Book 4: 3rd World Products, Inc.

by Ed Howdershelt

  "Indeed,” said Andrew. “I'm not keen on this crowd either."

  "We have guests,” said Krista, “And the only other restaurant nearby is going to be equally crowded. Have patience."

  When the line didn't move for more than ten minutes, Andrew said, “Screw patience. Ed, how about fish and chips?"

  With a shrug I said, “Suits me. Food. Now."

  Marlena bit her lip as she glanced from us to Krista, but she sided with us.

  "Me, too,” she said. “Food now."

  "Krista?” asked Andrew.

  She gave him a withering look that abated not a whit as she turned it on me, then she looked at Steph and Susanne.

  "We don't eat,” said Steph.

  Krista capitulated with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, well, yes, fine, certainly. Oh, by all means, let's go stand in the street with our dinners."

  "We do have keys to the office,” said Marlena. “We wouldn't necessarily have to stand in the street, you know."

  "You could dine aboard the flitter,” said Susanne.

  Andrew brightened considerably and grinned at her. “You're on, milady. That's a fine idea!"

  And so it was. Krista again led the way—apparently from long habit—and we went cattycornered across the street to a storefront vendor's window for fish and chips, then walked to the mouth of the alley to board the flitter.

  The subject of PFM's inevitably came up and again Steph went over various infos and possibilities concerning uses and distribution. It became apparent that Krista still had a few misgivings about the program, and because she did, so did Marlena.

  I finally tossed my hands up and took my beer to the back of the flitter.

  "You ladies work it out,” I said. “I've had enough."

  Krista said, “I simply don't like committing to something without feeling completely proper about it, Ed."

  "Yeah, fine. Like I said, work it out. I'm taking a break."

  After some moments the discussion began again. Not long after that I heard someone reach in the cooler, then Andrew came to stand beside me. For quite a while we shared the view of the city below without speaking.

  My beer was half gone before he said, “Krista simply likes to be well informed, Ed."

  I chuckled and said, “Oh, yeah, I can see that, Andrew. Can we expect a decision by the end of this decade?"

  He also chuckled, then said, “I think she's at least tentatively decided to join Stephanie's endeavor. She's just rehashing matters to reinforce her decision."

  Looking directly at him, I said, “Andrew, it's almost midnight. She's been rehashing for more than three hours. Surely she'd have found any stoppers by now."

  With a snort of laughter Andrew said, “She's very thorough.” He sipped his beer, then added, “You realize this plan represents nothing less than a form of benevolent world domination, don't you?"

  Shrugging, I said, “Management, Andrew. Just management. Reproduction regulation by default and an end to some of the ills that have always plagued humanity. It's a plan that may even work to some degree."

  He turned a surprised eye at me. “You don't sound very convinced."

  "I'm not. People will always find ways to fuck things up."

  "Then why are you going along with it?"

  "It's the best plan for peace on Earth that anyone's ever come up with and Steph's my friend, so I'm helping her. You know how that is, Andrew."

  Nodding, he said, “Yes. Yes, I do."

  Nearly a mile in the air and cruising above London's East End, we saw smoke rising from a building below and to our right.

  As we lowered for a closer view I looked at Susanne and asked, “How bad is it?"

  She tapped into the police and fire frequencies and we listened. The fire department had all but four men and two women out of the building. The people were on the roof awaiting an extension ladder that was being aimed at them from the street.

  "The fire is about to...” Susanne didn't finish her statement.

  The fire burst outward as a gas line exploded, blowing several large windows out of their frames. One of the big plate-glass windows sailed like a square Frisbee to collide with the ladder, knocking it askew and buckling the ladder's second extension in an explosive shower of shattered glass.

  Cables flapped and the upper third of the ladder slammed hard on the ground, then swung toward some parked cars and the end of the ladder skipped off the ground again before embedding itself in the side of one of the cars.

  Another ladder truck was trying to squeeze through a car-lined narrow street. It soon gave up and reversed course to try another approach. As we drew closer we could see that each of the women was holding a cat and that one held a leash to which was attached a small dog.

  The dog was insanely struggling against its leash and collar and one of the cats had climbed to a woman's shoulder, where she tried to keep it from jumping away. The other cat simply hunkered in terror in its owner's arms.

  The climbing cat freaked when fire blew upward through the roof some yards from the little group. It struggled free and ran to the edge of the roof, then stood staring as if trying to decide if the fall was survivable.

  "Glider on,” I said, and took a running leap off the deck.

  Andrew shouted and one of the ladies screamed as I dove through the air toward the building. The scream abated and finally stopped.

  A billow of flame and smoke ahead made me remember to say, “Five suit on."

  The cat saw me coming and started to freak some more, if such were possible. I sent a burst of theta waves at it and it nearly toppled in relaxation before I grabbed it in passing with my right hand and shoved the guidebar forward and up with my left.

  One of the women stood staring at me and the other started toward me as I flared to a stop and dropped to the roof. I handed her the limp cat, turned off my glider, and kept the theta waves flowing as I quickly “helped” her out of her sweater and used it to bundle the cat.

  The other woman's dog attacked my leg but couldn't bite through my five suit. She pulled the dog back, but then it began gnawing alternately on her leg and the legs of one of the men who had the misfortune to be standing too close.

  I used my stun wand to put the dog to sleep, but that meant not concentrating on the cat for a moment. It woke up and went nuts, so I lightly stunned it, too.

  "Sue,” I said, “Where's the safest place to stand up here?"

  "What?” asked the woman. “My name isn't Sue."

  Through my implant Sue said, “Six feet to your right, Ed. There's a steel beam under that spot. I'm about to take the woman with the dog."

  The woman, her dog, and the cat suddenly went limp without falling and lifted from the roof. They floated in a cluster over the edge and a safe distance beyond the roof before beginning to descend to the parking lot.

  The four men and the other woman couldn't see the flitter, so they had no idea what was happening. Staring wide-eyed at her friends as they floated away, the woman next to me whispered, “Oh, dear God..!” and turned to stare at me as she backed away. One of the men took her by her shoulders to keep her from backing mindlessly toward a patch of roof that was smoldering.

  The cat she was holding got an arm loose and raked her shoulder as it tried to free itself. I said a mental 'oh, hell,' and stunned them both before the woman could back any farther and the cat could break free. The woman's knees gave out and the man holding her helped her collapse gently.

  He looked up at me and then at the other three men, who were clustered near an air conditioning unit. Good enough; there had to be something solid under something that heavy.

  "Who are you?” he asked. “How..?"

  Rather than answer, I stunned him slightly. He stopped speaking and almost fell over. A few seconds later the man, woman, and cat began to float toward the parking lot. Some of the roof collapsed on both sides of the beam near the middle of the roof. Fire reached upward through the holes and the men snuggled closer to the massive air con
ditioner.

  Tar began to bubble near their feet and one of the men moaned in fear. I sent a cold field deep into the area, but the air conditioner began to sag on one side. Another zap of freezing cold seemed to stabilize matters for the moment.

  "Sue, the roof's about to go, I think. Check the air-conditioner."

  "I see it,” she said calmly. “Stand by."

  All three men suddenly lifted from the roof and began drifting to the parking lot. One of the men screamed and struggled vainly, then went limp and silent. Another of the men simply stared at me until they were below the roof and out of sight.

  I looked over the edges of the roof. Down in the small parking lot people were gathering around the first women Sue had lowered. There was nowhere to land without hitting someone. Trees blocked my path in two other directions and the streets were full of trucks and people. Shit. Nowhere to go.

  The beam sagged under me, then sagged again. The air conditioner's mounts groaned, then it sagged and fell as the biggest hole yet opened up underneath it. The heat wasn't a problem for my five suit, but when the rest of the roof collapsed, landing in the rubble below would undoubtedly be a bitch of an experience.

  Smoke and flame billowed swiftly upward from the huge hole in the roof and I had a thought as Sue airlifted the last three people off the roof.

  I dove across the hole and said, “Parasail on."

  Again someone aboard the flitter shrieked as the upwelling blast of heat and flames quickly lifted me a good seventy-five feet or so and I struggled to stay inside the roiling pillar of hot smoke. Somewhere above a hundred feet I said “glider on” and felt my wings snap into being.

  Sliding out of the smoke column, I banked sharply to aim myself at an area well beyond the cluster of people and vehicles below.

  Sue's current load of people was nearly on the ground as I said, “Sue, I don't really want to try to land down there."

  "Patience, please,” she said, then a field tendril immobilized me in mid-flight and lowered me toward the flitter I couldn't see until I was within the flitter's field.

  "Glider off,” I said as my feet touched the deck. “Five suit off. Thank you, milady."

  "You're welcome!” she said brightly, “That was an interesting solution concerning the cat, Ed."

  Andrew raised an eyebrow at me and said, “Yes, actually, it was.” He glanced at Sue, then Steph, then at me again and shook his head slightly as he said, “It was all quite a show. Quite a show, indeed."

  Krista looked shaken and trembling as she stared at me. Marlena simply stared at me silently for another long moment, then opened the cooler and took out a beer. She twisted the cap off and appeared to drink nearly half of it before nudging Krista with the bottle.

  I reached into the cooler for a beer as Krista stared at the one being waved under her nose, then shook her head.

  "No. Thanks,” she said, rising determinedly from the seat she'd taken at some point during the event.

  She approached me to within a yard or so, stared hard at me for some moments, and then turned to stare at Andrew in apparent disbelief.

  In an ominous tone she asked, “He could have been killed and you call it ‘quite a show'? Quite-a-show?!"

  "Must you criticize every little thing I say?” he asked, then he stepped toward me with his right hand out. I put a beer in his hand.

  Andrew quickly took it with his other hand and again stuck his right hand out to reach for mine, which he shook as he grinningly stated, “Women don't understand these things, you know. Yes, by God. That was quite a show."

  He then opened my beer, then his, and clinked his bottle against mine.

  "Fuck Idi Amin,” he said firmly.

  "Fuck Idi Amin,” I echoed with a nod.

  We then guzzled beer for a few moments as we watched activities below.

  I heard Marlena ask, “Who's Idi Amin?"

  Krista said, “He was the dictator of Uganda when they were in Africa."

  Andrew belched and took a deep breath, then said, “And the fucking Cubans."

  "Damned right,” I agreed. “Them, too."

  We finished our beers. I tossed my bottle over the side and it flashed to plasma. That made Andrew hesitate for a moment in his own bottle toss, but with a quick look at me, he also heaved his bottle to brilliant obliteration.

  "Damn,” he said quietly. “I take it your lady doesn't allow littering?"

  With a nod, I said, “Yeah, that's one of milady's pet peeves."

  Marlena chuckled, then giggled, then laughed out loud. Krista looked at her as if she were nuts, which made Marlena laugh again.

  Krista looked at us and asked, “Idi Amin and Cubans? What was all that about?"

  "Back in Angola,” said Andrew, “Amin supplied raiders. The Cubans supplied advisors and weapons. That's how we used to toast the bastards at happy hour."

  Marlena finished her beer and looked at Sue, who nodded, then Marlena also tossed her bottle over the side to its fiery doom and sat blinking away the afterimage.

  Sniffing and shaking her head, Krista muttered, “Bloody juveniles."

  Turning to Sue, Andrew asked, “What are they saying about what just happened?"

  Sue channeled fire and police radio traffic. We listened to someone agitatedly tell someone else that he wouldn't sign his name to such a report.

  "I don't bloody care if it really happened,” he said. “We don't officially know how they got down and we'll let someone else ask them. You and your unit can report anydamnedthing you want, but don't expect me—or my team—to corroborate a story about flying people. That simply won't happen, Jarvis."

  He clicked off as Jarvis uselessly bellowed, “But it's the bloody truth! Kramer! KRAMER! Damn!” before he clicked off, too.

  Andrew thought their consternation was hilarious. Krista simply shook her head and looked at him as if he were an idiot. A few moments later we landed in the alley behind her office and began saying our goodbyes; all except Stephanie, who said she'd catch up with us after speaking with Krista.

  "You can't stay for a day or two?” asked Andrew.

  "Not this trip,” I said. “We have some things to do Stateside. Besides, we didn't go through customs. They'd be pissed if we got caught here. How about next month? We can spend a few days acting like tourists."

  "Excellent. Just let me know when."

  Andrew and Marlena waved as Sue and I began lifting out of the alley. Krista and Stephanie simply stood watching us rise. Once we'd lifted about fifteen feet those on the ground were no longer within range of the flitter's field effect, so to them we seemed to vanish. All but Steph registered varying degrees of startlement.

  Keying my implant I said, “Steph."

  "Yes, Ed."

  "Thanks for not helping at the fire. Krista may have fewer doubts about PFMs now that she's seen a practical demonstration."

  "It seemed likely that you and Susanne could handle matters. Krista was quite frightened when you leaped off the flitter, Ed."

  "That just means that we made an impression that'll stick with her, Steph. Don't be afraid to startle people now and then. It keeps them alert."

  Precisely two seconds passed before she answered; it was a trick Steph had learned from Linda, I think, to show a lack of complete approval.

  "I'll be along in a while, Ed."

  "Take your time, Steph. I'll probably nap on the way back."

  Turning to Susanne, I said, “See if you can find an open currency exchange, please. I want to turn some Euros into dollars."

  The flitter changed course slightly as Sue nodded. A few moments later we descended to the street in front of a brownstone building that was surrounded by shops and restaurants.

  "The exchange window is just inside and to the left,” said Sue.

  Eyeing the almost three blocks of restaurants and trinket shops, I said, “This area looks like a major tourist trap."

  "It is,” said Sue, “But the currency exchange is open late. Would you rather use t
he exchange at the train station?"

  I shrugged. “No, this'll do. Maybe they'll surprise me with a good rate."

  Sue waited for some people to pass on the walkway below, then settled the flitter to the sidewalk very near the building. I hopped off and entered the building while still within her field effect, so none of the people outside saw me appear.

  They didn't surprise me; their exchange rate was kind of steep, but not truly outrageous. When I walked back to the entrance alcove, I keyed my implant and said, “All done, milady."

  "I can't land, Ed. There are too many people in your area. Step outside and I'll lift you aboard."

  As I walked out to the sidewalk I said, “Sounds good. Three suit on."

  Sue lifted me from the sidewalk just as an approaching woman's poodle stiffened and apparently stared straight at me, then began barking insanely. Did he see me? Smell me? Hear me? Whatever. The woman looked where the dog was looking and saw nothing. She must have thought her dog had gone bonkers. I lifted my feet as she walked under me, yanking the still-ranting poodle along.

  Once I was aboard, I said, “Other than politicians and various other criminals, there's probably no greater waste of skin and hair than a yappy, crappy little dog."

  Sue giggled and suggested that my opinion might be biased. I agreed that it probably was, given that I held even the least of cats to be generally superior to dogs.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Sue lifted us westward. The lights of London faded behind us as the lights of Plymouth became visible ahead of us, then plots of light that were some of the other major cities of southern Britain appeared. I opened a beer and put my feet up as we passed through layers of clouds and the stars became visible above.

  "Forty-four hundred miles or so to go,” I said, glancing at my watch. “Miz Helmsperson, use an initial heading of about 280 degrees and hammer down, please."

  That earned me a querying glance.

  "Our initial heading will be 281.4 degrees. How did you know that?"

  With a grin, I asked, “You mean 'how did a mere human know,' don't you?"