Alternative Natty/Page3

Love is Faithful
For twenty years, Alex had searched for his beloved Natalie. He'd been rejuved from old age and had grown up again. He'd poured every penny of their combined and considerable fortune into the project. He'd kept her case alive in the media and with the police. He'd been an unmitigated pain in the butt.

Let it go, his therapist said. She must be dead. For twenty years, there's been no word.

But he would not give up. He could not give up. Not until he found her corpse and DNA proved it hers. Then he would go to meet her. Until then, he would not abandon her. He was her only hope.

Ah, her beauty of body and soul, her intelligence, ready wit and sharp tongue! Time healed no wounds here, when every day he hoped for a call from some policeman or other, saying she had been found.

He'd put every bit of pressure he could on the government to pass a law requiring a search of every vessel leaving Earth. For contraband, his mouth said. For Natalie, his heart whispered.

The law had been passed.

That was his only victory. Fairly early on, the kidnapping hovercar had been traced. It had been stolen and then abandoned in a junk lot. No one in the area knew what had happened to the people in it. No one within two miles had Natalie. All their homes had been searched.

The police thought another hovercar had met the first. That was all they'd figured out. Idiots.

Alex had given up his career and pored his efforts into a scanner that could find a specific DNA. Developing a short-range was easy enough, and he had hired hundreds to search with these scanners. Developing the long range took longer. And seemed impossible. But Natalie would never have given up on him. And he would never give up on her.

Charles and Sarah enjoyed themselves with other Pennys, but they did not forget the little girl who'd disappeared so long ago, who they'd barely met.

Today was a big day for Alex. They were testing out his newest scanner. He had agents spaced around the world at greater and greater distances, all the way to halfway across the world. He had samples of all their DNA and their actual locations written down to compare with the results he got from his scanner.

And then, as he inserted the DNA of an agent in Mexico, he felt an emotion he hadn't touched for twenty years.

Hope.

The agent was pinpointed. 2000 miles away.

Pouring himself a Scotch, Alex inserted the DNA of an agent in Europe. Then one in Nepal. Then one on the Moon.

Located. Located. LOCATED!

With badly shaking fingers, Alex inserted the only piece of Natalie he'd seen for twenty years, usually holding the prized place in his hall cabinet. A lock of hair she'd given him the night she was arrested on that idiotic charge. It spent it's time clipped to a picture of the two of them on their honeymoon, newly graduated doctors, so full of life and hope and promise. Sometimes when he looked at that picture he hated it. Tonight he kissed it as he worked the brown hair off.

If she was on Earth or near it, this should do it. He'd take it to every colony world, just in case her captors had taken her off the planet.

How old was she now, he wondered. Was she changed? If she was alive. The search of the machine seemed to go on forever. Alex prayed all the prayers he could think of to a God he had ignored so often for the last twenty years, in an agony of fury at a cruel God and a cruel world that had taken his beautiful Natalie.

He was sick with fear. Spots danced before his eyes. If she was dead, he would die too.

T'zz'lrrra sat discreetly behind him, waiting tranquilly. The government had assigned her permanently to this man, to make sure he did not kill himself after she had reported how unstable he was. She could feel his emotions, so forceful they scraped across her empathy.

He had insisted she listen for Natalie all over the world, to see if she could pick up anything, no matter how many times she told him that all the voices together made an indistinguishable shout. He had grasped at any straw in his absurd quest to find a woman surely dead.

Suddenly, he fell to his knees, tears suddenly pouring down his face. T'zz'lrrra was alarmed....and then she focused on the screen of the locater, which had finally returned it's verdict.

The Police are a Pain
Located. Located. Located!

The word drummed in Alex's mind as he called the police. Dubiously, (they had suffered for a long time under Alex's wild goose chases,) they responded, sent a team to an innocuous home in the middle of Montana.

All the time, thought Alex, as he made arrangements as quickly as he could to fly in from Washington, Natalie had been so close!

How many times had the scanner refused to locate anything from more than fifty feet away? He'd sent out searchers, but after all, a planet is a lot to cover that way. They'd gone through Montana, but not close enough.

A phone call from the police made Alex's heart jump in his chest. No sign of anything, they reported. The house was abandoned.

"Wait!" pleaded Alex. "We're coming in now. Let me try the scanner again, please!"

What had taken time was packing up the bulky scanner. Alex had wanted to be sure. Now he was glad he had brought it.

He had to mention larger credit figures than he liked, given his denuded bank account, but they grudgingly agreed.

Almost the moment his hovercraft landed, Alex was out and around to the back, putting the scanner back together. It was a tense few moments. Plucking a hair, he put it into the machine to test it. Located. All right, it was working properly.

He patted his pocket for Natalie's lock. Where was it? WHERE WAS NATALIE'S LOCK?