Read Online Time Thieves by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online

have the slightest notion of pain, Mr. Mullion. Let us assure you of that.”
        
        He reached the front of the room without making a noise that could give him away. He found a railing and emptiness beyond, a discovery which indicated they were on a second-floor storage loft which overlooked the main floor of the warehouse. Somewhere, there had to be a way down.
        
        “Mr. Mullion,” one of the triplets said, looming up twenty feet away as Pete followed the smooth railing.
        
        He stopped, his heart racing, but he felt a break in the rail as he did so. He edged forward a foot or two and felt around with his boot until he discovered a step. In a moment, blood pounding in his temples, he was halfway down toward the lower level, taking two risers at a time, no matter what the danger of a fall. He heard the mechanical man start after him as he set foot on the cement floor.
        
        Outside, the wail of sirens rebounded from the rippled warehouse walls. Would the triplets stay or flee?
        
        “Mr. Mullion, if you will wait there just a moment-”
        
        He didn't bother listening to the rest of it, but moved off through the crated machinery that offered cover.
        
        The eight-fingered being had begun another concerted effort to break down the partition that surrounded Pete's mind. It wanted to surge through, shredding his defenses, and capture him, thereby putting an end to this chase. Fortunately, Pete wanted his freedom even more than the strange creature wanted him captured. For the moment, the stronger of the two desires seemed to be winning out. The assault made him feel dizzy and weak and uncertain. Nevertheless, he managed to maintain his mental sanctity against the onslaught. Hunched to present the smallest target, he fled deeper into the stacks of boxes and barrels.
        
        Three police cars braked noisily in the brick courtyard outside. The sirens died slowly, mournful as they wound down into silence to be replaced by the voices of half a dozen men. Orders were shouted; confirmations were called back. Feet sounded on the bricks. “Up this way!” someone shouted. Distantly, feet found the iron rungs of the old, black fire escape.
        
        The triplets were all on the main floor now, desperately looking for him.
        
        “Mr. Mullion, the police will be here shortly, and they'll arrest you. We have a way out; they won't find us. But you'll have to stay here and be trapped, if you won't help us.”
        
        The police had reached the door at the top of the fire escape and were considering unlatching it.
        
        Pete remembered the speed with which that damaged mechanical man had disappeared from the street, earlier in the evening. Too, he remembered how the stranger under the willow tree had vanished so rapidly that night only weeks ago, when he had returned home from his first period of forgetfulness. He had been hoping that the arrival of the police would scare the triplets off. Now he saw that they would stay through the last moment. They were superior machines with superior abilities, many of which they had not, surely, yet displayed.
        
        During one of his quiet dashes along a short, box-walled passageway, as he eluded the triplets, he came to a point where the cement floor sank in all directions to a large, heavy wire drainage grill set over a sewer opening in the floor. All the stock was perched on metal bar frames an inch or two above the cement to let the water drain beneath.
        
        In the second floor loft, the police had gotten the door open and had reached the head of the stairs. They played the beams of three powerful flashlights on the maze of the lower level. They looked unhappy at the prospect of coming down. They called out, waited for a reply, then called out again.
        
        Pete knelt by the wire grill and lifted it out of place.