The Wrong Drake

I am still regularly submitting stories to journals and magazines, but I haven’t had any bites since my last success with Reflex Press. I have also been attending a writer’s workshop, and we regularly write 500-word stories as exercises. I have been sending out these flash fiction stories as well, but this particular one would have been a hard sell due to the nature of one of the characters, so I figured I would post it here. We had a prompt including a clunker as well as incorporating one of the members from the workshop: Drake Scott. He was quite pleased with my story, and I am sure you will see why. Without further ado:

The Wrong Drake

A flash of neon-green illuminated the warehouse.

Senor Rodriguez would not wait for procedure and came around the blast shield. He stood at the edge of the continuum barrier until it dissipated. Once the barrier disappeared, a rusted, egg-shaped capsule sat on the floor. A door hissed open, and out stumbled a lady in jeans and a T-shirt with “MISFITS” written on it. Behind her came a man wearing a blue tracksuit, holding a gun to her back.

“Wow that was fast,” Senor Rodriguez said.

“Well it was instantaneous, after all,” John said as he pushed the lady with his pistol.

Senor Rodriguez inspected the lady. “And this is her? She isn’t dressed like I would imagine someone from then to dress…”

She spoke up. “What the heck is going on? You better explain yourself, or else my boyfriend is going to kick all your asses.”

John itched his head. “Didn’t you say to kidnap his girlfriend?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t look or act like Mary Newman.”

The lady put her hands on her hips. “Who the hell is that? I’m Tia.”

Senor Rodriguez glared at John. “You said this would work! What happened?”

John stepped back to his capsule and poked his head inside. “It says right here, Drake, S., 2035.”

“No! You were supposed to be going to 1569! To get the girlfriend of Sir Francis Drake and cause him to get depressed. That way, he won’t ever complete his journey, and my family will get the glory for circumnavigating the world two years later.”

“Well, well, I put in Drake, S. F., and this is what I got.”

Senor Rodriguez stomped over and looked inside. “But there is no ‘F’!”

“Oh, my computer must have truncated it.”

Senor Rodriguez grumbled. “That’s what you get when you hire someone who only has a clunker of a time machine.”

“So who did we get?” John asked.

Senor Rodriguez thought about it a moment, and his face paled. “Oh no…” he whispered. “Hurry, you have to get her back to—”

Another flash of green light blinded them. When they could finally see again, another egg-shaped capsule rested a few yards to the side of the first one. But this one was smooth and pristine. The door hissed open.

Out stepped a handsome man wearing a pink shirt with yellow letters, with a manly display of chest hair poking out of the collar, while his biceps threatened to tear apart the sleeves. They were in the presence of Emmy-award winning, Nobel prize winning, WWE Champion, Honorary doctorate from Harvard, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, world-renown supermodel, and famous inventor Drake Scott.

He stepped out, released the safety on his assault rifle, and cleared his throat. “I believe you have my girlfriend.”