Infinite Horizons

Kevin scrunched his nose against the smell and sprayed another layer of disinfectant over the recently returned shoes on the counter and glanced at the clock. Just six more minutes and he’d be free to head back to his apartment. He sighed and brushed a lock of brown hair out of his eyes before greeting another party of customers. He’d been working at the bowling alley for three weeks and he was pretty sure the manager didn’t like him. She was seventeen and regularly smoked pot in the bowling alley’s kitchen and if it weren’t for Kevin wandering in at the wrong time, she would have lost her virginity inside the Jurassic Park Arcade Game that had been out of order since his second day on the job.

On autopilot, Kevin rang up four pairs of shoes and a lane while he watched the seconds tick down. He smiled genuinely, pointing to lane 11. It wasn’t the first service job Kevin had worked, he loved helping people out. The problem was that he just wasn’t particularly skilled. After starting out as a social work major, Kevin tried to get into nursing only to drop out and become a bartender for three years. He was actually bad at that too but the regulars liked talking to him so much that the owner put up with the broken glasses.

Waving a friendly goodbye to Amanda despite her scowl, Kevin walked out and headed for his Silver Ford Focus. On the way home he thought about the cup of noodles that was waiting and decided to stop by the grocery store. He’d noticed himself putting on a little weight but it wasn’t stopping him as he grabbed a family size bag of Funyuns off the shelves. Arriving at the checkout, Kevin looked around confused. Not a single employee was waiting to scan his groceries, even the robotic self serve stations were blinking red.

“Hello?” Kevin called, suddenly very aware of the lack of human presence. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen a single customer as he browsed either. He’d chalked it up to the time of night but now as he looked around there didn’t seem to be a single soul anywhere in the store. Tapping at the nearest checkout screen he craned to look into the nearest aisle.

“I just need to check out, please!” He called awkwardly. Pulling out his wallet, Kevin checked for cash then frowned before walking the length of the store again peering down every aisle for signs of life.

“That’s…. odd…” He muttered to himself as he reached the front of the store for the third time. Letting out a sigh he walked to the exit doors, carefully positioning himself in front of the store’s security cameras. Waving his arms and pointing to the checkouts he shouted, “There’s nobody to check me out up here! Please send somebody!”

After six embarrassing minutes, Kevin was beginning to get annoyed and with his patience running thin he held up the Funyuns and pointed them at the camera.

“Look, they’re 4.39. I’ll come in tomorrow and pay it alright.” And with that he gingerly walked out of the shop. Guiltily he stepped through the doors, straightening up when no alarms blared as he went through. He turned and looked back at the store, then shrugged.

But before he could turn around there was a sharp pain at the base of his skull and he felt himself tumbling to the pavement.

“Get the dampeners on him quick, we don’t know what this one can do.” Kevin tried to turn toward the voice but a thick slab of forearm was suddenly pressing his face into the ground.

“Wait, they’re just Funyuns! There was nobody there! I can pay now!” Kevin frantically struggled, equal parts confused and scared but the officers cuffing his hands behind his back were burly and strong. He regretted skipping the gym the last 32 months.

“Get the lock in his mouth, I can’t stand all this squealing.” Officer one’s acne-pocked face came into view as he stuffed a black mouthguard shaped item between Kevin’s lips.

“Wait…” The rest of Kevin’s cry was muffled by the mouthguard and acne face’s fingers and once he’d gotten into place a clicking sound echoed through his skull and an enormous pressure lit up his jaw. Panicking, Kevin tried to move his mouth but it was fully locked shut somehow. He hadn’t heard of this sort of device before and the combination of it and the cuffs activated claustrophobia he didn’t know he did. Shaking and wiggling Kevin struggled against the knee in his back.

“This one is wiggly, should we hit him with the buzz?” Kevin didn’t have to wonder long what the buzz was as it pulsed through his nervous system lighting up every pain receptor like a Christmas tree. After an initial painful shock, Kevin went fully limp. His eyes shot around frantically as he lost all control of his muscles.

“Alright Base, this is Tactical Three, we’ve got him. Kev68 secured, loading up and initiating jump in one barring interference.” What the hell does that mean, Kevin thought idly as his body actively disobeyed every order he tried to give it.

Before he knew it, Kevin was seated in a bucket seat with an X shaped belt holding him in place. Looking as far as his eyes could scan without moving his head, Kevin was struck by how odd the interior of this police cruiser was. It certainly seemed more like a full tactical van. Weapons and tools he had never seen lined the wall across from him and the two officers seemed to be in seats somewhere behind him.

“Alright Base, Tactical Three initiating jump now in 3, 2, 1.” Kevin felt like his entire stomach was suddenly ripped up out of his mouth as a loud popping sound erupted around him. Straining to remain calm, Kevin watched as the world around him seemed to be yanked away at lightspeed. He tried desperately to scream as colors burst and strobed across his vision. Through the mania, he thought he could see a wrought iron gate but just as quickly he was suddenly sitting back in the strange van as an eruption of vomit escaped his mouth. The vomit flew through the air but zipped up a hose like device held by officer one before it splashed across the floor.

“What the hell.” Kevin mumbled as he slowly regained the use of his muscles. He searched around with his tongue for the black mouthguard with a dazed look on his face. “Where’d that thing go?” He managed to squeak out.

“They evaporate during the jump.” Officer one said to Kevin as he roughly moved him from the back of the vehicle out into a grey hangar. With his face no longer pressed into the pavement, Kevin finally got a good look at his arresting officers and frowned. Blue jumpsuits, these cops looked more like exterminators than law enforcement. If it wasn’t for the guns, Kevin probably wouldn’t have known the difference.

The first officer reached into a pouch on his utility belt and pulled out some kind of misting spray that he carefully squirted over his hands before grabbing Kevin by the upper arm and tugging him along into a long dimly lit hallway. Emerging on the other end, officer one had a casual conversation with another police exterminator sitting at a desk before waving him over.

Kevin eyed the strangely dressed officers carefully. Their belts looked advanced and the jumpsuits were emblazoned with IPF and the officer who had brought him over had a circular pin with the same letters. The new officer walked him over and deposited him in a large holding cell that was surprisingly clean. Instead of the traditional bars, the front of the cell was enclosed in a hard plexiglass. Kevin sat on a bench lining the back wall and watched this unknown force go by before knocking gently on the glass. The officer from the desk peered at him with scrunched eyebrows then slowly walked over.

“Where in the hell am I?” Kevin was holding it together fairly well he thought given the circumstances, but he couldn’t wait any longer to get this question out. Before the officer could answer, Kevin watched a beautiful woman with a thick tangle of dark red hair slink past the officer’s desk snatching an ID card as she went. “And who is that?”

The officer turned and looked at the woman for two full seconds before a sudden blaring alarm sparked him into movement. As a rush of officers sprinted past the cell, Kevin’s head continued to spin until a pair of officers stopped, removed him, and marched him through a maze of hallways to a new cell. This one looked like a bit of a long term stay and Kevin voiced his reluctance to the uninterested officers. Without a response, the officer unceremoniously dumped him into the cell and tapped some buttons on a control panel outside the door. A holograph display above the door changed from Mel1 to Kev68 and before he knew it, Kevin was alone again.

“I’m beginning to suspect they don’t have a law against police brutality wherever this is.”