3rd World Products, Book 16

by Ed Howdershelt

  We didn’t see either of the NIA cars along the road, but when we arrived at her apartments, Tanya said, “I don’t know that car,” and pointed at a blue sedan.

  I sent a probe to the guy’s wallet and said, “Yup. NIA.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Sent a field to check his wallet.”

  Tanya gave me a sharp glance and asked, “Are you sure you aren’t one of those AIs, too?”

  “I’m starting to wonder about that, too.”

  As we parked, she said, “Smartass.”

  “Yes, milady. As you say, ma’am. Is Jessica coming here or are we meeting her?”

  “She’s coming here.”

  We took turns in the bathroom and just as I was drying my hands, the door bell rang. I sent a probe and found a tall, extremely skinny, late-twenties blonde in a T-shirt and skin-tight jeans with a denim purse.

  Her ID was just a driver’s license. No agency creds. I checked her employment anyway and found she was a bank teller. Her scrawniness disturbed me. I had my core check her health and it reported amphetamines in her system. Diet pills or worse. Wonderful.

  As I left the bathroom I saw Tanya’d already let her in and strode to meet her with, “Hi, there. I’m Ed.”

  Was her smile real? She said, “I’m Jessica. Tanya’s told me nothing about you.”

  Shrugging, I said, “Not much to tell, really. I’m retired.”

  She glanced at Tanya and said, “She told me that much. What do you do to keep… for fun?”

  I chuckled, “To keep busy? Oh, this and that. I write books, too. Science Fiction, mostly.”

  “Then I wouldn’t know them.” Turning to Tanya, she asked, “Are we ready to go?”

  Just like that, I’d been relegated to non-entity status. Jessica wasn’t interested in knowing anything about any man who wasn’t her idea of dating material. Tanya saw my grin and gave me an expression of curiosity as Jessica turned around to head back out the door.

  As I passed her, I whispered, “She doesn’t approve.”

  Tanya whispered back, “Then it’s a good thing she doesn’t have to, isn’t it?”

  Stopping to wait for us, Jessica asked me, “Where’s your car, Ed?”

  Tanya said, “In the shop. We’re taking mine.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  When I made no reply, the ladies looked at me. I nodded at the NIA car and said, “That guy’s watching us.”

  Jessica looked at the car and shrugged. “We get a lot of looks. If that’s all he does, who cares?”

  As we neared Tanya’s car, I took her keys and opened the door for her, popped the door locks, and then gave her the keys and closed her door once she’d been seated.

  Jessica grinned and remarked, “Ooo. Such service! Are you going to get my door, too?”

  Walking around the car, I pulled her door open and closed it once she was in her seat, then got in the back seat. Jessica prattled about her day most of the way to the restaurant. It didn’t surprise me that she made everyone else sound like halfwits. As she was telling us about meeting a guy from the Atlanta office, we reached the restaurant.

  We all reached for door handles. I felt relief when Jessica’s incessant chattering stopped. In the rearview mirror, Tanya had noticed and looked a little tense. I shook my head slightly and pulled an imaginary zipper across my lips. No problem, ma’am. I’ll just quietly endure the skinny little twit. For you, of course. Just to keep your evening happy.

  Why was Jessica so yappy? Was nervousness her normal state or was my being there causing it? Eyeing her scrawny frame, I figured her amphetamines were running her mouth.

  We had to wait fifteen minutes to get in. Tanya ordered a small steak with mixed vegetables. Jessica waved at me to go ahead while she perused the menu. I ordered a slightly larger steak and the same veggies. Then we ordered teas and the waitress again asked Jessica what she wanted.

  Jessica hemmed and hawed and asked about combinations and substitutions. She then asked for the house definition of medium-well done and presented her own opinion of what it meant. After all that, she simply ordered a dinner like Tanya’s, well done. Then she made a production of deciding on what to drink. A few minutes later, she also ordered a tea.

  A crowded restaurant is a noisy restaurant, which means being heard requires talking above a normal volume, which only contributes to making the place even louder. And, of course, Jessica wanted to talk.

  She leaned across the table slightly and grinningly said, “So, Ed, tell me all about you.”

  As I decided to use the bio on my website for brevity, she said, “You remind me of somebody, but I can’t remember who. I just saw him in some paper last week. Are you someone I’d see in the paper?”

  “With any luck and a choice in the matter, no.”

  “Do you ever take that hat off?”

  “Do you see anyplace to put it? Restaurants don’t seem to have hat racks anymore.”

  “How did you meet Tanya?”

  “I fixed her laptop.”

  “Oh, you fix computers?”

  “I fixed hers. Why are we yelling across the table?”

  “Because…” She stopped, then said, “You really don’t want to talk, do you?”

  “Not here.”

  I sat back, anticipating her next question, and sure enough, it was, “Are you really saying you don’t want to talk to me?”

  Raising a hand to an ear as if I hadn’t quite heard her, I asked, “What? What don’t you want to see?”

  Tanya’s hand lightly slapped my thigh. Jessica caught the small motion and subsided, eyeing me narrowly. Perhaps even suspiciously, I suppose. Oh, well.

  Our teas arrived, then another fifteen minutes passed before our food arrived. The steak didn’t look like an eight-ouncer to me and the meager servings of veggies were obviously right out of a freezer bag. The mashed potatoes were good with butter, though, and the steak was properly cooked and tasty.

  As I’d expected, Jessica took half a dozen bites of her veggies, a couple of bites off the corner of her steak, and stopped eating. I hate that. It meant the silly twit had either eaten beforehand or she was using an appetite suppressant. Given the amphetamines, I’d vote the latter.

  Whatever, the last of my meal disappeared and I was still hungry. I waved at the waitress to ask for a menu, then said, “Wait a minute. Jessica, are you finished?”

  What was she going to say? No? I looked at Tanya and asked, “Will you be absolutely mortified if I snag that?”

  She laughed, “I’ll just pretend I don’t know you.”

  “Good ‘nuff.”

  Stacking Jessica’s plate on my empty one, I dug into the meal she’d ignored. Tanya might not have been mortified, but Jessica was. I took some pleasure in that. About half of her steak managed to quell the hunger my own meal hadn’t quite satisfied.

  On the way to the car, Jessica remarked, “I’ve never seen anyone eat another person’s dinner that way.”

  “You mean someone found a different way?”

  I chuckled and got the door for Tanya. She gave me an eye-roll and a tiny snicker.

  Jessica said, “I’m serious, dammit! That was just…”

  I tapped her shoulder and said, “You can shut up now, ma’am. Nobody gives a damn whether you’re serious.”

  Tanya shot me a glance as she drove, but said nothing.

  Jessica half-turned under her seat belt and yowled, “What?! You don’t tell me to shut up! I…”

  That’s when I stunned her. She slumped and I guided her head to lean against the window. Tanya’s eyes were huge.

  I pointed forward and said, “Watch the road, ma’am.”

  She glanced forward, then looked back at Jessica. “You… you stunned her?! Like that dog?!”

  “Exactly like the dog. I’ll teach you to do it later if we actually make it home. Want me to drive?”

  Tanya gave me a sharp look and faced forward with only glances at Jessica. And at me, in t
he rearview mirror.

  After a minute or so, she said, “She was right, you know. I’ve never seen anyone do that, either.”

  “Well, now you have, ma’am. You know what happens to restaurant leftovers, Tanya? They go to hog farms. Your emaciated little buddy here would have tossed my fifteen bucks to somebody’s hogs and she’d have called letting it happen ‘good manners’. Hell with that. I was still hungry, she was through eating, and I paid for the damned dinner.”

  When we parked at the apartments, Tanya asked, “Can we wake her up now?”

  “Let’s get out first. I may have to run for it.”

  Tanya laughed, but she got out when I did. Standing by Jessica’s door, I tapped a knuckle on the glass. She slowly roused, then saw us outside and glanced around the car.

  I said, “You’ve been unconscious. Maybe you should have eaten a little more.”

  She fumbled with her seat belt and unlatched it, then opened the door and swung her legs out. They looked like pipe cleaners in loose denim tubes. I wondered how she managed to move with so little meat on her bones.

  Jessica stood up a little too fast and had to brace herself against the car. I extended my left hand to steady her, but she slapped it away. She started to say or ask something, then didn’t. Moving to one side, she pulled the door shut, then remembered her purse and reopened the door to get it.

  Glowering at me, she asked, “Did you really tell me to shut up a while ago?”

  I gave her a skeptical expression and asked, “Have you ever passed out like that before? Do you get headaches? Ever had any hallucinations?” Then I shook my head and said, “No, never mind that one. People who have hallucinations don’t usually admit it.”

  “It wasn’t a hallucination, damn it!”

  Stepping back with a courtly bow, I replied, “Oh, yes, milady. As you say, milady.” Straightening, I asked, “But are you absolutely sure about that? I was a medic once and I’ve seen near-starvation before.”

  Her glower became a glare and she screeched, “I’m just naturally thin! You got that?! Where the hell do you get off saying crap like that?” Looking at Tanya, she said, “I can’t believe you’re going with this jerk!”

  Also looking at Tanya, I said, “Actually, she can. She’s just unhappy about you having anyone else in your life. Maybe we can change that if we go inside and talk a bit.”

  Jessica reacted with a cold, “I really don’t think so. Tanya, I’ll call you later. I really think I should go now.”

  Raising a halting hand, I asked, “Are you sure you’re fit to drive? One of us could drive you and…”

  “You shut up! I’m fine! Goodnight, Tanya! I hope you see the mistake you’ve made sooner instead of later!”

  With that, Jessica stalked to her car.

  “Well,” I chuckled, “I guess she told me, huh?”

  Tanya gave me an arched eyebrow, then shook her head and muttered, “Jesus!”

  “Something to watch for, Tanya. My scan said she had amphetamines in her system. Sooner or later you’ll prob’ly have to try to save her ass in some manner.”

  As Jessica backed out and headed for the street, Tanya asked, “Your scan?”

  Something felt odd on my left hand. I checked it and discovered a semi-solid blob of something I didn’t particularly want to identify on the back of my knuckles.

  Kneeling to rub it away in the manicured grass, I said, “It’s just another field trick.”

  Sounding skeptical, Tanya asked, “You aren’t just saying that because you don’t like her?”

  I gave her a droll look. “What can I really win or lose by telling you that, Tanya? You’ll help with Marie ‘cuz she’s your mum. Even if you hated my guts, you’d help, so just keep an eye on Jessica. She’s probably gonna burn out and crash hard before she gets smart. Most pill-heads do.”

  Jessica’s car lunged into a break in traffic and disappeared. Tanya beeped her key fob to lock her car and we started up the walk to her apartment in silence.

  About halfway there, she said quietly, “I’ve always thought she might be taking something. I’ll watch her.”

  “Short of locking her up, watching is all anyone could do. If you object to the pills, you’ll become one of the bad guys and drive her away.”

  “If you were me, what would you do?”

  “I’d call the pros for advice. Druggies drag their well-meaning friends down with them.”

  At her door, she paused in unlocking it and asked, “What do you drink other than beer?”

  “Gin.”

  She unlocked the door and said, “I have some, I think. I might have some tonic, too.”

  “Um…”

  Turning to face me, she asked, “Um, what?”

  “Well, I was going to show you a few more things.”

  She stated, “Like how to stun. Yeah, you mentioned that. What else?”

  I considered her mood and said, “Nothing that can’t wait. We can practice tomorrow. Besides, if you were really up for it, you’d be bugging me about getting back out there.”

  Surprising me with a kiss on the cheek and a little pat, she said, “You’re a smart man. I don’t run into those very often,” and headed for the kitchen.

  Something had definitely changed. Before dinner, she’d been a bit on edge. No wonder, with all the unfamiliar stuff being thrown at her. Even in the car she’d been tense. Now she strode across the kitchen like a lioness secure in her domain. Had she had an epiphany of some sort?

  She took a pint bottle of gin from a cabinet and cracked the seal as I said, “I’m going to go wash off whatever Jessica left on my hand.”

  Tanya said, “Okay. I’ll have our drinks ready in a minute.”

  When I came out she was putting the ice tray back in the fridge. The pint bottle on the sink counter was down considerably more than just two shots. She handed me my drink and I thanked her and sipped. It was good. Strong, but not too strong.

  Smiling, she said, “Good, I got it right,” and she went to the couch. Moving some throw cushions, she sat down and toed off her shoes, then put her feet up on the coffee table.

  “Get comfortable, Ed.”

  I plunked myself into a sofa chair. After toeing off my own shoes, I stretched out my legs and sipped gin.

  Tanya asked, “You want to watch some TV?”

  Not really. I shrugged. “Do you?”

  “Not really. It’s Saturday night. I’d be real surprised if there’s anything on I’d want to see. Want to watch a DVD?”

  “I’d be more interested in talking a while before I leave.”

  Sipping her gin, she asked, “If you weren’t here, what would you be doing tonight? Partying somewhere?”

  “Probably not. I might be at a certain bar, shooting pool.”

  “Why that bar in particular?”

  “It’s comfortable. The people are comfortable.” I grinned and added, “The bartender wears short shorts and has great legs to go with her smile. Great to look at or talk to, even with her boyfriend sitting nearby. You know how that is?”

  Tanya chuckled, “Yeah, I do. One bartender I knew used to be able to talk about anything. He knew a little about everything, I think. And he could mix from memory. Didn’t need the book.”

  Hoisting my glass slightly, I said, “That’s real talent, ma’am. Some can’t get ‘em right even with the book.”

  She laughed softly and sipped quietly for a time. I sipped and just relaxed in that big, comfy chair.

  Tanya asked, “You don’t have a girlfriend?”

  “Not a steady one. There’s a lady at Carrington Base, but she’s behaving herself to try to make some rank these days. I haven’t seen her unofficially since about June.”

  Tanya chuckled, “You poor thing.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I see it, too.”

  “You haven’t done any local looking?”

  Sipping, I said, “Looking, yes. Not too hard, though. The ones my age want big fat strings. Security. Family and property m
ergers through marriage. One played hard for a while, then invited her kids and grandkids for the holidays. My idea of a holiday is something else entirely. Besides, they didn’t like me and I didn’t like them. When I told one to mind his own business, it turned them all against me.”

  She laughed, “I’ve met some of those. Don’t you want the things other people want?”

  I shrugged and sighed, “Apparently not, ma’am. I can’t stand kids very long. Wouldn’t own a dog. The only team sport I’ll watch is women’s beach volleyball.”

  “No hunting or fishing? Hanging out with the guys?”

  “Most of the time I’m my own best company, and when I’m not, other guys won’t cut it. One of my better friends is a lesbian in Pasco. She and her buds are bikers. We’ll ride around, have a few beers, shoot pool, and when it’s over, it’s over. No hassles, no complications. I don’t get laid, but we have a good time.”

  Sipping, I added, “Correction; I don’t usually get laid, but a couple of them are bi. When they have a certain itch, I get elected. Or appointed, actually. No voting.”

  Laughing, Tanya said, “Appointed, elected… as long as you don’t get infected from their itches, right?”

  Popping up a field screen, I displayed an info page about Amaran medical nanobots and sent it across to her.

  “They make me use rubbers. I don’t mind ‘cuz rubbers make a man last longer and they’re worried about pregnancy. But with those ‘bots in my system, infection isn’t a problem. They zap every known disease.”

  Something a yard tall moved in the back yard. Levering out of the chair, I took two steps to the window and saw a deer chewing on some kind of bush.

  Tanya joined me and said, “That’s Leaping Lucy. She hops fences and eats anything green. They’ve tried to catch her, but she always gets away.” Nudging me with her shoulder, she said, “You were out of that chair and at the window in about two seconds.” With a grin, she added, “And you didn’t spill a drop. Now that’s talent.”

  “Careful, ma’am. I might get the idea you’re interested.”

  She barked a laugh. “I already know you’re interested. You said you’d lick me silly at the first opportunity, remember?”