I nodded. "You got it."
Linda looked away from the screen for a moment, then called, "Emory! I have Ed on the line."
A moment later Emory Wallace's face appeared on the screen.
"Hi, Ed. Listen, I did some rooting and Myra's people seem interested mostly in getting their hands on one of the non-issue flitters for some tests. They don't seem to know what to expect, so they likely don't have all the specs. We're considering setting up something that would look like a freestyle event. Are you up for that?"
"Ask Linda, Emory. If'n she is, I is. No sweat for us country boys. The pretty face from the big city agency will think she vamped me into letting her fly my flitter, but Steph knows how far not to go with a show and tell."
With only the slightest of condescending looks, Wallace said, "We call that 'selected information leakage' these days, Ed."
I laughed.
"That's like calling it 'controlled incontinence', Emory. Send me the latest Washington-speak dictionary. I need a new doorstop. We're just letting a con artist con herself. Do we really need today's favorite beltway-yuppie bullshit euphemism for something as simple as that?"
The screen jiggled, indicating that their datapad was changing hands as Linda said, "Knock it off, guys." Her face appeared again and she said, "I just called to see how things were going, Ed. Keep me posted."
"Will do, Fearless Leader."
Linda poked her pad off and the field screen on the flitter disappeared. I looked toward the building. No Karen. Well, it had only been a few minutes.
I entertained myself for another few minutes by fielding small rocks into the air and smacking them downrange with field-bat. One flew close to a hundred yards.
One rock I fielded up for batting practice seemed different, so instead of hitting it into the distance, I brought it closer. One side of it was absolutely flat, as if the rock had been split. It had tiny flecks of mica or something in it and didn't look anything like the other rocks in the area.
A few moments of searching turned up the rest of the stone. It was about the size of my open hand and had a flat side that matched the fragment perfectly.
Using my field implant, I created a narrow-tipped tendril and caused a white-hot spot about 1/32nd of an inch wide on the rock. Nothing seemed to happen.
I quickly switched the spot to cold, then back to hot again. With a sharp 'pop!' a tiny bit of rock exploded away from the surface, leaving a tiny crater.
It also left a stinging sensation in my thumb where the bit of rock had hit me. I set the rock on the ground and stood a yard away from it as I continued pitting the surface in a pattern.
Footsteps some time later made me glance up to see Mills approaching. I returned to etching the stone. Alternating hot and cold while maintaining a narrow tip became easier with practice; it was almost like drawing with a magic marker after a few minutes.
Karen stood somewhat behind me and watched quietly as I worked. When I finished, I stepped forward and picked up the rock to examine my results. The flat side of the stone now read, 'Dr. Karen Mills, Flitter Pilot' in a kind of handwritten script.
After setting the rock down to smooth a few places where the craterings hadn't been uniform, I picked it up and set it on the deck of the flitter. It tipped over immediately and rocked back and forth like a turtle on its back.
"Steph," I said, "Would you shear the bottom flat, please?"
"No problem," said Steph.
The rock levitated a foot or so, then Steph cleanly sliced a small section off the bottom of the rock and set it back down. It now sat firmly on the deck.
"Thank you, milady. Anything you want to add?"
"Just this," said Steph, and the flat surface of the stone began to shine as her field polished it. I suspect she also cleaned up some of my etching errors, too.
"Excellent," I said. "I'd like to learn that trick, ma'am. Shall we give it to her now, or wait until Wednesday?"
"She's learned the very basics of flitter operation, so I see no reason that she shouldn't have it now."
With a nod, I picked up the rock and turned to Mills.
"We don't issue wings in this outfit," I said, handing her the stone. "This'll have to do."
Mills took the rock and gazed at it for some moments.
"Something wrong?" I asked. "I know I spelled your name right."
She chuckled oddly, then looked up and said, "Ah, no. That's not it. I... Well, I came out here ready to give you... um, ready to give you a little hell about things, I guess. I didn't expect to be presented with an award."
I shrugged. "It isn't much of an award, really. I was just fooling around with my field implant and that's what came out of it. I think maybe it wouldn't look anywhere near that good if Steph hadn't zapped it, too."
She nodded and said, "Thanks," then looked at Steph and said, "Thanks to both of you. I'll find a place for this on my desk, I promise."
A somewhat awkward silence ensued for a few moments as she boarded the flitter and took her seat. She seemed uncertain about setting the rock on the deck, then did so anyway and looked at me.
"Yeah," I said. "It'll be okay there. You ready for another run through the maze?"
Taking a deep breath, Mills said, "I think so. We'll be going faster this time, right?"
"A little. People usually work their way up to full speed."
"I'll bet they do."
She seemed not to know what to do with her hands, then settled for clasping them together in her lap.
I asked, "Want a hint on how to make this easier, Karen?"
She nodded. "Sure. Anything that would help would be good."
"It's simple," I said, "Think about the point of the exercise. What is it, really?"
"The point? Uhm, well, obviously not whether the flitter can recognize and handle the obstacles, so that would mean it's a test of the pilot."
"Right. But a test of the pilot in what way?"
Mills regarded me for a moment, then looked at Steph, who simply looked back at her until Mills again turned to me.
"Psychological stamina?" she asked.
"Nope. Not really."
"What, then?"
"Faith, Karen. Belief that the flitter can and will get you through things. There will be times when you'll have to root some bastard out of a building or a crowd and do it as quickly as possible to save lives. We think in terms of walking or driving speeds. 'As quickly as possible' has a different meaning to a flitter."
Waving at the range below, I said, "The course is almost exactly six miles long and the obstacles are never the same ones in the same places. Steph's average time through the range is sixty-eight point three seconds."
Karen goggled at me for a moment, then looked at Steph again.
"That's... That's almost... four hundred miles per hour...?!"
I nodded. "Yup. I can endure some of it, but I usually just close my eyes when we're inside the buildings at that speed."
When she turned to peer in shock at me, I explained, "It's a bit disconcerting. That's why Steph does all the driving on the course."
After a moment, laughter escaped her in an unladylike guffaw.
"Disconcerting? Dis-con-certing?"
More laughter. I sipped my coffee and waited her out.
As she wound down, she seemed to study the range below, then looked hard at me and said, "I don't think I can actually believe it."
"What? That I close my eyes or that Steph can do it in sixty-eight seconds?"
"The time, Ed. It's just a bit much. Or rather, a bit too little."
"You want to time us?"
Her gaze narrowed slightly, then more.
"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked softly.
I sighed. "Karen, we're out here to be serious. You have until Wednesday to reach team-level proficiency. Are you up to a few training shortcuts? If so, let's go."
"You're saying that all the group people..."
"They've all run this course. Hell, they're why these
courses exist."
"Do you mind if I call someone first?"
"No calls. Believe me or don't. Don't, and we spend days out here taking you up the ladder in baby steps."
She looked downrange again, bit her lip, and asked, "And this is really necessary?"
"Well, that's your decision, ma'am. Do you still want to work with flitter teams?"
Karen sat stiffly, glancing at each of us without moving anything but her eyeballs.
For a moment I thought she'd step off the flitter, but then she sat upright in her seat, grabbed the edges, and said, "No baby steps. If someone else can do this, I can, too."
I nodded firmly. "Damned right. Steph, let's do two nonstop laps at sixty, please, then two more at one-twenty. If Mills can hold herself together, we'll go up from there."
My last remark earned me a sharp look from Mills, but whatever she'd been about to say became a gasp as we launched into motion and she faced front.
She made other noises, too. Lots of them, but mostly of the higher-pitched variety as we again ran through the course.
This time the parking garage doors were closed and we had to enter the building from above. Steph simply nosed up and we skimmed up the side of the building to the roof, then dove into the relative darkness of the top parking level.
Mills gasped for breath against her tension. I reached to tap her shoulder and thought she'd snap her neck turning her head to look at me.
"Eyes," I said. "If it gets too intense, just close your eyes."
"I can't!" she screamed at me.
"Better learn how," I said. "Sixty is nothing. One-twenty is coming up soon."
"I can't!"
Steph banked sharply to angle us between two buses and Mills screeched again as she turned back to the front and watched the edges of our fields glow where they touched the vehicles.
The next time Mills screamed, I used my implant to tell Steph, "Better make it three laps at sixty. She still needs some time to get used to this."
"It would appear so," said Steph, turning to face me. "May I ask why you told her my best average time, but failed to mention that I ran the course alone to set course standards?"
I patted the seat next to mine. Mills stared at Steph in horror as Steph left her seat and came to sit beside me, apparently not even looking where the flitter was going.
"You're being picky," I said, "And I was with you on some of the runs, wasn't I?"
"Only because Doreen was called to work that weekend. You'd have been with her otherwise."
"But I did get out here in time for some of the runs, didn't I? Can I help it if exploring Doreen is more interesting than practice ranges?"
Lap one ended and lap two began without the tiniest sign of relaxation from Karen.
Steph said, "You gave Dr. Mills the impression that all of the flitter group members have run the course at full speed, Ed. Only two of them have chosen to do so."
"Yeah, I know, ma'am, and I kind of feel guilty about that, but..."
She rolled her eyes. "No you don't. Not at all."
"Well, okay, no, I don't, really. But I didn't exactly tell her that, did I?"
"No, you didn't. You simply chose wording that allowed her to infer that they had. How is that not somewhat like lying to her?"
"It's a technicality, Steph. A small -- but very important -- technicality."
My coffee mug was empty. I set the cup down and had reached into the cooler for a Dr Pepper, then twisted the cap off before I noticed Karen staring bug-eyed at me.
"Want a Dr Pepper, Karen? We have cold lemon tea in cans, too."
"What?!" she hissed, staring at me even harder before switching her gaze to Steph and asking, "Why the hell are you sitting back there?!"
Steph said, "My visible presence isn't required at all, Dr. Mills, so it really doesn't matter where I sit."
I nodded and closed the cooler, then asked Steph, "What do you think? Will three laps be enough before we jack up the speed?"
Mills heard me and turned to look at me starkly.
"I don't know," said Steph. "Her readings are rather high."
"Should I tell her that she can put the opaque canopy up when things get too scary?"
"What?" asked Mills in a half-screech. "The what canopy?"
"The opaque one," I said. "You know, the kind you can't see through?"
With an incredulous look she screamed, "I know what opaque means, you half-wit!"
"Half-wit? Oh, hey, now I'm insulted," I said. "Hurt and depressed, too. Go back to whatever you were doing, Mills. I'm talking to Steph."
Taking a long pull on my Dr Pepper, I sat back and watched the scenery flash by as Mills stared at us.
Pointing forward, I said to Steph, "Looks as if they moved the buses this time."
Mills turned to see the two buses blocking our path and hissingly drew a breath as we skirted them to the right above the heads of holographic people on the sidewalk.
Steph said, "I'll suggest some new programming. I've already encountered every obstacle in every available position several times."
"Yeah, things are getting a little stale," I said.
The holographic guy with the real LAW fired at us again from behind the corner of a building. Steph tapped him with a stun field before he could reach into his coat and he went down cold just as Steph nosed us up the side of another building.
"What the hell are you doing?" screeched Mills. "You already got the terrorist! It's over!"
"There may always be more than one terrorist in a scenario," said Steph. "The course isn't finished until we return to the staging area."
Lap two was nearing an end when Karen abruptly got out of her seat and nearly made it to the left edge of the deck before going to her knees and upchucking more or less over the side.
Steph zapped the stuff outside her field before any of it could touch the deck. Pulling out one of my paper towel hankies, I took a can of tea out of the cooler and waited for Mills to get herself reorganized.
"Stop," said Mills. She got to her feet without turning around and said, "Stop the flitter. Please."
Steph brought the flitter to a halt. I stepped over to reach around Karen and hand her the hanky as she took deep breaths. After using it, she seemed unsure what to do with the hanky. I took it from her and tossed it over the side. It flared brightly and a light breeze scattered the ashes.
Karen's hands shook so that she managed to spill a bit of the tea, but it never reached her skirt. Mills looked startled when the tea vanished in mid-plummet and looked at me. I shook my head and thumbed at Steph. Mills slowly nodded at Steph and thanked her.
"Well?" I asked. "Why are we stopped, ma'am? I thought you were kind of getting used to things until you threw up back there."
Mills glared at me as she sipped her tea, then muttered, "You. Shut up. We're going to do this my way."
"Woo. Yes'm. You betcha. Okay. Uhm... What's your way?"
She ignored me and turned to Steph.
"Stephanie, how essential is it that I see what's happening during the course?"
Steph smiled and said, "Not at all essential, really."
Nodding, Mills sipped her tea again and then had a small coughing fit when it went down the wrong way. When she recovered, she nodded again.
"That's what I thought. Okay. Let's put up that opaque canopy Ed mentioned and run the course at full speed, but record it for playback and stop at the halfway point so I can look around."
She gave us a small, wry smile and a shrug as she said, "I know me. If I can't actually see that it happened... Well, I'll need to be able to convince myself later that it really did happen."
Steph nodded agreement and the flitter's opaque canopy appeared. Mills reached to touch it and her hand disappeared through the fake metal.
"Oh, lord," she muttered, "Oh, hell." She shook her head again and said, "Okay. I'm as ready as I can be, I think. Let's do it."
Half a minute later Steph dropped the canopy and we found ourselves lo
oking back up the hillside at our starting point. A vid screen appeared and displayed our progress through the course. We could barely follow the flitter on the screen.
After a moment, Mills simply nodded to Steph. The next time the canopy opened we were back where we'd started.
As Karen's gaze left the buildings and found me, I smiled and shrugged and said, "That's all there ever was to this part of your training, Karen. Getting past the obvious. Want to do the whole course again, just to lock things in?"
She nodded. "Yes. Just to lock things in."
Steph put up the canopy and called the obstacle stations as she conquered them until we'd returned to the staging area. Mills sat slowly shaking her head, then sipped her tea again before speaking.
"This range wasn't about learning to fly the flitter. It wasn't about controlling anything but my need to control things."
"You got it," I said. "And now that you know how to do it, let's head back to base."
Mills glanced up at me. "Already?"
"Why not? Range nine will be there tomorrow. Right now we're going to check in with Tiger, then make you comfortable in my room and show you some movies."
With a narrow gaze, she asked, "Uhm... What kind of movies? And why in your room?"
"They're field manipulation movies. How to work with fields in the field, and stuff like that. Recordings of past uses. We're doing it in my room to avoid interruptions."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As we headed back to the base, Mills asked, "Why are you assuming that we'd be interrupted elsewhere?"
"Why are you assuming that we wouldn't be? You know a lot of people here, Karen. I do, too, but only about half a dozen of them know I'm here, and only two of them can get through to me at the moment."
Hangar two went from being a speck on the horizon to a recognizable building, then it seemed to rush toward us until Steph stopped us in front of the big rolling doors.
"Jesus," whispered Karen. "I thought we weren't going to stop in time."
"Steph," I said, "Tell her how many flitter crashes there have been."
When Mills looked at her, Steph said, "None. No flitter has ever crashed due to a computer malfunction or a mechanical failure."
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 4 Page 19