The continuing adventures of the teleporter from the last story.
“Hello thank you for calling Five Minute Delivery. Your delivery is guaranteed to arrive in five minutes or it’s free. Boxes must weigh no more than seventy pounds. No live animals. Cash only. How can I help you?”
“Hi, I have a letter I need delivered,” a man’s voice said.
“Just a letter? Our rates are not discounted for letters.”
“Yes.”
“Ok, have you used our service before?”
“No, but I heard you need a video of the room right?”
A referral, that could make this a little easier. “Yes that is correct. Send it to the number you called and I’ll be right with you.” My phone buzzed letting me know it had received a message. I opened the attached video and watched it. A conference room with a long table, about a dozen chairs around the table, a fake plant in the corner, and a sailboat painting. I pictured the conference room and went there. I arrived looking at the painting. Behind me I head a gasp.
“Oh my god, you’re real,” the voice who called me said. I turned around to see a white guy in a polo shirt. On the table next to him was a laptop and connected to it was a camera on a small tripod. The red light on the camera was on.
“Are you recording me?” I asked.
“Yes, I … Hi, I’m Justin and I’d like to do an interview with you.” He stood and offered me his hand. I teleported to the other side of the table and looked at the laptop. “Oh, could you not touch that.”
“You’re recording me without my permission.”
“Well I thought it would be good footage for the video.”
“What video?” I asked.
“The video to go with the interview. I mean I have to have a video. No one is going to believe me without a video.”
“You’re right. They won’t believe you.” I shut the laptop, picked it and the camera up, and teleported. The alley beside an internet café was not exactly where I wanted to go but it was the first place that had come to mind and it would do for now. I walked inside and set up the laptop and camera on a table off to the side. The laptop was still recording from the camera. I stopped it and rewound the video. Justin appeared in the frame.
“Ok let’s see if my source is crap or not.” He dialed a number on his cellphone and held it to his ear. “Hi, I have a letter I need delivered.” I scrubbed forward a couple of minutes and watched myself appear. One second the camera was recording an empty conference room and the next I was there facing away from the camera. It looked like a cheap editing trick. One second the room was empty the next I was there. No flash or shimmer or anything.
I stopped the recording and deleted it. The camera had a SD card in it that I pulled and pocketed. Then I deleted the built in memory in the camera. I considered formating the hard drive in the laptop but that felt like overkill.
“Hey, can you watch my laptop for a minute,” I asked a girl at a nearby table.
“Sure,” she said turning slightly in her seat so she had a better view of my table without leaving hers.
I walked outside and around to the side of the building where I usually teleported in and out of and went back to the conference room. Justin was still in the room, sitting down talking on his phone. I teleported behind him, grabbed the sides of his chair and began to lift. The seat rose on the hydraulic cylinder as I took Justin’s weight off it.
“Whoa, what are – ” he started to ask but I was already supporting enough of his weight so I teleported with him to the alley. “Shit! Fuck!” he shouted jumping out of the chair and running one step forward then to the left and then to the right. The sound of me dropping the chair got him to stand still and focus on me. I teleported behind him grabbed his phone out of his hand teleported back to the conference room and dropped it on the table. When I got back to the alley, he was at the mouth of it looking around at the street.
“Hey,” I said. He spun around obviously still very keyed up by being teleported.
“Where are we?”
“Texas or Arizona? I kind of picked this place at random. Where is that conference room located anyway?”
“Maine. You don’t know where you just were?”
“I’m kind of bad at directions so it’s actually really good that I can just teleport places. Who told you about me?”
“I don’t have to tell you my source.” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned sideways.
“If you tell me, I’ll take you back to your office in Maine. If not … you can find your own way home.”
“You’re not going to get away with this.” He stabbed his finger in the air at me. Well, he made his choice.
I smiled. “Get away with what?”
“Kidnapping, assault, theft.” He counted off the charges on his fingers. “You took me across state lines that makes this a federal crime. You’re going to do hard time for this.”
I mimicked his counting off of my crimes. “Only if they catch me. And only if they can hold me. And only if they believe you.” I mimed holding a telephone to my ear. “Hello 911, I’ve been teleported to Texas from Maine against my will.” I dropped the imaginary phone. “No one is going to believe you.”
“How else are they going to explain how I got here? I haven’t been on a plane or rented a car or taken a bus.”
“Maybe you hitchhiked or you stole a car or you jumped on a passing train. People will believe almost anything before they will believe you were teleported.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“I value my privacy. Your laptop is inside.” I pointed to the internet café and teleported away. With any luck the girl I asked to watch “my laptop” would call the police when he “steals” it.