3rd World Products, Book 16

by Ed Howdershelt

  Shrugging again, I replied, “Well, gee, I dunno, ma’am. Find a way to speed things up some and ‘once in a while‘ might be survivable, I guess.”

  Tanya laughed, “I’ll see what I can do when the time comes. I hope mentioning Martin didn’t spoil anything for you.”

  I shook my head. “Nah. When you said, ‘Martin was like that, too‘, I just figured I was doing something right.”

  Laughing again and leaning to kiss me, Tanya said, “Yes, Ed. You were definitely doing something right. Very right. Just right.”

  “Good of you to say so, milady, but you were on top in there. I was just your helpless toy, a plaything for your voracious carnal desires. Whatever you achieved, you earned on your own.”

  Grinning Tanya had been ready to laugh again, thinking I was about to deliver another funny. Her grin faded a bit, then she looked thoughtful and said, “You’re right. Except for some kisses and your hands all over me, I did do all the work, didn’t I?”

  I sighed, “I tried to warn you, ma’am. I’m lazy.”

  She chuckled and lightly slapped my thigh, then sipped her drink and looked thoughtful again. After a time, she said, “You’ve been right about everything, dammit. All along. Do you know how annoying that is?”

  “Guess not. From my end of things, it seems to work out pretty well. I’d probably even recommend it to others.”

  “I’m sure you would, but take my word for it, it can be annoying.”

  “Yes, milady. As you say, milady. Annoying even when it’s to your advantage and in your best interests?”

  She nodded. “Even then. You know why?”

  “Maybe because in order to appear to be particularly right about something, someone else has to appear to be wrong or uninformed?”

  Giving me a droll glance, she replied, “Exactly.”

  “Well, then, my apologies, ma’am. I’d be more than happy to try to make it up to you in bed.”

  Nodding again, she said, “That might do, I think. Yes. That might be a perfect way to apologize. But not just yet. I still need to rest a bit.”

  We stood sipping in silence for a few moments, then something occurred to me and I sent a probe to have a look at Marie. The deep dents in her skull and face were now patches of translucent skin stretched over eggshell-white new bone. Her face was now perfectly symmetrical. The gristle of her nose was becoming less visible beneath the new skin. Oh, hell.

  I said, “Tanya, we gotta get moving, ma’am. Now.”

  “What? What’s wrong, Ed?”

  “I just had a thought and checked your mom. The ‘bots have made a little more progress than we anticipated. Pack a bag for a few days somewhere else.”

  Putting up a screen, I showed her Marie’s face from a distance of about two feet. Tanya stared in shock, took a breath through clenched teeth, and hissed, “Oh, my God! They’ll see that the next time they check on her!”

  I checked the time on the screen; nine-forty-three. Ten was one of the times listed on her meds chart. Morning or evening? Both? I split the screen and pulled up her charts. Both.

  “Yup, in about fifteen minutes. And then they’ll come for us.”

  Again staring at her mom, Tanya asked, “How the hell have they NOT noticed all that before now?!”

  To get her moving, I shut down the screen and led her to the bedroom as I said, “Pack while we talk. The ‘bots had to make enough of themselves, then they cleaned and prepped. No more low grade infection. No more toxins in the system. No more tiny bits of bone in the wrong places and stuff like that.”

  She grabbed her pack and chose some clothes quickly, then packed a smaller pack with her toilet articles. Looping a strap through the smaller bag’s straps, she buckled it and set the bags on the bed.

  As she packed, I said, “If a car plowed into your living room, they’d haul out the debris, throw tarps over the work areas, and start rebuilding the framework first. Same thing with Marie, but I thought they’d start with brain damage to get her functions back up first. Instead, they started with everything first.”

  Tanya looked at me and laughed, “Then I was wrong? You aren’t always right?”

  Shrugging, I sighed, “Guess not. I’ll work on it, ma’am.”

  I was dressed before she had her two bags packed. She also had a small suitcase in her closet, so I took it to the kitchen. I packed food items and paper towels around her booze bottles, then tossed in a few plastic cups and her coffee mug. Tanya came in buttoning her blouse and studied my choices, then added a few things and some plastic tableware.

  She closed the case and listened as she shook it lightly, then said, “Good,” and set it on the floor.

  We gathered all the bags by the front door. I had Galatea park close in front of her door in standard configuration and her nonstandard stealth mode. As we carried our stuff aboard, I saw something flash in one of the cars at the edge of the lot. Sending a probe there, I saw a guy talking animatedly on a cell phone. He lowered the phone, poked buttons, and began talking again as Tea lifted away from Tanya’s apartment.

  I said, “Wait. If they think we’re in there and won’t open up, they might break in. If they know we aren’t there, they might take time to find a key. We’ll leave on the boards.”

  Guys were getting out of cars below. I had Tea lower us and stay in front of the door as Tanya opened it, then I had Tea lift away quickly. The guys by the cars saw the light from the open door and us and began trotting toward us. Tanya pulled her door shut and we launched southward off her porch into the night.

  We went to stealth mode at a thousand feet and Tanya pinged me as we reached four thousand feet.

  When I answered, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  Slowing my board, I said, “Nowhere. We’re here. Tea will guide us aboard. Let her take control of your board.”

  A few moments later we were aboard Galatea. I took my coffee mug off my pocket and offered it to Tanya. She took it for a sip, then two, and handed it back.

  As I sipped, she asked, “What now?”

  Taking a seat by the console, I said, “Now we sit back and think. I’ll call Stephanie and she can put her law firm on it tomorrow. Want to watch your mom for a while?”

  Something seemed to occur to her and she checked her backpacks with several ‘oh, damn‘s.

  I asked, “Problem?”

  “My jewelry box. It’s still on the bed, under the pants I decided not to take. Ed, my mother’s stuff is in it, too.”

  Putting up a screen, I sent one of my core’s probes to Tanya’s apartment. Tanya put a finger through the image of a pair of jeans on the bed. I had the probe flip them aside to uncover the box, then had it pick up the box, move it to an upper rear corner of the room, and cover it with a stealth field.

  I said, “It’ll be up there like that until you or I take it down.”

  One of my own probes showed two guys in suits at Tanya’s front door. One stood shivering in the night chill as the other talked on a cell phone.

  We heard the phone-tiny voice of Agent Elgin say, “…tinue to watch. You said they didn’t have their backpacks, so maybe they just went to a movie. I’m trying to reach Connor by phone.”

  Tanya looked at me as she took out her silent phone. She gave me a questioning look and I gave her a ‘who knows?’ shrug. Those guys would end up back in their cars. I switched the probe to Elgin and it located her by GPS.

  She was in a motel kitchenette. She wore an oversized man’s shirt and carried a glass of something tea-colored as she sat down on a thinly padded chair by a wooden table. The shirt flowed around her hips and thighs and concealed more while she sat than when she’d been standing.

  Sipping her drink, she opened a laptop on the table and said, “Okay, I’m back.”

  The laptop’s screen quickly displayed the face of a blonde woman in an office. I faintly heard children in the background and figured it was a home office. The woman was Ann Fullbright. She opened her jacket and fluffed her collar before sh
e spoke.

  “I like that big shirt. It looks damned comfortable.”

  Elgin chuckled, “It is. They left her apartment a few minutes ago on the boards, but they didn’t have their packs.”

  Fullbright gave a ‘who knows?’ flip of her hand and said, “Like you said, maybe they went to a movie. Did you see the pictures I sent of Marie Connor? They’re phenomenal! I didn’t really want this assignment when I got it, but now…” she let the sentence end with, “Wow! That’s all. Just wow!”

  Nodding, Elgin said, “I got them, and yes, they’re definitely phenomenal. Has anyone figured out how he did it?”

  “Oh, hell, no. All we know with any certainty is that no AI treated her in that room.”

  “Certainty? How? I know they don’t lie or break laws, but maybe they found a way to get around the law.”

  Fullbright conceded, “Okay, then, all I know for certain is what I’m told, which is that no AI treated her in that room. I have no reason to disbelieve that, and that would appear to mean he treated her. All we have to figure out is how the hell he did it.”

  “And whether any laws were actually broken.”

  “Not at our pay levels, Agent Elgin. We only report and sometimes decide how to bust the people we’re told to bust, and we don’t always get to decide even that much.”

  Elgin said, “Ma’am, we can question orders if they don’t make sense, and that’s really all I’m doing now. For God’s sake, he just healed that poor woman, he didn’t rob Fort Knox at gunpoint. It’s enough to issue warrants and hand the cases off to the lawyers. That’s what this is all going to boil down to anyway. Courtrooms and politics.”

  Fullbright shook her head. “It has to be all the way, Elgin. Handcuffs, the perp walk, and everything else. Unless it’s somehow proven that he didn’t break those laws, he had to have broken those laws to get the nanobots into her.”

  Huh. I’d heard almost the same line from Larcon once. ‘Until it’s proven he didn’t break the law, he did, and it isn’t our job to prove anything.’

  Elgin’s voice tightened. “I remember reading somewhere it’s supposed to be the other way around, Ms. Fullbright. The US Constitution, I believe it was. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Those issues are also above our pay grade, Elgin. We’re told who to bust. Others decide why.” Glancing away for a moment, Fullbright nodded, then faced the screen to say, “At least this isn’t one of those damned terrorist clusterflaps. We can both get a good night’s sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Agent Elgin.”

  Elgin hadn’t even finished saying, “Yes, ma’am,” before Fullbright tapped their connection off. She sat still for a moment, then reached to turn off her laptop and closed the lid. Sipping her drink, she hiked a foot up on her chair, exposing one delicious golden thigh before she draped her arm over her knee.

  Tanya glanced at me and I said, “She seems to be one of the good guys trapped in a bad guy job.”

  When Elgin muttered, “Fuck this,” and stood up, I split the screen so Tanya could see what I was doing, then I sent a field around Elgin’s kitchen. It found a few bugs, as expected. Watchers watching watchers and all that.

  One bug was located in the hollow hinge joint of her tall plastic trash can, which made it the best-hidden, but most vulnerable of them. I had the probe overheat the bug until it noisily popped open, startling Elgin into almost spilling her drink. When she got up to look for the source of the noise, she actually followed her nose and the smell of burnt electronics.

  Opening the can’s lid and bending to peer in provided a fine show of splendid legs and butt, and it took her a few moments to spot the odd object in the hinge. When Elgin saw the little gadget, her gaze narrowed angrily and she tried to work the lid free of the hinge by pulling and twisting against two flanges.

  It wasn’t made to do that, so she simply sat on the floor, gripped the can between her legs, and pulled hard on the lid. That broke one of the flanges and the lid almost hit her face as she fell flat on her back.

  The move also hiked her shirt up most wondrously, indeed. Elgin was a real brunette with a flat, solid belly. I glanced at Tanya and saw the beginnings of sensual excitement; lips swollen a bit. Mouth open slightly and breath hissing softly. Eyes and pupils wide, then suddenly furtive. Tanya licked her lips and swallowed past dryness. Heh.

  Setting the lid aside, Elgin tilted the can almost flat and teased the bug out with a bit of cereal box cardboard, then shoved the can back upright. Sitting cross-legged, she studied the bug for a moment, then glanced speculatively around her kitchen.

  Tanya asked snidely, “Enjoying the show?”

  “Yup. So are you, I noticed. Great legs, huh? But the real show hasn’t started yet.”

  “The real show?”

  “Sure. What would you do if you were her?”

  “I’d pray there wasn’t a camera, too, and that someone wasn’t eyeballing me the way you are right now.”

  I chuckled, “Yeah, no doubt. Don’t worry, she’s about to put on some clothes. She might even go out soon.”

  In another fine show of fitness, Elgin powered to her feet and gracefully reached to snatch up her glass on the way to her bed. We saw her toss jeans and a blouse on the bed before I shut down the probe.

  Tanya blurted in mock-shock, “What?! We aren’t going to watch her change clothes, too?”

  “Sorry. I know you’re disappointed, ma’am. Tea, we’re about to allow the use of Tanya’s cell phone. Bounce the signal and make it look as if we’re in… oh, use New Hampshire, I guess. The corner of US-302 and County Route 16 in Glen, please.”

  Tanya’s glance at her phone seemed to make it ring. I put a hand on it to prevent her answering and traced the call to a computerized autodialer. Her phone rang five times, went silent, and then rang five more times. It didn’t repeat that performance.

  I said, “Their machine got what it wanted. Now it’ll report a GPS location and we can wait for Elgin’s call.”

  “You’re sure she’ll call?”

  “Sure enough to wait for it.” Shrugging, I glanced around the flitter and added, “Not that there’s much else to do up here. I don’t suppose you’d consider trying on one of my shirts? That look was kind of sexy, I thought.”

  Grinning, she snapped, “Oh, I’m sure you did, you letch. But why are you so sure she’ll call?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, exactly. It’s just a strong hunch. She’s very emphatically not happy with things, Tanya. I think she’s about to turn. If she does, I’ll point her at my friend Myra of the NSA. So far, that outfit has played things fairly straight with me.”

  Her left eyebrow went up. “Your friend Myra?”

  “I helped her locate her sister a few years ago.”

  “How good a friend is she?”

  “Not like you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was wondering.”

  “Suspicious woman.”

  “If I weren’t suspicious, you’d think I was stupid. You’re too fond of women and you know way too many of them.”

  “Golly, gee. Is this our first argument, ma’am?”

  “No. We’ve had a couple of others.”

  “Oh. Damn. I was going to break out the booze.”

  Her phone rang. She read the number and shook her head even as I sent a probe and tied it to a screen. Elgin was using a cheap disposable phone to call from her car as she took a northbound on-ramp for I-75 and gained speed.

  I reached for the phone and Tanya put it in my hand. Flicking it on, I said, “Hello, anonymous person of the night. Those cheapo phones work almost as well as the fancy ones, don’t they?”

  After a pause, she said, “Yes, they do. How’d you know it was a cheap phone?”

  “Traced the call. Read the chip number.”

  Sounding skeptical, she replied, “Crap. That fast? How?”

  “Technical expertise, of course. How’s your evening going?”

  “Not so good, in f
act. I needed to get out and drive a while to calm my nerves. Some people are worried about you. It seems you flew away without your backpacks. Others say you just went to a movie or something. As of tomorrow, I probably won’t have to give a damn anymore.”

  “Wait, lady! Don’t jump! It would be such a waste!”

  She chuckled, “Ha-ha. Funny. You have a contact in the NSA. Do you happen to have her number handy?”

  “For a woman who has a functional sense of justice? You bet I do.” I gave her Myra Berens’ office number and said, “If you need a good reference, just holler.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to offer a reference.”

  “Well, I feel differently, ma’am, so I’ll offer it anyway. You might also talk to Col. Angela Horn at 3rd World. She might be able to arrange a liaison position whether you can switch to the NSA or not.”

  “A… okay. Why are you being so generous tonight?”

  “Why are you using a burn phone in a moving car, ma’am? Want me to tell you?”

  After a brief pause, she replied, “Sure. Tell me.”

  “Because you can’t be a good little Nazi. You can’t blindly follow orders and rules that contravene good sense. You have to question, even if it means catching some flak.”

  “How the hell would you know anything like that about me?”

  “I repeat: You’re calling from a burn phone in a moving car. You said people are worried ‘cuz we split. If that isn’t true, it’s a hint. You haven’t asked where we are. Want more?”

  “Okay, okay. Not necessary. Tell your friend I wish her and her mother the best. You, too, really. Thanks and goodnight.”

  On our screen, Elgin tapped off and upped her speed a bit. I left the probe in her car, but she did nothing else as she took the next exit and headed back south. At US-27, she got off I-75, turned right, and parked at a motel.

  Taking the battery out of the phone, Elgin wiped the phone with some paper napkins from a fast food bag, then got out of the car. She threw the phone well into the pond just beyond the parking lot and the food bag and battery went into a trash bin as she entered the motel lobby.

  Chapter Twenty-seven