Jumper 1 - Jumper Read Online Free PDF

painted house with white tile on the roof, and a canal in the back with boats. I tried to picture the living room but all I could picture was Granddad in this indefinite, generic sort of room. I tried to jump anyway, and it didn't work.
    Hmph.
    Memory was important, apparently. I had to have a clear picture of the place, gained from actually being there.
    I thought of another experiment to make.
    I jumped.
     
    On Forty-fifth Street there is store after store specializing in electronics. Stereo equipment, video equipment, computers, electronic instruments. Everybody was closed when I appeared at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth, including the vendor of Italian ice that I'd patronized the day before.
    I could see into the stores, though, their interiors lit for security or display purposes. There were steel bars lowered over most of the windows, secured with massive padlocks, but you could peer between them.
    I stopped before one store with wider bars and better lighting than most. I studied the floor, the walls, the way the shelves were arranged, the merchandise closest to the window.
    I had a very real sense of location. I was here on the sidewalk just six feet from the inside of the store. I could picture it clearly in my mind. I looked up the street both ways, closed my eyes, and jumped.
    Two things happened. First, I appeared inside the store, inches from hundreds of bright, shiny electronic toys. Second, within an instant of my appearance, a siren, very loud and strident, went off both inside and outside the store, followed by the blinding flash of an electronic strobe which lit the interior like a bolt of lightning.
    Jesus! I flinched. Then, almost without thought, I jumped back to the Stanville Library.
    My knees felt weak. I sat, quickly, on the floor and shook for over a minute.
    What was the matter with me? It was just an alarm, some sort of motion detector. I didn't have this reaction when the two thugs in Washington Square accosted me.
    I calmed down. That hadn't been so unexpected, so abrupt. I took several deep breaths. I could probably have stayed there, transferred several VCRs back to my hotel room, before the police showed up.
    What would I do with them? I wouldn't know who to sell them to, not without getting ripped off or busted. The very thought of dealing with the kind of people who bought stolen goods made my skin crawl. And what about the store owner? Wouldn't he be hurt? Or would insurance cover it? I started feeling guilty just picturing it.
    Another thought set my heart to beating harder and faster. Maybe that flash was for photos? Maybe they have closed-circuit TV cameras set up?
    I stood up and started pacing across the library, breathing faster, almost gasping.
    "Stop it!" I finally said to myself, my voice loud in the quiet building. How the hell are they going to catch you, even if they had your fingerprints, which they don't? If they did catch you, what jail would hold you? Hell, no merchandise was stolen, no locks forced, no windows broken. Who's going to believe there was someone in the store, much less press charges?
    Suddenly, like a weight descending on my shoulders, I was exhausted, weaving on my feet. My head began to ache again, and I wanted to sleep.
    I jumped to the hotel room and kicked off my shoes. The room was chilly, the radiator barely warm. I looked at the thin sheets on the bed. Inadequate. I thought about the man in Washington Square Park. Is he warm enough?
    I jumped into the dark interior of my room in my father's house, scooped up the quilt from the bed, and jumped back to the hotel room.
    Then I slept.
     
    It was midday when noise from the street, a horn I think, woke me. I pulled the quilt higher and looked at the cheap hotel room.
    It was Wednesday, so I thought my dad should be at the office. I stood up, stretched, and jumped to the bathroom in the house. I listened carefully, then peered around the corner. Nobody. I jumped to the kitchen and looked out at