Anti-Grav Unlimited

by Duncan Long

  We raced around the Moon twice and then started the jump through space. Many hours later, the beautiful blue and white of Earth swelled below our feet. We waited for the scheduled rocket flight that would be dropping into Houston. Our good luck continued as it was close enough to schedule for us to match its downward arch to Texas. After a few teeth wrenching changes of velocity, we were back off Galveston Island, hugging the waves as we skimmed toward land. By driving all night, we reached Jake’s surplus shop as the sun was rising. The worst thing that happened to us was that our vehicles picked up a few bullet holes when we had to drive between some feuding motorists. Fortunately no serious damage was done to us or our equipment.

  Jake’s shop was intact and his nephew, Mark, in one piece. That was a relief. While Jake and Nikki hadn’t apparently been worried about anything happening to Mark, after the way the bag lady had found me, I had started to feel like we were facing supernatural foes.

  Mark had done a good job. He’d sold off all of Nikki’s jewelry and the industrial laser and gotten some good prices for them. Even so, it hadn’t been quite enough to get him by so he’d also sold Jake’s antique sports car rather than any of the space gear. Though Jake had specifically ordered him to not sell any of the surplus gear (since we might be wanting it), I could see that Jake didn’t aim to have his car get less than priority treatment. I thought maybe I could sell tickets to the neighbors to see Jake turn Mark into a human pretzel, but to my disappointment, there was no such show.

  After living in low gravity of the Moon for three months, just sitting on Earth was work. Even getting my eyelids back up when blinking took an effort. While we’d exercised in the tiny gym at our base, it didn’t take up all the slack for muscles gone soft. We felt like birds with their wings clipped; where before we’d been able to nearly fly over the landscape, now we walked with plodding steps or—in Jake’s case—dragged about on crutches.

  In addition to physical problems, our mental problem was nearly as overwhelming as the heavy gravity. We had to figure out how to contact whoever was in charge of rubbing us out.

  Of course we could have ignored them and lain low.

  That had worked for the last three months. But if those who were concerned about the rods found that we were actually manufacturing them again, the search for us would probably be larger and less subtle than before. I didn’t care to spend every day of my existence wondering if the trash bots were about to cram me into the garbage truck or if the mail bot was really a hit man in disguise. Life in such a condition would slowly drive me mad.

  Without the “slowly.”

  And if they did locate us… Imagining a screaming fighter plane dropping a few barrels of napalm onto Jake’s happy store didn’t do much for me either. I had no desire to become a crispy critter.

  “So how can we get to them before they get to us?” Nikki asked as we sat around the table munching on a small salad that Mark had prepared for us—apparently with an ax judging from the state of the vegetables in it.

  “Perhaps we can turn the tables on them,” I said. ” It’d be hard, but if we planned it carefully, maybe we could trap whoever comes to get us.”

  “That might work but it sounds pretty dangerous,” Nikki said.

  “Yes, it will be that. The last person they sent after us was pretty effective.” I shuddered at the thought of the headless bag lady. The Russian salad dressing looked nauseatingly like blood; I decided to use the creamy. “We do have some tricks up our sleeves this time,” I finally said.

  “While they think we’re on our own and probably all but out of money, we actually have Jake and quite a few resources thanks to the gear we brought back from the Moon.”

  “Why don’t we get a decoy van set up?” Jake said. “We could buy another old shell like your van and—”

  “Put the old numbers on it,” Nikki finished. “We could even convert it to anti-grav travel.”

  “Yeah,” I said and munched for a moment on a piece of celery. ” If we had two vans instead of one, that would really throw them off.” The possibilities were looking like they could be shifted a bit more in our favor.

  “Well, anyway, if we can get someone to come after us and then…”

  One salad and several hours later, our plan had been pretty well formed. Our first step in this plan was to get a decoy van set up. We had too much equipment wired into the original van to sacrifice it, so we decided to barter for on old van to use as decoy. After trading an industrial laser we’d brought back in the rover, we were able to obtain a van to convert to a nearly identical copy of our old van. After that, Jake—who had a lot of skill at doing body work on cars—cut off the storage area he’d added to the top of our old van and filled in the bullet holes it had picked up on the road. Then we repainted them both so that the new van looked like the old one while my old, original one looked completely different.

  In order to avoid attracting attention to Jake’s business, we decided to make contact with our enemies far away from Galveston. Since Denver had been the last place we’d been seen by them (we hoped), that seemed like a logical place to begin. We loaded up the two vans with special goodies and we followed a rocket from Houston back into Denver (this time we mimicked its whole ballistic arc by wearing space suits for the short trip into space).

  Nikki chose to rode with me. Jake looked pretty disappointed but I didn’t feel bad enough to suggest that Nikki ride with him.

  From the Denver rocket port, we headed back to Nikki and Craig’s condo since that seemed like the most likely spot to strike pay dirt in our search for our enemies.

  I knew it was risky since it was entirely possible that the apartment had been booby trapped.

  We gambled on the fact that the people we were facing seemed to be interested in doing things so that they appeared to be accidental or so that the person would vanish without a trace. That took the personal touch of someone like the “bag lady” pro we’d faced last time I’d been in the apartment. Too, since I’d been free so long, we figured that they would be concerned about interrogating me to be sure their weren’t other new loose ends they needed to cut off.

  Nikki and I left the decoy van on the street where I’d parked before and went up to her place.

  Jake—who was our ace in the hole—waited on the street in my original van that we hoped would now go unnoticed by our enemies.

  After taking the elevator up, we stood in the doorway of her condo a moment then I gritted my teeth and had Nikki use her thumb print to dilate the door open. I tossed in my suitcase and stepped back. Nothing exploded so I stepped in and waited a moment, half expecting something or someone to cut me to ribbons. Still nothing; it looked like it was safe.

  Nikki entered behind me and closed the door. We cautiously advanced through the living room into the hall and entered the kitchen to be sure it was safe. Satisfied that there were no hidden assailants, we put our bags down on the kitchen.

  “Nice to see that someone cleaned up the decapitated bag lady we left behind,” Nikki said.

  “Yes, she’d be pretty ripe by now. Looks like everything else is as we left it. Now all we need to do is—”

  Jake’s voice crackled over the ear radio I was wearing, “Got a bag lady nosing around your van.”

  “Rats,” I said into my throat microphone. ” I’d hoped for a bit more time. OK, we’ll get ready here.”

  Nikki and I hurried with our jobs. I popped open the suitcase I’d brought in and removed the industrial spray coater we’d brought back from the Moon. I started spraying a plastic cover over all the air vents in the apartment then shut off the climate computer so that it wouldn’t burn itself out trying to adjust the temperature in the rooms. That done, I sealed off the doors to the other rooms except for the kitchen and the hallway connecting the living room and kitchen area.

  Nikki pushed the couch and chair back into the floor so that the living room was all carpet, then started getting the suitcases in the kitchen ready for our upcomin
g confrontation.

  Jake’s voice came on again, “The bag lady’s either talking to herself or over a radio mike. I’m still not sure this is one of the ones we’re wanting. She really looks like a bag lady—I mean a real one.”

  “Just keep an eye on her,” I said. “Let us know if she heads for the building.”

  “Sorry but she’s headed your way now,” Jake said. “She took something out of her bag as she entered the front. Good luck you two. Holler if you need help.”

  We’ll be needing the luck for sure, I thought, as I made a hole from the living room wall into the kitchen with a screwdriver blade. I hoped we wouldn’t be needing more help than Jake could give us since we’d be in hot water long before he could get to us. The real kicker was that this new bag lady hadn’t given us enough time to get everything done we’d hoped to do.

  I inspected the tiny peep hole I’d made as Nikki got the 3V going. I turned to see a complex pattern of pulsating green circles which slowly turned blue as they rose out of the floor. The circles grew into spheres and blinked from one color to another. They grew into overlapping patterns filling every bit of space in a three dimensional polka dot pattern that continued to flash to different hues with the gonging music that throbbed with them. Up and down no longer seemed to be in the right places as the spheres started circling the room rapidly, then tilted off on a plain all their own.

  “Good grief, Nikki, does anyone enjoy watching that kind of stuff? It makes me feel sick.”

  “That’s my favorite 3V disc! You can apologize later.” She leaned over and turned off the sound, then took me by the hand to keep me from walking in circles. I closed my eyes to the dizzying display and let her lead me.

  She got me into the kitchen just as the front door gave us a warning beep and dilated open. I peeked through the hole in the wall that I’d made. A bag lady, identical to the one we’d fought before, stepped in. The thing Jake had seen her pull out of her bag was a bullpup combat shotgun.

  Chapter 16

  The bag lady shut the door behind her as transparent pink bubbles chased by blue cubes swirled around her. Nikki and I put oxygen our masks on as our opponent squinted at the visual clutter produced by the 3V machine. The safety on her shotgun clicked audibly in the quiet apartment; she proceeded to fire twenty quick shots all around her.

  Swearing under my breath, I grabbed Nikki and we ducked down behind the counter in the kitchen. I wondered for a moment if the cabinet would absorb the impact of the shot.

  The heavy thump answered my question. I was thankful we’d hidden in the kitchen rather than trying to remain concealed in the living room among the shifting 3V patterns.

  After seventeen I’d lost track of how many shots the bag lady fired. Over the ringing in my ears I heard the empty magazine of her shotgun pop out of her weapon and knew that it was now-or-never time.

  I picked up one of the bottles from the suitcase Nikki had opened. Walking like a duck along the kitchen floor to the doorway so I would remain—I hoped—unseen, I tossed the bottle into the living room.

  The plan was that the bottle would break. It didn’t.

  Instead the heavy glass bounced on the thick carpeting and the bag lady got a good idea of exactly where we were. She slapped a fresh magazine into the shotgun.

  “Take the lid off the bottles first,” Nikki whispered and threw her bottle around the corner.

  I followed her example and we both quickly chugged another pair of the glass bottles around the corner as shotgun blasts riddled the door frame. Some of the liquid spilled into the kitchen as we threw the bottles. The fumes were nearly overpowering even with our oxygen masks on. I held our breath, hoping Nikki would do the same.

  There were three more blasts, then things became silent in the next room. Nikki started to get up. “Wait,” I whispered. “She may be playing possum.”

  I opened four more bottles and threw them around the corner into the living room just to be safe.

  Still quiet in the living room.

  Had our plan worked? I wondered.

  We waited a few more minutes.

  All remained quiet.

  And my bowels made me feel like the bathroom was more of a concern than the living room.

  Fear does not bring out the hero in my body, I decided, as I got up the nerve to peek into the living room through the peep hole.

  The bag lady was crumpled on the carpet, looking like a pile of rags. Above her danced a group of red cubes that were slowly descending, looking as if they’d crush her.

  “The old bat probably never quite realized what had happened.” I told Nikki as well as Jake over the throat mike. “Looks like our plan worked and she just kept breathing until she passed out from the fumes. I hope. I’ll check her out. Cross your fingers and come on up, Jake.”

  With my Beretta trained on her, I carefully walked up to her prone form (which wasn’t easy with red and purple squares dancing through the room). I kicked the shotgun away from her then reached down and removed the flesh-colored ballistic mask from her face which surprised me since the woman was perhaps twenty-five and not unattractive.. Her eyes were closed and a soft snore greeted my ears.

  Nikki turned off the 3V then brought out the plastic wrap machine and I covered the bag lady’s body in a sheet of plastic so that only her head remained free. Once we were sure she wasn’t going anywhere, we opened up the vents in the room to let air into it. After things had aired out, we removed our masks and let Jake in.

  We tried to plan on what to do next. We knew that the assassin wouldn’t be an easy person to break.

  Fortunately, she helped us out.

  “Look at this,” Nikki said after she had dumped the contents of the bag lady’s handbag onto the carpet. In addition to six magazines of spare ammunition, a small talkie, and two hand grenades, there was also a small medical kit of some type. Nikki carefully opened it. It contained a number of vials and a auto hypodermic gun.

  “What do you suppose that’s for?” I asked.

  Jake laughed. ” I think I know. Let me take a look.” Nikki handed the pouch to him and he removed one of the vials and examined it. “Yep. I’m sure these are vials of truth serum.”

  “What?” Nikki and I said in unison.

  “Yeah, they used to test us out with that stuff before they’d let us go into space. Tried to be sure we wouldn’t steal them blind. Can’t figure why she’d have that, though.”

  “Maybe this is the reason,” I said holding up one of the rounds of spare ammunition she had in her bag. “These aren’t ordinary loads she was shooting at us. Look at the marks on the walls.

  They hardly made a dent.”

  Jake pried one of the spent projectiles out of the wall. “Looks like a liquid-filled load.

  Poison?”

  “I’ll bet they’re stun shells.” I said.

  “Maybe she was going to disable us and then…"Nikki started and stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Then quiz us,” I said. “That way she could find out if someone else knew about the rods.”

  Jake nodded. “Makes sense. There’s one way to find out.” He lifted the truth serum kit and his eyebrows.

  “Can you get her to babble away?” I asked. “How will you know what dosage?”

  “This stuff is pretty safe to use. The auto-hypo regulates the dose and you’d need a pretty high dose to hurt someone. Least that’s what they used to tell us. Besides, she wasn’t exactly out to give you a good time. Let’s give her the drug before she has a chance to come to. That way she’ll be less apt to resist if she’s been programmed to resist truth serum.”

  “If you think you know what you’re doing,” I said, a bit dubious of the plan.

  After giving her a shot and a few whiffs from an oxygen mask, she was ready to talk. Our questions were very straight-forward:

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I-don’t-know.”

  “How did they communicate with you?”

  “Over-my-talkie.�
��

  “After catching the people in the condo, how will you tell your boss you’ve succeeded?”

  “Over-my-talkie.”

  “What will you tell him?”

  “Mission-successful. Will-bring-in.”

  “Write that down, Nikki, the order of the words might be part of a code or something so they know it’s really the bag lady. Do you know where some paper is here?” I said.

  Nikki scrambled into the kitchen and returned with a pad, “Ask her again so we get it right.”

  We did and Nikki quickly wrote it down and continued to take notes as we questioned the bag lady.

  “Bring them in to where?”

  “Will-get-coordinates-with-call.”

  “Why did she have the truth serum if she was to just bring us in?” Nikki asked.

  The bag lady answered the question before we could put it to her, “Was-to-question-all-of-them. Ask-about-others-connected-to-group-and-eliminate-all-but-one-who-knows-of-others.”

  We continued to question the bag lady until we’d gotten pass words, methods of doing things, and so forth. We tried to get everything from her that might be of help.

  As we were finishing up with our questions, her eyes fluttered a bit and her face turned bright red. “She’s coming around,” Jake said. “We could safely give her another dose.”

  “I don’t have any more questions,” I said. “Do either of you?”

  They both shook their heads no.

  “Then why don’t we—”

  “What’s she doing?” Nikki asked.

  Good question. The woman moved her mouth and made a horrible face. Too late I realized what was happening. ” I bet she just poisoned herself,” I said. I tried to pull her mouth open but she held it locked shut and made an evil looking face at me until I quit trying. Moments later as we helplessly watched, the woman gave a shudder, exhaled a long breath, and was dead.

  Her jaw relaxed and I pulled it open and I saw the hollow tooth that was loose on her tongue.

  An old but effective trick. I felt for the pulse on her neck.