by Norman Fitts
He picked up a bowl of red jello. "I thought you liked the cheesecake?"
She looked back having no idea which one was the cheesecake. "Okay, I'll try the cheesecake... Would you mind?"
"No. Here you go." He handed her a slice of cheesecake.
At the drink station she asked for a cup of hot water. He took down a glass of tea and another with ice water.
It was their turn at the cashier. He told the girl to put them together. He paid for lunch and they both walked into the dining area.
He paused to look. "You see a booth?"
She pointed with her tray, "over there."
A Bus Boy was just clearing one. They walked to the booth and waited for him to finish. When it was cleared they started moving their lunch to the table.
Margaret slid into her side of the booth. Lawrence took both trays to the condiment station and returned with a bottle of steak sauce.
She watched him slide into the booth. " You’ve studied Martial Arts." The statement hung in the air for a moment.
"Ah, yeah, Kung Fu actually. How about yourself? You look pretty fit."
She reached into her bag for her little box. "No. I was just curious about the picture."
"In my office?" He emptied sweetener into his tea. "It was a birthday gift from my parents." He stirred his drink. "Not something I would've done for myself, but you know how parents are."
She tapped some of the contents of the box into her cup. "Yeah. I do."
He picked up the steak sauce. "Herb tea, What kind?"
She was moving her cup in a circular motion. "Not exactly. Something I've acquired a taste for."
He applied the sauce to his meat. "You mind if I taste it?"
"I don't think you'd like it."
He held out his hand. "Can I decide?"
She hesitated. "I really don't think you'll like it". His hand was still there. "Okay..." She handed him her cup. "Careful, it's hot."
He took it and brought it toward his mouth. He paused, sniffed, then eased the cup to his lips and sipped. For a moment his expression was frozen in time. His eyes widened. He set the cup down, spilling some of it.
What came out of her cup was closely akin to puréed Jalapeno pepper seeds. He tried to swallow, but his throat wouldn't cooperate. It drew his mouth up. He looked at her for help.
She couldn't help but grin. She handed him his glass of water. He took it and spit the stuff into the glass. He set it down, picked up his tea and emptied it. He set down the tea glass, picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth. She was watching him. She smiled, and then actually laughed a little.
He caught his breath. He was embarrassed and a little irritated. She was enjoying it a little too much, but she'd warned him and he'd insisted.
He looked at the cup. "How on Earth could you ever develop a taste for... for whatever that is?"
She took the cup. "You probably can't"
"What?"
"Never mind. Let's talk about, me taking over for you while you're gone. It would've been nice if you would’ve asked me first."
"I apologize. I guess I thought you'd jump at the chance to get out of the typing pool." He looked around for the lady with the teacart. She was working her way in his direction. "Mr. Ward and I both think you can handle it. It's just for two weeks. Besides, I need someone to keep an eye on my office."
"Why does someone have to keep an eye on your office?"
He handed the waitress with the cart his glass. She filled it and handed it back. "Thank you". He said. She moved on. "Well, around this place, you leave for any length of time and everything in your office tends to get borrowed. You know, the stapler, the hole punch, that sorta thing."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to guard your hole punch?"
"Yeah. Sorta..." He grinned and took a bite of his okra.
"And all along I thought..." A beeping came from the bag beside her. Her heart jumped. She picked up the bag, set it in her lap, reached in and turned off the sound.
He swallowed and said, "Your cell phone?"
"You could call it that." She looked behind her to the dining room exit, then back. "Would you excuse me please? I'll be right back."
He said jokingly, "Drug deal, huh."
"What drugs?" She was serious.
"Never mind." Strange, he thought. Sometimes she was on top of things and sometimes it was like she'd been born yesterday.
She started sliding out. "Go on with your lunch. It's getting cold." She stood up with her bag and walked toward the exit.
What about your lunch, he thought, such that it is. She was still a little unsettling to him. He barely knew her, but the attraction was strangely compelling. Well, he'd have two weeks to think about it. He picked up his knife and fork and went after his roast beef.
Margaret took a left out of the dining area and looked for some place out of the way. She followed the signs to the lady's room. She pushed the swinging door open and stepped inside. She appeared to be alone. She walked in front of the stalls making sure they were empty.
The device was part of a communications link, through her ship, to her world. Her Mother worried a lot and her timing was usually bad or maybe the Council had made their decision.
She had the place to herself. She entered the back stall and shut and locked the door. She sat on the toilet, took out her communicator and placed the bag on the floor. She hooked the device over her ear and a small heads-up display appeared in front of her face.
Because of her father's position in the government, her com-link had been fitted with a special module that allowed her to send and receive scrambled transmissions. Until now, it had never been used.
It wasn't a voice transmission. Line after line of her native script began to scroll down the screen. As she watched, her heart rate and respiration doubled. Her lips moved slightly as she read. She took a sudden breath. Her eyes began to tear.
It was the worst of all news. An assassination attempt had been made against her father. The attempt had failed with her father but a second attempt on her family had left her little brother dead. She'd had an uneasy feeling from the first night she'd arrived. Now she knew why. Her family had been moved to the Ministry. She was the only one out of pocket. The leader of the faction responsible for the plot was being pursued across her quadrant of the universe. It was possible he knew where she was and might try to have her picked up. She was instructed to terminate her mission and rendezvous with a military vessel dispatched to bring her back.
The transmission ended. She cried. All she could see was her little brother smiling and waving the day she left. She tightly closed her eyes and froze that image in her mind forever. She dropped the com-link back into her bag. A thought suddenly struck her. The transmission had taken several days to arrive. She jumped up and left the stall at a dead run.
Lawrence was in the middle of taking a drink from his tea glass when Margaret ran past the dining room exit, toward the street entrance.
It took a moment to register. He set down his glass. "What the hell?"
He slid out and ran to the exit. He looked toward the outside doors. She was gone. He took a step toward the entrance, and then remembered something. The rest of the lunch crowd watched as he ran to the booth, grabbed her little metal box, slipped it into his pants pocket, and then rushed from the dining room.
Lawrence didn't waste time going to the corner light. She apparently hadn't. He crossed the street through traffic. Horns sounded, tires screeched and a few unkind words were thrown his way. He somehow avoided becoming a hood ornament and entered the lobby of the office tower.
He paused just inside the doors. She was nowhere in sight. He moved quickly, checking the elevator banks, nothing. Where had she gone? All he could think of was the office. He started for the twelfth floor elevator bank when he spotted the Information Receptionist returning to her desk. He cut her off.
"Miss"
"Yes?" Looking at him.
"Did you?" He caught his bre
ath. "Did you see a young lady, with long black hair, run through here just now?"
"I don't know about the lady part. She almost knocked two people down."
He was anxious and asked, "Which way?"
She pointed. "I followed her into the garage. She got on the elevator. You know her?"
"Yeah. Thanks" He ran for the garage entrance.
She watched, and then yelled after him. "Well, tell her, both of you, to slow down."
He was already through the doors. There was no one at the elevator. He stopped and looked both ways. "What the hell’s goin' on here?"
He ran from the elevator. His truck was parked on the first floor. He slipped off his jacket and fished out his keys at the same time. He reached the driver's side of a red Toyota Four-Runner, unlocked and opened the door. He tossed in the jacket, climbed behind the wheel, shut the door, started the truck and backed out. She was above him, somewhere. He started for the up-ramp.
The elevator opened on the sixth floor. Margaret stepped out and paused. She had to get back to her ship. Once there, she'd be relatively safe.
There wasn't the slightest breeze. Her eyes and ears told her nothing. The air was heavy with a collective human scent. She started for her car.
Lawrence drove slowly through the second floor. He didn't know what she was driving. He looked from side to side checking each car. A car passed him. There was a man behind the wheel. He watched the car turn down the ramp to the first floor.
Margaret walked to her car, just a little farther. She was thinking about her little brother. Her eyes began to tear again. It was a senseless, stupid death. She loved him very much. All she wanted right now was to get her hands on the one who killed him.
She was jolted back to reality when her nose picked up something, not human. A chill went up her back. She slowed, looked left and right, then behind her. She couldn't see or hear anything, but she could smell him. She ran for it. She dug out her keys as she rounded the back of her car. Her hand shook as she tried to fit the key into the lock. She got it open, slid in and shut the door. She put the key in the ignition. There was a loud pop. A ball of light grew to the size of a basketball and part of the front of her car was gone.
Bounty hunters came from many races. The huge lumbering male crossing the garage toward the front of her car was Xythonian, one of the most physically powerful races in the universe. Unarmed, she didn't stand much of a chance. However, the somewhat smaller one pulling open her car door was another matter.
She shoved the door with both hands. The top of the door caught him on the bridge of the nose. She was out. He was stunned. He stumbled toward her. An open hand to the throat finished him. She looked back at the sound of her car being moved.
The big one had tried to get between her car and the support column she was parked next to. Being all muscle and very little brain, it hadn't occurred to him to climb over. She glanced the other way. Another Bounty Hunter closed in. She was flanked. No place to go but up. She jumped to the top of her car avoiding a very large set of outstretched hands. She jumped to the roof of the next car. There was nowhere else to go.
She ran along the tops of the other vehicles. Car alarms began to fill the air. The third Bounty Hunter had a clean shot, but pulled his weapon back. There was no payment for a body. He gave chase exchanging his side arm for a capture weapon that delivered a stun. The big one bellowed with rage. He ripped off her car door and slung it across the garage at her.
Her escape route ended at a stairwell door. She jumped to the floor. The door opened and a building security guard stepped out.
He stepped in front of her. "Where you goin' in such a hurry?" He looked past her to the two bounty hunters closing in. "What the..."
"I’d run..." She shoved him aside, entered the stairwell and slammed the door. The guard never had a chance to draw his weapon.
The smaller one ducked around him. The big one grabbed the guard, snapped the man's back and tossed him aside.
Once inside the stairwell, she ripped out the door latch. She started down the stairs taking them three at a time. When she hit the next landing, she broke the heel off a shoe. She kicked them off and kept going.
The stairwell door on the sixth floor exploded from its frame, smashed into the wall and dropped to the landing below.
Margaret hit the landing on the fourth floor. She laid her shoulder into the door. It was supposed to open into the stairwell. The door buckled slightly, and swung into the garage. Pieces of the door closer dropped onto the landing behind her. Maybe they'd buy it, she thought. They weren't too bright. She ran down the stairs to the third floor.
Lawrence was halfway across the third floor. He had paused at the top of the ramp when he heard what sounded like two cars coming together above him. He sat for a moment, and then started slowly forward. He paused again when he heard, what was the fourth floor door giving way.
What the hell, he thought. It sounded like a damned destruction derby. He was almost even with the stairwell, when the door opened and Margaret ran in front of him. He touched the brake.
She looked at him. "Larry?" She glanced back at the stairwell door, and then ran for the passenger side of his truck.
He put the truck in park, and unlocked the door. She opened it, climbed in beside him and shut it. She was breathing hard, not from the exertion, but from the fear of being caught. She was panicked and needed to catch her breath.
He didn't know where to start. "Why did you run out like that?" He noticed her feet. “Where are your shoes?”
"Look, you have to get me out of the building."
"Out of the building. What happened? What the hell’s going on?”
They were coming. She checked the outside mirror. "Please, just get us outta here. I'll explain everything."
"I'm not going anywhere till you say something that makes sense."
She was still watching the mirror. "I don't have time for this, sorry."
She opened the door and got one leg out. The big Bounty Hunter appeared behind them on the ramp from the floor above. They saw each other at the same time. He pulled his weapon and started running toward the truck. She slid back in and slammed the door. Lawrence had no chance to say or do anything. She straddled the console, popped the truck into drive and shoved the accelerator down with her left foot.
The back wheels broke loose for a second, and then bit. The rear end slid to the right and the truck lunged toward the stairwell. Lawrence grabbed the wheel and straightened it up. The wall at the end of the garage was rushing toward them.
Lawrence pushed at her. "Get your foot off." He yelled. "Are you crazy? You're gonna kill us."
She eased her foot back. He cut the wheel to take them down the ramp. There was a pop on the back of the truck. The ball of light appeared and disappeared along with part of spare tire rack, rear door and glass. He grazed the wall, losing the outside mirror and some paint.
His truck turned onto the second floor. She pressed the accelerator again. He began to struggle with her. He couldn't move her.
Now he was pissed. "What the hell are you doing? Get your foot off... Get your Goddamned foot off."
She took over the steering wheel. She had to get away.
Lawrence couldn't do anything with her. He reached for the keys, turned off the ignition and applied the brake with his left foot. The truck slowed down. At first she didn't realize what had happened and pumped the gas.
He took hold of the wheel. "Don't, you'll flood it."
The truck came to a stop at the top of the ramp to the first floor.
She looked at the ignition, then at him. "What are you doin'?"
"What am I doin'? Get off me. You're out of your mind... Get off and get out."
She moved over to the passenger seat. "Larry please, you don't understand."
"What's to understand? Jesus, lady, look at my truck... I hope you've got insurance."
"Nobody asked you to follow me." She glanced behind them. "You better hurry, or you'
re gonna come face to face with a much bigger problem."
He turned, looked at the hole, then at her. She wasn't faking how scared she was. Something crossed his mind. You know, that thing about something being the better part of valor. He started the truck, put it in gear and turned down the ramp to the first floor. He thought, this better be good... and she’d better have insurance.
Lawrence's truck turned onto the ground floor and crossed to the exit. He slowed to let traffic pass, and then turned right, into the street.
Texas Avenue was one-way only. The traffic wasn't heavy, with just an occasional bus to avoid. People were going about their business on the sidewalks.
She hadn't said a word. She was facing her window.
He glanced behind him, then at her. "What happened to the back of my truck? Who's after you?"
She looked at him. God, what a mess, she thought. "I haven't done anything wrong. If you'll take me home I'll explain on the way."
"Okay, where's home?"
"North of here, off forty-five... Please... Hurry."
He watched her from the side. Why did he have the feeling he was about to do something he'd hopefully live to regret?
***
The stairway exit to the roof slammed opened and the Bounty Hunters stepped out one behind the other. The big one carried the body of the one Margaret had killed. They crossed to the far side of the roof. An opening appeared out of thin air. They entered their cloaked ship and the opening disappeared.
A few moments later the air surged on the roof as the small Scout Ship lifted off. Returning to the orbiting Mother Ship empty handed, with one of their own dead, might very well proof fatal for someone else.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lawrence moved over a block and headed back toward Walker Street. From there he could get on the freeway. They rode in silence. She didn't say anything and he wasn't sure what to ask. If he'd had any sense, his nose would've stayed where it belonged.
A number of meanings, for what he'd just witnessed, coursed through his mind. Maybe she was with the government or something. After all, whatever hit the back of his truck sure as hell wasn't standard issue. Maybe it was our government she was running from. Maybe they were after him now.