Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

lxxy continued driving, wondering what his options were. Safety. The day was young and it should be spent regrouping. Some questions have been raised and answers needed to be found, and soon.

This timeline's native Charlize was still passed out in the back seat from the Vulcan neck pinch. The car speakers begun to erupt with a fuzzy sound, and lxxy swore he heard a little girl crying for her mommy. Then the voice of "his" Charlize begun to speak.

"lxxy, it's Charlize. I don't have much time, I'm going through OnStar but I can't keep the resonance fields on the megatronic transceiver steady enough, so listen closely: Alex is after you. He's found your hideout and is busy trying to track you down. Be careful, because you're top priority right now. It won't take much to get approval and they'll storm into your time-space and arrest you. I'll try to stall him, I'll contact you when I know more!" The transmission ended, and the car was silent yet again save for the motor.

He wished she could have staid on long enough as to thank her, but he supposed there'd be another time. Time...time was what he needed, he needed to wait this out somewhere until Charlize had more information.

New Mexico was a bright, often dusty road. Perhaps a hotel room was in order. Charlize whimpered in the back seat, writhing a bit in nightmare dreamscapes. With any luck she would be out for the foreseeable future.

If the nightmare she was apparently having didn't arouse her first.

Pretty boy with a gun,

bang- bang, fun- fun.

Pretty girl with a knife,

watch your back it's your wife!

[Edited for your safety.], load my gun, shoot-shoot, fun- fun.

Pretty girl on ecstasy, now she wants to [edited for your safety.] me.

We are the dead, we are in league, we are the doctors of low 
self esteem. 

We do it wrong, we don't believe, we are the congress 
of the new disease. 

Pretty thing with no head,

that's OK, better off dead!

Warm blood everywhere,

shave off all my hair!

Pretty girl,

what's she worth?

Stick it where it really hurts!

Government experiment, welcome to my accident!

We are the dead, we are in 
league, we are the doctors of low self esteem. 
We do it wrong, we 
don't believe, we are the congress of the new disease. 
We are the 
dead, we are in league, we are the doctors of low self esteem. 
We do
 it wrong, and we have no fear, we are the anti of all you hold dear. 

Social disease, down on your knees. Covered in fleas, give me a freeze.

I am a clown, I am disgrace. It's always thrown up in my face.

Through ignorance, I always fight. Better face it, I'm always right.

We
 are the dead, we are in league, we are the doctors of low self esteem. 
We
 do it wrong, we don't believe, we are the congress of the new 
disease...

Alex was his normal shadow self as he fluidly entered the conference room. His boss, General Ben adoY wasn't amused with his antics. "Alex, turn that crap off or don't report to me physically."

With a sigh Alex pressed a button on his wristcom and he once again appeared as an older, greying hair man with a stubbly face. "Our team is still analysing all the data and technology gleamed from the raid."

Whiz came in holding a box full of odds and ends, he dumps it all over the table. "There's so much crap! I don't know what all of it is."

General Ben adoY looks curiously at a square black item, and picks it up. "Hey Alex..."

Alex wasn't amused. "Also, he appears to have been in consort with Time Traveller Zero."

Whiz looked up from his iPhone and tapped a button, a three dimensional display began to erupt out of the center of the conference table, slightly obscured by some of the relics that had been dumped moments before. "I've got an app for this," Whiz quipped. Footage began, showing two people--John Titor and sMartie McBee jumping ship utilizing Titor's worm hole device, which currently looked to be installed in a Jeep Rubicon.

The General nodded. "Alright, obviously he's jumped without a permit. Track him down first and I'll keep working on the alien."

Whiz begun to gather back up the objects he brought for show and tell, but the General motioned to have him leave it.

Alex pressed a button on his wristcom and went back to his shadow-like self. "Come on Whiz, we've work to do."

Whiz shrugged and followed along. A cybernetic enhanced black guy trailing a shadowy figure through a government installation just wasn't all that uncommon these days.

Charlize awoke strapped to the bed in some hotel room, lxxy was on the bed next to her flipping through television channels. "What's going on?! Let me go!"

lxxy looked over unsurprised she had come to. "Ah, hey there! Nice to see you again."

Charlize continued to struggle with the bindings that kept her onto the bed. "Why are you doing this to me? Are you going to kill me?"

lxxy shook his head. "Nah, I just thought it was sort of like karmic justice. Besides, I can't trust you. You don't know what's going on and neither do I right now, so I figure this is for the best."

Charlize whimpered, but had to remain calm if she was going to gain the upper hand. "Well, why don't you untie me and we can work through this situation together?"

Just then the hotel door opened and a three foot towel smelling of patchouli and marijuana walked in. "The vending machine didn't have bacon," it said.

This was getting all too weird for Charlize, and she doubted now if her dream had actually ended. "Who is that?"

"Oh, that's Towelie. I mentioned going to the pool here absent-mindedly to the clerk at the front counter and he showed up reminding me to bring a towel."

Towelie dropped candy bars and twelve ounce bottles of mountain dew onto the bed.

"Hey lxxy.."

"Sounds like a splendid idea! I love hippies." lxxy watched impatiently as Towelie lit a spliff and begun a two man rotation operation.

"We should watch teevee," Towelie suggested.

"Gee Towelie, you sure have all the best ideas," lxxy insisted as he glanced over to the television. It turned on, defaulting to MSNBC.

Charlize had to use the bathroom and was now passed the point of being a nice captive. She tried desperately to hold it. "lxxy..." she closed her eyes, trying not to sound angry or anxious. "I have to pee, let me up."

lxxy glanced over, taking a second to process the command. Normally he would trust someone, listen to his intuition. But right now, he had bacon on his mind. He needed it, because it was the easiest way to boost his metabolism and keep him fuelled. Oh sure, they all laughed at the thought of a bacon hungry mutant alien hybrid, but look at them now! "No, you'll just try to escape."

Charlize screamed, wriggled a bit, then closed her eyes again. "lxxy, I swear to god if you don't let me up I am going to scream bloody murder!"

lxxy took a complimentary wash cloth from the bathroom and shoved it into Charlize's mouth. "I gotta go get some bacon, I'll be right back. Just listen to the television show, okay?"

"Don't forget to bring a towel," Towelie suggested. "Bacon can get greasy."

lxxy nodded. "Yeah, lets go." He checked his back pocket--stolen credit card, good. Hotel key, good. And he had the key to Charlize's car pressing against his thigh.

Charlize mumbled, continuing to jiggle, twist, turn, trying to get any sort of freedom. Finally the need to pee went away, and she ended her struggle amidst tears and beads of sweat. Hopefully he'd be back soon, before the need to use the bathroom reared it's head again.

The television continued to play, louder now that lxxy had left up high as to keep Charlize from resounding too much down the hallway. A rat scurried out from underneath the blankets.

Loving domesticated ones--and fearing the wild kind--Charlize begins to squirm. Startled, the rat scurries over the remote. The channel switched to MTV.

As they headed towards Charlize's Honda he noted that police officers were already scouting it out, the management busy speaking to detectives. At this stage they knew something was up, probably because of the use of Charlize's credit card to purchase the room. "Nimziki!" lxxy growled.

Obviously Charlize's car was of no use to him any more. He motioned for Towelie to follow as they snuck around back and hopped into a red convertible with it's top down. Given a few seconds lxxy had hot wired it, the engine flaring up.

He drove off trying to evade the police presence and seemed to get away without being noticed. Bacon. Bacon now, think later.

Stopping off at a grocery store in a strip mall just a few roads down lxxy turns to Towelie "Wait here lil'buddy, I'll be right back."

Towelie nodded and lit another spliff, spaced and mellow.

Entering the store lxxy quickly finds the pre-cooked bacon section, and grabs five packages. As he approaches the checkout he plops the food down and looks at the cute cashier with his best imitation of a Joe Cool smile. He then pilfers out Charlize's credit card, touching the black strip and shocking it ever so slightly. Highly controlled. He rewrote the bank account information, hoping the money he sent back through time had arrived.

And you thought PayPal took forever!

Luckily the transaction went through and the polite clerk bagged his stuff, handed him the receipt, and wished him a great day.

So far, so good.

Exiting the store he stares down at his receipt--the credit card account information listed him as Lexi. He'd have to fix that some other time. Hopefully no one would ever look, because it was still Charlize's card. Preoccupied with this thought, he bumps into a man wearing a cowboy hat. Looking up, he realizes it's a sheriff.

"You better watch out where you're going boy," The sheriff said not registering who lxxy was.

lxxy stared, nodded, and hastily made his way back to Towelie and the stolen car. It was the sort of pace that denoted a rushed need to leave, but not quite enough to reveal nervousness.

Throwing the bag into the back seat he hopped over the driver's side door and landed softer than you'd think. Buckling up he jiggled wires and the car's engine revved once again.

He headed towards I-40 with a plan.

"Towelie, I don't know how long you and I can hang together."

Towelie was on his third spliff, so as he stared over at lxxy while the lack of visine in his eyes made it obvious that this was not the best time for a heart to heart conversation.

"I mean..I've survived a lot, I've cheated death twice. I'm a god among men," he thought out loud.

"Whatever you are man, you're a groovy guy." Towelie offered.

"Thanks man, let's go to Vegas. If I'm going to go down or win some sort of huge battle I'm at least going to abuse this body a little bit. Besides, I can always grow a new one."

Sin city, here they come...smoking into the night.