Global Warming Fun 6: Ice Giants Make Manhattan Page 4

  ****

  When Tracy Rumsfeld woke up she was laying uncomfortably on her side on a thin pad atop a hard floor in a in a cold totally dark place. Next to her someone small lay quietly against her back, sharing her body warmth.

  "It's me, Mouse," said the someone with a small little-girl voice. "I just woke up a minute ago."

  "Are you OK?" Tracy asked. She rolled over so that she could face and embrace her little distant cousin. Her feet hit a wall when she did so, and from the echoes of their voices she realized that they were in a relatively small enclosed space. A walk-in closet or bathroom maybe?

  "Yes, but where are we?" Mouse said. "I don't sense anyone else nearby, not even Stone Runner or people or jants. What happened?"

  That wasn't good, thought Tracy. Even at only five years old Mouse's telepathic abilities were astounding, and her Stone-Coat brain implant that she used to communicate with Stone Runner could detect and communicate with any nearby Stone-Coat. "I remember a cab window breaking and a bad smell, then nothing else until now. I think that we were gassed unconscious and then kidnapped."

  "But where is Stone Runner?" said Mouse. "Gas wouldn't bother him, and he wouldn't let this happen to us!"

  "I don't know," said Tracy, "but I do know that right now there are a lot of folks looking for us. All sorts of folks that will find us soon for sure, I hope."

  "Oh, I very much doubt that," said a voice from the darkness, loud and emotionless.

  "Who said that?" Tracy asked.

  But only silence and cold empty darkness answered.