Liko Lemons: LitP Ch.2

Liko Lemons: Living in the Past

CHAPTER 2: Albany you say?

We headed north-west from New York City to Albany with the sun ever sinking on the very horizon in the west. I could see a look of confusion in Felters' face. "Hmm, this is very odd, traffic here tends to flow like Molasses on this section. We're currently doing 10 over the limit." Felters said. And he was right, the only thing I could see was a red compact a quarter of a mile ahead of us. I chuckled silently. "What?" Felters exclaimed. "Oh, nothing..." I responded with a sigh. "No, what?!" he exclaimed. "Well, traffic is not really much of a problem in the future." I answered. "So you've got that situation under control?" He continued. "Yeah, with spacecrafts" I remarked. Which was correct of course, I myself am in possession of an Atlantic ZX-941 fighter. It was a little thank you present from the Green Earth Nation. It's pretty awesome too; it has some added rooms and support for 3 missile based weapons and 16 plasma based weapons. The heating stinks, but come on, I got it for free. "So where exactly do you live in the future?" Felters asked. "I live in Albany, yeah, so it'll be very convenient to go back home when we're in Albany in this time period. As for Hank, he lives in Manchester..." I said, then looked through the pamphlet until I saw a world map. "...Europe. ENGLAND; Manchester, England." I continued to look through the pamphlet. "So tell me, what wars will occur and who is involved?" Felters asked. "Well World War III resulted in North Korea attacking Japan with nuclear warheads. China joined Japan in the effort to destroy North Korea. North Korea was defeated and then both Koreas, China, Japan, and shortly there after all countries east of India united to become the Yellow Comet Nation. The Fox War was between humans and vulpine, who were known as foxes at the time; it was fought in North America, but it lasted 3 months and was interrupted by alien invaders. The vulpine and human races set aside their differences to fight against the aliens in what became World War IV." I said in one long breath, "Man oh man, so many questions, what's the deal?" Felters sighed then said, "Well I really don't know how to express my emotion towards finding you, not only are you the evidence for evolution, but our only link to the future. I really don't know what exactly I should be doing besides taking you to the lab." I  loosened my seat belt and curled up to go to sleep. Felters chuckled and said, "Oh, you guys had a millennium to evolve, and you still do that." Felters commented. I arose. "Oh come on, you have to admit, sleeping and taking not much space is the best trait we take from our feral ancestors." I defended. Felters subtly shook his head and looked forward on the road once more. I looked out the window and saw the sky was a brilliant fiery red. I turned slowly to Felters and said, "Say, at what distance are we between Albany and New York?" Felters sighed heavily and said while yawning, "Oh we're about halfway." I took my p228 compact out of my pocket as well as a handkerchief and started to polish it. In my time it's considered an antique, but in this day, it's quite modern. Kinda sucks too. I buy it off of some guy for about ten times the original price, simply because it's been aged a bit. Since when is aged metal a good thing? And I'm no fool, the guy I bought it off of was a Rupan. Man those guys really know how to pull one on yah. I'm not really for racial profiling, but honestly, this middle eastern vulpine are masters of the trade of ripping people off. I bought the gun thinking I would get some new updated version of what they have in my day, but all I got was the model from the 1990s. But hey, I'm still glad I bought it. It was the model they made before they made the ones that couldn't take hollow point bullets.

Time passed, it had been close to an hour since we left New York. I had started think about Hank, and what exactly he was doing. We were planning on ordering room service for the hell of it. He's probably gonna do it anyway. Same old Hank, you tell him, "Hey Hank, let's do this." And if you don't come, instead of calling and asking where you were, he'd just proceed as planned. The sun had gone down and the lights along the highway lit up. It had been dead silent since words had been exchanged between Felters and I. I arose and asked, "Are we almost there yet? The clock says 8:00 PM, we've been on the road for almost an hour." Felters paused for a second and said, "Yeah, We're almost there we have about 15 miles before we reach the off-ramp." "Mind if I see what music your time period has to offer?" I asked anxiously. "Yeah sure, go ahead" Felters confirmed. I pressed the knob to turn on the radio. I kept turning the knob until I heard some Huey Lewis and the News. "This sounds good, who and what is it?" I questioned. "It's Huey Lewis and the News' I Want a New Drug. It came out in the 1970s," Felters said. "Is there anything that's new out right now? Like in the past 8 years?" I continued to asked. "Nothing much, usually whiny rock, metal, and Rap." Felters said, clearly expressing his own opinion. "When would you say the last good songs were released?" I continued to question. "I don't know, in my opinion, the mid-80s was the end." he said. "Is there any famous person I could meet before I have to leave?" I asked. "Well the president and some media as soon as people know you're here." Felters responded. "I was told by the time travel agency not to interact with the past too much, they listed off safe zones on a time-line and the period from 1991 to 2010 was one of the time periods I wanted to go to. He told me that even though it is listed as a safe zone I still shouldn't interact too much with the past." I said in a concerned voice. "OK, so I guess we can't do too much. But what happens in 2010?" Felters responded. "I'm not entirely sure, it may have something to do with the evolution of my species." I said. Felters turned on his blinker and started to turn right onto the off-ramp. "Alright, almost there, just about a mile into the city and we'll be there" Felters interrupted. "OK, good." I said showing a sign of relief. The streets appeared vacant with only the lights from apartments and houses to illuminate the road which lay before us. We turned right, then out of nowhere a police car came up behind us. Felters cursed to himself and pulled over. "Liko, either remove your clothing and act like a husky or hide in back." Felters whispered. I quickly dove behind Felter's seat and kept an open ear. The officer made his way slowly to the car. He came up to the window and shined a mini-mag light at Felters. Felters squinted and said, "Good evening officer, what seems to be the problem?" The officer sighed and said, "license and registration..." Felters opened the glove compartment and carefully pulled out what the officer had requested. He handed it to the officer and the officer continued, "Do you realize you ran a red light on a four-way intersection?"
"No I didn't realize it sir."
"Well you need to be more careful next time"
"Yes sir!"
The officer looked at Felters' license looked up and said, "Is your name Gregory Felters?" Felters nodded. "OK, just making sure," the officer said, he then continued to look through the vehicle registration, then looked up once more, he cocked his head a bit, to see behind Felter's seat, I pulled back a bit. Damn, having the ears of a Fennec doesn't really help when you're trying to make yourself scarce. Basically as I said, I'm half Zerdan and half Fulvan. Zerdans and Rupans are characterized by their larger ears, Velocs and Fulvans are characterized by their large tails. Do you see where I'm getting at? Basically my appearance is blown way out of proporttion thanks to genetics.
"Something the trouble officer?"
"I... seem... to... ahem! I'll be back with your license and registration in a bit."
The officer lumbered back to his car, and got in. Felters with eyes forward said slowly and quietly, "Just stay back there Liko, as soon as he leaves, you can get back up." The officer finished up what he had to do and got back out of his car and walked back to the Jeep. The officer took a deep breath and said, "OK, everything seems to be in order, I'll let you off with just a warning." He handed the clusterfuck of papers and license back to Felters. "Drive safely, we've had some recent reports of drive by shootings." the officer said. "OK, sure thing." Felters said in an impatient tone. The officer looked back where he thought I was, and grumbled a bit, then walked off, got into his car and drove past Felters and I. I jumped back onto the seat. He put the car in drive and turned the next corner. He drove down a little ways, flipped on his turn signal, slowed down and made a right into an alleyway. "Alright we're here!" Felters exclaimed in great relief.