendered a person unconscious and the red button vaporized him.
She flattened herself on the ground and peeked out from behind the back tire. She saw the man, Clarence, running toward the Jeep and pointed the stunner at his legs. Meghan pressed the blue button and Clarence froze, like a statue.
