3rd World Products, Book 17

by Ed Howdershelt

I shrugged. “No judgment from me, lady. I had a couple of places like this too. Do the drop, meet the friend, play a bit, check the drop on the way back. There was nothing wrong with combining work and play if they didn’t get too mixed together.”

  Nodding at the world beyond the windows, she said, “The backup drop was a loose stone in that wall, but the stones are different now. Back then they were cobblestones in cement.”

  Looking at the wall, I saw flat, square tile stones like you see in gardens. I said, “Well, it’s at the end of a street. Maybe somebody ran into it.”

  Marie nodded again. “Probably so. I always sat here. Conrad sat there. I’d get here first because his bus…” She paused and said, “Never mind. It’s ancient history.”

  “If they’re good memories, go ahead and share them.”

  She shook her head. “They’re good, but they’re private.”

  “Ah. Yes’m. Got a few of those myself.”

  The cafe woman brought our food and beers and we dug in. When we left, we walked to the wall and Marie touched a stone about knee-high on the head-high wall.

  In a sigh, she said, “Right about there. The wall was only a little higher then. I’d sit here and wait for Conrad’s bus.”

  “Want to see if he’s still in town?”

  With another sigh, she said, “Oh, he is. Right up the hill from here, in fact. He died in 1998.”

  Looking up the hill, I saw the church and its cemetery that took up that end of the block. I also saw an elderly woman watching us from the flower shop two doors away and nodded to her. She turned and waved at someone, then opened the door and came toward us, staring in amazement at Marie.

  I said, “Heads up. Company coming.”

  Marie turned to see her, then grinned. “Frau Mueller! Hello!”

  I whispered, “Oh, damn. Big mistake, ma’am.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Frau Mueller was already demonstrating why. She halted a few yards away and blurted in German, “You know me?!”

  I chuckled softly, “And now you get to explain. That’s why.”

  “I don’t mind explaining.”

  “Uh, huh. We’ll see.”

  Frau Mueller came no closer, so Marie approached her as she said, “It’s so nice to see you again! Ed, Frau Mueller used to let me wait for Conrad inside her shop in bad weather.”

  I said, “That was nice of her,” but stayed put. Frau Mueller’s spooky expression told me things probably wouldn’t go well.

  Frau Mueller apparently understood some English; she exclaimed, “But you cannot be Marie! You cannot!”

  Marie tried to assure her she was, indeed, herself, but Frau Mueller quickly crossed herself, yelped in German, “This is not possible!” and backed away two paces.

  I said, “Toldja so.”

  Turning to shoot me a glare, Marie said, “You just shut up for now, okay?” and while her attention was elsewhere, Frau Mueller did her elderly best to hurry back to her shop. With a last quick look at Marie, she ducked inside and I heard the snap of a deadbolt lock.

  Marie stood staring dumbfounded for several moments. I moved to stand beside her and she growled, “Not one word. Please.”

  Okay. I just stood there and tried to look like a tourist until Marie turned and marched back toward the cafe. Calling up my board, I passed her and stopped. She glanced back at the flower shop, then called up her own board and we soared above Wiesbaden.

  I let Marie take the lead. In silence we circled Wiesbaden and Frankfurt once, then she headed toward Mannheim. Once there, she circled slowly above the town for a few minutes, then continued toward Kaiserslautern.

  When we arrived at K-town, she hovered briefly above the shiny new building where our old offices had been, then angled down to the train station. I thought she intended to land, but she didn’t, instead cruising slowly past the front of the place before soaring back up into the sky.

  Again heading southwest, she stopped above Schloss Landstuhl for a time, then flew across the valley to hover above the big white box that had become the nucleus of the Landstuhl hospital complex.

  When I joined her, she said dourly, “At least tell me it’s still a US Army hospital.”

  “It is. Gates and guards and all.”

  “Thank you.” After a moment, she said, “I guess we can go now.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  “No. Home. Any-damned-where. I don’t care.”

  “Want some free advice, ma’am?”

  She grumped, “Not really. I’m not in the mood.”

  Nodding, I called Galatea and we slid aboard. As we lifted away, Marie said, “Sorry. What was your advice?”

  “Don’t look for your past, just be happy if you find some.” Shrugging, I added, “And approach it cautiously.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Yup. But I came by it honestly. Experience.”

  “I don’t think I can… disconnect… that way.” She sighed and slumped, then asked, “Aren’t we going to use those, uh… super fast flitters to get back to the States?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t see a reason, but we can if you want. Would you rather go back and try to fix things with Frau Mueller?”

  Giving me a direct gaze, Marie asked, “Exactly how would you propose we do that?”

  “The question required a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, ma’am.”

  Her gaze hardened for a moment, then she nodded. “Yes.”

  Nodding in return, I sent a probe to the shop as we turned around. Mueller was still there, sitting behind a desk in the back and fidgeting almost mindlessly with a floral arrangement. She looked about ready to cry.

  When we arrived at the shop, I parked the flitter six feet above the street in front of the shop and sipped my coffee.

  Marie asked, “What now?”

  “Now we wait.”

  “For what?”

  “A crowd.”

  “Why?”

  “Just watch, ma’am.”

  At first rather tentatively, a number of people came out of various shops and offices to stare at the flitter. A double-toned siren wailed briefly some distance away, then a cop car eased to a stop perhaps fifty feet away. Soon there were about thirty people standing around staring up at the flitter.

  Marie got up and paced around the flitter staring right back at them for a time. When I said, “They can’t see us in here,” she looked at me. I added, “To them it looks like a big silver egg.”

  After about fifteen minutes, she asked, “Ed, what the hell are we trying to accomplish by hanging up here?”

  An older priest and a gaggle of his followers came down the hill toward us. I pointed at them and said, “Stand by. You’ll see.”

  The priest and the cop conferred, and as they did so, I lowered the flitter and dropped the hull field. Waving and smiling, I pointed at each of them and gestured for them to come aboard. The old priest looked reluctant, but when the cop stepped forward, he stiffened up and followed.

  It took about another fifteen minutes to meet and greet and less than completely accurately explain the situation. Looking at Marie, the men expressed their own amazement, but the priest agreed to try to explain things to Frau Mueller. He descended the ramp and knocked on the flower shop door. Frau Mueller opened the door a crack, then let him in.

  Meanwhile, the cop seemed very taken with Marie. He prattled on like a schoolboy, only occasionally including me in a question or a comment. Marie gave me a fisheye glance in the midst of it all and I gave her a shrug. Sorry, sweetie, but you’re a hottie again.

  After a few minutes the priest came to the door, pointed at Marie, and gestured for her to come in. With another glance at me, Marie got up and walked to the ramp. Before she started down, she turned to me and said, “However this turns out, thanks for trying.”

  Without waiting for a response, she headed down the ramp. The cop didn’t seem so inclined to prattle with me. He asked a few questi
ons about the flitter before he saw a guy standing by the cop car waving and pointing into the car.

  Excusing himself, the cop went down the ramp. As soon as he’d stepped off it, I made the ramp vanish and put up the hull field. The cop was startled when his personal radio began chattering. He looked back at the flitter, then spoke on his radio as he headed for his car.

  I called up a screen and checked email, then began editing my latest book. About an hour later, I sensed motion and looked up to see Marie, the priest, and Frau Mueller at the shop’s window.

  With hugs and handshakes, Marie made her goodbyes and left the shop. I was about to put the ramp down for her when she called up her board and sailed aboard the flitter.

  As she took a seat, I asked, “All better?”

  Marie nodded and chuckled, “Yeah. At least she doesn’t think I’m a vampire now.”

  “She thought you were a vampire?”

  “Well, she didn’t say that in so many words. Maybe she thought I was a ghost. Whatever; now she knows what happened. Why didn’t you come in?”

  “It was your moment, not mine. I managed to keep busy.”

  “So where to now?”

  “Got time for a tour?”

  “No. I have to go to Carrington tomorrow, remember?”

  “Then it’s back to the States. Tea, take us home, please.”

  Leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, Marie sighed, “I hate highly emotional shit. I feel so drained all of a sudden.”

  “Want a nap on the way back? I would.”

  Glancing around, Marie asked, “Nap where? The floor?”

  “It’s a deck, ma’am, and no. Tea, make a double bed, please.”

  A bed appeared and Marie stared at it briefly, then went to investigate it. I let my screen vanish and went to get flat on the bed, then patted the other side.

  “Room for two. Promise not to snore, okay?”

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, she asked, “You promise me or I promise you?”

  Trying to look offended, I said, “You promise, of course.”

  Lying down and fidgeting to move her clothing a bit, Marie took a breath, then sighed, “I don’t usually nap during the day.”

  Did that need an answer? I decided not and asked Tea to make the trip last three hours, then tinted the hull field against the bright sunlight as we lifted higher.

  Because something seemed to be bothering Marie, I silently asked Tea to feed us a low level of theta waves for ten minutes. Maybe I’m used to them; I was still vaguely aware when Marie rolled on her side, cuddled her field-generated pillow, and sighed in her sleep.

  A small motion nearby woke me. I saw Marie sitting on the edge of the bed just before she stood up and headed for the bathroom. I got up, sipped my old, cold coffee , and retrieved the jar of instant from my pack.

  As I sipped again and drained the mug, I linked to check the time. We still had half an hour of flight. Opening my mug, I gathered water from the air, sterilized it, and rinsed my mug. Tossing the rinse water at the hull field, I refilled my mug and added some coffee, then stirred it with a tendril.

  I was recapping the mug when Marie muttered, “Damn.” When I looked up, she said, “That was quite a trick.”

  “Get your mug out and I’ll do it again.”

  She went to her backpack with, “How long until we get there?”

  “Half an hour.”

  Handing me her mug, she rezipped her bag and sat down as I conjured some rinse water and explained the process. Sipping the results, she nodded and said, “Good, thanks,” then sat back and watched the sky for a time before speaking again.

  “That nap was a good idea. Events of the day must have caught up with me. All of a sudden I was just bone-tired.”

  Answer? No. Just nod agreeably and sip coffee. Marie crossed her legs and sipped her own, then gave me a studious look.

  “Yes’m?”

  “You realize what you did today in Iran could make a lot of people nervous as hell, right?”

  “That’s why I wiped the records. Are you gonna tell anybody?”

  She snorted, “Oh, hell, no. I’d rather report a fleet of UFOs than try to describe what I saw you do.”

  “Then I’m probably safe enough. Angie and Wallace could prob’ly figure out how I did it.”

  “You didn’t tell them anything. How could they?”

  Sipping again, I asked, “Why would they? Who’d accept the responsibility for my actions? The US government? 3rd World? Better if nobody knows a damned thing. The Iranians would claim I sabotaged the reactor, then destroyed it.”

  Nodding, Marie replied, “Yeah, they would.”

  We sipped in silence for a time, then she asked, “How long is it usually between an interview with Col. Horn and a job offer?”

  “She won’t be your only interview. And there are all the usual hoops and barrels. But figure a couple of weeks, I guess. That’s all it took with Jessie. And there’s a lot less to check. They already know pretty much all they need to know about you.”

  Another moment passed, then she said, “If I’m hired…”

  I corrected her with, “When you’re hired.”

  She continued with, “Okay, when. Would you mind if I spend the time before I actually start the job with you?”

  Looking her up and down once, I replied, “Well, gee, lady, I dunno… You’re downright gorgeous and all, but how can I know you don’t just want me for flitter time?”

  Rolling her eyes, she said flatly, “You can’t. You’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  “Hm. Okay. I can do that. You won’t mind if I nibble and kiss every inch of you while I try to figure things out, will you?”

  She chuckled, “Probably not. I’ll let you know if I do.”

  I shrugged. “Then I suppose I can go along with your plan.”

  “So good of you to cooperate. Let’s swing by my place and pick up a few things for tomorrow.”

  Nodding, I said, “Tea, let’s stop at Marie’s, please.”

  Our course adjusted slightly as Galatea replied, “Yes, Ed.”

  Marie sipped her coffee, then said, “I’ve been wondering about something, Ed. You put nanobots into me that basically un-aged me back to about forty, but you haven’t used them yourself. Why?”

  “I have repair and maintenance ‘bots, too.”

  “Then why haven’t they given you a remake like mine?”

  “I wasn’t all messed up like you were. Mine just maintain a sort of status quo.”

  “But you could have them do it if you wanted to?”

  Sipping, I replied, “Probably. Very likely, even. What would I tell all the people in my life who can’t get them?”

  “Who?”

  “Friends and family. You’re an orphan with a daughter who was in on the fix. Your friends were in on it too, after a fashion. Well, Linda was. I was. Connie and Will haven’t been around, so they probably haven’t seen how you look now. The feds involved have likely seen the before and after pix, so some of them might pipe up about it sooner or later. If they dare.”

  Grinning, Marie chuckled, “Two have that I know about. A couple of NIA legal advisors quit and joined Stephanie’s firm.”

  Sharing her grin, I said, “I hadn’t heard about that. Bet that pissed some people off.”

  “Yeah, it did.” She was silent for a moment, then asked, “So… are you sort of… waiting for everyone who might be upset to die off?”

  “Diplomatic as ever, huh? Well, I hadn’t really thought about it, but that explanation’s good enough, I guess.”

  Chapter Twenty

  We descended in front of Tanya’s door and entered to find Tanya sprawled on the couch in front of her TV. She simultaneously sat up, waved us over, and gestured us to silence. We saw she was watching a news bulletin about wayward satellites. Well, that figured. They couldn’t keep something like that secret these days, and it provided a story that would likely eclipse what had happened at Fordow.

&nbs
p; I don’t rely on heavily filtered TV news. Putting up a screen, I checked the raw news feeds on the Internet. There were all sorts of guesses about what was happening to the satellites, and some were pretty bizarre. The official news outfits had pretty much decided it was a secret government project. Some suggested 3rd World Products might be behind it, even though a 3rd World spokesperson had already issued a denial.

  A number of countries and companies were trying to raise some hell about their defunct satellites being ‘stolen’. Some instantly blamed the USA, of course. A few blamed China and Russia.

  There were graphs and charts and even some grainy pictures. One page supplied a list of satellites known to have moved out of their usual orbits. Running a second search produced some updates, two of which mentioned large, previously-inert rocket parts that were apparently acting in the same manner as the ‘rogue’ satellites.

  Marie’s eyes left the screen and focused on me. Was that a level of suspicion? Yeah, probably.

  I said, “Let’s do what they’re already doing at NASA. Athena, would you please extrapolate and display the new paths of any orbital items near Earth that are changing course?”

  Our field screen abruptly quadrupled in size and changed to show a picture of Earth surrounded by a veritable haze of man-made and other objects. Fine green lines began extending from thousands of them. Most of the lines stretched several times around the Earth and soon the entire planet appeared wrapped in a cocoon of green that tapered on each side almost like a football.

  Watching the football rotate with the Earth, I pretended to surmise, “Huh. All the lines stop at the ends of that football-looking green thing, so they’re prob’ly aggregation points. Looks to me like someone’s cleaning up the orbital space around Earth.”

  Marie asked, “For what purpose?”

  I chuckled, “Look at that cloud of crap circling the Earth. Isn’t clearing the area purpose enough?”

  She fixed me with a direct gaze. “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  Shrugging, I replied, “Doubts are still free, I think, but I don’t see any point in guessing. Sooner or later someone will figure it out or make an announcement.”

  After holding my gaze for another moment, she turned to look at the screen and said flatly, “Yeah. I’m sure they will.”