The Off-Worlders Read online

  The

  Off-Worlders

  Book 3 of The Maze

  by

  George Willson

  Text copyright 2017, 2019 by George Willson

  www.fempiror.com

  Cover Photography acquired from Pexels.com

  Cover designed by George Willson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  First edition, August 2017

  Revision, July 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Tasha and the girls

  without whom, why bother?

  Also in The Maze:

  City Of Phase

  The Kursas

  False Invasion

  Ancient Visitors

  The Terraformers

  The Secret Of The Woods

  Also by George Willson:

  Atari Speaks

  Vengeance

  The Fempiror Chronicles series:

  The Awakening

  Mutation Genesis

  Razer Hunt

  The Elixir

  What You Need To Know…

  The Maze is a series about people who travel through time. While it has a release order for the sake of the main characters, the individual stories are self-contained and can be read in any order. It assumes the reader is aware of the following.

  The Maze describes both the place where the travelers live as well as the machine that performs the time travel.

  The travelers enter an elevator which opens at its destination, and once the travelers exit the elevators, the doors close and disappear only reappearing when it is time to depart. The travelers do not know when it will be time to leave; the doors simply appear and open.

  It is unknown where or when the physical location of the Maze exists. The most they know is that it can only travel to its own past.

  Travelers in the Maze tend to be at a low point in their lives at home when the elevator doors appear before them welcoming them to walk through. While this is intended to be a choice, most feel that it was their only option at the time. It is believed that the Maze is some kind of redemptive tool and once they are “ready,” the Maze will take them back home.

  The Guide is a consciousness carried in the mind of one of the travelers. It provides a consistent set of memories of every adventure it has taken as well as a wealth of information that the carrier can access. The Guide also translates languages foreign to the travelers via a mental link.

  Blake Williams is from Earth in the year 2521. He is the current carrier of The Guide. He was on the run from the law after escaping a debtors camp when the doors appeared to him.

  Perry Newman is from Earth in the year 1983. He had been beaten after attempting to sell illegally acquired weapons to pay back drug money when the doors appeared to him.

  Michelle Palmer is from Earth in the year 2004. She was depressed and had had too much to drink in her apartment when the doors appeared to her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Anytime the travelers returned from a location, the Maze always gave them plenty of time to recover from the mission they had just had. This was because the things they usually had to do out there in the universe were so physically exhausting that they needed several days to rest back up and recover their strength before moving on to something new.

  Michelle Palmer was using her time in the Maze to look forward in a series that she enjoyed back home. As she was from 2004, the most recent Harry Potter releases were the third film, which she had not seen yet because it had just come out, and the fifth book. As Perry Newman was constantly watching some sci-fi television show in the viewing room, Michelle settled down to read the sixth book of the Harry Potter series which was not due to come out until the year after she returned.

  A mechanical alarm dinged, and a light flashed in her room. This meant that the elevator doors of the Maze had opened, and it was time to go. She marked her place in her book, set it down, and walked out of her room.

  Blake Williams stood behind a couch which sat in front of a large flat screen on one of the walls of their main living area. This long room had their individual bedrooms at one end, an opening to the kitchen down the wall opposite the flat screen, and the elevator doors on the far end. She walked up beside him to look at the screen which always showed the destination, and most of the time, the date as well. This time, the location was Earth, and the date was 2016.

  “That's twelve years into my future,” Michelle said. “I'm going to see what the future looks like. Or at least the future close enough to mean something to me.”

  “I have never gotten that close to my time,” Blake said. “Everywhere I’ve gone is hundreds of years in either direction. It would be interesting to go to 2535 at some point just to see if certain things are still around that I know.

  “Still,” Blake continued, “being in a digital age makes getting money a lot easier.”

  “Easier?” Michelle asked. “How so?”

  “Well,” Blake said, “everything is stored inside computers in this time period. Digital manipulation of past software is easy for something as advanced as the Maze. Going back in time before a digital age means that you have to carry physical currency with you. You get that wrong, and suddenly you get accused of counterfeiting. Digital transfers and tracking are child's play.”

  Blake walked to a panel on the wall next to the flat screen and pressed it. Michelle had never noticed it there before, and it opened to reveal some kind of a computer panel. Blake tapped a few buttons, and something that looked like a credit-card popped out.

  “Here is our money,” Blake said. “Now we can stay there as long as we need to without having to depend on the kindness of strangers, which is not always very dependable.”

  “You can just make a credit card and expect it to work?” Michelle asked. “Is that even legal?”

  “As long as everyone gets paid,” Blake said. “Anything is legal.”

  “Was that the elevator alarm?” Perry Williams said as he walked in the room.

  “It's about time you decided to join us,” Blake said. “You may have to share that room eventually. I saw Michelle here snag one of the Harry Potter books. She may eventually want to watch the movies.”

  “I really would,” Michelle said. “But only after I finish the next one.”

  “So I've got it for a little while then,” Perry said.

  “Yes,” Michelle said. “Those books are huge.”

  “So where are we going anyway?” Perry asked as he walked to the screen and looked at it. “Oh, 2016. I wonder if I'll still be alive in 2016.”

  “Well, you certainly won't be too old by then,” Blake said.

  “I just realized that I'll probably still be around when you get back, Michelle,” Perry said. “That means I might be able to meet up with you. I'll be a few years older, of course. You will get back about twenty-one years after I do, but if you tell me where you live at some point, then I will come visit you.”

  “I’ll write it down, so you don't have to remember it,” Michelle said. “Hopefully, you can keep that handy for twenty-one years.”

  Blake grabbed his long, gray wool overcoat and put it on. He confirmed that the tools he always used were in his pockets.

  “Well,” Blake said, “I think we’ve stood around here long enough. Is everyone ready to leave?”

  Michelle and Perry both nodded their assent, so they got into the elevator. Blake pressed the one button on the elevator wall, and the doors closed, shutting them off from their home. They were never sure what the elevator was
doing whenever it whirred mechanically as they traveled from the Maze to wherever they were going to get out, but it always did, and it always sounded like a very old elevator.

  “If we get separated, stick to the tourist story,” Blake said.

  “What’s the tourist story?” Michelle asked. This was her first Earth visit in the Maze, and this was not something that had come up before.

  “We tell whoever is asking that we’re tourists,” Perry explained. “When they ask from where, you give your hometown so you can be exceptionally detailed about it. The bonus is that being tourists together means we don’t know each other like family or anything.”

  “What about these though?” Michelle asked, pointing to the spiral clock logo each of them had on their shirts that served as a communicator between them among other things.

  “It looks like a shirt logo, so most people won’t even notice,” Perry said, “but if it comes up, you just say the agency issued it to know we’re all together.”

  “Precisely,” Blake said. “And if they ask why we did anything, just blame me for it.” Michelle nodded her understanding as the whirring sound of the elevator stopped.

  When the doors opened, they saw a large, dark warehouse. Slowly, they exited the elevator and looked around. The warehouse appeared to be unused but not abandoned. Thick columns extended from the floor to the ceiling throughout the expansive area, and their footsteps echoed off the concrete floor and distant walls no matter how softly they tread. Behind them, the elevator doors closed and disappeared.

  “Well, this is a cheery place to drop us,” Perry said.

  “As I've always said,” Blake noted. “The Maze drops us where it does for a reason. There must be something around here that is out of place or worth looking at.”

  Michelle had wandered in a different direction from the other two, looking around at the walls, ceiling, and floor when she noticed something dark near her. She approached the shape on the floor and realized that it was a man. He was not moving, and there appeared to be blood on the floor near him, but it was hard to see without light.

  “Blake,” she called out.

  Blake and Perry ran over to her and saw the shape on the floor. Blake pulled a light out of his pocket and shined it on the man's body. He was definitely dead. Just a visual look over him showed that someone had crushed his throat.

  Blake knelt down and placed his hand on the man’s chest. Due to the damage to the man’s throat, Blake checked for a pulse on his wrist.

  “No breathing. No pulse,” Blake said. “But his body is still warm. This was recent.”

  “The person who did it could still be in here?” Michelle asked with a bit of fear.

  “Possible,” Blake said. “We weren’t exactly quiet about our entry though. I think we can be sure of one thing, though. We found our mission.”

  “Wonder where we go from here,” Perry said.

  Outside, red and blue flashing lights flooded the windows of the building. Doors to the building burst open, and several police officers ran inside. Blake, Perry, and Michelle all stood up with their hands in the air. Even so, a policeman was compelled to say “Freeze!”

  The three travelers did not move. Other officers came in, handcuffed them, and led them to a squad car outside. Whatever they had stumbled into, they were being arrested for it. Michelle wondered if they were going to be treated as criminals everywhere they went, or if she was just lucky.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Once they arrived at the police station, all of them were escorted inside and placed into different rooms. Michelle took her seat at a metal table in what appeared to be a very stereotypical interrogation room complete with what had to be a two-way mirror. She was very nervous being separated from her companions but figured all she had to do was tell the truth minus all the parts no one would believe. She waited in the room alone for about thirty minutes before a man in his forties of average size dressed in a gray suit entered and sat in a chair across the table from her.

  “I am Detective Samuel Turner,” the man said. “Your name please?”

  “Michelle Palmer,” she answered.

  “Tell me, Miss Palmer,” Turner said. “Why is it that neither you nor the two men you were with have any identification?”

  Michelle had to think for a moment as to where her identification even was. When the Maze picked her up, she was at home so her purse would have been there somewhere, and she generally did not keep her ID in her pockets. Still, It never occurred to her till now that she actually had no identification on her at all.

  “I’m not sure where I left mine,” Michelle said. “I guess I didn’t think of it before we went out today. I can’t speak for the others.”

  “So we found you in a warehouse with a dead man,” the detective continued. “Care to explain why you were there?”

  “Our … guide … said there was something interesting in that part of town,” Michelle said. “Our being there in that moment was purely coincidental.”

  “So you coincidentally broke into a warehouse on private property moments after a man was killed,” the detective said.

  “Yes, it would appear so,” Michelle said. “I guess that doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

  “So what about that part of town, or that warehouse was supposed to be so interesting?”

  “He was going to tell us when we got there. He wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “You don’t suppose he was taking you to see the body?”

  “No.”

  “Did he know the warehouse was empty?”

  “I don’t know what he knew.”

  “Did you see the ‘No Trespassing’ signs when you entered the property?”

  “You would think so, but I missed them.”

  “Do you always just follow this guy around blindly?”

  “Usually.”

  “What about the locks on the doors?”

  “What locks?”

  “The doors to the warehouse were locked when we arrived. Did he unlock them with a key? Did he pick it? Use a paperclip?”

  “The doors we came in were unlocked.”

  Detective Turner sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if trying to make sense of this.

  “Ok, so let me get this straight. You all arrived at a warehouse to look at ‘something interesting.’ You did not see warning signs about ‘No Trespassing.’ You entered through unlocked doors, and by all rights, despite the fact that you all were wandering around in the dark and were leaning over a dead body, you believed that you were supposed to be there. Am I understanding you correctly?”

  “That sounds right,” Michelle agreed. Turner sighed again.

  “So how well do you know your tour guide?” Turner asked.

  “His name is Blake Williams,” Michelle said. Turner looked at her expecting more. She shifted her eyes nervously and smiled. “Um, he seems pretty smart?”

  “Ok, your story lines up with your companions,” Turner said. “It lines up very, very well. Almost too well. Your Blake friend is very smart. He’s a little too smart. He had answers for everything, and told me what sort of interesting nonsense you were going in there to see that was completely plausible.”

  “Oh, what was it?” Michelle asked innocently.

  “Don’t toy with me,” Turner said. “Plausible is one thing. Believable, to me, is another. If my brother-in-law said he visited Paris last week, I could rate that as a plausible story because he could have taken a plane to France if he wanted to. However, he wouldn’t spend his mortgage on a random trip meaning that it doesn’t matter that he could have been in France, the story is unbelievable because he wouldn’t. To me, your story is plausible, but I have trouble accepting it. The same with the other two. A very well-crafted story that most would take at face value, but I’m not most people. So I’m going to ask you again: why were you in that warehouse?”

  Michelle had two things on her side in this instance that made his intimidation attempt pointless on h
er. First, she had been face to face with people who would actually kill her for telling the truth, and second, she had no answers to give him. She also knew that where she was, he was not going to hurt her regardless of her reply. She was careful not to smile, however, as that might look bad.

  “It was just where we wanted to go,” she shrugged. “We’re out for an adventure, and that’s where we ended up.”

  Turner looked at her as emotionlessly as he could. He was clearly irritated though.

  “What bothers me about this is that the person you found in that warehouse? He also had no ID,” Turner explained. “So here I am left to take you and your two friends at your word on who you are, and I got a corpse in my morgue who can’t tell me who he is. Don’t suppose you know.”

  “No, we had just gotten there when we found him,” Michelle said.

  “And for a woman who had just found a dead body, you seem remarkably calm,” Turner said. “You’ve seen death before?”

  “Unfortunately,” Michelle said.

  “When?”

  “Recently.”

  “Recently as in an hour ago? Are you toying with me?”

  “No.”

  “Then when?”

  “Recently enough that the sight of a body did not drive me to tears,” Michelle said. “There was a time it would have.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “Customer service.”

  “You see dead people in customer service?”

  “You ever work in customer service?”

  “Don’t toy with me.”

  “We all see death, detective,” Michelle said blankly. “It’s a part of life. You can’t have one without the other. I almost drank myself recently because I was beyond hope. I survived. Sometimes, I feel like I looked death in the face and lived to tell about it. So have I seen death? Yes. I saw him, and someone helped me to walk away.”

  “Was this Blake character your counselor then?” Turner asked. “Alcoholics anonymous?”