“Now, now, Mavis is still a very attractive woman. And she has a truly lovely voice.”
“Oh yeah? How come this broad hasn't had a singing gig in six years?”
I again requested, “Tell me why my new knees can talk.”
“Simple. Dowling used you as a guinea pig, sappo. He wanted to test us out—and we're a lot more than knees, by the way—before installing his gadgets in somebody important.”
I shot to my feet and began to pace the big room. “No, before I call the clinic, I'm going to get in touch with my attorney. And maybe the AMA.” I went striding over to one of the big view windows to gaze out at the glaring afternoon.
“Notice anything, dude?”
“Hum?”
“You walk pretty good for a gink just out of surgery.”
I inhaled sharply, stared down at my feet. “Yeah, now that you mention it, how come I—”
At that point I began to tap dance. I circled the living room, doing a pretty fair impression of Fred Astaire. Then I completed a brief but complex Irish jig, added a few very convincing Flamenco stomps, and settled down in one of our faux Morris chairs. “Christ,” I observed. “How in the hell can I—”
“First,” cut in my right knee, “ask not what your knees can do for you, chum, but what you can do for us.”
I overcame the impulse to stand up again. I didn't want to risk dancing around the room anymore. “Do for my knees?”
The motherly one said, “All we'd like you to do is help us find Dr. Dowling.”
* * * *
“I'm not much of a cook,” I said.
“You are now,” my right knee assured me.
My knees and I were standing in our large redwood and copper kitchen. Dusk was settling in outside.
“You need some good warm food inside you, dear boy,” said my other knee. “A meat loaf sandwich indeed.”
“Soyloaf on twelve-grain gluten-free bread,” I corrected.
Mavis had called a few minutes earlier to say the New Scattergood Singers’ rehearsal was running late. She wouldn't be home in time for dinner, but she'd left a substantial sandwich for me in the refrigerator.
“Late rehearsal, my fanny,” commented my right knee. “It's shack-up time in the old corral if—”
“You don't have a fanny,” I pointed out as I found myself trotting out into the kitchen.
“Figure of speech.”
Now I was standing in front of our state-of-the-art turquoise-colored stove. “These new knees—you guys, that is—you can convert me into a gourmet chef? What the hell does Dr. Dowling have in mind?”
“His initial assignment from the National Office of Clandestine—”
“No need to blab too much, sis.”
“Well, the poor man has to know what's happened to him.”
“Okay, but I'll give him the skinny. Dowling is an expert on advanced robotics and performance-enhancing implants.”
“Why would a guy with those qualifications be working at the Slesinger?” I noticed that I had walked over to the fridge and was taking out a carton of eggs and a handful of portabella mushrooms.
“Some parsley, too,” suggested my maternal knee.
The other knee continued, “Doc Dowling has a little lab hidden down in the bowels of the joint. He's developed a device that can convert an average gink like you into a crackerjack fighting man. Once inserted it can—”
“Why does a crackerjack fighting man need to tap dance or concoct omelets?” I was beating an assortment of omelet ingredients in one of our earth-color mixing bowls.
The maternal knee explained, “Dr. Dowling, bless him, believes that even a brutal fighting man should be well-rounded. You'll find that now that his secret serum is coursing through your veins you—”
“Secret serum.” I stopped whisking, and goosebumps visited both my arms.
“You will be a wiz at math, including advanced calculus, speak six additional languages, including Mandarin Chinese and—”
“You won't have any further trouble getting it up,” added my other knee. “Bothersome erectile dysfunction is a thing of the past.”
“Hey, I don't have any problems with that.”
“Haven't had much opportunity to test that premise of late, have you, dude?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Let's get on with fixing dinner. A nice salad will fit in perfectly with our omelet.”
As I gathered the ingredients for a small salad out of the crispers, I asked, “Why did Dowling put his gadget in artificial knees?”
“He only did that in your case. Usually, chum, the enhancer, housed in two very compact units, will be installed in one of the buttocks.”
“And why test it on me?”
“Dowling wanted to run a few human tests right now, but the higher ups nixed that. They didn't think the enhancer was quite ready yet. So the doc decided to try it out on his own.”
“But why me? I'm too old to be a fighting man.”
“Exactly, buddy. If he can convert an old wreck like you into a first-rate warrior, then the enhancer will work on anybody. That means that a lot of young wrecks can be turned into gung-ho soldiers come the next big one.”
I was crumbling feta cheese into my salad dressing. “How come the doctor didn't ask my permission? And was he planning to let me know eventually about his illegal experiment?”
“Of course he was, dear boy. Unfortunately, he vanished.”
“Bright and early mañana, kiddo, we'll start hunting for him. You can't trust the FBI to track him down, nor the ... Oops!”
I set down the bottle of olive oil I'd picked up. “What?”
“Visitors. Let me handle this, jocko.”
“How can a knee—”
The door chimes sounded.
* * * *
Two tall men in dark suits were standing on our twilight doorstep. Both had close-cropped blond hair and were in their early thirties.
The leaner of the pair inquired, politely, “Are you Mr. Frank Whitney?”
“Yeah, and who might—”
“I'm Agent Mickens with the National Counterspy Bureau.” He showed me a plastic ID card with a holographic portrait of him included. As he tilted it toward me his image took on a third dimension. “And this is Agent Tubridy, also with the NCB.”
When Tubridy, the bulkier one, tilted his ID, the portrait remained two-dimensional.
I was about to suggest they come into the living room, when I found myself saying, “Nice try, buster, but no cheroot. That ID of yours is as phony as a three-buck bill. It lacks the spread eagle and the Colonial flag images that are supposed to appear behind your portrait.”
“Sir, I assure you that—”
“Looks to me, buddy boy,” I informed him, “like you're actually in the employ of some second-rate, low-budget Middle European nation with delusions of grandeur.”
“In that case,” said the apparently spurious Mickens, “grab the bastard, Bruno.”
The faux Tubridy leaped across our threshold, grabbing me in a very impressive bear hug.
To my surprise, I kneed the big man in the groin, which caused him to let go. I then grabbed his arm, applied some sort of martial arts grip, and tossed him halfway across the room.
Bruno landed, hard, on Mavis’ Early American rocking chair.
The whole damn chair, which I've never much liked, collapsed under him.
Discouraged, he got to his feet to go running across the living room. He slid open the wide glass door to the deck and dived outside into the approaching night.
Following, I tackled the big fake agent.
He fell with a substantial thunk, twisted free, and grabbed up Mavis's large potted cactus.
I avoided his attempt to conk me with the heavy orange pot, jabbed him in the midsection. He yowled, toppled back against the deck railing. Along with the potted cactus, he went falling down to the shaggy slanting hillside some ten feet below.
The pot shattered, sending orange shar
ds into the new night, and the cactus shot up a few feet and then bounced on Bruno's crewcut head. He got, shakily, to his feet to go running, shakily, away into the night.
I spun around, ready to face the fake agent Mickens.
My front door stood open, the living room was empty.
“Damn it all,” commented my right knee, “you let both of those bozos get clean away.”
“Now, now. He did pretty well, considering he's just getting used to being a crackerjack fighting man.”
“Yeah, I suppose so, sis. And, hell, they'll be more spies and secret agents dropping in from now on. Sure, we can question them."
“More?” I asked.
* * * *
It was around about midnight that I found out about another batch of my new abilities. Since coming home from the clinic I'd been sleeping in the spare bedroom. Mavis had complained, as she was driving me home from the Slesinger, that my new knees made funny squeaking noises that might keep her awake, especially if I tossed and turned as I usually did at night. “That's disturbing enough,” she pointed out, “without adding metallic sound effects.”
At about ten o'clock that fateful night Mavis was fluffing the pillows on the narrow bed I was temporarily occupying. “You've got to use that cane I bought you, Frank,” she said as she bent to kiss me on the cheek. “We can't have any more accidents like this afternoon. You could have been seriously hurt. Not to mention that the chair cost $500.”
I hadn't yet told my wife about my new knees or the visit from the spurious American intelligence agents. I had said I stumbled and fell over the rocker. “Won't happen again, dear.”
“And do be more careful when you go hobbling out onto the deck,” she continued. “This time only a potted cactus fell downhill, and it only cost $129, but if you had fallen—
“I know, I'm worth at least three times that.”
“Seriously, Frank.” Mavis pointed at the cocoa mug on my temporary nightstand. “Drink the hot chocolate I fixed for you. It will help you sleep.”
I didn't believe that after my stimulating last few hours I'd be able to do much in the way of sleeping. But I picked the cup up, took a sip. Then I grimaced. “Not especially sweet.”
“We're watching our intake of sugar, remember. Now drink up.”
I drank up and set the mug back on the table. Surprisingly, I was feeling drowsy already. As my wife tiptoed out of the room and quietly shut the door of the bedroom, I sank back and commenced slumbering.
* * * *
“Rise and shine, chum. Off your ox and grab your sox.”
I jerked up into a sitting position. “Hum?”
“How are you feeling, dear boy?”
“I'm okay. Did you wake me up just to—”
“Shake a leg,” suggested my right knee. “The game's afoot.”
“What game?” I swung out of bed, feeling completely awake. “Funny, I don't feel at all sleepy, but before—”
“That's because we've counteracted the sleeping potion your fat folknik wife slipped into your hot toddy, dumbo.”
“She's a bit plump, but not—”
“Fat or skinny, dude, what you ought to wonder about is why she doped you.”
“If she actually did.” I was pulling on a pair of dark blue jeans.
My left knee asked, “Who can you trust if you can't trust your own knees, dear boy?”
“Socks and shoes and hurry up,” said my other knee. “She's already pulling out of the driveway.”
I continued dressing. “Who?”
“Your missus, the sweet singer of Sausalito, the distaff Pete Seeger.”
I glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Were would Mavis be going at midnight?
“To meet one third of the Scattergood Singers.”
Fully clothed, I now had a desire to leave the spare bedroom. “I thought you were interested in locating the missing Dr. Dowling. What's Edmond Scully—I assume it's him you're alluding to—got to do with that?”
“All in good time,” said my maternal knee. “Now put on a warm coat, the night's turned a bit chilly.”
I took my fleece-lined car coat out of the hall closet. “Hey, how am I going to follow Mavis? We only have one car, the Toyota, and she took that, according to you.”
“On foot, dopey.”
“Then let's hope she's not going far.”
“Sausalito.”
“Sausalito? Christ, that's at least fifteen miles from here.”
Walking down stairs, my right knee said, “Told you he was still dense, in spite of all the improvements we've made.”
“Not dense, just a mite slow on the uptake.”
“What are you implying? That I've turned into some sort of Six Million Dollar Man?”
“Wasn't that obvious after this afternoon, buddy?”
“I suppose so, but—”
“Less gab, more action.”
I stepped out into the night.
* * * *
“Slow down a little, dude,” cautioned my right knee, “or you'll overtake her.”
“Don't be so critical,” said my other knee. “After all, this is his maiden run.”
I slowed my pace. “This is neat. I've been running for over fifteen minutes and I'm not even winded. And I'm covering a mile or so every minute. That's beating every record.”
“Quit bragging, Speedy. Concentrate on our mission.”
Mavis was taking a roundabout route to Sausalito, avoiding main roads. Following our red Toyota, I'd been running, with ease, along quirky back roads and along narrow, tree-lined lanes.
My eyesight had greatly improved, too. I could see the rear lights and our license plates from a quarter mile behind. People do jog by night in Marin County and I slowed to a normal pace when an infrequent car approached, so I didn't attract undue attention. Although one Volvo driver yelled, “Carry a flashlight, asshole!” as he passed me going in the other direction. A belligerent German Shepherd chased me for a couple minutes, but I easily outran him.
“Destination coming up,” announced my right knee.
We had reached the outskirts of Sausalito, up in the hills above the bay. Downhill Mavis was signaling for a right turn. Taillight blinking, she eased off the road into the small parking lot next to a small club called The Lethal Injection.
I shifted down to a slow trot, then stopped behind a stand of eucalyptus trees at the lot edge. “How'd you know Mavis was heading here?” I asked in a whisper.
“Eavesdropping while you were snoozing, chum.”
“How could you do—”
“Your hearing is enhanced, dear boy.”
“We can hunker down here and listen in our your spouse's midnight rendezvous inside.”
“I don't hear anything but crickets.”
“You have to concentrate. We'll help you get going and show you how to zero in on her and the lad who's cuckolding you.”
“Even if that's true, which I doubt, what in the hell does it have to do with Dr. Dowling and—”
“Listen, dude.”
“...first garage band to fuse hip-hop, bebop, and retro rockabilly,” I heard an MC saying. “Here are the Defrocked Priests for their final set at Lethal Injection.”
“Yow,” I remarked as very loud electric music came flooding into my head.
“It'll take another minute to locate Mavis and filter out the surrounding noise.”
“...hip hop shabam always reminds me of you,” sang someone through his nose.
“...but how did they know we were sleeping together, Edmond?”
“They're spies, flowerbabe,” said Edmond. “They know how to find out stuff.”
“This gink calls your wife flowerbabe?”
“So it seems.”
“A rather catchy sobriquet.”
“Hush, sis, so we can monitor this gabfest.”
“You were the one who first intruded.”
“Button your yap.”
“...can't believe anyone would think Frank
is important,” Mavis was saying to her banjo player.
“They'll pay us $20,000 to lure your useless husband to their lab.”
“That would certainly help finance the comeback of the Scattergood Singers, but—”
“Edmond, Fred and Mavis,” Edmond corrected.
“Still,” continued my wife, “I don't understand how they can remove Frank's knees without hurting him. Admittedly he's not much of a hubby, but it will bother me if he's going to bleed all over the place.”
“Look, Mavis, they've got this Dr. Dowling stored away in their clandestine laboratory,” he pointed out. “The guy ought to be able to perform a simple goddamn knee operation.”
“But then Frank won't have any knees.”
“Don't be obtuse, hon. They'll obviously force him to replace the knees with new ones.” His voice was sounding a bit impatient. “These spies sounded pretty humane to me.”
“You haven't mentioned what country they represent.”
“The United Kingdom, I think.”
“Aren't you sure?”
“Well, the three of them are very polite and well behaved. They wear tweedy clothes and have BBC accents,” Edmond explained. “I'd say they're Brits, though they haven't openly declared that.”
“Britain is an ally of the United States, sort of. So it's not like selling Frank's knees to, say, oh, China or Cuba.”
“Course not. And we can sure use $20,000.”
“Be nice if the price were a bit—”
“I'm meeting one of them tomorrow afternoon to set up the details of delivering Frank. I can suggest $25,000 would suit us better.”
“Ask for $30,000. After all he's my husband.” Mavis’ voice faded out.
The Defrocked Priests came back. “Enough,” I said and all sound from within the club ceased.
I heard crickets again, then a young woman being sick in the parking lot.
* * * *
The note was affixed to the surface of the fridge with a Bob Dylan magnet. Must make unexpected trip to San Fran. To see publicist, dear. Since you're still incapable of driving, you won't mind my taking car. Frozen waffles in freezer. Don't use too much maple syrup because we're watching our sweets intake. Love, M.
“Lot of hooey,” remarked my right knee. “She took off for a roll in the hay with the banjo virtuoso.”
Analog SFF, January-February 2008 Page 24