3rd World Products, Inc., Book 1

by Ed Howdershelt

  It was only a casual, joking way to tell me she wanted to get to a bathroom, but Linda's remark made me consider what items I might like to have aboard Stephie at all times. I began making a mental list on the way back to the ship.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I didn't stay aboard the ship waiting for Ellen. Gary delivered her to the house in the early evening two days later while I was at the grocery store. When I returned Ellen had taken a few things to her room and hadn't come back out, so while Gary took a turn at the stove I went to see how she was doing.

  The door was ajar and I could see Ellen lying on the bed with Bear. She seemed lost in thought and Bear was sprawled next to her to make himself as available as possible to her hand.

  I knocked lightly and asked, "Ellen, do you feel all right?"

  She didn't take her eyes off the ceiling as she replied, "Don't worry, Ed, I'm not going to go crazy again."

  "If anyone thought you would, you wouldn't be here. I asked if you felt all right. Nothing else was implied."

  Ellen glanced sharply at me and said, "Yes. I feel fine, Ed."

  I said nothing else and left to return to the kitchen. Gary and I put dinner on the table and Gary went to tell Ellen that dinner was ready. He came back alone.

  "She said she isn't hungry, but she hasn't eaten since breakfast."

  "She knows how to warm up leftovers. She won't starve. Dig in."

  Gary paused in loading his plate and said, "Something's really bothering her, Ed. She was like this yesterday, too."

  I turned off my watch. After a moment, Gary turned his off, too.

  "Gary, if you'd had an episode like that you'd be asking yourself a lot of questions, too. She'll get through it."

  "What kind of questions?"

  "Self-examination questions. Re-evaluation questions. An unpleasant side of herself popped out and ran loose. Until it happened it was theoretical. Maybe she didn't want to believe it was really in there. Stuff like that."

  Gary put his fork down. "I don't mean this offensively, Ed, but this has been the result of a uniquely Amaran genetic disorder and you have no medical credentials beyond emergency assistances. What makes you think you have any idea what she's going through at the moment?"

  "Heh. 'Uniquely Amaran'. Bullshit, Gary. Uniquely human, maybe. She's known about her condition all this time. She skipped a patch and let the monster out. Now she's wondering why she did it."

  He watched me eat for a moment and asked, "Why do you think she did it?"

  "Don't know. Maybe she just needed to see if it was real."

  Gary said, "That's absurd. Ellen has been using the patches since she was a child. She knew her condition required them."

  "She knew that's what she'd been told all her life, Gary. Maybe she began to wonder about that. After a couple of days with no patch and no obvious derangement, she may have gotten the idea that her condition was a lie. Chain it together, Gary. If there's a lie, there must be a reason for the lie. If you're handing out patches, you'd be part of that lie. As soon as she had thoughts like that she'd be looking for some kind of conspiracy."

  I munched some French fries and continued, "As her condition worsened, she'd be looking for any opportunity to generate serotonin and she'd be trying to figure out the conspiracy. Right after she banged me hard underwater she triggered on your apparent disapproval of our bout in the flitter, Gary. Her words were 'he has no right'. I ask you now; did she mean no right to an opinion about her pleasures, or no right to fuck with her life and her mind?"

  Gary was incredulous. "But... But, I wasn't part of any conspiracy..."

  "I know that and you know that. Maybe she knows that, too, now that her head's back in chemical balance, but she still has to deal with what happened and why it happened. Now tell me why none of this had occurred to you, even as a bit of speculation. You've had medical training and you've been treating her for a disorder you obviously know something about, so you had to know that bipolars can develop severe paranoias at the drop of a hat."

  "A hat..?" He was staring at me.

  "An expression that means 'instantly and with damn little reason'. It doesn't matter. You fixed her chemical problem and suddenly the world seemed normal again. She needs time to come to terms with things, that's all."

  Gary's eyes abruptly switched their focus to the hallway.

  "Anyway," I said, "The colonel had Pabst in his jeep and we hadn't seen anything but Schlitz or Tiger Piss Viet beer for months. We put eight cases of the beer in a new bodybag and set it beside one of the other bodybags."

  Gary's eyes widened as they refocused on me and I continued, "Yeah. We stole his beer. Then we went inside and checked the bulletin board. The colonel walked right past us. When he started yelling we went out with everybody else to see what was wrong, then we joined the group that was moving the bags."

  Gary looked back over my shoulder as I said, "We gave the two guys in the morgue a case of beer for their cooperation and put the rest in the cooler while we waited for the colonel and the MP's to leave. When the helicopter came to take us back to our unit we had the beer in laundry bags and supply boxes."

  Hands fell on my shoulders. I looked up as Ellen looked down.

  Ellen said, "Good try, Ed, but I heard some of your earlier conversation."

  I put my hands on hers and said, "Are you hungry yet? Now that you can see and smell what we slaved over a hot stove to make for you?"

  "Slaved? Oh, well, then... Maybe a little. It does smell good."

  She sat down and loaded her plate, then seemed to think about things. She put one of the baked potatoes back and replaced it with green beans. After a few bites from her plate, she looked at me.

  "Did you get caught with the beer?"

  "Nope. We got away with it. When a supply bird arrives most guys try to disappear before someone can grab them for a work detail to unload it. We had all the beer in the laundry bags by then, so we carried a couple of boxes to the commo bunker and signed in, then kept going from there back to our own digs."

  A car door closed outside. I lifted off my chair enough to see out the kitchen window and a sheriff waved at me as he approached the porch.

  "A sheriff's deputy," I said, rising to have another look out the window before going to the door. "No reason I can think of for it, so have your stunner ready, Gary. Stand by the alcove door where you can be seen behind me."

  When I opened the door the deputy was holding a clipboard with a picture clamped to it. He introduced himself as Deputy Greer and showed me the picture.

  "Do you know this man? Have you seen him around here?"

  Ellen joined us at the door as I let the deputy in.

  "Yes," she said. "I've seen him walking around the neighborhood for two months or so." She looked at the deputy and added, "Lots of people walk around in this neighborhood, though."

  The deputy said, "But they live around here. He doesn't. His name is Billy Jay Marks. He's from Orlando and he's part of what used to be a white supremacist group. They've adjusted their aim to include aliens, lately, and somehow they've gotten the idea that someone here is an alien."

  I looked at the deputy with a grin. "If I said I'm an alien, would I have to do some kind of neato trick to prove it, or would you just take my word for it?"

  The deputy looked me over and said, "That's quite a disguise, then. No, I'm here to let you know you've been stalked. One of your neighbors reported him as being in your yard and trying to get into your car earlier today so we picked him up for questioning. Have you noticed anything missing, sir?

  I looked at Gary and Ellen, then back at the cop and said, "If they think there's an alien here, he wasn't likely here to steal. He was more likely here to deliver something if he wasn't just poking around. Maybe he planted a bug?"

  The deputy and I took a walk around the house and saw tracks that didn't match his or mine in the soil near the windows and the big glass doors in back. The deputy took pictures of the clearest footprints and then as
ked that we come down to the station.

  My watch double-beeped and I said it was time to take my pills, then headed for the bathroom. Once I was in the bathroom, I answered the call. Linda told me to go along with things for the moment, so after an appropriate amount of time and a flush, I rejoined the others and we took Gary's car to the station.

  We watched through a one-way window and listened as Billy Jay was questioned again. He claimed to have been visiting a friend and just taking a walk after dinner. The deputy in the listening booth nodded.

  "Not surprisingly, the man at the address he gave us verified his visit."

  When asked what he'd been doing in my yard, he said he'd thought he'd seen smoke and had taken a look. The deputy asked if he'd thought he'd seen smoke at all the windows and the back doors, too. Billy Jay shrugged and said that one couldn't be too careful about these things.

  All they had was a footprint and a witness. Nothing was stolen or broken, so unless I wanted to press trespassing charges the whole mess was a waste of time.

  As I exited the little room into the hallway I heard radio chatter from a passing deputy's lapel microphone that for some reason seemed worthy of note. I asked her what was going on.

  "A car caught fire near the intersection of Northcliffe and Deltona," she said.

  I looked at Deputy Greer and said, "My house is a block from there. Billy Jay made his visit just before dark so he'd be seen acting very suspiciously. Now it's dark and we're all here and there's a neighborhood distraction."

  Greer called for two units to approach my house from different directions and to hold anyone found on the property. A few moments later there was more radio chatter as they chased and caught someone they'd seen coming out of my house. One of the deputies said he'd bring the guy in while the other stayed there.

  My watch double-beeped and Greer heard it, but he said nothing as I shrugged and ignored it.

  The guy they brought in was a heavily-tattooed skinhead who refused to give his name and carried no ID. A search of his person had turned up a double-edged boot knife with a crudely-carved swastika in the aluminum handle, but nothing that would tell them who he was or what he'd been doing in my house.

  I tapped Greer's shoulder and said, "Assume he left me a present. What would that present be? I want to get my cat out of there."

  Greer said, "The bomb detail is already on its way. I'll tell them to watch for your cat."

  "He'll probably hide from them. I'll get him out. Take me home."

  "I can't let you go there yet, sir."

  I turned to Gary and said, "Stun him."

  Greer turned around quickly. Gary showed him his empty hands. When Greer looked back at me I zapped him.

  "You guys wait here. Linda will cover all this somehow. Gimme the keys, Gary."

  I took the keys and slipped out. There were three cop cars at the house when I arrived. I parked on the swale a few doors down and cut through a couple of neighbors' yards to get to mine.

  One of the cops out front saw me vault the fence and yelled something, then came after me. By then I was unlocking the garage's side door. The cop was too close, so I gave him a medium zap to slow him down and locked the door behind me after I was inside.

  I cracked open the inside garage door and ran my knife blade along the edges to check for wires. Nothing. A little wider open and a look to be sure, then I stepped through it and into the den. Nothing was obviously out of place and nothing unusual was in sight.

  Bear saw me and came running, then ran back the way he'd come and stood yowling repeatedly near the coffee table. He was acting like that robot in 'Lost in Space' that always flapped its arms and yelled 'Danger, Will Robinson!'. I saw nothing on or near the table to justify Bear's commotion, so I put him in his carrier and prepared to open the front door.

  My PDA/pad was on the kitchen counter where I'd left it, so I grabbed it to take it with me. As soon as I touched it, Elkor spoke.

  "Ed, Bear has been trying to tell you something."

  "Yeah, Elkor. I noticed."

  "I think he was referring to the couch. It was like his 'chair' sound, but slightly different. I also detect unusual electrical activity in the room."

  I set Bear by the door and went to have a quick look. Lifting the trim slightly I could see a dark object under the couch. More vehicles were arriving. I went back to get Bear and opened the front door.

  A deputy just outside yanked the screen open and grabbed my right arm. I had the stunner and the PDA in my right hand, so I zapped him lightly near the belt buckle. He jerked and let go, then made to grab me again. I pointed the stunner at him and he froze.

  I said, "Don't grab at me. I can walk without help. Just tell somebody there's a bomb under my couch."

  Another deputy was running up. She asked, "You think you saw a bomb?"

  As we walked away from the door towards the street, I said, "There's a lump under my couch. I don't keep my lumps under my couch, ma'am."

  Well, I thought it was kind of funny, even if she didn't. She jogged back to one of the cars as a panel van with a trailer pulled up in the street.

  The deputy I'd zapped led me to the far side of the panel van. I set Bear down by the truck and waited with him to be told to move again when they brought out the lump to put it in the specially-designed bomb trailer.

  We weren't there long. The deputy I'd zapped at the side door was stopped by someone in a suit who sent him over to me.

  "Sir, I'm going to have to ask for that weapon."

  Apparently to thin air, I asked, "Linda?"

  Linda said, "No. Clark's people will be there shortly."

  Linda's voice seemed to have emanated from Bear's carrier. The two cops stared pretty hard at my cat for a moment.

  I said, "Sorry, guys. I'm not authorized to give it to you."

  "Sir, if we have to, we can disarm you."

  I didn't say anything. I just zapped them both with a medium jolt. They fell more or less limp to the street just as the guy in the suit was coming around the corner of the van. He went for his gun, so I zapped him, too.

  I said, "I know you can all hear me. I can't give you this gadget. My boss is bigger than your boss and some people are on their way here to prove it."

  The suited deputy's cell phone rang while he was struggling to his feet. He ignored it and kept his attention on me.

  "Go ahead. Take the call," I said. "I won't move, okay?"

  The other two deputies were also getting up. I moved to put them all more or less in a line of fire for the stunner and said, "Everybody just relax."

  The suited guy didn't answer his phone and all of them looked to me as if they were just waiting for an opening. Another suited deputy came jogging around the back of the van and stopped next to the first suited deputy.

  "Harry, answer your goddamned phone. You two get these cars out of here and you - he pointed to me - come with me. They're bringing the bombs out."

  When nobody moved instantly, he noticed that something appeared to have been going on. He snapped, "Now, damn it! Move those cars!"

  He started to grab for Bear's carrier and I said, "No. I'll take my cat. You take Harry, there. He doesn't like me much right now."

  The guy glanced at Harry, then back at me. He reached to take Harry's ringing phone out of his coat pocket and shoved it at him, then gave me a come-along wave and started toward the end of the block.

  The heavily-padded bomb people were carrying something out of the house as we reached one of the undecorated sheriff's cars. They put the item in the trailer and went back into the house. A few minutes later they came out with another.

  Harry snapped his phone shut and jammed it into his pocket, then left without a word to me or the other suit.

  "We've been told to send you back to the station."

  I turned around to look at the other suited deputy.

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. I'll follow you about a block behind. Where's your car?"

&nbs
p; I pointed at old Malibu in the driveway. Padded people were examining it at that moment. I waved at one of them as he stood up. He ignored me.

  "That's my car, but I won't be using it. I'll be in that green Chevy halfway down the block."

  The deputy nodded as I pointed out Gary's car and got into his own car, so I walked toward the Chevy. Something didn't seem right as I approached.

  "Elkor, can you scan the Chevy? Something doesn't feel quite right."

  "Take the pad closer, Ed."

  I set Bear down behind a tree and walked toward the car.

  About twenty feet from the car Elkor said, "There's another of those low-voltage electrical signals coming from the rear of the car."

  "Will going near it set it off?"

  "I don't think so. Sensor data would indicate a timing mechanism."

  I looked back at the deputy in his car. He'd noticed my actions. When I got down to look under the rear of the car and pointed, he got out of his car and came running toward me. A few minutes later I was standing by his car again as the bomb squad removed a package from the Chevy.

  "How did you know?" asked the deputy. I had to wait to answer as he directed some people concerning a search for a third bad guy.

  "Just did," I said. "Something didn't feel right."

  "Didn't feel right?"

  "Yeah. Like I saw or heard something and couldn't quite realize it consciously, so my subconscious set my bells off to make me look and listen harder."

  He nodded. People always like that explanation. It sounds perfectly reasonable and drains off any hint of mysticism. I walked to the Chevy and put Bear on the passenger seat.

  "Guess you come with me to the station, Bear. The house is going to be full of strangers and bomb-sniffing dogs for a while yet."

  "Yahh."

  Elkor said, "I don't know what that sound meant."

  "I do. It means I looked at him as I talked to him and he feels better because I'm here and we're away from all the people and noise."

  "Are you joking, Ed?"

  "Not really. If you were Bear, how would you feel right now?"