Chapter 5

Poll Results:

Open the door: 4 votes

Escape out a window: 1 vote

Have Zim open the door: 3 votes

Barricade the door and search the apartment more: 1 vote

It is the swinger neighbors looking for some action. They don't mind that it's someone else. (The deafening boom, cracked walls, and shattered glass were coincidental; a supersonic aircraft had flown over too close to ground level.): 3 votes


Zim pressed a spot on her wrist with a motion Phil had seen before. Phil crawled out from under the coffee table and emptied the shoe box. He stuffed the contents into his coat pocket. Zim positioned herself behind the door. Phil hoped for his sake she had quick reflexes and good aim. He opened the door.

In the hallway, a short balding man with a permanent sneer and a 2-day beard checked a note he held in his hand. "You Norm?"

Phil looked at Zim. She shrugged. "Yes."

"I'm your transport. You got bags or something? I'm parked outside and I don't want to stay there long if I can avoid it." The sound of chaos was still overwhelming through the blown-out windows.

"No bags." Zim pressed the spot on her wrist again, deactivating whatever weapon it was she possessed, Phil assumed. "Um, I've got somebody coming with me." Phil opened the door more to display Zim. "Will that be extra?"

The man's eyes rested on her perfect bosom. "No! Uh, no. She can sit up front with me." Zim rubbed her wrist.

Minutes later they were hovering several meters over the dust, broken glass, and panicked mob on the street below. "My name is Cro. Don't ask. My parents were... well, we don't choose our family, right? HA. I'm pretty sure I can get you through all this to the CrossStation but it is going to be absolute hell to travel today. Probably a good thing you don't have bags even though you'll probably have to pay for your food and stuff the whole trip this way since you didn't bring nothing and all they have is those nasty hot dogs. You'd think they'd have more human food than that seeing as how this planet is about ninety percent human nowadays but the like five Cryleans left like to pretend we're just visiting or some shit apparently they like their denial more than profit. If only the locals would let humans get business licenses we could get some good food here. Anyway, I don't envy you traveling today. I hate traveling by ship myself but I guess that's going to be the only way to get anywhere now, eh? HA."

"Why? What happened?" Phil asked.

Cro looked around at Phil. "You uh... you don't know?"

"No. We heard an explosion and then you came to the door. We didn't have time to find out."

"Huh." Cro hesitated for a moment and then laughed. "Well, you wouldn't believe it. Another portal's blown. This time ours. Pain in the ass. I guess we're all stuck here now unless we want to travel by Ship."

Phil's head was swimming. The kidnapping had been a diversion. The transport he and Zim were now on was supposed to be Norm's escape. The entire seventeen days he had been there were just a waste of time, smoke and mirrors set up to keep Phil from finding out what was really going on. When Phil looked up, Zim was looking back at him intently. She subtly moved her eyes toward the window. She was trying to tell him something.

Phil looked out. They were surrounded by houses, nowhere near the industrial district where CrossStation was located. "Where are we?" Phil demanded.

"What agency do you work for?"

"What?"

"What agency do you work for?" Cro was more insistent this time.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Cro pulled a blaster from a compartment underneath his seat and aimed it at Zim's head.

"Get in the back with him." She complied and crawled over the seat next to Phil. They sat in silence with the blaster aimed at them for the next several minutes before finally pulling to a stop in a hidden garage behind a house. Four armed men surrounded their transport. The tallest one, a redhead walked to Cro's window and aimed a blaster at his head.

"What are you doing here?" The redhead demanded.

"This ain't him. I got there and he said he was him but he don't know anything and I asked him the question and he-"

"This wasn't your job. This isn't what we asked you to do. You are not authorized to identify agents." Phil could hear the redhead's blaster charging up.

Cro held his hands up "ASK HIM! ASK HIM YOURSELF! IT AIN'T HIM!"

"Then you should not have brought him here." The blaster fired. The transporter was instantly filled with heat and the smell of burnt skin and hair. Cro's limp, now headless body slumped over in his seat. The redhead opened Phil's door and aimed his blaster at Phil.

"What agency do you work for?" Phil could hear the blaster charging again.