3rd World Products, Inc., Book 4

by Ed Howdershelt

  Keying my implant, I said, "Elkor, Tiger can come to breakfast with us if you'll put a bubble around his platform. No loose fur in the mess hall, you know?"

  "Ed," said Elkor, "There are regulations against animals in food service areas."

  "With a field bubble around the platform, he won't exactly be in the mess hall, Elkor. He'll be in his own little isolated world, and I can share my bacon with him."

  "May I ask why we'll be doing this, Ed?"

  "Sure. I just feel contrary this morning, Elkor. Mills is going to breakfast with us. I want her to start getting used to our eccentricities."

  Steph said, "We might not have so many eccentricities if you didn't invent them."

  "Steph," I said, "You're absolutely right."

  Some yards from the flitter I said, "Steph, I'd like you to come to breakfast with us, too. This will be a small show for Mills."

  "A show of what, Ed?"

  "Us. Our version of daily normalcy. Real cats, fake cats, computer-generated people, and all that. Will you come with us, please, milady?"

  Steph rose from her seat on the flitter as she said, "Yes," through my implant.

  Tiger floated out of one of the storerooms on Elkor's platform and drifted next to me as I neared the flitter. I patted him and stepped aboard the flitter, then Steph headed us out of the hangar and toward the main building. Once all of us had debarked and were past the lobby security booth, I set a march pace through the wide corridors.

  Hallway traffic was light enough that walking side-by-side was no problem, so with Steph on my right, Mills on my left, and Tiger floating slightly ahead of me at about waist height, we hupped our way to the mess hall at a march.

  Steph matched my step and stride without comment and Mills soon got the hang of things, although she asked why we were marching.

  "For effect," I said. "Watch how people react to us."

  Some people stepped to one side when they saw us coming and others simply stopped to watch the three marching people and the floating cat go by.

  "I see," said Mills. "But why..?"

  "Because everybody else is just ambling along, Mills."

  A screen popped into being and floated between Tiger and me.

  "Ed," said Linda, "You're on my camera two. What's up?"

  "Nothing, miLady. We're just on our way to breakfast."

  "Like that?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like a damned parade, that's what."

  We neared the mess hall doorway as I said, "Guess so. Anything else? Join us for coffee after all?"

  "Still can't get loose. Later." She clicked off.

  Mills almost broke stride at the doorway when Tiger continued to precede us, then she elected to keep quiet about the cat in the mess hall. Mills and I grabbed trays and utensils and joined the rather sparse late-comer serving line.

  "Elkor," I said, "Would you find us a table and park Tiger over one of the chairs?"

  "Yes, Ed."

  The cat-platform floated toward an empty table.

  Steph said, "I'll go with them," then vanished.

  One of the chairs pulled away from that table and Steph reappeared in the chair. A guy at a nearby table seemed to choke softly as he stared at her. Steph gave him a mildly questioning sort of look and he subsided quickly.

  Mills settled for a soft drink and a couple of donuts. I loaded my plate, adding a few strips of bacon for Tiger, and we headed for the table. We'd just sat down when a guy in attendant's whites came to the table and told us that animals weren't allowed in the mess hall.

  "He's in a field bubble," I said. "Nothing gets out of it."

  "A what? Look, I don't care..."

  I held up a forkful of fried egg to interrupt him and asked, "Why not just let us eat and run instead of making a big fuss about nothing?"

  "It's not nothin', mister. That cat's a health hazard."

  "Not while he's inside that field bubble. See if you can touch him."

  "That's not the point..."

  "It is if you're calling him a health hazard."

  I broke up two strips of bacon and put the little pile on the platform. The guy immediately reached to remove the pile and stubbed his fingers hard on the platform's field.

  Tiger's tail twitched the way it usually does when he finds something amusing, then he ignored the guy and started eating his bacon.

  The guy said, "I'm getting this damned thing out of here," and reached to grasp the platform, but he couldn't quite reach it due to Elkor's field. He groped around the field, then tried pushing against it.

  Forking up some more egg, I watched the guy try to push the platform. It didn't move so much as an inch, even when he put his shoulder to it. Tiger kept an ear aimed at the guy, but he didn't look up from eating his bacon.

  When I looked at Mills, she was watching the guy heave at the platform. I waved a hand in front of her face and pointed at her food. With an odd look at me she picked up her fork, but then her eyes returned to the guy's efforts to move Tiger.

  He eventually stood back to try another tack and faced us.

  "Okay," he said, "So it doesn't move unless you do. Fine. I want all of you out of here. Now."

  I shook my head.

  "Nope. I just got out of an overnight virus quarantine and I'm hungry."

  "Quarantine?" The guy squinted slightly at me and asked, "Virus?"

  Mills said, "Yes. He retrieved an One Earth virus canister yesterday evening. We kept him under observation overnight."

  Reading her department from her nametag, the guy took a step back from the table. From me in particular, I suppose.

  "There's absolutely no danger," said Mills. "If there were, he wouldn't be here."

  "Yeah, right," the guy agreed quickly as he took another step away from us.

  He gave me a hard, examining look, then turned and headed back to the serving area without further comment.

  Mills chuckled and said, "I think I'm hurt. He didn't believe me."

  I pointed my fork at her plate.

  "Does that mean you've lost your appetite? May I have your other donut?"

  Her left hand flashed to hover over her donut as she said, "No. May I ask why you felt it necessary to bring your cat to the mess hall?"

  "Tiger," I said. "His name's Tiger."

  She sighed. "Yes. Of course. Tiger. Why?"

  I shrugged and sipped coffee.

  "Karen, sometimes I do things just to see what will happen."

  "You knew what would happen. You knew someone would say something. My question stands."

  Shrugging again, I said, "For practice, then."

  "What were you practicing?"

  "Getting away with things, I guess. Showing off for the new girl and like that."

  That got me a sharp look.

  "Why?" asked Mills.

  I gave her a fatuous grin and asked, "Why not? Like I said in the shower, the new girl's kinda cute, even if she's been kind of stuffy so far."

  Her gaze narrowed slightly. "I could still construe that as a form of sexual harassment, you know."

  Shrugging, I said, "You watched it come up and you stuck around anyway, so you can construe it as a compliment or you can go to hell, doc, whichever you prefer. If you don't have a sense of humor you don't belong on my ship."

  Her eyes got wide in mock surprise. "Your ship? Oh, really? Just how did you ever get the idea that one of 3rd World's flitters is your ship?"

  I grinned and peeked around Mills at Steph.

  "You want to tell her, miLady Stephanie?"

  When Mills turned, Steph said flatly, "His flitter doesn't belong to 3rd World, Dr. Mills. It belongs to him."

  Mills stared at Steph in disbelief for a moment, then looked back at me. "Oh, you've got to be kidding... Do you really expect me to believe that?"

  Forking up the last of my eggs, I said, "I don't really much give a damn if you do or don't, but you can ask Linda about it if you want."

  After another moment of staring, Mills u
sed her fork to cut a small piece of donut and said, "Oh, I'll do that. Count on it. Accepting that improbability as truth for a moment, you're saying that if I want to get along with you, I'll have to put up with..."

  I turned to face her again.

  "No, Mills. I'm speaking strictly from my point of view, and that is that I'll have to put up with you. I'll have to ignore your rather anal-retentive nature in order to get along with you for a while. Why don't we finish our breakfasts quietly and then go see Linda?"

  She gave me a sidelong glower, but said nothing more as she cut her donut.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Steph asked, "May I be excused, Ed?"

  "Sure, Steph. See you in Linda's office?"

  She nodded, then vanished.

  Karen Mills extended a tentative hand into the space where Steph had been, then pulled it back and sat quietly regarding the empty space for a moment.

  "That's hard to get used to," said Mills.

  "What is? Her popping in and out?"

  "No. That's a flitter computer. Why did you ask it whether it will be there?"

  "Keep calling her 'it' and I'll start calling you 'doc' again. I know Steph would at least monitor the meeting, but I'd like her there... in person... so to speak."

  "In person. That would mean the field construct, obviously. But that didn't answer my question, which was why you asked it instead of telling it to attend. You seem to be one of those people who anthropomorphize inanimate objects."

  I gave Mills a fisheye look and asked, "Steph didn't seem animate enough to you, doc?"

  Her lips tightened at the term 'doc', but shaking her head, Mills said, "Computers aren't people, as much as you seem to want to believe otherwise. A rather elaborate feminine illusion and a woman's name doesn't change that. Your Stephanie is still just a ship's computer."

  "And we're just sacks of meat with organic computers on top, doc. You're a nice-looking sack of meat, I'll grant you, but hardly superior to Steph. She thinks and feels and has more conscience than me about a lot of things. By every yardstick I've ever encountered, she qualifies for humanity better than most people I've known."

  Mills seemed about to say something, then visibly changed her mind and said, "On matters such as these, we come down to opinions alone."

  "Yeah, well, my opinion is based in experience with Steph. Yours isn't, so give it to someone else."

  After disposing of our trays and utensils we headed for Linda's office, ambling along with Tiger again leading the way.

  "Why aren't we marching this time?" asked Mills.

  "Gotta keep 'em guessing," I said.

  Mills gave me a sharp glance, but said nothing more. Steph reappeared beside me as we entered Linda's office, but offered no explanation of why she'd been absent. Linda seated us by her desk and closed the door, then said that Tiger didn't have to stay on the platform.

  Elkor's fake cat appeared on a corner of Linda's desk once Tiger had stepped off the platform. Linda scratched Tiger's chin, then Tiger sprawled to occupy her desk blotter as Linda continued her attentions to him.

  Mills examined Elkor's golem-cat intently for a moment, then reached to touch it. Elkor's feline face turned to meet hers and he gazed at her exactly as a cat might.

  "This fur looks real," muttered Mills. "Feels real."

  "Thank you," said Elkor.

  His words made Mills jerk her hand back. Linda smiled slightly.

  "The reason you're all here," said Linda, "Has to do with training. Since the One Earth warehouse incident, Dr. Mills has expressed a desire to know more about how field teams operate. She thinks that many lives might have been saved if only we could have gotten our people in safely to contain matters."

  I asked, "She's seen the recordings?"

  Mills said, "I've seen them."

  Turning to face her, I asked, "Did you see what happened to the guys in biosuits? Did you happen to notice the number of armed people in that building? All the shooting?"

  "They could have been disarmed or disabled. Stun fields or gas could have been used to quell the disturbance."

  I turned back to Linda and said, "She's calling what happened in that warehouse a disturbance."

  "So I heard," said Linda.

  "Mills," I said, "By the time there was a 'disturbance', the virus was out of the can and running loose in the building."

  She snapped back, "Let's not forget the root cause of the disturbance, shall we? If you hadn't chilled that container, the incident wouldn't have happened."

  "I just love iffy stuff. Okay, doc. If she'd simply put the canister aside and labeled it defective, we might have had reason to believe there were some innocents in that building. She didn't. She panicked and so did everybody else. Every damned one of them knew what they were putting in those canisters, and that stuff killed them all. My feelings about that? Fuck 'em. Too bad some of them weren't there at the time, 'cause now we have to hunt them down."

  Mills puffed herself up a bit and said, "That's exactly what I would have expected from you."

  "Well, then, I'm damned glad I didn't disappoint you, doc."

  Linda cleared her throat gently to end the exchange.

  "Linda," I said, not taking my eyes off Mills, "Whatever you have in mind, I'd rather not work with Mills. Let her train with one of the usual groups."

  "What reason shall I record for posterity?"

  "Her attitudes about Steph and me really suck, for one thing."

  "The word 'incompatibilities' would look better, I think. You're sure that you can't stand each other for a little while?"

  With a mildly exasperated sigh, I said, "Well, no, I'm not absolutely sure, Linda, but I don't much care, either. Let her drill with someone else."

  Linda looked at Mills.

  "Dr. Mills, do you feel the same way?"

  Mills coughed a soft laugh, then firmly said, "Oh, yes. Absolutely."

  Picking a folder from the small pile on her desk, Linda called her secretary in and handed it to her. As the folder changed hands, I saw the name 'Mills' on the tab.

  "File this, Anna," said Linda. "Mills' request for field training is denied at this time. She may reapply in three months if she can find a group leader to sponsor the effort."

  Mills was on her feet in an instant, sharply asking, "What?! Why three months?"

  Linda looked at Mills and said, "Wait a moment, Anna. Dr. Mills, this isn't a personal decision on my part. I asked all four team commanders to consider you for training during an opening in the next cycle. Each of them suggested rather firmly that I ask one of the others to take you. Ed was your last hope for this quarter."

  A blush crept into Mills' complexion, but whether it was from anger or embarrassment I couldn't tell. I looked at Steph, glancing at Linda questioningly as I put a finger on my wrist-pulse to indicate that I wanted readings.

  Through my implant, Steph said, "Readings indicate that Linda's telling the truth, Ed." I nodded receipt of the info.

  "Wait, please," said Mills. "You have five teams, not four."

  Linda shook her head. "Group One isn't a training group, Dr. Mills. If you were volunteering for a critical slot instead of just additional training and experience I could override the others, but as things are I can't simply drop you on a team without risking having to explain the decision in a formal hearing. I'm sorry, but I've done all I can to facilitate your request for this training cycle."

  Mills looked stricken and a bit stunned as she settled back into her chair. When her eyes met mine, Mills seemed on the verge of tears, and I suddenly wondered why flitter ops were so damned important to her. I turned to look at Linda.

  "Linda," I said, "Flitter ops only, right? No forty-seven bits of equipment, no weapons, no paramilitary protocols, no gig lines on uniforms, and all that?"

  Shrugging, Linda said, "Right. She can pick up the rest of it elsewhere. She'd have to, anyway, for all you know about wearing uniforms these days."

  "Okay, then. She can have the guest
bedroom for a week."

  Mills looked startled. "A what? A guest bedroom? You mean at your house?"

  "Yeah," I said. "You'll come back certified to fly a flitter, if nothing else."

  She glanced at Linda, who continued petting Tiger as she met Mills' gaze, then Mills turned back to me.

  "Just what, exactly, do you mean by 'if nothing else'?"

  I looked at Mills and sighed. "Weren't you listening when I mentioned equipment, uniforms, and protocols? I don't wear the uniforms and don't haul equipment and I don't like to salute people I don't know."

  Linda snickered softly. Mills glanced at her, then returned her gaze to me.

  Fielding a cup from the countertop rack to the coffee pot and sending a separate field tendril to push the spout lever down, I said, "Fact is, I'd let Steph handle most of your training if she doesn't mind. She seems to have a lot more patience than me. Don't worry, doc, it'll only take a week or so and you won't be expected to sleep with me or wear lingerie around the house."

  Mills bridled and glaringly sat up straight at my last words. Linda coughed softly and scuffled Tiger's chin. Mills glanced at Steph, then at me. When the cup was full I fielded it to the desk and dropped the tip of a cooling field into it to make it drinkable immediately, then sipped it.

  Linda turned to Mills and asked, "Well, Dr. Mills? It's the best offer on the table."

  "It appears to be the only offer on the table. You'd accept his training as valid?"

  With a grin, Linda said, "Ed is a barnstormer, Dr. Mills. So is Stephie, I think. She's absorbed a lot of his personality traits. I've been with them at a thousand miles an hour, ten feet off the deck at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. If he and Steph teach you to fly a flitter, you'll learn things that aren't in the official manual."

  Mills studied me rather intently for a good five seconds before she turned to Linda and said, "I guess I have no choice, then. I don't want to wait three more months."

  I grinningly peeked around her at Steph and stage-whispered, "Got enough barf bags aboard?"

  "I don't get airsick," said Mills in a flat tone.

  "If you don't mind, I'll take that as a challenge," said Steph, surprising all of us.

  To me, Steph said, "I'll be around, of course," and then she vanished, leaving everyone in the room staring at the space where she'd been.