by James McEwan
“I’m so sorry about that, I don’t know why that happened,” Thad said eye balling the rapidly forming bruises on the Doctor’s neck.
“Don’t think on it again,” Doctor Hammer smiled as he got up and left the room.
Thad was not able to go back to sleep so he got out of bed. After wondering the house for a while, he found himself in the garage polishing up the new paint job on the bike. Rhonda popped up on top of the bike, the whole twelve inches of her hologram, “You are here early, just couldn’t stay away from me?”
“That’s it, I just couldn’t go another minute without polishing something,” he paused as she gave him a sour face, “No just couldn’t sleep,” he said.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“Not really, but if you wanted to play some music that would be nice,” he said as he sprayed a generous amount of liquid polish on her.
“DJ Rhonda at your service Sir,” she took a bow and then disappeared. Music filled the room as he worked making the bike shine.
He continued to work on the bike for hours not really working on it, but more going through the motions while he thought about the dream. At some point in the morning, Archie came in and got the sand crawler. Thad watched as he drove off with Doctor Hammer.
“I wonder where he’s off to.” Thad said as he stopped polishing long enough to see them disappear in a cloud of dust.
Rhonda appeared on the handlebars, “I have no idea, and mom keeps saying that it is a secret.”
“Hum, what is he up to now?” Thad pondered.
“I don’t know, but I want to know when you are going to take me out for a good ride big boy,” Rhonda said as she bent over the handlebars in a very sexual manner.
“Just need a seat baby. Once I have something soft to sit on then I’ll take you out and ride you hard and put you away dirty, so don’t you worry your pretty little holo-projector off.”
Rhonda smiled, “I love it when you talk to me like that!”
It was later that evening when Doctor Hammer returned to the compound, the back of the crawler filled with mostly supply boxes. Doctor Hammer had a crate of Jack Daniels back there as well. He loved the stuff. When he saw Thad looking at the crate he said, “Well if you have to have a vice you should make it a good one. It’s the water that makes it so great. You see back on Earth in Tennessee the Jack Daniel Company has been making whisky the same way for hundreds of years. Their protected water supply is the key. You see it has just the right balance of minerals.”
Now it made sense to Thad why Doctor Hammer took off so fast, and without telling him. He must have been waiting on that case for months.
“Thad come here I want to show you something,” Doctor Hammer motioned for him to come to the back of the crawler.
Thad walked to the back and looked at what Doctor Hammer was pointing at. He stopped cold, and his jaw dropped open. It was a crate with a new seat for the grav-bike. “Well son are you going say anything or are you going to just stand there, like a fool, and drool on my boots?”
“I don’t know what to do say,” Thad said as he carefully removed the seat from its crate. He inspected every inch of it. The custom-made leather seat had been hand made on Earth. The craftsmanship was stunning!
Doctor Hammer placed his arm around Thad’s shoulders and said, “How about you don’t say anything.” Thad didn’t say a word just stood and turned the seat over in his hands. “Don’t just stand there looking like a slack jawed idiot go put it on Rhonda so we can take her out for ride.”
“Yes Sir,” Thad, seat in hand, ran back to the bike. A few minutes later, he had the new seat installed. He slipped his leg over the bike and sat down. It was incredible to have a seat that was made precisely for him, “Oh Rhonda, you should feel this thing, it is like a soft hand cradling my backside. I have to wonder though, where did he get a mold of my butt? This thing is perfect.”
Rhonda appeared on the handlebars in her leather biker outfit, “You know, he did have you on his operating table for months. I’m sure he took a few body scans that included that perfect ass of yours.”
Thad rolled his eyes, “Okay smart-ass fire up the engine. Let’s hear this baby roar.”
The engine came on line, purring like a happy kitty. For the first time the bike lifted off the work stands. He carefully floated it off the table, down the ramp, and out of the garage. Sitting there, hands on the controls, and Rhonda setting on the handlebars in front of him.
“Okay Sweetie let’s see what you can do, shall we.”
Outside Doctor Hammer was standing with a leather helmet on and goggles over his eyes. He looked like a World War I pilot. “Well son, let’s go.” He climbed aboard and sat on the back seat pointing, “That away!”
Doctor Hammer’s compound sat at the end of a box canyon, which protected it from the worst sandstorms that came through the area on a regular basis. However, it also provided some great twists and turns which made the ride that much more fun. The bike flew through the canyon in a few seconds. It opened up in the desert as Thad pushed the throttle as far as he felt comfortable. Riding a meter off the ground, the speed was close to three hundred miles an hour. Doctor Hammer said over the com channel, “Let Rhonda take over, and let her open it up.”
Having no objections he let Rhonda take over, “Run her up baby,” Thad said. Rhonda used all of the bike’s sensors to see far beyond its speed so it was easy for her to avoid hitting anything, but this was her first ride. She did not take into consideration the effect of the acceleration on her passengers. She kicked up the speed, hitting the speed of sound, which caused a sonic boom. The increase in speed started to tear Doctor Hammer from the back seat. “Aaa!” he screamed.
Thad reacted in a flash pulling him back onto the bike. Doctor Hammer yelled over the com, “Maybe you should add some seatbelts!” Thad laughed at the idea of seat belts on a grav-bike, but considering what this one could do, it might not be a bad idea. After riding over half of the moon’s surface, Thad noticed the sun was starting to set.
“Hey I’m hungry and we are close to town. Let’s go see Carl for dinner,” Doctor Hammer suggested.
“Sounds like a great idea to me. Rhonda to the diner please and make it quick, the Doc is hungry,” Thad said with hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“Hold on tight then.” At least this time she gave them warning before she opened up the throttle.
From a distance, the approach of Thad and Doctor Hammer looked like a giant dust devil moving right for town. The bike was kicking up a huge rooster tail of dust, and the spectacle drew a bit of a crowd. Thad parked the bike right next to Bob’s and the two of them dismounted. They looked like men made of dust, as they were covered from head to toe in a layer of the fine desert sand. Thad was patting the dust off himself when Rhonda’s little hologram popped up on the handlebars.
“Oh look what you two did to my paint job!” She had her hands planted squarely on her hips and her face was wrinkled up with full-on electronic fury.
Thad spoke first, “Ah, I think it looks good on you, gives you that ridden look.”
Rhonda did not look amused. She said, with a pouty lip, “But I was so much prettier before you got me all dirty.”
Thad leaned close so he was nose to nose with the little hologram, “Rhonda, I thought you liked to get dirty.”
Rhonda frowned, “Not that kind of dirty. I liked how shinny I looked.”
Thad smiled, he knew he was getting the best of her. “Don’t fret, the best thing about getting dirty is the getting clean part. I promise that I’ll hand wax,” he paused for effect, “and shine all your shiny parts when we get back.”
She giggled and smiled, “Oh you, how can I stay mad at you when you talk to me like that.”
Thad threw his head back and roared with laughter. While Doctor Hammer stood there confused about the whole conversation. “What did you say to get her to giggle like that? I was beginning to think we would have to walk home.”
&n
bsp; “I just told her that I would give her a full rub down and hand wax later.”
“Boy you sure do know how to talk to them lady folk. I’m surprised that you don’t have to fend them off with a stick.” Doctor Hammer was poking fun at Thad, who just rolled his eyes and started for the door.
Thad grumbled, “I don’t know about you, but I‘m getting something to eat.”
The cool air inside Bob’s was a welcome change from the outside heat. Jenna seated them right away even though it looked like Bob’s was almost full. “The place is busy tonight because a convoy of deep space cargo ships stopped for some fresh water and other supplies.” She explained.
The thing about cargo haulers was that they were very much like the long haul truckers of the twenty and twenty-first centuries. They came from all walks of life, some even had children, and there were a few here with their kids making it a very noisy place.
Doctor Hammer and Thad ordered their food. While they were waiting, Thad chose to enjoy a glass of Jenna’s lemonade. For some reason he had never ordered it all the other times that he had been here with Doctor Hammer. There was something so good about this lemonade, and he could not shake the feeling that it was important to him for some reason. The more he sat and drank the remarkable lemonade the more he tried to remember what he felt was just out of reach. Then something clicked, a flash of memory came back all at once. Faces of dead people flashed in his memory, then the feeling of anger and a file folder with pictures of small children with red ink stamped across the faces and the lettering read terminate. Suddenly he remembered coming to the bar for the first time. He also remembered the men in the bar, smashing out the man’s teeth, and... the beating.
Doctor Hammer noticed that Thad’s skin had turned a light puce green and that he had started sweating. He also noticed that Thad had a thousand yard stare, “You alright son? You don’t look like you feel too well.”
Thad got up from the table and started for the restroom in the back, “I’m fine, just needed to use the restroom.”
On his way to the restroom, Thad passed Jenna as she was bringing the food to the table. He pushed past her so fast he nearly knocked her over, and he would have, if it were not for her years of waiting tables. She was able to dip and dodge without spilling a thing. Her skills amazed Doctor Hammer.
Confused by Thad’s reaction, Jenna turned to Doctor Hammer, “Is there something wrong with the lemonade?”
Doctor Hammer took sip of the drink, “No. It’s wonderful as always. I think it could be a little motion sickness. We were just trying out his new grav-bike that he built. Between me and you I think he pushed it a little too hard.” The truth was he didn’t have any idea what was wrong with Thad, but he couldn’t help wondering if it was a side effect from one of his new procedures.
In the bathroom, Thad pushed his way through the door of the closest stall. He dropped to his knees and grabbed the sides of the toilet. Thad retched hard, at first nothing happened, but after a second round of retching, the contents of his stomach were expelled violently. His sudden sickness was not from the bike ride, the lemonade, or any side effects. The need to vomit came from the flood of images that had been unlocked from his memory.
Thad had been dealing with nightmares for months now, but this was the first time he had a waking nightmare. He was overwhelmed by the memories that had hit him like a ton of bricks. He finished emptying his stomach. Luckily, the only thing in there was the lemonade.
He went to the sink and washed his face in the cool water. He could understand the memories about the bar and the beating, but the faces of the dead and the file with the children haunted him the most. He looked at himself in the mirror, “Who was I?” He half expected the image in the mirror to answer him and he was afraid of the answer he might get.
While Thad was in the restroom, three rough looking men entered the bar. It was not out of the ordinary for rough types to enter this bar. God knew Bob’s had seen its share of bad men in its day. So no one paid much attention to them, except Doctor Hammer. He watched them as they entered together then split up. One stayed near the door, while the biggest, and by the look of him the dumbest walked towards the back where he stood by the hallway that led to the restrooms. The man who looked to be the boss of the crew went straight to the bar. If their behavior wasn’t a big enough clue that something no good was about to happen, the fact that the big dumb looking one was wearing a long heavy coat was a dead give a way that he was hiding something.
Doctor Hammer had a pretty good idea that something bad was about to happen, but there was nothing he could do, but wait and watch. He just hoped that Thad stayed in the restroom for a while. He was really starting to think of him as a son and like any father, he was more worried about Thad than he was about himself. It did not take long before his suspicions were confirmed.
The man at the bar looked at his crew and nodded, this was the signal. The men produced weapons and the one with the long coat revealed a nasty looking plasma rifle, a weapon clearly not suited for this kind of work. Plasma rifles were invented during the first Dreenoi wars. They fired a pancake like ball of plasma that expanded outward the farther from the barrel it went. It was ideal for clearing out Dreenoi tunnels. Fire a couple of plasma rifles down a tunnel and you could fry anything in it. The fact that this moron chose a plasma rifle in a restaurant was a clear sign that these guys had no clue of what they were doing. This made them very dangerous. As there is nothing more dangerous than an idiot with a gun, except perhaps for an idiot criminal with a gun.
The leader jumped up on the bar in a dramatic way, flourishing his pistol, “I don’t really have to tell you this is a robbery, but I’m kind of a traditionalist so nobody move, this is a hold up!”
The big guy with the big gun was so excited by this he just could not control himself and pointed the plasma rifle at the ceiling, “Yeah this is a hold up!” To emphasize his point, he pulled the trigger. There was brilliant flash of light as a glowing stream of plasma shot out of the end of the weapon and burned a two-foot hole straight through the roof.
“Damn it Frankie! How many times do I have to tell you I do the talking! And, no shooting that thing inside!”
“Sorry Phil,” he lowered the weapon pointing it at the floor.
“Names you asshole, what did I say about using our real names?” Phil hissed angrily.
Frankie said, with a pouty lip, “Sorry Boss.”
Phil turned his attention back to what he was doing, “So now you all have seen what my trigger happy friend can do. I would advise you all from doing anything stupid and just place all your valuables here on the bar.” He then turned to Carl who was standing behind the bar. “You, fat guy,” he waved his gun at the register. “Empty the register please, and put it in a bag for me.” Phil, then smelling the aroma of the food said, “oh and bag up a couple of those meals for us. They do smell fantastic.”
Carl was angry that these thugs for robbing him, not to mention blowing a hole in his roof, but the chef inside him was pleased his food smelled so good they wanted dinner too. “Yes Sir,” he said through gritted teeth.
Inside the restroom, Thad heard the plasma rifle discharge and he instinctually knew something was very wrong. Without thinking about his next course of action, he acted purely on impulse and quietly slipped out of the restroom. He carefully took stock of the situation, identifying the three scumbags, which was not hard to do; they were the ones waving guns around. He took a moment to plan out his attack. Never once did he give any thought to what he was doing or why. It was as if someone had thrown a switch inside him. At the moment, he felt like a robot about to carry out its programmed commands. He thought I can do it, take out all three without hurting anyone else, but I will have to be fast. Once Thad started his attack it happened so fast, no one knew what was going on until it was over.
Thad quietly slipped in behind the idiot named Frankie. He slid his hand around Frankie’s side and grabbed his gun. Then all Hell broke l
oose. With extreme speed and violence, Thad pushed the weapon up so fast the barrel smashed into Frankie’s nose, breaking it instantly. Blood gushed from his nose, however Frankie was not about to go down that easy. He spun around to see who had attacked him. Thad’s first attack had disarmed the big man. Now he had his gun, Thad used it like a club. He smashed the butt of the rifle into Frankie’s knee, breaking it, with a sickening crunch. Frankie screamed like a little girl as he fell, his head crashing on a nearby table, knocking him out cold, and flipping the table upside down on top of the would be robber.
Phil, still on the bar, heard the commotion from behind him and turned in time to see Thad who was now in midair. He had jumped over Frankie’s body as it was hitting the floor, dropping the rife as he went. With a second leap Thad landed on the bar sliding feet first towards Phil. Phil tried to bring his pistol to bear, but he was too slow. Thad slid into Phil like a major league baseball player sliding into home plate. Thad’s booted feet slammed into Phil’s ankles, which snapped like bar pretzels. The force of the blow sent Phil tumbling ass over-end. He cartwheeled off the bar and landed face first on to the metal floor with a squishing sound.
Still in motion, Thad slid past a Cargo hauler with a half-full heavy glass mug of beer in front of him. In one fluid motion, Thad grabbed the glass as he went, using his feet to stop as he hit the end of the bar. Thad used his momentum to spring up to a standing position. He flung the glass mug at the man by the door. The mug hit the man in the face, shattering; beer and blood went everywhere.
It stunned the man, but it did not neutralize him. Thad jumped off the bar and, in a fraction of a second, covered the distance to the man who was trying to see through the sting in his eyes from the blood and beer. He raised his pistol to shoot, but his vision was so blurry he couldn’t make out his target. He fired wildly at Thad, most of the shots when wide and slammed into the bar, burning several holes, but hurting no one. One shot hit Thad in the left shoulder, sizzling away a chunk of flesh. Thad didn’t even notice he had been hit. He charged forward, his only thought to stop this guy before someone got hurt. Thad reached the man and grabbed his gun. Thad twisted the gun with so much force and speed the man did not have a chance to let go. The robber’s fingers snapped first, followed by the bones in his wrist. Pain neutralized the would-be robber as the gun was torn from his hand.