Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc

by Ed Howdershelt

  Elkor asked, “Do you have any idea how convoluted that sounds?"

  "Yup, but that's the way things have developed between us. Why not drop in on her right now, say you overheard our conversation, and ask if there's anything you can do for her? Let us know what mood she was in when you arrived and what you find out."

  Elkor said, “It had occurred to me to ask how she felt, but for a different reason. I thought she might truly be upset."

  "Uh, huh. Go. See if she's smiling and sneaking prideful, admiring glances at her legs while she works. Come back and tell us. I can't have my Stephie thinking that I'm a difficult person."

  Steph had been closely watching a bird that appeared to be circling the flitter. She glanced at me and said, “Oh, no, heaven forbid that, of course. What if you're wrong, Ed? What if she's truly less than happy because of your conversation?"

  "Elkor will tell me if he thinks so, and I'll avoid that line of banter in the future."

  Typically for Elkor, he seemed to be present one moment and gone the next. He returned some five minutes later.

  "I watched her for four point eight minutes before speaking,” he said. “Things were essentially as you predicted, Ed. She examined her legs with a slight smile for one point four minutes after my arrival and seemed to gather herself emotionally before going back to work. When I requested an audience and asked how she felt, she smiled and said that she felt fine. When I told her that I was disturbed by your comments to her, she rolled her eyes and said that you were her magic mirror. She also said that she could depend on you to say just the right thing to lighten her mood."

  "Did she happen to say why she'd needed her mood lightened?"

  "No, she didn't."

  Stephanie said, “I still don't fully understand what happened between you and Linda, but if having a female persona means that I'll have to perform in such a manner, I think I'd prefer to be genderless."

  "It doesn't mean that at all, Stephanie. You're perfect as you are and you'll never age or change unless you want to, so the problem shouldn't ever come up for you. The worst gender problem you're likely to face will be passes by men who won't realize that you aren't a flesh-and-blood woman. I can guarantee their abject disappointment, by the way."

  The arena entrance doors opened and out stepped Toni and Selena. The guys by the door gave them a measure of admiration as they passed and the ladies did as ladies often do at such times; they pretended to ignore the guys. I noticed that both women seemed to walk a little straighter and step with a slightly longer stride for several paces, though, before they stopped and looked around the parking lot.

  Steph maneuvered us above them, and as we descended, I heard Toni ask, “So where are they?"

  "Up here, waiting for you,” said Steph as we descended beside them.

  Toni backed up a pace, but Sel simply tossed her bags aboard and stepped up on Stephie's deck. Toni did likewise a moment later. The guys by the doors were speechless, except for the one who'd approached us.

  "Hey, can we get a ride, too?” he asked.

  "Not this trip,” I said. “We have to be someplace soon."

  Steph lifted and we were on our way back to the motel and Toni's Mustang. Through my implant, Steph told me that we were traveling at one hundred feet and two hundred miles per hour. I thanked her, then tapped my beer bottle and said, “The choices are beer or Dr Pepper."

  Both ladies opted for beer, so I fished one for each of them out of the cooler. Sel twisted the cap off hers and took several long pulls before she settled back in her seat and put her feet up on her gear bag.

  Toni opened her beer while looking first at me, then at Steph. After drinking some of it, she adopted a two-handed grip on the bottle and tense demeanor as she glanced around the flitter.

  "Since there's no hurry now,” said Steph, “I thought we'd remain at a low altitude and a low speed to accommodate Toni. Is that satisfactory for everyone?"

  I nodded and Selena shrugged and said, “Sure."

  To our surprise, Toni said, “No. I don't want to be a drag and I'm tired of being afraid. If I get crazy you can zap me with those ... theta wave things again."

  "Flying is flying,” I said. “If you can get used to being a hundred feet off the ground, we can try you with higher altitudes some other time. This isn't an endurance test, Toni. It's just a way to get from place to place, and like Steph said, we aren't in any kind of a hurry. How are you doing?"

  She glanced around the flitter before answering, “I ... Not bad, I guess. Not like before, anyway. Are you using the theta waves?"

  "You'd have to ask Steph about that."

  Toni seemed surprised that I didn't know, then she looked at Steph questioningly.

  "No,” said Stephie. “I hadn't planned to, unless they become necessary."

  Selena seemed to have something on her mind. She looked at me for some moments, then looked at Steph the same way for a few more before sipping her beer again and adjusting her position. Some fidgeting moments later, she kicked her bag away and leaned her seat back, then sipped her beer again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When she lowered the bottle, she stared at it as she said, “Ed, one of the security guards told us what happened. Why weren't you the one to tell us?"

  "You were in a hurry to get to the showers. What did the guard tell you?"

  She glanced up at me with considerable irritation. “Only that the guy from the flitter just stood there and let some asshole unload a gun at him."

  "You make it sound so dangerous when you say it that way. Stephie had me covered and I had my five suit on."

  "Your five suit won't stop bullets, Ed. That was a helluva stupid thing to do."

  "Didn't I just say 'Steph had me covered'? What's stupid about that?"

  Pulling her gaze back aboard the flitter, Toni tensely asked, “Your what?"

  "I call it my five suit. Also 'option five'. It's a personal protective field."

  With a skeptical glance, she said, “Show me."

  I said, “Five suit on. How does it look, Toni? Good enough for an evening out?"

  She peered at me. “I don't see a damned thing. Are you sure it's working?"

  "Yup. Five suit off."

  Toni stared hard, then said, “I didn't see anything."

  "Most people don't."

  Toni favored me, then the others, with an even more skeptical look.

  Selena said, “I've seen it work, Toni. He went in the pond behind the house and he came out bone-dry."

  Toni laughed and asked, “Dry swimming? Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of swimming?"

  "I wasn't swimming,” I said.

  "Then why were you in a pond?"

  Selena said, “He was looking for the neighbor's aluminum canoe. One of their teen kid's friends managed to turn it over and sink it in thirty feet of water. The kids were going to use a grappling hook to try to snag it and drag it back to shore before their parents got home. Ed thought it would cause less damage to find it and tie a rope on it, instead."

  With an odd look at me and an “uh, huh,” Toni raised her beer for a sip that didn't happen. She looked around the flitter and said in a quiet tone of astonishment, “I just realized that I'm not scared."

  Selena touched Toni's arm and asked, “Really? You're sure?"

  "Well, I think I'd know,” said Toni. “I was expecting to be, but I'm not."

  I sat back and asked, “Does that mean you're ready to try a barrel roll?"

  Both women, in unison, gave me a firm, “No!"

  "Well, buck, buck, buck,” I said with a grin. “Don't leave your feathers all over the cockpit, ladies."

  Toni asked, “How many fingers, Ed?” and then gave me the single-digit salute.

  Steph used my implant to ask, “Why did you let that man shoot at us, Ed? What was the purpose?"

  I rubbed my left leg as if it was going to sleep and stood up, then shook it and walked around the deck.

  When I was far e
nough away from the women, I asked, “Let him shoot at us? In case you hadn't noticed, Steph, he'd already decided what he was going to do. I didn't really get a vote in the matter."

  "We didn't have to place ourselves outside the building. We could have alerted the guards about him."

  "And he might have followed us inside and opened fire with all the other people around. Or he might have waited for some other chance to nail an Amaran. You can ‘what-if’ all you want, but done is done."

  "I was simply suggesting that there may have been alternatives to killing him."

  "Your programming precludes harming anyone. I was expecting you to have a problem with it, Steph. I was also expecting to hear a bit more from you about the shooting before now."

  "I was simply waiting until we were alone, Ed."

  "Uh, huh. Thought so. Okay. We're alone enough back here, so I'll tell you. I don't believe in second chances for murderers. The guy didn't kill or hurt me, so he'd have been out of prison in a few years. If he could find reasons to shoot at Amarans today, he could find them again someday. Or reasons to shoot someone else. But now he can't."

  "A system exists to deal with such people."

  "Ever hear of a third-timer, Steph? That's someone who's been able to commit crimes repeatedly because the system released him back to the streets. If the system worked, there'd be no third-time violent felons to reapprehend. All I did was make the guy hang onto his gun a little longer. There was no doubt about his possible innocence, was there? He did try to kill us, didn't he?"

  "Yes, Ed. He did, indeed, try to kill us."

  "Do I have a duty to take prisoners under such circumstances?"

  "Legally, no, but have you considered the moral implications of your actions?"

  "Sure have. A man who tried to kill us and would—without a doubt—have been a danger to others is dead. End of that story."

  "If you don't mind my saying so, that philosophy seems rather simplistic."

  "It isn't a philosophy, Steph. 'Philosophy' is just a form of mental masturbation. I applied simple cause-and-effect to an equally simple problem and got rid of the problem. Beyond that, he tried to kill you, and that really pissed me off."

  After a moment, she said, “That isn't very rational, Ed. You knew that I was in no danger whatsoever."

  "Well, damn, Steph. Sometimes it's the thought that counts. He thought he could put some big, ugly holes in you with bullets, so he tried doing it. Even without his potential danger to others, that was enough to make me get rid of him."

  After a moment of silence, Steph said, “I see. I'm upsetting you, aren't I? That wasn't my intention."

  I sighed and said, “I'll get over it. Are we almost there, yet?"

  "Eighteen point three more miles to the motel. I'm not upset, Ed, nor do I wish to criticize your actions. I only want to better understand your motivations."

  I nodded, then turned to return to my seat. Selena and Toni had been staring at me; for how long I had no idea.

  As I took my seat, I asked, “What's up, ladies? Steph and I were having a conference. Did I miss anything?"

  Both women shook their heads and Toni rather tersely said, “No. Nothing."

  Selena said, “Yes, there's something. Half of you seemed to be trying to disappear while you were back there. What were you doing?"

  "Talking to Steph. Some of me was probably inside Stephie's concealment field. Just behind it or at the edge of it, I guess."

  Toni pointed ahead of us and said, “There's the motel."

  Insert restaurant debacle from Sept. stopover in Perry

  Selena lost interest in my disappearing act and turned around in her seat to look ahead, then asked, “If the restaurant's open, why don't we get something to eat before we head back? I'm hungry."

  "Fine with me,” I said. Toni agreed.

  We settled near the Mustang and the ladies transferred their bags to the car while I checked both the left front tire and the spare. Call me an untrusting soul, but I've seen tire repairs that didn't hold up. Both tires felt solid enough when I thumped them with a fist, so I closed the trunk and checked the other tires by sight as I moved around the car to join the ladies. Stephie disappeared from the flitter and reappeared next to me, then sent the flitter upward to park it above the restaurant.

  There were only a few other people in the restaurant; two couples, one of whom had a nine or ten year old boy who seemed unusually quiet. All of them were staring at us, of course, as we sat down in a booth by the door.

  Before she sat down next to Toni, poor, shy little Selena said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we're here to have dinner, just like you. We'd appreciate it if you wouldn't all stare at us at once. Please take turns or something."

  "Oh, great, Sel. Stir up the natives,” I muttered, which earned me a sharp glance from Sel as I sat down next to Stephanie.

  A couple of people looked away. One seemed mildly insulted and one bloated-looking blonde woman laughingly said, “Sure, sweetie. We'll take turns. This here's a farm town. You don't want stared at, you'll haveta stick around a few years and let everybody get used to you. Or you can hop back in that flying thing and have your dinner somewheres else."

  Selena smiled at her and asked, “Does this place have take-out?"

  Another blonde woman came out of the back at a quickmarch pace and grabbed some menus on her way past the checkout counter, then almost yelled, “Jenny Lee, don't you be givin’ my customers a hard time! They ain't enough business ‘round here as it is."

  Handing us each a menu, she said, “Sorry ‘bout that. My sister's got a big mouth. Settle in and have a look at the menus while I get your ice waters."

  "No water for me,” said Selena.

  "Me, either,” said Toni. “It just gets everything on the table wet."

  "Sweet tea for me,” I said. “No hurry."

  The waitress nodded and turned to go. I glanced at the hippo at the other table and back at the much slimmer, well-structured waitress. Her sister?

  Toni leaned across the table and whispered, “Her sister?"

  "I was just thinking the same thing,” I said. “They coulda fooled me."

  Selena—rather uncharacteristically, I thought—leaned in and said, “Be cool. She might have some kind of disease or something. No woman wants to be that fat."

  Toni sighed and squinted at Sel as if there might be something wrong with her.

  "A disease, huh? Look at all the plates on her end of the table. The only thing wrong with her is her appetite."

  The equally well-stuffed man who was with the blonde looked at his watch and said something about a movie. Tossing a couple of bucks on the table, he and the woman left the table and headed for the checkout counter. The blonde gave us a dirty look in passing, but the man simply nodded his head at me.

  The waitress rang them up and they left the restaurant. Grabbing her pad, the waitress then approached our table and asked if we were ready to order, which we weren't, since we'd been engaged in discussing the woman who'd left. We studied the menus and made our choices as the waitress scribbled on her pad. After asking Steph if she was sure she didn't want to order something, she left us.

  After some moments, it became apparent that the little boy at the nearby table was staring at us. He'd turned sideways in his chair and was just sitting there fixedly gazing at us as his mother told him repeatedly to turn around and eat. He ignored her completely, of course.

  It became evident that his stare wasn't one of interest. His eyes never once left Selena, the one among us who'd asked everybody not to stare at us. The kid's gaze was one intended to irritate, and it was working. I could see that Selena was about to say something and reached to touch her hand on the table.

  She looked at my hand on hers, smiled sweetly at me, then turned to the staring child and asked, “How about not staring at me like that, kid?"

  The mother reached to tug at the boy's shoulder, but he ignored her again. The father said, “Billy, turn your ass around and sto
p staring at her,” but he, too was ignored.

  The boy grinned maliciously and said, “I'm not staring."

  "Yes, you are,” said Selena, “And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop."

  "Am not,” said the kid.

  After a moment of glaring at him, Selena asked, “Is that broccoli on your plate?"

  The kid glanced at it and said, “Yeah."

  Selena smiled and asked, “You know what the biggest difference between boogers and broccoli is, kid?"

  His mother and father stopped eating and talking. Oh, yes, they did, indeed. The mother had a startled look and the father seemed unsure how to react.

  The kid shook his head and said, “No, and I bet you don't either."

  Selena said, “Sure, I do. The difference is that obnoxious little boys like you won't eat broccoli."

  Toni said, “Eeewww” as the kid's stare turned into a malevolent glare. The father let out an involuntary chuckle. The kid's mother's shocked look turned almost as ugly as the kid's. She was half out of her chair when her husband's hand on her arm stopped her. She settled tensely back into her chair.

  "Sit tight, Sally. Billyboy,” he said softly, “If I have to get up and turn you around myself, you ain't gonna want to sit down again ‘till sometime tomorrow. Now turn your ass around and leave those people be."

  Billy looked at his father and said, “You ain't my real daddy. My real daddy's in heaven and my mom won't let you give me a whippin'."

  The man looked at his wife and said, “That's it. It's gone on long enough, and this time it happened in front of strangers. He gets five licks with my belt right now or you and Billy can go home to your mama."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Selena glanced around our table once in shock, then stood up.

  "Wait,” she said. “He wouldn't have said that if I hadn't said what I did."

  The father looked at her for a long moment, then tiredly said, “It ain't your fault, lady. I thought he was like this ‘cause his daddy died and his mama took a new man, but he ain't even tried to get past it and she don't help none, lettin’ him get away with it all the time. Today's the day, that's all."