Curtains Of Time

By Wayne Rohrer

This short novel about Gizmo and his gadgets is the start of a series. Gilbert Zachariah Morrison, aka Gizmo, was born under a full moon. To say he was a nerd is only part of the story. To say he had special abilities is another part of the story. To say he designed and built a device that would take him to any place he wanted to go in space and time is yet another part of the story. He and his best friend Marco roam the universes looking for fun and adventure but fine more than they bargained for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Rohrer
• Release date: Aug 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310522499

Wayne Rohrer

Coming from a small town in the Midwest, the author used the Navy as a stepping stone to college in California where he got a degree from the California State University, Chico. During his first two years of college, he majored in Journalism where he learned the fine art of journalistic writing. He had a dream of traveling the world photographing and writing about current breaking events. Although the dream lives on, the photography and the writing have become more of a hobby than a career. That window of opportunity is gone, but the joy of writing remains strong. As is usually the case, life got in the way and he ended up getting a degree in a field totally unrelated to writing or photography. The bulk of his career was spent working in the California Department of Mental Health where he worked in various capacities ranging from a psychiatric nurse to the Hospital Administrator of one of the State hospitals. That is where his creative writing skills were really put to the test.Looking back over the course of his career, the single most important element that stands above all others is his desire to tell stories. Being an avid reader, he read work related journals and scholarly books on treating the psychiatric patient, but he also read the entire works of authors such as Dean Koontz and John Grisham. He marveled at their ability to weave an engaging story. It was only through the encouragement of friends that he set out to write a book of his own.The author has recently moved to Fort Myers, Florida, where he lives a quiet life.All books can be found published on Smashwords.com. If you, the reader, have comments regarding the books by this author, he can be reached at the following email address: [e-mail]. Please put the book title in the subject line to ensure your comments receive the proper attention and response. Any comments you have would be helpful and appreciated.

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Curtains of Time

By Wayne Rohrer

Copyright 2014 Wayne Rohrer

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – To Close For Comfort

Chapter 2 – Time On His Hands

Chapter 3 – The Early Years

Chapter 4 – Giselle

Chapter 5 – Marco

Chapter 6 – Universal Star Colony

Chapter 7 – Orientation

Chapter 8 – Crontonis

Chapter 9 – Mr. Everhart

Chapter 10 – R & R

Chapter 11 – Getting Away At Last

Chapter 12 – Twylo

Chapter 13 – Complications

About The Author

Chapter 1 – To Close For Comfort

Gismo and Marco were in trouble. The mission had been a success but Marco was injured and losing blood at an alarming rate. Gismo knew he had to get help fast or Marco wouldn’t make it. The blast from the laser gun had nearly severed his right arm. Was this an ambush? Where had all the men with guns come from? This was supposed to be a clean job: get in and get out before anyone knew they were there. This wasn’t what Gizmo signed up for. All this cloak and dagger stuff just wasn’t who he was. He was more of a techno geek than a James Bond type. He was more the type sitting in a lab designing and creating the technology than the one in the field using it. Why did he let Marco talk him into this assignment anyway? He had made it all sound so easy.

Everything had gone as planned until suddenly gunmen had come charging into the dimly lit warehouse from all directions with guns blazing. Caught by surprise, they hadn’t moved fast enough and Marco had been hit. Seconds before, Marco had stopped and seemed transfixed for a moment as though listening to something.

There’re men coming, we’re surrounded. We have to get out of here fast, Marco had reached out to grab Gizmo and that’s when he had been hit. If he had grabbed Gizmo and pulled him as he intended to do, he would have pulled Gizmo directly into the line of fire.

All the exits were being guarded and now with Marco down the men smelled victory and were closing in. Even in the dim light they would have no trouble following the trail of blood Marco was leaving behind as Gizmo dragged him between two large crates. Gizmo needed another couple of seconds to program leap frog to get them out of there. Hopefully this would buy him the time he needed. As he engaged leap frog, Gizmo looked up to see two of the gunmen raise laser guns in their direction.

Suddenly they were outside the warehouse but Gizmo still had to half carry the semi-conscious Marco the last few feet to Giselle under heavy gun fire. He was yelling orders to Giselle as they approached and climbed onboard. Almost before the doors were shut Giselle was in hyperspace.

Giselle, engage cloaking and make sure we aren’t being tracked, then notify The Colony that we are incoming with wounded, Gizmo said as he turned his attention to Marco.

Marco was in an enormous amount of pain and was losing a lot of blood. The blood loss was the major concern and had to be stopped first. If he couldn’t stop the blood loss, the pain wouldn’t matter. He pulled out Giselle’s first aid kit which wasn’t equipped to handle an emergency of this magnitude, so he would have to improvise. He needed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, but all he could find was a tie down rope. It would have to do. He tied the rope above the severed arm as tight as he could get it. It slowed the flow of blood but didn’t stop it. Next he took off his shirt and used it as a bandage to cover the wound. Working as fast as he could, he injected Marco with a strong pain killer which had an immediate effect. Marco stopped his painful restless groaning and closed his eyes as his head rolled to one side.

Stay with me Marco, Gizmo said. Don’t leave me now. I need you to stay awake. Giselle how soon are we going to be there? Have you requested emergency medical equipment waiting for us when we land?

Yes sir, they are standing by. We will be there in 18.3 seconds.

Did we make a clean get-away? Do we have a tail?

None that I can detect, Giselle replied. We are landing now sir.

The cabin door opened and the emergency medical team swung into action. Gizmo shut down Giselle, and with a big sigh of relief at being home again, he grabbed his pack and stepped down onto the hanger deck. Sula was waiting, and with him was General Brand.

Welcome back Gizmo, Sula said. Looks like things didn’t go as planned. I know you must be tired and worried about your friend, but rest assured, your friend is in good hands now. I’m confident he will recover fully. But right now, General Brand and I are anxious to hear what happened. As you know, we will also require a full written report from both you and Marco as well. General, can we use your office?

Gizmo groaned inwardly. Why did they have to do this now?

The mission was a success sir, I can have the full report on your desk tomorrow morning, he said hoping they would get the hint.

They didn’t.

He was lead into the General’s office just off the hanger deck.

What happened? Sula started when they were all seated.

That’s just it sir, I don’t know. All of a sudden we were surrounded with gunmen blocking all the exits. Either it was an ambush or we tripped up a silent alarm that wasn’t on our plans. Marco knew they were coming but we still only had seconds before they arrived.

Sula and the General exchanged a glance.

We’ll have to look into that. These kinds of mistakes are not supposed to happen. It appears our people were obviously not as thorough as they should have been, the General said making notes.

Go on son.

We were caught off guard. There was laser gun fire everywhere. When they first entered I heard one of the men yell to someone to check the plates to make sure they were okay.

You did say the mission was a success, right? You had time to change the plates before they came in then? Sula asked.

Gizmo reached into his bag and handed Sula two bank note printing plates.

These are their plates sir, we exchanged them with the ones you gave us. We were just getting ready to leave when all hell broke loose.

You and Marco have served The Colony well Mr. Morrison, General Brand said. "I’m not sure how much detail you were given prior to your mission but you deserve to know the whole story. It seems the Loudon family from the planet Gandos planned to print phony currency which would make them the richest family on the planet. It would also give them ruling