Six Bits Read online

  To Allie’s surprise, Sarah leaned over, threw her arms around her daughter and sobbed again. “I’m so happy for you!” she choked out.

  Stephen threw his head back, thrust his arms in the air and shouted, “You’re shittin’ me! My sister is ‘Eva?’ This is awesome! Wait ‘til I tell Ben.”

  “Stephen Dans! Watch your language!”

  Allie caught her brother’s eye when he looked back at her, goofy grin on his face. “Stephen, please don’t tell anybody? I’d like to have a place of peace and quiet for as long as I can. Fans are important to us, but they can be pretty intrusive too.”

  Stephen stared wide-eyed, “You have got to be shittin’ me! The coolest thing that’s ever happened to me and I can’t tell anyone?!”

  “Stephen!”

  Allie made calming motions with her hands. “Let’s worry about that later. First we need to figure out what to do about Dad.”

  A pall dropped back over the table. “But what could we do?” Allie asked.

  Sarah said, “I don’t know. The police say we shouldn’t do anything… just wait by the phone.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve been through his desk here at home for clues?”

  “Yes, and his e-mails and his hard drive. Everything in the desk and on his computer seems to be about his research on ports.” Sarah’s eyes cast toward Stephen then back to Allie. She shook her head minutely. Apparently they still hadn’t told Stephen that Allie had been the source of the ports. “There’s nothing on there about any ‘other interests’ either.” Apparently Sarah hadn’t told Stephen about the police’s “girlfriend” theory either.

  “What about his work computer?”

  “I’m pretty sure they won’t let us look at it. Besides we wouldn’t have the password.”

  “Well, let’s go try. Dad could never remember passwords. It’s probably written down in his desk somewhere.”

  The doorbell rang again. Sarah clapped a hand to her heart, a stricken look on her face. “Oh! I hope it isn’t bad news.”

  Allie got up. “I’ll get it.” A grim feeling settled over her.

  She strode down the hall to the entry and opened the door. Hot muggy air flowed in, followed by a scruffy, skinny young man in a white shirt and black tie. Mormons? she wondered, but Mormons are polite—they wouldn’t just shove into the house like this. Then a large, wide-bodied, bald man, also in white shirt and tie came through the door as well! His dense goatee looked wrong for a Mormon. “Hey!” Allie exclaimed, as they crowded her back out of the entry and into the hallway. More words froze in her throat as she looked down at the gun in the first man’s hand. Rape?! Robbery?! she wondered.

  Dean looked at the gorgeous, slender chick with the spiky reddish blond hair. These college girls are hot, he thought to himself. He waved his gun at her, “You Allie?”

  “Huh?” Allie said.

  “We’re gonna go visit your daddy and see if you can talk some sense into him.”

  “Put down that damned phone!” the man with the goatee roared over Allie’s shoulder.

  Allie looked back over her shoulder. Her mother and brother stood at the other end of the hall to the kitchen. Stephen had dropped his cell phone and it looked like it had broken.

  Goatee chortled, “This is the mom and both kids. All right!” He was looking at a paper he’d unfolded. “Jackpot! Let’s go.” He motioned back towards the door with his gun.

  Allie thought dazedly that she’d been advised to never go anywhere with someone who meant her harm. “Stay away from environments that your abductor controls.” But, “go visit your daddy,” made it sound like not going was a poor choice too. They needed to know where her dad was.

  A couple of minutes later they all stood trembling at the front door, Allie thought about running as soon as they were out in public, she’d read somewhere that that was a good strategy. Grabbing her hand, Goatee said, “Let’s hold hands so you don’t get any ideas.” Then he squeezed painfully until Allie dropped to her knees. He said in an ominous tone, “We really only need one of you three to convince your old man to talk. So if one of you kids runs, or gives us any other trouble, we’ll kill the old lady. Think about that long and hard before you decide to take off.”

  Allie looked up into Goatee’s pale blue eyes and could see that he enjoyed hurting her. Tears welled up and she looked back down and shook her head. Should she make a port in his neck like that guy at the bar? It didn’t seem like a good idea to make him cough while she was looking down the barrel of his gun.

  Dean grinned at the way Roger hurt the chica. He and Roger had that in common; they both liked to hurt people. They couldn’t afford to have her run, which provided a convenient excuse. He opened the front door and, putting away his gun, started down the walk, opening the door to the back of the van for their guests and then locking them into the windowless, dim interior with Roger. Roger got out blindfolds. Dean went around front, got in, started the van, and eased it into the street. He took a random course across town with a couple of loop backs looking for tails. About an hour later they pulled up at the little farmhouse where the boss was holding daddy Dans. Since they had the blindfolds on, Roger took Allie’s arm and led her up the walk. Dean got the other two out of the back, but then paused to watch the girl’s cute looking ass as it swayed going up the steps. Once that was over he started the mom and brother up the walk too.

  Allie was pulled up a few steps, then heard the creak of a door. She felt a puff of cool air and then felt Goatee’s hand on her elbow urging her up over a sill into a dim room. The blindfold was removed and she saw a man tied to a chair. Her dad! Face swollen, and nose crooked, but it was definitely him. Allie ran to him, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around him. “Daddy,” she whispered.

  “Allie!” A happy-to-see-you emotion bloomed in her dad’s eyes. After a moment he mumbled through swollen lips, “Sorry kiddo. Seems like I really screwed up.”

  Then Goatee hauled Allie back by the belt and tossed her against the wall. Effortlessly, it seemed.

  Allie lay stunned. She heard her mother screaming hysterically as if from far away. She looked up blurrily to see Stephen charge over to tackle Goatee, but Goatee clubbed him aside with his gun, using a vicious stroke that left the young teenager lying, apparently unconscious, against the other wall. This assault on her brother shocked Allie’s mind clear, but it still seemed like she couldn’t move.

  Scruffy pulled out some cable ties and tossed some to Goatee. They started methodically tying up Allie’s mother, apparently unfazed by her struggles and shrieks. Goatee simply held her arms still while Scruffy fastened her wrists and elbows to the arms of the wooden chair with the cable ties. Then they did the same thing with her ankles and knees.

  Allie could see that Stephen was still breathing. Though her brother still appeared to be unconscious, they bound his ankles and wrists together. But not Allie, which somehow seemed ominous. Then they turned back to Mrs. Dans who was still yelling at the top of her lungs. Goatee slapped her hard. When this stopped her yelling for a moment, he said, “Shut up unless you want to be gagged.” He gave her an ugly smile, “People can choke to death on gags you know.”

  Allie heard a new and raspy voice, “Purdy thing, ain’t she?” Raspy, Allie saw, had white hair and a face pitted with old acne scars. He held a gun casually pointed halfway between Allie and her dad. He took a long drag from a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke towards her. From the lazy, casual way he held the gun she got the distinct impression that he’d killed people with it.

  Raspy turned to her dad, “Now, Dr. Dans, I sure would hate to see your purdy daughter hurt just ‘cause you want to keep your little ol’ secret all to yourself.”

  Dad has secrets? Allie thought with some startlement. What kind of secret would he have that would involve this kind of people? They’d always been comfortably well off, though not rich—could he be involved in some kind of crime? Wouldn’t she have had some kind of hint before now? He was a phy
sicist! She thought? Physicists didn’t have secrets! Did they? She shuffled herself into a sitting position against the wall. It made her head swim, but she didn’t want to be lying down in this situation.

  Muzzily, she pondered their situation. It seemed pretty grim with everyone tied up but her. She had a sick feeling that even if her dad parted with his secrets, the family wouldn’t be leaving here alive. Every member of the family had seen the men’s faces, so the men would be crazy to let them go to the police afterward.

  Lazily, Raspy pointed the gun toward Allie. There was a flash, a loud bang and Allie let out a brief shriek and scrunched in on herself. Bits of sheetrock dribbled down the wall onto her head. She stared at the gun like it was a snake. Raspy’d been talking she realized, “Don’t worry little lady, you can scream all you want. No one’ll hear you out here. Go ahead and holler to your heart’s content. Maybe it’ll motivate your old man here. You need to get him talking before I have to actually start shooting parts of you. Parts is parts ya know?” He chuckled as if he’d said something very funny.

  “What do you need to know? My dad doesn’t have any secrets.”

  Raspy barked a short laugh. “Oh, Doc, even your kids don’t know? Well Honey, it seems your Daddy developed a wormhole device, but he doesn’t want to share his secret with the world.”

  Startled, Allie looked at her dad questioningly. He shook his head minutely. For a moment she didn’t comprehend, then she realized with awe that, even after the beating he’d apparently taken, he still hadn’t told them that she’d created the ports!

  Allie’s dad croaked, “I’ve told them the ports are too small to be useful!”

  Raspy casually backhanded her dad with the pistol, knocking him, and the chair he was tied to, over onto their sides. The gunsight cut the side of his head leaving a long bleeding gash over his ear. “Dans, I really am tired of hearing you talk, without telling us what we need to know, so shut up! We’re gonna have some fun with your little girl here, but it’ll stop anytime you want to start talking about things we want to know. Understand?”

  Goatee had easily picked up the chair Allie’s dad was strapped to, setting it and him back upright. Her dad mumbled something.

  “What?!”

  Her dad said, “I said, ‘Just kill us all. You’re going to anyway.’”

  Raspy snorted, “Well now, it might come to that. But first we’ll have some fun eh? Dean, you evil bastard, you wanna have some fun with the chica there?”

  Dean, licked his lips and swaggered over to the girl, expecting to enjoy the apprehensive look on her face. Instead she looked pissed. Oh well. Then he tilted his head and looked at her again. “A-hah! I’ve been thinking there was something kinda familiar about you. It’s ‘cause you look like a redheaded version of Eva, you know, the singer from Eve of Destruction?” He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, groping her on the way up.

  He grunted and crouched over in pain. Damn! The bitch kneed me in the crotch! As soon as he recovered a little, he slapped her brutally and watched with satisfaction as she crumpled to the floor. He bent back over, holding his knees and grunted, “Roger, looks like I’m gonna need a little help.”

  “Sure thing buddy.” Roger said, picking a stunned Allie up by one arm and her belt and carrying her to the heavy dining table.

  Dean huffed a couple of times, then stood a little straighter and walked over to the can of cable ties.

  Roger tossed Allie onto the heavy table and held her while Dean tied her ankles and wrists.

  Allie raised up her spinning head and saw her father looking on in horror. Her mother started screaming, but that choked off to muffled sobs as they gagged her after all. Allie looked around the room. Her brother still lay unmoving, though she could see he was still breathing. Could I do something besides make these bastards cough? Are there others? Or just Raspy, Scruffy, and Goatee? She didn’t want to try making them cough themselves senseless when someone might pop out of the other room with a gun.

  Dean reached out and grabbed her chin forcing her to look at him, “Kick me now, bitch.”

  Allie tried to twist her face away from his hand, but it was futile.

  Leering over her, he said, “I’m gonna pretend I’m screwing that rock star, Eva. You look like her and she’s probably an uppity bitch just like you are.”

  She focused and could feel the blood vessels in his groin. With trepidation she focused on the big artery there and created a port from there to his pants. A bloody spot appeared near his crotch.

  Roger guffawed, pointing at Dean’s crotch, “Hey buddy, she rupture something there when she kicked ya?

  Dean looked down and began a panicked cursing. Out of the corner of her eye Allie saw Raspy getting up to look. After a moment, Raspy calmly told Dean to change his pants, wash up and figure out what was bleeding. Dean went into the bathroom to desperately examine himself for the source of bleeding, swearing all the while. Roger and Raspy chuckled at Dean’s condition, even though they were obviously a little spooked themselves.

  Allie looked up apprehensively as Roger stepped up beside her. He grinned, but the expression looked evil on him. “I guess it’s just you and me, Cutie.” He said, reaching out, “I like to choke cute girls like you,” he said, raising his eyebrows as if she were supposed to be amazed by this revelation. He grasped her neck and started squeezing.

  Allie gasped for breath as his grip slowly tightened. Her mother was screaming into her gag and Allie heard a crash as her Dad’s chair fell over. She thrashed to try to get free without success, Roger was far too strong. His face was flushed, the veins standing out. He was excited and dangerous, she concluded, and she was going to be unconscious soon. She couldn’t wait any longer to be sure whether there were other accomplices or to think of some better strategy. Reaching out with her odd sense she felt the pulsating arteries in his neck and the flow of air in his windpipe. Allie created a port from his carotid artery into to his trachea and Roger suddenly let go of her neck as he began spasmodically coughing up blood just like the big drunk behind the bar. Raspy hove into view desperately waving his gun in all directions, shouting, “What the hell just happened Roger?!”

  Through a bloody moustache and goatee Roger gasped out, “Don’t… cough, cough... know!” then resumed hacking.

  Raspy pointed the gun at Allie’s leg, “Step into view or I put a bullet in the girl’s leg!” When nothing happened, he said, “Now!”

  Allie realized that Raspy thought her family had an accomplice. She didn’t want to make him spasm with coughing; he might pull the trigger when she did. While she dithered Allie saw his finger tighten on the trigger. Desperately she tried to twist her leg out of the way. He used his left hand to hold her leg down, then pulled the trigger!

  Agony scythed through Allie’s calf. She tried to reach out and sense Raspy’s neck, but found that her tele-sense couldn’t feel anything while her leg was hurting so badly! She curled up and grasped at her leg with her hands, though she had difficulty doing it with her wrists bound together. It seemed like the bullet had missed the bone as her leg wasn’t flopping around. The hole was in the fleshy part of her calf, but it still hurt terribly. She had to do something about their guns!

  Raspy continued waving his gun about, but seemed less frantic as nothing had happened after he shot Allie. Roger’s coughing had died down, though he still bent over and braced against his knees. Dean came back into the room from the bathroom wearing new shorts, but no shoes. He waved his gun around too, but both he and Raspy slowly became calmer when nothing else happened.

  Allie’s pain diminished to a dull throb and she sent her sense into her leg. Nothing broken, the bullet had gone in the front and out the back between the bones.

  With a sudden idea, Allie reached out with her sense and found the water pipe in the kitchen wall right behind her. She focused on Raspy’s gun, feeling the bullet in the chamber, then the powder in the shell behind the bullet. She opened a tiny port and was rewarded by the
sensation of water spraying into the powder. Was it enough? She worried that if she opened the port too far, the water pressure might push the bullet out of the end of the cartridge and she surely didn’t want water dripping out of the gun to warn them that something was wrong. With a mental shrug, she turned to the gun that Dean had stopped waving and put back in his waistband holster, then to the one in Roger’s holster wetting them all. She considered wetting the powder in the second cartridge in each gun, in case they just jacked the slide if the first bullet didn’t fire. Her leg was throbbing and she was finding it harder to concentrate and sense the water pipe so she closed her eyes for a moment’s rest. There must be something better she could do!

  Allie’s dad croaked, “If you’ll just let my family go, I’ll show you how I made the first device.”

  Raspy chuckled, “Oh sure, that’s a good one! You betcha Albert, you just promise, cross your heart, hope to die and we’ll let the family go to the police while you’re ‘splainin’ how to make the port machine. Sho’ ‘nuff Albert, tha’d be jes’ fine!” He laughed some more. There was a grunt and scraping of chair legs as he set the chair Dr. Dans was tied to back up right. “Oopsie, no, that wouldn’t work! Instead why don’t you start explaining and drawing pictures of the device right now, just so’s I won’t put any more bullets into your daughter?”

  “OK, but first put a bandage on her leg and take the gag off my wife.”

  “We’ll bandage the girl’s leg, but your wife makes too much noise. I ain’t takin’ that gag off.”

  “OK, but you’ve got to let one of us check on Stephen.”

  Allie felt surprised that her dad appeared to be negotiating in such a level headed fashion. He’d always seemed brilliant, in an absent-minded, nebulous sort of way. Far too fuzzy headed for this type of negotiation.

  Someone started cutting her pants leg open. She opened her eyes and saw Dean cutting them with a knife. Allie looked over at her dad. Her dad gave her a little half wink! He must realize what had caused the storm of coughing? She looked at the small wound on her calf, the entrance, she presumed. The exit wound would be around back. They weren’t bleeding much. She wiggled her foot. It hurt, but the muscles worked.