3rd World Products, Book 17

by Ed Howdershelt

  Tanya shook her head. “Probably not. You might have a chance.”

  “Prob’ly only if I don’t try to find out. Did I ever tell you how mean she used to be?”

  Pretending to try to remember, Tanya said, “Yes, I believe you did. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “You think she truly understands that neither of us took advantage of the other? That we had a good time, that we’re just friends now, and that there are no wrongs to avenge?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but whether she does or not, it might not be a good idea to keep her in that stasis field much longer.”

  As if enlightened, I replied, “An excellent point, ma’am. Tea, if Marie turns mean again, just stun her cold and we’ll tuck her in for the night. Let her go now, please.”

  In her crouched position, Marie staggered a pace when the stasis ended. She marveled at being free for a second, then stood straight and took a deep breath. Still on her board, Tanya positioned herself near my left shoulder in what seemed a form of solidarity.

  Stepping close to me, Marie growled, “Okay, I get it. Nobody’s a victim. But-you-still-fucked-my-daughter, you sonofabitch!”

  Tanya growled back at her, “And I fucked him, damn it! That’s how it works when nobody’s a victim! And I’m over eighteen, so you don’t have to like it! Who I sleep with is my business, mother!”

  Taking a deep, gathering breath, she said almost calmly, “And that’s all I have to say about it. Goodnight, Ed.”

  She slid away on her board, but didn’t head for her apartment. Instead, she launched westward at what looked like close to full speed. Marie’s eyes grew wide as she watched her daughter disappear into the night sky.

  “My God!” she muttered, “How fast do these things go?!”

  Calling up a screen with board specs, I put it in front of her, then tapped the bottom right corner. Marie put her hand through it on her first attempt to grip it, then her fingers found the solid spot and she took it with her to a seat.

  I said, “I was gonna show you this after you kind of had the gist of things, but now will do just as well.”

  After studying the screen for a time, Marie asked, “Tell me, Ed; was Tanya just a happy accident, or do you always prey on much younger women?”

  “If you’re gonna be a bitch, get off my flitter.”

  Glaring, she snapped, “What?!”

  “Are you deaf as well as emotionally incontinent? Leave, lady. I don’t need your nasty bullshit. Fuck off. Hit the road. Bye.”

  She tried to heave the screen at me, but it vanished when the corner of the screen left her hand. Standing up, she looked as if she might attack me again. A few moments of glaring passed, then she sat back down.

  “Make me another screen. I wasn’t through reading.”

  “Too damned bad. You have the board and some basic training. Get with Tanya or figure out the rest yourself.”

  Ah, but I remembered how she’d shelve her temper long enough to get practical matters done. It might take her a minute or two, but she’d figure out some angle.

  Some seconds later, she said, “You said the board came with two days of training.”

  “That was back when you seemed reasonably sane.”

  She yelled, “Dammit, you screwed my daughter!”

  “Wrong word for it. If you don’t believe me, ask her. I rang her bells hard and tried to knock the sharp, ugly edges off her world for a while. As I see it, that’s one of the things sex is supposed to accomplish. An opportunity existed and we took it. Both of us. If you can’t accept that, you can damned well get lost for another forty years.”

  “Well, if it was so wonderful, why aren’t you still together?”

  “She called it off, not me. Something happened.”

  “I’ll bet it did. What was it? What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing to her. Someone else.”

  “Then what and to whom?”

  Calling up another screen, I gave her a flitter’s-eye view of the Marjory Wright incident up to the time I’d opened Tanya’s handcuffs at her mother’s bedside. Marie barely startled at the sharp ‘PAK!‘ of the neck brace’s det cord, but her gaze turned rather stark at the pink mist filling the air around Marjory Wright’s plummeting body.

  When the segment ended, I said, “That’s why we aren’t together now, ma’am. She couldn’t handle what happened to that kid.”

  Shaking her head slightly, Marie turned to me and said, “You had no choice, Ed. Anyone could see that.”

  To make Marie become defensive on Tanya’s behalf, I gave her a wry grin and, “Apparently not quite everyone.”

  With a dismissive, slight shake of her head, Marie said, “No. She saw the necessity. She just couldn’t stomach it. She’s not like… like us, Ed. I raised her far away from things like that.”

  My chuckle made her shoot a glare at me.

  I said, “Scuse me, ma’am, but I was also raised away from things like that. So were you. Pretty much everybody is, I think. Yet somehow we became people who can do things like that.”

  “She didn’t fully understand…”

  I interrupted with, “Crap. We’ve discussed it since. She saw what was going on. Well, except for how I set off the charge. And she knew it was no accident when it happened; that I’d managed to do it somehow.”

  Sitting back and sipping coffee, I said, “And she knew it wasn’t the first time I’d done something like that and might not be the last. I think maybe she just didn’t want to be on hand if it happened again.”

  Marie gave that comment a doubting fisheye.

  I shrugged. “Okay, go ahead and be skeptical, but what’s she dating now? A real estate guy her own age. Her first real estate guy ever, even though she’s been in that biz for years.” With a pause and a grin, I sighingly admitted, “I think she might really be over me.”

  Marie chortled and rolled her eyes. “Good. You’re taking it well.”

  Shrugging, I said, “Arguing wouldn’t change her mind and Agent Vicky rescued me.”

  Below us, Tanya skimmed low above the ground as she headed for her apartment. She zoomed through the woods, zigging and zagging around trees. I watched Marie watch Tanya’s progress as she asked, “That’s your story, huh? Elgin ‘rescued’ you?”

  “Well, she didn’t arrest me or shoot at me when I showed up.”

  “I see. You must have been so relieved.”

  “Oh, you bet. There I was, crushed and bereft, wandering like a lost puppy in the cold, dark Florida night…”

  Snorting a laugh, Marie cut in, “Right. Spare me the sad tale.”

  Sipping coffee again, I waited to see where she’d go from there. At least she was laughing now. She’d always been fairly impulsive off duty, but I remembered times when she’d actually stopped to think before acting. It seemed likely she’d either immediately go talk to Tanya or demand more flight training in order to have time to think.

  Marie did neither of those things. She stood up, studied the world below the flitter for a short time, and then took a breath and asked, “What time will you be here tomorrow?”

  “Noon or so.”

  “Why so late?”

  “I have a life of sorts beyond your board lessons, ma’am.”

  Looking at me, Marie asked, “Could Tanya really teach me everything about boards and scooters? Everything?”

  “Sure she could. She knows it all and you can have the board show you a manual. Try it.”

  “Tell it like I tell it to appear and disappear?”

  “Yup.”

  A moment passed, then a screen appeared in front of her. She studied the info, then asked, “This is all of it?”

  I shrugged. “They fly, carry stuff, and work underwater. Everything else is how high, low, fast, or slow.”

  “What’s this about weapons? Sometimes I carry a gun.”

  “You can carry it, but you can’t use it while you’re on the board. That’s not my idea, by the way. Read the Amaran Protocols section abou
t using weapons aboard flitters. Same for boards.”

  Marie scrolled to it, read it, and muttered, “Well, damn.”

  “Yup. But they’re still pretty neat gadgets.”

  She chuckled, “Yes, they are. Okay, I’ll just get off it if I have a reason to shoot someone.”

  Sipping coffee, I waited to see which way she’d jump; back to ragging me about Tanya or on with the flight training. Or, of course, she might simply tell me to come back tomorrow and go try to talk to Tanya, but I knew how well that would go. It was a good time for a distraction. I linked into 911 calls for the area. It was a Friday night; something would happen somewhere.

  No, something had already happened. An eighteen-wheeler had unsuccessfully swerved to avoid a rather tiny car merging onto I-75. The car had gotten wedged under the truck and been dragged until the truck managed to stop.

  Putting the event on the flitter’s monitor, I said, “Galatea, take us there, please. Athena, there’s been an accident.”

  Galatea banked hard right. Marie’s fingers locked onto her seat and her eyes got big, but she gave no other indications of tension. Athena reported the drivers had no injuries, but the car was wedged tightly under the truck. I sent a probe inside the truck. It contained only a few pallets; a deadhead run. Good.

  Stationing a brilliant red Galatea behind the wreck as traffic control, I zipped down to the scene on my board. Raising my arms to add a bit of drama, I cast a large emerald field under the rear of the trailer and inflated it. The trailer’s rear wheels raised about eight feet before Athena’s field could work the car free from behind the forward wheels.

  Letting the trailer down gently, I moved up beside the car and asked Athena if I could help. She smiled as she said she was no longer required and vanished.

  I sent, “Thanks, ma’am,” to her nearby presence and she chuckled, “You’re welcome. Good luck.” I didn’t ask what she meant.

  Marie landed to my left and eyed the tiny, crumpled car for a moment, then she asked softly , “Who — or what — was that?”

  “That was Athena, ma’am. Gimme a minute to get this car open.”

  Neither door would open, of course. They’d been jammed and twisted. I flicked on my saber and began slicing around the edges of the driver’s door. Once it seemed ready to move, I gave it a yank. It fell away from the car and dropped flat. The rather shaken driver gingerly started easing himself out of the driver’s seat.

  Turning to Marie, I said, “That’s it. We can go,” and lifted away on my board. She caught up with me just before we slid back aboard the flitter and yelped, “You can’t just fly away from something like that!”

  “Sure I can. I’m doing it, in fact.”

  “But…!”

  “But nothing. They know me here. If anyone has questions, they’ll put them through Lieutenant Greer in Hernando County.”

  Another 911 call appeared; a house fire. Fields smothered the fire in seconds. The fire department arrived quickly and took over, then we lifted away. It had been only six minutes since the 911 call.

  Taking a seat and sipping coffee, I watched the world below for a time before Marie said, “I guess it really is your hobby.”

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  “How did you lift that truck?”

  “Just made a kind of field baggie under it and inflated it.”

  She looked at the shiny spot on her arm and asked, “Will I be able to do things like that?”

  “Not with your board. You’d need a PFM and some practice.”

  “Where can I get a PFM?”

  “Join the NSA or sign on with 3rd World.”

  Giving me a frustrated, exasperated look, Marie snapped, “Ed, for God’s sake, I’m your age. They wouldn’t hire me.”

  Chapter Eight

  I sent a ping to Angie’s datapad. She sent back two pings and I sat back to wait as I said, “We’ll find out in a minute or two.”

  “What? How?”

  “I just rang someone who’d know whether they’d hire you.”

  “You what? When? How?”

  “Just now. Very quietly. I’m waiting for a call back.”

  “The hell you are. I didn’t see you do anything.”

  “Faithless woman. Just stand by and prepare to believe.”

  Angie’s return ping sounded and I routed an echo of it through the flitter’s monitor, then put up a screen. With a small salute, I greeted her with, “Hi, there, Fearless Leader Number Two!”

  Her eyes flicked to Marie and she said, “Hi, back at you. I’m sure you had a very good reason for calling so late.”

  “What?! Needing to see your gorgeous face again isn’t enough?”

  “Almost. Not quite. Besides, I think the face next to you might be more gorgeous than mine, so I’ll question your judgment on that matter. Had you planned to introduce us eventually?”

  Pretending to suddenly remember my reason for calling, I gestured grandly at Marie and said, “Of course, milady. This is Marie Connor, who just got a scooterboard. As it happens, I do have another reason for calling, ma’am. She had a question and I thought you might be someone who could answer it.” To Marie, I said, “This is Colonel Angela Horn, my very own Linda replacement.”

  That raised Marie’s eyebrows slightly as she turned to face Angie and said, “Hello, Colonel Horn. Ed’s told me nothing about you.”

  “That’s odd. He told me a great deal about you, Ms. Connor.”

  Marie shot me a quick glare, then said, “Call me Marie, Colonel Horn. I hope you took whatever he said with a grain of salt.”

  Angie chuckled, “Oh, of course. I thought he might have had you confused with Wonder Woman.”

  That made Marie’s eyebrows arch. Angie chuckled again.

  I shook my head. “Nope. Linda’s Wonder Woman.”

  “Really? Then who am I, now that I have her old job?”

  “Fearless Leader Number Two. Unless you’d dye your hair.”

  Giving me a gentle fisheye, she replied, “No, thanks. I tried it once and didn’t like it.” Turning to Marie, she asked, “What was your question, Ms… Marie? And call me Angie, please.”

  “Uh… okay. Angie. I asked Ed about getting a PFM and he said I’d have to sign on with 3rd World or the NSA. I said I doubted either of them would hire me because I’m his age.”

  Angie canted her head slightly and seemed to consider things for a moment, then said, “One moment, please,” and split the screen. We couldn’t see what she was seeing, but it wasn’t hard to guess when she asked, “Has your arthritis bothered you lately?”

  Somewhat startled, Marie answered, “Uh… no. It hasn’t.”

  Sitting back in her chair, Angie said, “I didn’t think so. The nanobots also cleared up a number of other problems when they repaired your injuries, Marie. You’re essentially about forty again and apparently in perfect health. You have a strong background like Ed’s and a clean record. Why wouldn’t we hire you?”

  Looking almost confused as she glanced at me, Marie asked, “Hire me for what? I’m at least twenty years out of date on… well, everything that would matter.”

  “That’s easily fixable, Marie. I think your real challenge would be working for younger people.”

  For a moment Marie was silent, then she said, “Then I think we should definitely have that discussion, Colonel Horn.”

  Colonel Horn. Cute. She closed a directive statement with a title, a gesture of respect. I watched Angie weigh matters briefly, then nod.

  “I agree, Ms. Connor. I’ll have some time between two and four Tuesday afternoon. Ed, since you initiated this, why don’t you bring her out here to see me?”

  “Oh, no problem at all, milady. I’ll just shelve some of my less critical projects to make room for your whims.”

  “Thanks ever so much. Was that it? I have to be someplace soon.”

  Looking at Marie, I asked, “Was that it?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Angie said, “Then I’
ll say goodnight now. See you then.” With that, she dropped the link.

  Marie studied me for a time before she asked, “You’ll shelve some of your less critical projects?”

  “I can’t let her underestimate her value to me, can I?”

  Marie chuckled, “No, of course not. I see the resemblance, Ed. Except for the collar brass, she’s the Linda I knew in the eighties.”

  “Wouldn’t settle for less. Couldn’t settle for less.” Meeting her gaze directly, I added, “And I didn’t settle for less. The woman they put in that chair before Angie failed completely.”

  “Failed how?”

  “She wasn’t enough like Linda. She couldn’t see all sides and angles at once, couldn’t fart without brass-plated permission, and needed to play pecking-order games. I got rid of her.”

  Giving me a fisheye, Marie asked, “How?”

  “I refused to cooperate. Retired, in fact, but not until that job was done. Lori Wilson was the mission. It isn’t really a secret, but I’d rather let Lori tell you about how I discovered her.”

  Manifesting another fisheye, Marie asked, “Why can’t you tell me?”

  I chuckled, “Because her version is a lot more impressive than mine and making her repeat it now and then helps her remember how wonderful I am.”

  That got me a fisheye that lasted a few seconds, then Marie belly-laughed and said, “I’ve actually done the same thing a few times. And for about the same reasons, I think. Okay, I’ll ask her. What now?”

  Shrugging, I said, “More flying. Navigation tips.”

  “Okay, but we have all weekend for that. Tanya mentioned a club you two liked, but I don’t want to go there. Lesbians can be worse than guys in some ways. Remember that piano bar in Kaiserslautern? Is there anything like that here?”

  “I dunno about here in Ocala, but we have one in Spring Hill. Tanya liked it for a while, but I think she got bored.” I almost added, ‘And I’m pretty sure she told you about it,‘ but I didn’t.

  We called up our boards, I set my coffee mug aboard Galatea, and we got underway to Spring hill. Marie was up to something, and since she’d settled down a bit, I was willing to go along with it. For a while. Unless she blew up again, anyway.