3rd World Products, Inc., Book 4

by Ed Howdershelt

  Perhaps half an hour went by until my watch beeped as I banked into the thermal.

  Keying my implant, I said, "Hi, Linda."

  "Hi, Ed. I only see one glider out there. Is that you?"

  "Nope. That's Myra. She's a skydiver, so it wasn't such a big step."

  "Where are you?"

  I looked back and saw Myra apparently scratching an itch in a sensitive area. She'd reached down inside the front of her bodybag.

  To Linda I said, "I'm about a hundred feet from Myra."

  "Just a minute... Okay, found you. I had to add mag infrared to the screen before it could spot you."

  "Shall I sprout wings just for your peace of mind, ma'am?"

  She laughed and said, "No, don't bother. They wouldn't help. What are your impressions about Mills?"

  "Not good, but that may be because I'm not too fond of her. Steph could give you a more objective opinion."

  "Later. Right now I want yours, Ed. Is Mills standalone material?"

  I thought a moment, then said, "I'd say not, Linda. Not yet, anyway. And she reacted poorly to the idea of wearing a PFM, but that may simply be unfamiliarity."

  "That's the best you can say about her? Does she also dislike Stephanie?"

  "Apparently not, which would seem to mean that Mills doesn't really think of Steph as a real person, since Steph's the other half of what's bugging her about me."

  Linda sighed and said, "Okay. I'll ask you again at close of business Wednesday and review some of the vids from her interactions with Steph."

  "Linda," I said, "If you really want to put another individual in the field, Angela might be a better choice." I laughed softly and said, "Hell, even Myra might be a better choice than Mills. Someone who can remain more or less objective."

  "Opinions noted. Have a good flight, Ed. I have to get back to work now."

  "Okay. Bye."

  She clicked off and I sailed on as I checked my watch. Time to think about heading toward the staging area, which I actually had to look for below.

  "Steph, how high am I?" I looked back and saw Myra and amended myself with, "That is, how high are we?"

  "Six thousand, three hundred feet, at present. Your rate of descent is almost zero, Ed. You're still within the thermal column. It widened while you were talking to Linda."

  "Well, hell. It'll take until dinnertime to get back down unless I use the parasail."

  "I can come up there for you."

  Duh. She certainly could.

  "Yes'm. I'm glad one of us is thinking today, Steph. Thanks, I'd appreciate a pickup. I need to hit the restroom and bend my knees for a while."

  "Okay, I'll be right up."

  The flitter rose straight up, then angled to intercept me. When my feet were touching the deck I said, "Glider off" and walked to one of the seats. Steph then angled the flitter beneath Myra, who took the hint and boarded the same way.

  Myra chattered excitedly all the way down. Mills ignored us, not even deigning to turn around. When we landed, Myra hurried to the restrooms ahead of me.

  When I returned to the flitter I opened a Dr Pepper and parked myself in one of the rear seats with a datapad field rather than risk Myra seeing me pull down my briefcase to get my own datapad.

  I used the pad to check my WiccaWorks email as we waited for Myra. There were only two medium-sized wholesale orders and some catalog orders that I forwarded to Stone Circle.

  Myra finally made her appearance. Something seemed different about her and I realized it was the way she carried herself almost tensely. As I took her hand to help her aboard I caught a whiff of her that stirred something primal within me.

  Pretending to brush something off her shoulder, I let my fingertips brush her neck, then tasted them as she went to her seat. Yup. Metallic taste. Residue on her skin that hadn't been there earlier. Myra hadn't simply been contending with an itch in mid-flight; she'd likely been trying to get a pad into place in a hurry.

  "Myra," I said, standing and walking to the rear of the deck, "Come back here with me for a minute, okay?"

  She gave me an odd look, but did so.

  As she met me I asked softly, "Do you have what you need with you, or should I ask Steph to take us back to the base? It wouldn't be a problem at all."

  Her look was rather starkly surprised as my question sank in, but she answered, "I have a couple more of them in my purse. How the hell did you know?"

  "I just did. And just so you know, Steph has more than once removed blood from my clothes during an assignment. Let one of us know if you need anything and don't bother being shy about it, okay?"

  She eyed me a moment longer, then nodded, and we headed back to our seats.

  Mills glanced back at us, obviously wondering what our private conference had been about. I called the field datapad back up and surfed the net for a while as Mills completed the range exercises. Myra drank a tea and watched Mills work, now and then glancing oddly at me.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mills was again the first of us off the flitter when we halted by the main complex doors. By the time the rest of us had entered the building, she was well down the hallway and ducking into the restrooms just before the dining hall.

  Myra and I also stopped at the restrooms and Steph decided to disappear. As I washed up I thought I heard something and turned off the water. Silence. I reached for a paper towel and was startled to hear a loud slapping noise from the other side of the wall between the restrooms.

  Ripping a couple of paper towels free, I left the restroom and looked around as I entered the hallway. No women anywhere. A door opened behind me and an apparently undamaged Mills stormed past me toward the dining hall without comment.

  I finished drying my hands and waited. Some minutes later Myra emerged and seemed surprised to see me. The palm of her left hand was a little red and her face was still flushed, but it didn't seem to be the result of a slap.

  "Did you have a problem with Mills?" I asked, gazing pointedly at her hand.

  "That's from slapping a wall. I don't want to talk about it, Ed."

  "Okay," I said, heading for the dining hall, "Let's eat."

  We found Mills again seated with her discussion group and again chose another table after loading our trays. Some minutes later Angela came in and joined us after assembling her own dinner from the serving line.

  Table chatter was mostly about PFM's, flying kites, and trivia until Linda walked in with Wallace. When I waved at the empty chairs at our table Linda nodded a 'yes' and they joined us after choosing their meals.

  After greetings were out of the way and everyone was eating, Wallace asked Myra how she liked her PFM. Myra's enthusiastic answer and a comment about her first landing caused a round of laughter at the table. Wallace then told a colorful story about his first efforts to get the hang of landing on a carrier deck and there was another round of laughter.

  I asked Wallace how he was doing with his PFM and he shrugged as he said, "Fine, I guess. I've tested functions around the office and a number of people have already asked for their own units."

  Chuckling, I said, "I'll bet they have. I'd bet you already have a story about playing show and tell in the office, too. You probably showed someone the protective feature, right?"

  He laughed. "Oh, yeah! Johnson -- my commo guy -- had just walked in when I said 'field on' and jammed my letter opener against my hand to show Davis how it worked. Johnson about dropped his teeth, then he grabbed the first aid kit and crossed the office at about Mach 2, I think. The look on his face was hilarious."

  More laughter. I nudged Linda and nodded at Wallace as he forked up some corn and aimed it at his mouth. The fork stopped cold when it hit his protective field and most of the corn scattered on and around his plate.

  Wallace's perplexed look was priceless as his narrow gaze focused on the fork and he said, "What the hell..?"

  Linda shook her head, rolled her eyes, and muttered, "Oh, Jesus."

  Wallace had glanced at his PFM as if
he thought something might be wrong with it, then said 'field off' and cautiously tried another forkful of corn. This time he had no problem with it.

  He considered matters for a moment, then noticed Linda's expression. That's when Myra seemed to suddenly understand and snickered. Wallace studied her for a moment and then looked at me as I made myself busy cutting my steak.

  "Hey, Ed," he said.

  I looked up as innocently as possible. "Yeah, Cap?"

  "I'll get you for that. Count on it."

  "For what, Emory? You didn't have to say 'field on' in your story, did you?"

  "Besides," said Linda with a chuckle, "The look on your face was hilarious. Isn't that what you said about Johnson? Fair's fair."

  Myra giggled. Wallace looked at her and said nothing, then looked at me.

  "You won't know when," he said, "Or where or how."

  Shrugging, I said, "I still say you could have told it differently."

  Wallace's grin was big and real as he said, "You just stay alert, mister."

  I nodded. "Will do, swabbie. Wanna set some rules first? No blood or gore, no broken bones, no messes that anyone else has to clean up, no helpers, advisors, or collusion, no damage to property..."

  "Yeah, yeah," said Wallace. "All that. You just started something, Ed."

  Linda said, "No wasting company time trying to think of stupid tricks to pull on each other. Do it on your own time. And don't let me catch you using company resources or personnel in practical jokes or the really big joke will be on you two."

  She shook her head again, sighed, and said to Myra, "Sometimes I think this must be what it's like to be a mother. Or maybe a referee."

  Myra laughed and said, "I know what you mean. I have brothers."

  After dinner Myra walked with me to the guest quarters. She chattered about the day as I wondered how to politely cause her to look for other company so I could head back to Spring Hill for the evening.

  As we climbed the steps to the second floor she muttered, "Damn."

  "Why damn?"

  She shrugged. "Ben and I are meeting at the pub later, but I just started my period. That kind of sucks." Rapping my arm with her fingertips, she added, "I'd still like to know how you knew that today."

  "Magic," I said. "I know some things about you wimmin critters."

  "Think so, huh? Like what?"

  "Oh, just the basics, I guess. Some of the secret stuff, too."

  Laughing, she asked, "Secret stuff? Oh, this I gotta hear."

  Shaking my head as we neared my door, I stopped and said, "Nope. Can't risk it. You might rat me out and the International Women's Club would send a hit squad."

  She laughed again and said, "I'll call them anyway if you don't tell me."

  Opening my door, I said, "Well, hell. I'll try to be ready for 'em, then. See you later. Have a good time with Ben."

  With a wry look she said, "Yeah. Just maybe not as good as I'd like. See you later."

  I watched her saunter away. Great legs. She gave me a little over-the-shoulder wave to let me know that she knew I was watching. No big deduction, that; I hadn't closed my door yet. At her door she turned to smile at me, then went inside.

  There was suddenly a presence in the room behind me and I reflexively tensed even as I realized that it had to be either Elkor or Steph and said "Hi," as I closed the door.

  "Hi," said Steph. "I thought I'd save you the trouble of calling me."

  Turning with a grin, I asked, "You thought I was going to call you?"

  "Yes," she said. "Your mood seemed to indicate that you would."

  "My mood, huh?" Shrugging, I said, "Yeah, well, probably so. I do like having you around, you know."

  She shook her head with a smile. "No, not just to have me around. It seemed likely that you'd want to go somewhere this evening."

  "Did you also happen to prognosticate where I might want to go?"

  Steph's expression became slightly puzzled as she asked, "Was I mistaken?"

  With a shake of my head, I said, "As it happens, no, Steph. You weren't mistaken. How did you come to the conclusion that I might want to go somewhere?"

  "That would be hard to explain, Ed. My speculation wasn't based entirely on hard data."

  I pretended vast shock and grabbed her wrist to feel for a pulse just as if I expected to find one as I said, "Oh, no! My Stephie, reduced to simply guessing? Are you all right, ma'am? Do you want to lie down for a few minutes?"

  "Clown," she said, pulling her hand free. "As a matter of fact, no, it wasn't simple guesswork. I had to extrapolate beyond known data for a solution and I found that activity rather unsettling."

  "Beyond known data, huh? Wow. If it was unsettling, why did you do it?"

  She regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then coolly said, "It occurred to me that you might want to leave the area this evening. I couldn't immediately understand why such a thought had occurred to me, so I analyzed the process which had led me to that conclusion. There were many gaps in the chain of logic, yet I found myself seeming to believe that I had reached the correct conclusion."

  Nodding, I said, "Yeah, that's about how humans do it, too. Maybe your subconscious filled in the blanks for you. Not with details or data, but with subtle directional arrows or something like that."

  Steph sighed the way Linda sighs when she's slightly exasperated with me and said, "I have no subconscious mind, Ed."

  Grinning, I said, "Well, then, maybe you'd better invent one, milady. You'd be able to explain odd little moments like this. Where are we going, ma'am?"

  "Now you're teasing me."

  "Nope. Just wondering if you know the answer."

  For several moments she didn't respond, then she said, "Home, I think."

  "You got it," I said, moving toward the balcony doors.

  When she seemed puzzled and didn't move with me, I asked, "What is it?"

  "I don't like this manner of reaching conclusions," she said. "It's imprecise. The chances for error appear quite high."

  I shrugged. "So be careful when you play hunches and always try to have a 'Plan B'. How about logging us out with the office?"

  Nodding, she said, "Done," then finally moved to join me, still wearing her thoughtful expression. The flitter appeared just beyond the balcony and I led the way out, then hopped the rail to land on the flitter deck. Steph disappeared and reappeared in the seat to the right of the pilot's chair.

  "I still don't like that method," she said as I sat down. "It doesn't seem at all proper."

  "Learn to use it," I said as the flitter launched toward Florida. "Don't rely on it unless you have to, but listen when your subconscious speaks. You'll be surprised how often it's right or damned close to right about something."

  "As I told you, I don't have a subconscious."

  "Yeah, I heard you. You can call it something else if you want, but don't ignore it. When do you think you first developed this 'non-subconscious' thing, Steph?"

  With a slightly narrow gaze at me she said, "I believe it first manifested itself last year. At that time I discovered that I seemed to be skipping parts of various analytical processes, but upon reexamination I found that results would have been the same by either method. I continued to allow the questionable shortcuts as a matter of study, but I verified their results before application in all instances."

  I grinned and held up a hand to stop her. "Jeez, lady. Lemme grab a beer for this. Sometimes you almost sound like some kind of a computer."

  As I retrieved a beer from the cooler and opened it, Steph said, "This evening I found myself with a firm-seeming conclusion for which I had only a dubious foundation. It was about something noncritical, so I decided to test it."

  "Kewl," I said after a sip of beer. "Now you've got an intuition to go with that face and figure, milady."

  "You're alluding to female intuition? Let's not forget that this face and figure is merely a field-generated persona, Ed. Had I been given to a woman, my persona might well have become m
ale to suit her tastes."

  I took a swig of beer and studied her for a moment, then said, "You were able to achieve sentience before you moved into a larger core, Steph. Given time instead of circumstance, you'd probably have developed into more or less what you are now."

  Steph sat unnaturally still for a couple of moments. She could ordinarily sit still pretty damn well anyway, having no nervous tics or need to adjust positions periodically, but in this instance she somehow seemed to sit even more still than usual.

  "Please explain, Ed," she said quietly.

  Nodding, I said, "Okay. One day you found yourself installed in a flitter and given to a male human. I asked you to use Kathleen Turner's voice because I knew I had a helluva lot to learn and I figured I'd pay attention to that voice. Some time later we talked about faces and interactive personas and you came up with your current outfit based on my responses to pictures of female movie stars. I didn't give the persona thing much thought because it seemed to me that you were making all the decisions for your own reasons, and -- well, it may seem selfish of me, but I really liked the results. I didn't want to dictate how you'd look or act, Steph. I wanted to see what you'd come up with on your own."

  She smiled and asked, "Selfish of you?"

  "Sure. Look, at first I just thought I'd been given a rather marvelous new toy, Steph. One with an onboard computer vastly superior to anything Earth had coughed up, but supposedly one that was far inferior to a computer like Elkor and one that would never be more than vaguely self aware. Then one day not long after you were given to me, I realized that my fancy toy's computer seemed to be doing some thinking for herself. I liked that, too."

  Steph said nothing as I sipped beer, then continued.

  "Then we went to the factory station and you replicated yourself into the station computer under what were life and death circumstances for everybody aboard. Have any of them ever really realized how bad things were when you took control?"

  "Yes, some have," she said. "Many have. They've said as much to my other self."

  I nodded. "Sara."

  "Not yet. There are things to change and people to notify beforehand. We'll declare ourselves separate entities when the Lorunan representative arrives."