Buffalito Bundle

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  “May? You hauled me in against my will, upset the resort owner by canceling my show, and attempted to imprison my buffalito.”

  He just blinked at me, as if I'd been speaking some made up language. Then he shrugged and got down to what had brought him there.

  “Do you have any other ideas on finding Jayasuriya?”

  “Actually, I do.”

  It wasn't quite the answer he'd expected, but he quickly regrouped. “Where is he?”

  I shook my head. “I haven't a clue, but I think I know where he will be. If I'm right, he's going to come looking for me tomorrow.”

  “What? Why?”

  I waved Reggie over and he jumped into my arms. “I'm sending him a message,” I said. “A time and place. Assuming he manages to whip up a batch of his experimental drug and it deadens his telepathy enough for him to actually show up.”

  “When and where?”

  I shook my head and gave him my best look of disbelief. “Do you really think he'll show up if you or your people are there? You'll all be beacons, broadcasting your intention to capture him. He'll rabbit before you can explain about your concerns of contagion. Don't interfere and maybe I can get Dr. Jayasuriya to turn himself in.”

  He considered that for a moment before grunting in agreement. “What do you need?”

  “Your word that you're done with the heavy-handed tactics. If you want my help, stop treating me like I'm one of the bad guys.”

  “Done. What else?”

  “A couple dozen billiard balls.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Reggie seems to really enjoy them. You can leave them at the front desk for me and I'll pick them up after breakfast tomorrow morning.

  Davies left, probably less happy than he'd hoped, but more so than he had any right to be. Of course it might all be pointless. In theory, my plan to send a message to Dr. Jayasuriya made sense, but in practice I could imagine a dozen reasons why it wouldn't work. I doubted that anyone had ever tried anything like it before and there were plenty of things that could go wrong. But if I'd learned anything in my years as a hypnotist it was that the unconscious mind could manage some pretty incredible things, and I had to believe that principle still applied even if the mind in question belonged to a telepath on the receiving end of an entire city. One way or another, I'd know for sure around noon.

  That left just one more thing to do. I carried Reggie over to the dressing room's makeup table and settled in with him on my lap. Gazing into the mirror I started a simple induction, taking a moment to come up with a unique trigger phrase. If any of this went as I hoped, I was going to need it.

  The next morning, Reggie and I were enjoying breakfast in the resort's main restaurant. As a nod to Jayasuriya and my hopes for success, I'd ordered masala dosa to start my day. The chef had done outstanding work. The rice batter pancake could not have been any lighter and had the perfect crispness. The mix of spices, potatoes, and onions in the filling tasted heavenly, and the coconut chutney pulled it all together. I chose to regard it as an omen of good things to come. My buffalito's metabolism runs higher than mine and instead of a simple plate for his masala dosa, Reggie's triple portion had been served up on a ceramic trencher. He perched upon a booster seat and stretched forward to lick up every drop of the curry sauce, and then ate the plate for good measure as well.

  As we were finishing up, the waiter came by with a package for me. A black canvas backpack had just been delivered to the front desk, and they'd sent it on to the restaurant. I peered inside, pleased to see it filled with billiard balls. Score one for Davies.

  The resort's concierge summoned a vehicle and soon after we found ourselves at Zoo Atlanta. We waited our turn in the admission line alongside dozens of others, families mostly, all there to enjoy a wonderful Sunday. I held Reggie cradled over my arm as we approached the ticket window. The attendant on duty tensed as soon as she caught sight of him. Before she could recite the zoo's policy prohibiting pets, I handed over the certificate declaring my buffalito as an alien service animal. She reviewed it with skepticism, ignored my offer to purchase a ticket for him, and cautioned me to avoid the aviaries and any interactive exhibits as, by zoo policy, these were prohibited for guests with service animals.

  We wandered. It was Reggie's first trip to a zoo. His nostrils twitched at as we passed each exhibit, cataloging every novel scent. The giant pandas in particular excited him and we lingered there. Over the years, Atlanta had become home to the largest colony of pandas outside of China. A low railing and concrete ravine was all that separated us from a sprawling habitat and several families of pandas busily cavorting, rough housing, and stripping bamboo.

  “Pandas, Reggie. They're pandas.” He looked at me as I said the word and then tracked my gaze back to the pandas. He gazed longingly at them, desperate to join in the fun, but there was no way that would end well. I kept a tight grip on him, making a mental note to get him some bamboo to sample after we returned to Philadelphia. We moved along.

  It was a perfect day for strolling and wiling away the day, but I didn't have that kind of time. It was nearly noon when I located Flamingo Sal's snack bar. It had a very limited menu, and certainly nothing that could come even close to the masala dosa we'd enjoyed for breakfast, but that didn't matter. I already knew what I had to order.

  “Six of your chicken lettuce wraps, please,” I said to a young man bearing a nameplate that wanted me to believe he was Sal. I paid my money and soon after received my order. I carried the food to a nearby bench, put Reggie down next to me, and took off my backpack. A buffalo dog can almost always eat, and mine had no trouble devouring four of the iceberg lettuce wraps, consuming each in three bites or less. It was just enough time for me to open the backpack and take out a few of the billiard balls. To fill the time, I began tossing them, one at a time. Reggie jumped from the bench to chase each one. For reasons known only to him, he ate the striped balls as soon as he caught them, but chose to carry the solid colored balls back to me and clamber back onto to the bench before chewing and swallowing them. A few of the other zoo-goers paused to watch the show but they kept their distance. Through it all I sampled my own lettuce wrap and in-between bites hummed tunes from Evita.

  A few minutes into this, a man took a seat on the bench. I recognized his clothing, a pale blue jumpsuit that I'd seen him wear on the vid footage. He'd added a baseball cap. With his head down, the visor hid his face, but there was never any question regarding his identity. Dr. Jayasuriya, the world's most powerful telepath had gotten my message and answered my call.

  Sometimes a trigger needs a trigger, and that's part of what I'd set up the night before. As soon as I realized it was Jayasuriya sitting there I automatically said the words I'd put in place. Dr. Jayasuriya's head jerked up and he stared at me in surprise. I offered him a sandwich.

  “Chicken lettuce wrap? It's made with iceberg lettuce, not Bibb or romaine. And that's the secret to a good wrap, because iceberg lasts longer. That makes iceberg safe.”

  He waved the sandwich away, looking annoyed.

  “What did you just do?”

  “I'm sorry?” I blinked in surprise, aware that I'd just set something in motion in my own head but with no conscious awareness of what it was, which is probably as I'd intended it.

  Jayasuriya's hand suddenly gripped my wrist. “You were just thinking about me and a plan you had, but those thoughts are gone, as if they'd never been in your head at all. And now you're babbling about lettuce wraps.”

  I shrugged. “I'm sorry, but you're asking about metacognition, and I can't help you.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means, I don't know what I don't. Same as anyone.”

  “But those words. Tezcatlipoca Wasabi. What about that?”

  “Oh. It's a trigger phrase, I suspect. Tezcatlipoca is also called the Smoking Mirror. He's the Aztec god of ancestral memory. And wasabi? It's that green paste you get with sushi, made from horseradish and mustard, I thin
k.”

  “You're the hypnotist,” he said, half statement and half question. “The Amazing Conroy.”

  “I am.”

  “You called out to me. How did you do that? I... don't understand why I knew to come here?”

  “I took advantage of the size of your telepathic field.”

  “You know about that?”

  I replied with a knowing wink. “I figured it was a signal to noise kind of problem. At its widest, you'd have tens or hundreds of thousands of minds coming in at once.”

  He nodded and I could see the pain of it on his face. “It's unbearable. A cacophony of voices and images. But what did you do.”

  “I created a coherent signal amidst the din. I loaded up a couple hundred people with words that would stand out for you.”

  “The diseases?”

  “I hoped it would get your attention, and get through to you, at least on an unconscious level.”

  “Huh. That's... unique. I don't believe anyone has studied telepathy with regard to the unconscious.”

  “I'm a hypnotist, Dr. Jayasuriya. The unconscious is where I do my best work.”

  “But how did I know to come here?”

  “Oh, I piggybacked a time and location on the signal.”

  He frowned. “You implanted a suggestion? Manipulated me?”

  “I'm trying to help you,” I said. “The NSA asked me to help them find you. They're worried about contagion, that you could spread Meyerson's Encephalitis B. More than anyone else in the world, you know how devastating that would be.”

  “They lied to you, Mr. Conroy. There's no danger of contagion.”

  “How can you be sure? At a minimum you need to be tested—”

  “I've been tested. Repeatedly. They ran my bloodwork, and I'd learned the results from the thoughts of several of my former colleagues. There's no sign of the virus in me. I'm completely clean.”

  “But the telepathy—”

  “I didn't say I was unchanged, just that the virus is gone. I can't possibly infect anyone. The only remaining sample of Meyerson's Encephalitis B is locked in a vault back at the CDC.”

  “But if they know this, why would—”

  He cut me off again. I guess when you're a telepath you do that a lot.

  “They're not worried about the public health. That was just a ruse to recruit you to helping them. They want to contain me, use me for their own purposes.”

  “How do you—”

  “Because they followed you here, Mr. Conroy.”

  “Davies promised me he wouldn't.”

  Jayasuriya shook his head. “He lied. Again. There's a tracking device sewn into one of the straps your backpack. I realize you didn't know anything about it, but you've led them right to me.”

  I ran my hands over the pack's straps and found a tiny lump. I unfastened the strap and handed it to Reggie who dutifully ate it in seconds. Damn. Why had I believed Davies?

  “And they're here? In the zoo?”

  “There are five of his agents surrounding us right now. Two fairly close and to our right, the rest scattered throughout the crowd on the left and a bit further out, but they all have eyes on us and as soon as I stand up to leave they intend to close and apprehend me.”

  “You're reading them?”

  “The field is fairly small at the moment, and the drug I synthesized numbs most of the extraneous thoughts. About all I'm getting are the people focused on me, like you. Like them.”

  “I don't like being lied to,” I said. “Or played. If I can get you out of the zoo, do you have a plan?”

  He looked at me like I'd suggest we simply fly away. “I have the beginnings of one. But how do you expect us to leave? The agents are armed with stun batons, and if I offer any resistance they'll likely injure innocent people in their pursuit of me.”

  My mind raced, and I remembered an item from Jayasuriya's file. “Do you know the expression like riding a bicycle?”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Time to find out if it applies to baseball. How's your pitching arm?”

  He read the intention in my mind. “You're not serious.”

  “It makes sense, if you've got anything like the strength and precision of your college days. Davies's people can't use their batons unless they catch us. All you need is a clear shot.”

  “But—”

  It was my turn to interrupt him. “If you have a better idea...”

  “No. You're right. How do you want to proceed?”

  I handed him a couple billiard balls, took a couple for myself, and then shouldered the backpack by its remaining strap. “If we can take out the closest two we should be able to make this work. Now, I'm going to create a diversion and a path. Do you understand?”

  He saw the plan in my mind, looked to Reggie. “I do.”

  “Then let's do this.” We both stood up. The buffalito yipped. A new game was coming. “Reggie, find the pandas, boy. Pandas!”

  Like a miniature stampede of one, Reggie raced off to the right, zigzagging through the crowd. Jayasuriya and I ran after. And around us, Davies's agents dropped their pretense of being just regular zoo-goers, drew their stun batons, and moved to intercept us.

  “I am not liking this plan,” said Jayasuriya as he dodged left, centered himself, and let fly with an eight-ball. It missed the shoulder of a woman with three small children by less than an arm's length, soared over the kids with plenty of room to spare, and slammed into the forearm of an agent who had been ahead of them. The baton tumbled from his grasp as he screamed in pain, clutching the injured arm with his other hand.

  “Noted,” I said. “But is the plan working?”

  “Shattered radius,” said Jayasuriya, wincing and passing a second ball to his throwing hand, winding up and pitching. That one also struck an agent in the arm with the same result. “Fractured humerus.”

  “Great.”

  “Not so great,” he grunted, his face twisted with agony. “You didn't account for their pain.”

  “I did,” I said. “I'm counting on it to distract and slow them.”

  “It's also part of what they're broadcasting to me.”

  “You're feeling it?”

  He nodded. “This close, it's coming through loud. Maybe with more distance...”

  “New plan,” I said. Jayasuriya's victims might have been in pain but they were still on task, albeit moving more slowly. Both of them were trying to retrieve their fallen batons. “Head for the pandas!”

  By this point, the zoo attendees around us had begun screaming. They surged away from us, which blocked further billiard ball pitches for the moment, but it also impeded the pursuit of the remaining agents. We took advantage and ran after Reggie, increasing the distance between us and our pursuers.

  “No more arm shots,” I said. “It slows them down but Davies's people are too good and will keep coming. You need to bring them down. Next time, maybe aim for a leg?”

  “Too much tissue,” he said as we shoved past confused zoo-goers. “The muscles around the tibia and femur would absorb more of the impact, making a break less likely.”

  The gap between us and the remaining agents had grown, but now they had mostly broken through the people between us and could run again. I passed Jayasuriya another pair of billiard balls. “Help me out here, doc. What else you got?”

  “A costal blow,” he said. “Right side to avoid any possibility of inducing a cardiac tamponade.”

  “English?”

  He stopped, spun, and threw twice. “Ribs,” he said. First one and then the other ball hit their marks, low and inside. Both agents went down. “Broken ribs.”

  We kept running, losing ourselves in the dwindling throng of panicked zoo-goers.

  “That works,” I said, pulling more balls from the backpack. The panda colony was just up ahead and Reggie had already reached the railing. He'd done more than just get to it, he was well on his way to eating through it. On the other side, beyond the ravine, several giant panda
s had ambled over to see what was happening.

  “I'm not getting their pain,” said Jayasuriya. “They're far enough away.”

  “So, you're reading just me and the remaining three agents?”

  “Mostly. No one else is focused on me, and the drug is dampening most everything else. There's a tinge of panic from the people who are fleeing, but as they get further away it's easier to manage. Also, there's... an odd sense of curiosity.”

  “Curiosity?”

  He nodded as we arrived at the railing and gestured beyond it. “From the pandas.”

  Reggie had finished making a buffalito-sized opening in the railing and plunged through, toppling down the side of the concrete ravine.

  “Up and over, doc.”

  “It's too steep. We won't be able to get out again. Davies's people will pin us down.”

  I was already climbing over the railing. “There are ladder rungs further along. They retract so if a panda stumbles in they can't climb out, but we'll be able to use them once we take out the last of the agents.”

  “How?”

  He was too frazzled to focus and simply pull the answer out of my head. We tumbled and skidded our way to the bottom of the ravine. He caught his breath and my intention.

  “Oh,” he said, and hefted a billiard ball, waiting.

  The remaining agents rushed to the railing above us, two of them cradling their arms. They leaned over, searching left and right to see where we'd gone. They presented easy targets. Why they thought we'd somehow flown across the gap of the ravine I don't know. Only one of them ever looked down and the expression on his face as he saw the billiard ball streaking toward him was priceless.

  Dr. Jayasuriya was wincing again and gasping for breath.

  “Shattered ribs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let's get some distance from them and get you out of here. Reggie, c'mon, boy.”

  One of the agents had dropped his stun baton and it had fallen at my feet. I took it as a sign and snatched it up. I guide Jayasuriya along the bottom of the panda colony's ravine away from the collapsed agents and their broken ribs. Above us, people who had flocked to see the pandas had noticed a pair of humans where they didn't belong and were pointing. Four of the pandas were pacing us. By the time we reached a spot in the outer ravine wall housing ladder rungs a zookeeper had already arrived and exposed them. He called to us to climb out and offered to come down and help us. Dr. Jayasuriya was feeling better and was able to ascend without help. I scooped up Reggie and followed.