Gabriella drove in her Red Cross uniform, her purse sat beside her on the front bench seat.  It held her all-important medical identification.  “I have a Hollywood perfected identification that says I work for the Board of Health, Los Angeles County.  We shouldn’t have too much trouble getting into places.  You have your Identifications?  Doctor Mishka called me late last night and had me type them up.  Did I spell the names right?”

“Yes,” Katie said.  Her I. D. said Doctor Katherine Lockhart, Professor of Antiquities, Georgetown University.  She fit or could fake the description well enough but thought about the name.  Though married for a couple of years, she had not had much occasion to use her married name.  She needed to remember that she was no longer a Harper.  She was a Lockhart now.  She looked back at her husband in the back seat who read his card out loud, and slowly.

“Robert Lockhart, Federal Marshal.  I got promoted.”  Katie laughed.

“Oh,” Gabriella said and looked worried. “I forgot.  You are not actors.”

Lockhart assured the woman.  “Years on a Michigan police force and military police in Saigon has to be worth something.”

Gabriella hoped that would work.

Katie left her rifle in the car, hidden under the front bench seat.  Lockhart left his shotgun under a blanket in the back.  Katie still wore the same dress she wore the day before.  Fairy weave could be freshened with a word.  She slipped her handgun into her purse where it would be out of sight.  Lockhart wore his sidearm, and with his federal identification he did not worry about it, but he had a big suit jacket that he buttoned, and that covered the whole thing apart from the slight bulge at his side.  Gabriella ignored the issue of the guns.  She was used to seeing all sorts of things on the studio lot.

They parked across the street and saw no building that said medical lab.  Nothing said doctor’s office, or rehab facility, or any such thing.

“14158,” Katie read the address, and they looked at the numbers on the buildings, when they could find numbers.  Gabriella finally found it on a door between the bookstore and the coffee shop.  The number was on the glass, small, unobtrusive, and with no other identification.  There appeared to be only stairs on the other side of the door.

Lockhart backed up.  “The lab looks like it is upstairs, if this is it.”

Gabriella tried the door, but it was locked.

Katie tried the box beside the door which she thought was an intercom system like she might find downstairs in an apartment building.  She buzzed the upstairs, but no one answered.  She tried again, and Gabriella saw someone coming down.  Two men came to the door.  One looked professional.  The other also dressed in a suit but honestly looked like a thug.

“No soliciting,” the thug said.

Gabriella got out her fake Identification and said plenty loud. “Board of Health.  Open up.”

The thug looked at the professional looking man behind him.  The man had been staring at Lockhart and Katie when his eyes got suddenly big, and he seemed to recognize them.  “Travelers.  Kill them,” he panicked, shouted, and turned to race back up the stairs.  The thug went for his gun tucked neatly away in his shoulder holster, but Lockhart drew first and fired.  The thug collapsed as Gabriella screamed softly.  Lockhart was for chasing the other man up the stairs, but Katie, and the dead thug got in the way.

“To the car,” Katie said.  “We need backup.”  Lockhart understood and he grabbed Gabriella by the arm to get her moving.  They ran back to the car as Katie got on her wristwatch communicator and reported to the others even as gunfire came from the upper windows.

###

When the call came in, David said he knew the street and where he was going.  They zipped through a few back streets along the way, turned a corner, and found themselves in a very strange looking forest.  David let out a shout.  “Where did this come from?”

“This does not look like any forest I have become familiar with on Earth,” Elder Stow spoke up from the back seat.

“I don’t think we are on Earth,” Lincoln said.  The trees had purple leaves and the undergrowth looked all red and purple as well in the dim light.

A dozen helmeted soldiers came from the trees.  The one out front removed her helmet and came to David’s side because David rolled down his window.  Lincoln refused, like the glass might make an affective barrier against the weapons these soldiers carried.  He got startled when the woman spoke.

“Lincoln!  Elder Stow!  What are you doing here?  This is 2300, and not even on Earth.”

“I said that.” Lincoln agreed and pointed.

“General,” one of the soldiers called for the woman’s attention.  The soldier also pointed.  Not ten yards away, the forest came to an abrupt halt.  A picture of Los Angeles came into focus.  Men were firing out of the second story windows, some with Tommy Guns.  Three people looked trapped around some parked cars, trying to return fire, and pedestrians were screaming and running in every direction.

Lincoln saw a man on the street.  “Doctor Malory,” he shouted.  “The one smoking the cigar.”  The man tried to get into the coffee shop door, but a woman with a baby carriage stood there screaming, blocking the entrance, and not moving.

“Taggert,” The woman general called, but the man was right there.  He clicked a few things on his rifle and fired, a red streak shot across the way, from one world and one time period, to the other.  Doctor Malory went down.  Someone from the year 2300 killed a man in 1930 Los Angeles.

“It’s Amber,” the woman said and leaned into the open window.  “Too bad your database doesn’t have future information so you can’t look me up.  Good to see you again, and Elder Stow.”  She saluted slightly, pulled her head from the car, and shouted.  “Alice!”

The two time zones slowly straightened out.  Lincoln heard Taggert.  “What is a cigar?”  Then the alien forest vanished along with Amber and her soldiers.  Lincoln, David, and Elder Stow found themselves in an alleyway.  Lockhart and Katie were to their left, and Decker had pulled up to their right.

Elder Stow popped out of the car, his weapon in hand.  He set it while sitting in the car, watching the upper windows of the building spray the cars with bullets.  He stepped forward and fired, a wide angle shot that crashed through the windows and through the plaster to cover the upper floor with his Lockhart-dubbed heat ray.  The fire from the upper floor stopped instantly, even as two police cars roared up, followed shortly by a firetruck.  Good thing.  The upper floor was on fire in several places.  The front end of the roof collapsed from lack of support, but the smoke leaked out everywhere.

“Back in the car,” David shouted.  Lincoln and Elder Stow complied, and David backed out of the alleyway to the street behind.  He started right off down the road and got lost in traffic.  “I imagine you don’t want the police asking too many questions.”

“No.  Thanks.  How did you know?”

David nodded.  “Both Gabriella and I are Men in Black, west coast, headquarters in San Francisco.  We have offices in Chicago, Dallas, and Washington.  Also, Ottawa and Mexico City.  That about covers North America, but you know, most of us after basic training work regular jobs and just keep our eyes open.  Most never get called on or needed, but with Doctor Mishka, I’m getting used to weird.  You know, weird?”

“Yes, son,” Elder Stow said.  “We know weird very well.”

###

It took a bit of explaining, but the word Polio explained a lot.  Mishka made a couple of phone calls and Lockhart, Katie, and Decker became official overnight.  Mishka did not tell Decker that he was already officially on the military roles of the Marine Corps, and as a full bird colonel.

The dead might have been a problem if the witnesses hadn’t seen a power ray come from the woods that no longer existed.  The police themselves saw the power ray that came from the alley and destroyed the whole front end of the second floor.  Everyone on the second floor died and the guns even melted.  There did not seem to be much equipment there to identify, but Mishka did identify most and concluded they were working on gain of function.

Doctor Stinson escaped out the back.  “But we got Malory.  That is two out of three.  I just need to put people on alert coast to coast to keep their eyes open for Stinson.  I will probably have to go wherever there is an outbreak until someone can come up with a vaccine.”

“But you have a pill that can immunize and cure the disease,” Lincoln said in near protest.

“The one thing we don’t do is alter history,” Mishka responded.  “And we try to stop the Masters from altering history as well.”

Decker, Lockhart, Elder Stow, and Katie all nodded, and Decker spoke.  “We already covered that.”