They looked so forlorn in the morning light. Jen, Lucas, Trip, and Katie were on the beach, amid the rubble of their wrecked ship, sitting on whatever they could find. Wes watched them for a few moments, before getting off his motorcycle and walking toward them.
They had all looked up at the sound of the engine, and Trip got up to greet him with a smile. Wes smiled back but headed straight for Jen, who was sitting a little apart from the others. She stood and faced him silently.
“You’re right,” Wes said. “I’ve never had to fight for anything in my life. But now, you’ve given me something to fight for. Something worth making sacrifices for. Your world, and my future.” He paused. “I know about Alex.” Jen glared briefly at Trip. “I know you don’t think I measure up to him. Maybe I don’t. But I hope you’ll let me help you whatever way I can, whether or not you let me be a Ranger.” He paused again for a moment. “I’ve found you a place to live. If you want it.”
Jen looked around at her teammates’ suddenly eager faces and said, “We want it.”
Jen and the others packed their equipment on their vectorcycles and followed Wes into the city. Soon they were standing on a downtown sidewalk, not far from the scene of their battle with Ransik, in front of a clock tower over an abandoned-looking storefront.
“Here we are. Isn’t this cool?” Wes said cheerfully, waving at the clock tower, a tall and beautiful old building displaying a huge glass clock face. He unlocked the store and led them inside. After walking through a small office, they started up a flight of stairs.
Lucas and Trip stopped and handed the heaviest part of their loads to Katie. When Wes protested, Katie smiled and told him, “It’s okay. I’m genetically enhanced for strength.” She picked up the cases without visible effort and started up the stairs.
Wes led them up four flights, explaining as they went. “My dad owns this building, but nobody uses it. I’m sure no one will bother you here. Isn’t it great?”
They reached the top, walking out into a large main room. The inside of the clock face made up one wall, and the ceiling was at least thirty feet above their heads. Side stairs led up to a balcony that ran around the inside of the room, and to the attic. It was dusty and dirty, and cluttered with trash and old furniture. A huge bell lay on the floor. Wes’s face fell as they looked around with expressions of dismay.
Jen walked over to one of the tall, narrow windows near the clock face that sent beams of sunlight slanting through the dust motes. She called, “Hey, you guys. Look at this!” The others joined her, looking out. They were four flights up, and the tower was on a hill overlooking the downtown part of the city. It was a clear, bright day and the view was magnificent. Jen continued, “We can see everything from here, but no one can see us. It’s perfect!”
Katie took another look around. “I guess we can clean this place up. It might be kind of nice.”
Wes grinned. “I already got you some cleaning supplies, and some cots. The utilities are turned on. There’s a bathroom here and downstairs, and a kitchen downstairs. I got you some clothes and some food too. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Trip exclaimed. “I’m starving!”
“We can all use a shower and a change of clothes. Then we can get something to eat, and start cleaning,” Jen said.
The downstairs kitchen was old and dusty, but everything was working. There was even a small dining area and a table with just enough room for the five of them. The four from the future had cleaned up and taken their pick of the clothes Wes had brought. Katie and Trip had chosen casual, comfortable outfits, Lucas managed to look cool in black, and Jen had taken Wes’s breath away in a miniskirt and a pink tee-shirt.
They were finishing lunch when they heard a knock at the door. Wes and Jen got up to answer. They opened the shop door to a middle-aged man in a suit.
“Can we help you?” Wes asked.
He smiled at them. “Hello. I need to hire a couple of painters.” Seeing their puzzled expressions, he asked, “Isn’t this an Odd Job shop? Don’t you do painting?” He pointed at a dusty sign on the door. It clearly read: “Nick of Time Odd Jobs”.
“Sorry, but…” Wes started to respond. Jen interrupted him.
“Yes! That’s us. We’d be happy to do whatever work you have, as long as it pays.” She quickly got instructions and an address from the man. When he had left she turned to Wes. “Now we can earn a living. And even the name is perfect.” She hesitated, smiled shyly, and added, “Thanks. For everything.”
The job turned out to be downtown, painting offices in the city library. Wes and Jen left Lucas, Katie, and Trip to work on cleaning their new home, and started on their first paying job. They had found several sets of coveralls stenciled with the Nick of Time name, and even some painting supplies stored in the clock tower.
To Wes’s embarrassment, Jen knew considerably more about painting than he did.
“Don’t you have something better than paint in the future? Walls that change color when you press a button, or something?” he asked, as they spread out drop cloths.
“We have better paints. Including some that change colors. But we still put it on the walls the same way.” She poured paint into a pan and started on the nearest wall with a roller.
Wes started too, with a brush. After a few minutes he stepped back to admire the pattern of crisscrossing brush strokes he had made on the wall. They looked nothing like the even coat of paint on Jen’s side.
“You need to use a roller, and more paint,” Jen told him after laughing at his efforts.
Wes backed up, looking for a roller, and promptly knocked over the open paint can. He picked it up as Jen laughed again.
“I guess I’m just not good at manual labor,” he said.
“I’ll get more paint. Keep going.”
Wes had barely started again when he noticed movement in the doorway. He stood and turned, expecting to see Jen, and saw a squad of cyclobots. He stared in surprise for a moment, and then bent over his painting, hoping they wouldn’t notice him. They did. Two of them ran into the room and grabbed his arms, pulling him to his feet. Wes twisted away from their grip, kicked one in the middle and drove an elbow into the other. But there were two more, and they grabbed him and threw him against the wall. Then all four were on him, pulling his arms behind his back and carrying him out.
Wes continued to struggle as the cyclobots dragged him into a large room full of storage cabinets. Ransik, the tall, black-haired man who had attacked Jen in the street, stood there, along with a man with silver-gray skin and silvery scales where hair should be. They were going through files in the cabinets. Ransik turned to look at him. He stared for a few moments, coming closer for a better look.
“Amazing,” he said finally. “There are differences, but the resemblance is remarkable.” Pulling a chair forward, he said to the cyclobots, “Tie him up in this.” He went back to his search, finally seeming to find what he wanted in the newspaper microfiche archives.
“Take these, and all the printed newspapers and magazines for the last ten years,” he instructed the gray man and the cyclobots. They began to pack up what they had found, and search for more. Ransik looked up as a group of cyclobots pulled two terrified middle-aged women into the room.
“Lock them up with the others,” he said.
“What are you going to do with them?” Wes asked as the women were dragged off. Ransik just smiled and shrugged.
“What do you want here anyway?”
“What most people want in a library. Information.”
“How can you come breaking in here, attacking innocent people who never did anything to you?”
“Innocent?” Ransik said with an undertone of anger. “How much did the Rangers tell you about me, and where I came from?”
“Just that you came from the future. And you’re a criminal.”
Ransik pulled up another chair, and sat facing Wes. “Well, let me tell you my side of the story. You’ll see just how innocent all of you humans really are.
“In your future -- my past -- science made great advances in genetic manipulation. Hereditary diseases were virtually wiped out. Faulty genes were eliminated. Every baby was born perfect, with all the perfect qualities his parents picked out. No disease, no weakness, no ugliness, no insanity, no stupidity. Haven’t you wondered why your four new friends are all so good-looking and intelligent? They’ve been improved. It seemed humanity had finally created a brave new world of perfection.
“But it seemed they hadn’t been able to breed out human greed. Some people wanted more. Some parents wanted children with more ability than anyone else. At first it was just a little extra intelligence, a little more talent or strength. Like your green-haired friend, and the extra-strong woman. But sometimes it went too far. Sometimes there were mistakes. Some of those children turned out to be powerful, dangerous freaks. I was one of those. When my parents saw I would never look normal, they abandoned me without a second thought, and left me to survive as best I could on the streets.
“And some of the most dangerous of us weren’t created by mistake. A few groups, out for power, deliberately made what they thought would be the perfect soldiers -- people engineered to be deadly living weapons. They didn’t foresee that those weapons would have minds and goals of their own. They were even less fortunate than I was. They had no families at all, only the names their masters gave them, and each other.” He nodded at the gray man. “My friend Steelix is one of them, as are the two other soldiers I brought with me.
“So while the world dreamed of perfection, their worst nightmare -- an underground of mutants -- was created. The society I come from is not forgiving of those who are different. We were shunned, despised, treated as inferiors. And as the mutant soldiers increased in number and began to rebel against their creators, people became afraid of us, and to feel the hatred that fear creates.
“All we needed was a leader to make us strong. I realized my destiny was to provide that leadership. I gathered them together, every wretched creature with nowhere else to go, and formed an army of our own. Together we made war on humanity. Mutants could have ruled the earth, if not for the Time Force Police. But they have kept us down, so far. Now I’m here -- to change history for the better.”
“So you came here to prevent Time Force from ever existing. But you didn’t count on being followed.”
Jen returned with another supply of paint, only to find an empty room. Exasperated, she looked around for Wes, wondering if he had simply given up and gone home. Then she noticed the footprints, where several sets of feet had stepped in the spilled paint. They clearly told her trained eye that a struggle had gone on in this room and someone had been dragged out. As she started to follow the trail, her morpher beeped.
Trip’s image appeared. “Jen! Circuit has detected mutant activity downtown. And it’s on the news! It’s Ransik and Steelix. They’ve broken into the library and taken hostages.”
“The library!” Jen said.
“Yeah. Do you know where that is?”
“I’m in it. I think they got Wes. Get down here as soon as you can.” Jen started cautiously down the hallway.
“Look,” Wes said. “It was wrong for people to treat you the way they did. But what you’re doing isn’t right either. You don’t want equality; you want to have the power to rule over humans.”
“There’s no equality where humans are concerned! There’s only the strong, and the weak. And I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure my people are never weak again.” Ransik stood up abruptly as the gray-skinned man walked over.
“We’re finished, Ransik,” he said.
“Good. Let’s get out of here.” Ransik glanced at Wes and walked away, touching his belt as he went and disappearing.
“Be right there,” the gray man said. “Just as soon as I clean up here.” He walked over to Wes. “I hate to leave loose ends.” Suddenly he kicked Wes in the chest, knocking him over onto his back, still tied to the chair. He drew his blaster. Helpless, Wes stared up at him, his heart accelerating with fear.
Before the mutant could aim, Jen’s voice came from behind Wes. “Don’t try it, Steelix,” she said. “Just drop the blaster.” Wes tilted his head back and saw Jen, morphed into the Pink Ranger, step into the room. Behind her the Blue, Yellow, and Green Rangers entered and spread out. They all had their blasters aimed at the gray man.
“Why, Jen. How nice to see you again. And you’re a Ranger now. You’ve done well for yourself,” Steelix said.
“I can’t say the same for you.”
“What did you expect, after you betrayed me?”
“You’re the one who betrayed us. Now -- put down the blaster.”
“Did you get a promotion for turning me in?”
“Just put down the blaster,” Jen said again.
Steelix smiled and lifted the weapon. Before he could aim, Jen and Lucas fired, striking him in the arm and shoulder. He dropped his blaster and clutched his arm. “This isn’t over yet,” he snarled at Jen, touched a control on his belt and vanished in a flash of light.
The Rangers ran to Wes, lifting him upright and quickly cutting him free. “Are you all right?” Jen asked anxiously.
“Fine. I just wish we could go after him. How do they do that, anyway?”
“Teleporters,” Lucas told him. “Usually in a belt or wrist device. Ransik must have a home teleporter unit on the prison ship. When they trigger the device they’re carrying, it automatically sends them back.”
“We have equipment of our own, but our home unit was destroyed when we crashed,” Katie added.
“What was Steelix talking about? How do you know him?” Wes asked Jen.
She answered in a grim voice. “He used to be in the Time Force Police. But he was a traitor. A spy for Ransik. I was the one who found out and turned him in.”
“You let mutants in Time Force?”
“Sure. A lot of people would say Katie and I are mutants,” Trip said.
“Don’t say that, Trip. We’re genetically enhanced. We’re not mutants,” Katie objected. As Trip sighed Wes got the distinct impression that this was an old argument between them.
“Time Force tries to include everyone. We tried to help the mutants. And this was the reward we got,” Jen said bitterly. She turned away.
“They locked up the other people in the library,” Wes said after a moment. “We should let them out. And Jen and I still have some painting to finish.”
The next day Wes was back at the clock tower, helping the others with their cleanup. He had also brought them a small television. The news was full of the attack on the library by two strange men calling themselves Ransik and Steelix and claiming to be mutants, and about the mysterious multi-colored heroes who had freed the captives. They even had pictures and film, taken through the library windows.
The clock tower was shaping up. The interior was more or less clean, although it would take time to make it homey. They had set up an old picnic table and a few old couches and chairs in the main room. Two small rooms on the second level had become the girls’ and boys’ bedrooms.
The finishing touch was to re-hang the clock’s giant bell that was lying in the middle of the central room floor. They had tied a new rope to it, and gotten it over the support beam. Trip, Lucas, and Wes pulled on the rope, struggling in vain to lift it.
After watching with amusement for a few minutes, Katie stepped up and said, “Allow me.” She grabbed the rope, wrapped her legs around the anchoring post, and steadily pulled the bell into the air. When it was in position, the others tied the rope to the post.
“Well, that’s it. I guess this is our home now,” Katie said quietly. Trip put his arm around her shoulders.
Jen was standing to the side, watching the others. Wes walked over to her. “I've been thinking about what Ransik told me about himself, and the other mutants,” he said quietly.
“What did he say?”
“That they were created by accident, or as -- sort of weapons. And that they’re not treated very well. I guess he’s had a bad life. I kind of felt sorry for him.”
Jen answered in an angry tone. “There are plenty of people who try to help the mutants. And plenty of mutants get along fine with humans. But some of them hate all humans, and their abilities make them dangerous. All Ransik wants is power. He’s evil, through and through.”
Their eyes locked for a moment. It occurred to Wes that Jen could not be objective about the man who had murdered her fiancé. On the other hand, wasn’t that murder proof that she was right? Finally he said simply, “Okay.”