under estimating kongming

Part 2 - Tire Tracks in the Snow

It was still dark when my bed started shaking and an incredible noise like an earthquake woke me up. But it was a strangely comforting sound. I was home. The ancient radiator in my bedroom made sleep impossible as it filled with hot water and expanded. My bed creaked as the massive man, in the pink jump suit, shifted his bulk.

Triple Oh was sitting on my bed next to Kozak.

Olaf Oscar Onderdonk, known to his colleagues as Triple Oh or Ondy, worked for the Time Agency, a future police service that tried to prevent people using time travel for criminal activities. His normal job was protecting Shakespeare but he had been reassigned to arrest Murga and protect me.

Murga and his reluctant assistant, Kozak, had recently tracked me down for a reason that I still had a hard time believing. I had been born in the future, 2650 Current Era to be precise, where my grandfather had endowed me with the ability to fly in the negative gravity distortion associated with time phase shifts. I had been a baby, when my father had escaped from Murga by taking me back to the present era. So I had no recollection of the events and, until recently, no knowledge of my flying abilities.

'I crave pardon, master Ziff,' Triple Oh whispered. 'How fares my noble friend.'

'Triple Oh!' I groaned. 'That was real, wasn't it?'

I switched on my bedside lamp. There was a trickle of blood on his forehead.

'You are hurt?' I asked.

''Tis naught. A mere scratch.'

'How did you get in here?'

'The bathroom window, 'twas too small,' he joked. 'But the front door was unlocked.'

'Pacman!' I called urgently to my dog. I was worried that he had been hurt but he was sleeping peacefully on Triple Oh's lap. Pacman looked like a hairy black pirana and fancied himself as a wolf. (Dad said he was a Mongolian gopher hound). He woke up long enough to turn around twice before dozing off again. 'A great watchdog you are!' I told him sarcastically. He was facing the wrong way but he wagged his tiny tail at me.

'It was Murga,' I said angrily. 'He just doesn't quit, does he? And when are you going to find my parents?'

Triple Oh had narrowly missed arresting Murga (yet again) but he had picked up Kozak who had agreed to act as a double agent. Kozak had promised to tip off Triple Oh about Murga's plans, if he ever found out what Murga was doing. At the moment Murga was believed to be organizing Hitler's Nazi Gestapo in Germany circa 1944 but he had been visiting Hong Kong while his minions kidnapped me and Triple Oh had hoped to catch him.

'He would give much wealth to know how you fly,' Triple Oh rumbled.

'But that only happens near a time shear,' I pointed out. 'It's not very useful. But, how come you let him get away?'

'Fortune favours him, yah,' he grinned ruefully. 'We saw naught of him, naught but his henchmen. Toktakunov blocked your transponder signal.' He gestured toward the metallic band on my arm. 'T'was the reason we were tardy. But, we did nab meek mannered Kozak, here. And, he has agreed to help us.'

Kozak smiled feebly. 'I do not wish to work for Murga.'

'You are not happy with your boss?' I asked.

'I am not unhappy,' Kozak said thoughtfully, 'and not dissatisfied. In fact I am quite gruntled.'

I suddenly remembered. 'Dr Zhang!' I exclaimed. 'Did anything happen to him? I dreamed he was dead!'