Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2)

by Miles A. Maxwell

  “Lunch!” Scrounge yelled from the double doors. “Wild Wing Wednesday at Granny’s.”

  “Today’s Thursday!” Lama said. “It’s ten in the morning.”

  “Eat when you can. Granny wasn’t able to hang on to her wings.”

  “Like the chicken,” Lama laughed.

  “Granny was keeping her frozen stuff outside until a bear got half of it,” Scrounge said, ignoring Lama. “I’ve got to get another load of fuel over to Mercer, E.”

  Rani followed Scrounge out the door.

  Where’s he getting it? Everon wondered. He checked his watch. Counting Scrounge’s last load, probably down to 6,000 gallons. Now, on his way back. By the time he gets there, 4,500. Wherever this tankerful came from, Everon bet there’d be no more.

  Ewing pawed open the bag, exposing a huge pile of barbecued wings. Picked up one and took a bite.

  “Hey, E! Look!” Nick pointed at a local newspaper Scrounge must have left on the control desk. “Your brother!”

  Everon did a double take. The lunch sack had been sitting on it. It was Franklin, Melissa and the owl on the front page.

  “Uh — E,” Lama said. “Look, I’m sorry but we may have to radio Thomas with control changes and let them run its switching by hand. I don’t understand it. The circuit I set up stopped working about an hour ago.”

  Lama’s stuff never crapped out, never failed. This was highly unusual.

  Ewing stepped over. “I could take a look at it.”

  Everon considered Hunt’s young programmer, colorful extension cord tattoos running down his long arms. Everon looked to Lama.

  The older programmer shrugged, “Give the kid a shot. I can’t go.”

  “Okay,” Everon nodded to Ewing. “Grab your gear and meet me at the MD-900 in two minutes.”

  The young programmer threw his chicken bones in a second garbage bag and grabbed his laptop case. Took a couple more wings to go.

  Hunt Williams walked in followed by Scrounge.

  “Who owns the land directly north of Mercer?” Everon asked quickly.

  “Umm, that’s a preserve,” the senior executive answered absently, leaning over the console next to the chicken wings, signing what looked like another of Scrounge’s purchase orders. “Why?”

  As Scrounge snagged Hunt’s paperwork and headed for the door, he turned to Ewing, handed him a prescription vial. “Here’s that heparin for your grandmother.” Ewing was speechless, tears in the young programmer’s eyes his only thank-you.

  “You should thank Rani. He’s the one told me about this little corner pharmacy he spotted still open over in Richboro.”

  Hunt looked up. “You’ve got some sauce on your face there, Everon.” He handed over his handkerchief, frowning as Everon rubbed his cheek with the white cloth.

  “The lines that run directly north out of Mercer, Hunt. Where do they go?”

  “The ones to the U.S. grid?” Hunt glanced at the bag of greasy red wings.

  “No, another set of 230 kilovolt lines that come off the main buss at the north fence and go underground.”

  Hunt frowned, “I don’t know. Sid Abrams our COO and his logistics people —” Hunt stopped, pain in his expression. “Sid took my place at the convention.”

  The New York convention, Everon realized. They’re probably all dead. He pulled the senior executive aside, asked, “Will you see if you have any old records that mention it?”

  “Toni may know where to look,” Hunt answered cautiously. “But why?”

  “Because,” Everon whispered, “I was almost killed trespassing on that freak outfit’s property.”

  “What!” Hunt looked at the handkerchief now spattered with red, Everon held to his cheek. “That’s not barbecue sauce, is it?”

  “Not so loud,” Everon held up a hand. “No it isn’t. There’s literally no time to get into it with everybody right now.” He glanced at Lama. “Please, just find out who owns that land. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Lama reached into the sack, suddenly less picky about his health food diet. The programmer’s right hand continued typing while he took a bite with his left, puzzled a blank look at Everon, “Maybe —” he muttered, then back to his screen, “connect to the Internet through Mercer?”

  “These are the best wings I’ve ever had!” Nick said.

  “That’s what the chicken said,” Lama laughed.

  Everon wiped at his cheek. Fortunately he wasn’t the only one wearing what looked like a little sauce. He spit on Hunt’s handkerchief to clear off the rest, grabbed a wing and went out the door.

  Get Both Of Them

  Sheila Koontz finally got the line to ring at the factory she’d been dialing, after almost an hour trying to get the miserable telephone company to help put her call through.

  She flipped the pages of the magazines and newspapers that covered her desk. And if the line doesn’t go dead, there probably won’t be anyone there . . . Ringggg . . . Six television monitors were bolted to walls around the Cleveland Plain Dealer office she was using. It wouldn’t be the first time her early bird persistence paid —

  “Two-State Solar, Judy speaking.”

  Yes!

  “Hello, Judy, this is Sheila Koontz calling from Cleveland with The National News Association. I’m looking —”

  “I know what you want, Sheila. I can’t reach him.”

  “But —”

  “And even if I could, I’ve been told: No interviews!”

  The line went dead.

  “Bitch!” Sheila fumed. An hour wasted, dammit! I’m not going down that easy!

  And then one of the monitors caught her eye. She pointed the remote. Brought up the volume. The picture had switched to another location at a company called Williams Power in east Pennsylvania.

  And there he was.

  The older blond one. Climbing up and starting a helicopter. Since the moment Sheila had seen the very first Teterboro news broadcast, both their faces had been clearly imprinted on her mind.

  This stupid local news station doesn’t know what they have!

  She scootched her copy of TIME around so it faced her in the middle of her desk. “Gotta get both of them! Erie isn’t that far. And then if we get over to Trenton or wherever the blond one is. That’s a lot closer than Bumfuck, Nevada —

  “Alan!” she yelled for her cameraman, “Get your gear to the van! We’re taking it on the road!”

  One More Theologian

  “Okay. So we have a Catholic priest and a rabbi coming. We lost our Lutheran. We have a Baptist . . .” Dr. Hyram Millar’s voice trailed off doubtfully as he scanned the list.

  “Do we need one more?” his assistant Deirdre asked, thirty-something, maybe ten years Millar’s junior, full helmet of fine blonde hair.

  “What we need is somebody from outside,” Millar nodded in the bright lighting of a corner room of the Temple basement. His head jerked.

  His eye had locked onto something. He rushed between laboratory tables covered with two-foot squares of white silk. His hand shot out and he tugged the corner of one into position just so. Hiding the identity of the object it covered, a small corner of brilliant gold.

  He took a breath, called out, “Somebody well-known to the public, but who won’t really know what he’s looking at. Somebody who’ll just verify what he or she generally thinks the characters look like.”

  “What about this guy?” Deirdre walked over, set the latest issue of The Salt Lake Tribune squarely on Millar’s table. “He’s a church minister. They’re pretty basic mainstream Christians. Congregationalists from Pennsylvania.”

  “Hmm,” Millar nodded.

  “He’s famous for this rescue thing in New York. The President mentioned him at the end of his broadcast yesterday.”

  “Perfect,” Millar agreed. “Get me his number.”

  Sharks

  The eight surfers in the water could only paddle so fast. They were
about to become lunch. A hope for one of the medium-size swells to come through next was all they had. A wave wide enough to share — one that wouldn’t dump everybody or slam them into each other. Up on the perfect wave you can really fly. Problem is, the perfect wave never shows when you need it.

  In came a flat little roller. Eight across, everyone made it up on their boards.

  But the wave was too slow. Twenty yards behind, the great white closed on one of the wahinis like a bullet. Its smaller cousins, certain to be satisfied with leftovers, came in right behind.

  “Switch on!” Ray yelled, running back from the shallows, letting line pay out of the short, stiff pole.

  Jacob flipped a silver lever on the front of a slim six-by-eight-inch box atop a car battery.

  As if stabbed by an electric prod, out in the swell the great white twisted away from the surfers with amazing speed. The other sharks — dangerous blacktips, the bulls too — raced after.

  “Reel ’er in, Ray!” Jacob shouted. “Quick! It’s going to grab the thrasher.”

  “Got it, Bro!” Ray stabbed the auto rewind button. With a whirrr! the reel began its high-speed retraction.

  But the sharks came on faster than the little winch could turn.

  “Getting close!” Jacob yelled, struggling the car battery off the sand. The boys backpedaled up the beach, pulling the line with them. The blacktips and the tigers began falling behind. But there was no way they were going to keep the device out of the huge white’s reach.

  “Ray! Run for it!”

  They turned and jammed up the sand at an angle away from the madly paddling surfers, Jacob lugging the heavy battery, Ray with the rod and reel still rewinding, hauling in line fast as it could go.

  Several spectators noticed and pointed. “Those boys there! They’re doing it!” The sharks were being led away. The crowd began to cheer.

  The huge white entered foamy waters too shallow for it to swim. Caught in one of the world’s oldest, most primitive animal impulses, the huge eating machine tried to chase mindlessly after the device, jaws gnashing, tail thrashing, up onto the beach. Jacob flipped the silver football-shaped device clean out of the water.

  Still in the surf, blacktips and bulls found themselves suddenly released from their primeval attraction and turned away, looking for more meat. The first boys to clear the deep helped the three wahinis through the turbulent white-water danger zone. Seconds later, all eight surfers were in the shallows.

  Spectators cheered. Friends ran into the foam, lending a hand. Together they walked the final yards up the wet sand.

  The lifeboat, which continued its inexorable journey into the pounding surf, now entered the breakers. Waves caught the bow and sucked it down, pitching the stern where the body sat, high into the air.

  The corpse looked as though it ought to be thrown out, but it fell forward into the middle, as the boat went lengthwise, end over end.

  The Man From PINSTECH

  Jacob, Ray and Mary left the gnashing jaws of the dying air-starved giant and joined the surging crowd where the capsized dinghy washed onto the beach. Six surfers slowly lifted the boat’s rim on one side.

  “Holy mother of God!” said one. “Gross!” said another, as they pushed it all the way over.

  “Whew-eee!” Ray grimaced. “What a smell!”

  “Like rotten eggs!” Jacob said, rubbing his nose.

  It rolled upright.

  The corpse lay folded over at the waist near the small boat’s stern, face pressed against one steel bench seat. The reason the body had not been flung overboard was obvious. Its right foot was wedged under the seat in front.

  Jacob stared at the boat’s starboard side rail. “Any idea what that says, Bro?”

  “Where?” Mary asked.

  “There,” Jacob pointed, “on the rim.”

  “Nkar?” Jacob asked.

  “Gotta be the name of a boat,” Ray said. “With part of it missing. Looks like some of the paint washed away.”

  One of the judges, a local lifeguard, pulled a faded brown wallet, half-protruding, from the corpse’s rear pants pocket. Its edges were crusted with salt.

  The only thing inside was a picture ID.

  The face of a man stared back, looking far better than his corpse. But it was the same short wiry dark hair.

  Ray peered over the lifeguard’s shoulder. “I guess that’s what he looked like before his nose and lips and cheeks got all puffed up by the sun.”

  Jacob stood next to his brother. “There’s a pair of wire-rim glasses like those stuck under the seat,” he pointed.

  “Ahmad Hashim,“ the lifeguard frowned, reading the bottom line on the ID. In the upper corners of the ID were tiny symbols: one yellow and black; the other, yellow and sky blue. Some foreign characters sat atop a word, presumably English:

  “I’m pretty sure that top line’s Arabic,” Ray said.

  “Or Urdu.” Jacob pointed to the yellow and black emblem. “That’s definitely the international nuclear energy symbol. I don’t know the other one, but that’s an atom in its center.” A blue wreath surrounded a nucleus and several electrons. The tiny banner beneath the wreath was illegible.

  “Interesting,” Ray agreed. “He’s not the only thing expired. Look at the date.”

  “Considering the man’s condition,” Mary said, “maybe you shouldn’t be so close, boys.”

  “You’re right!” As if burned, the lifeguard threw the wallet back on the dinghy’s seat. “Everybody back!”

  But Jacob poked a piece of driftwood at the waterlogged tan jacket, the pocket on the right. The body fell back, and three green and gold circuit cards each the size of a smartphone slid out. There were symbols in black printed along one edge.

  A man walked over snapping pictures. The boat . . . the corpse . . . He turned suddenly, took a picture of Ray and Jacob.

  “Uh — hi, Tom Daniels, boys, Jacksonville Times. We’re covering the meet.” He pointed at the great white. “Did you guys have something to do with that shark coming into the beach like that?”

  The boys grinned at each other. “Yes,” they answered together.

  “What was going on over there?”

  Ray’s voice suddenly belonged to a used car salesman: “Using a device we built we were able to call the shark in to the beach.”

  “Shark Thrasher!” Jacob joined in. “Didn’t know what hit it!”

  “Shark Thrasher?” asked the reporter. “How does that work?”

  “Our device puts out a signal that simulates a floundering fish,” Ray explained. “That’s why we call it the Thrasher.”

  “Thrasher,” the reporter repeated into a compact tape recorder.

  “Inside there’s a small vial of fish blood and a transmitter,” Jacob said. “Drives the olfactory wild!”

  “Old factory?”

  “Olfactory! Smell!” Ray answered. “Sharks are drawn to the smell of blood in the water.”

  “Oh right, of course,” the reporter nodded. “Blood smell,” he noted.

  “We ran it a little different today,” said Jacob.

  “Risky so close to the guys. But we’ve only built this one prototype,” Ray added. “So far.”

  Jacob explained, “Usually we’d want the first shark that was drawn to the device to actually swallow it — the unit’s pretty small — so you could drop more than one in the water if you wanted. Once a shark swallows one, unless it’s chewed or broken, the device’ll go on thrashing, emitting signals right through the side of the shark.”

  “Really,” the reporter replied.

  “That’s right,” Ray continued. “So the shark that eats it kind of goes wild too. And any sharks in the vicinity all try to chow down on the one that has the device merrily pinging away in its stomach.

  “A big shark fight — what we call a THRASH.” Jacob was really getting revved up. “What marine biologists call a feeding frenzy. It’s when all the sharks in the area just go nuts trying to eat each other!”<
br />
  “Fascinating. Uh — do you mind if I ask how old you boys are?”

  “I’m fifteen,” Ray answered. “Jacob’s fourteen.”

  “You know, you boys are heroes today. You saved your friends’ lives. Really terrific — can I take a look at your device?”

  As they walked over by the great white, Mary’s face held a reluctant smile.

  “I’m glad we could divert those killers away from our friends,” Ray said.

  “We don’t really want to be heroes,” Jacob added, sounding just a little insincere. “It’s fine and all that, of course, but it doesn’t matter all that much.”

  “If being heroes doesn’t matter, what does?”

  The boys smiled at each other. Ray began, “We just want to sell some . . . Shark Thrashers!” they finished together.

  “Shark Thrasher, Williams and Williams. TM!” Jacob added.

  “Well then let’s get some shots with your device,” the reporter lifted his camera. “How about over here by the shark?”

  The boys were too excited to notice their mother’s mouth slowly changing to a thin line of worry.

  Tower 22

  Everon, Holmes and Ewing lifted off and followed the lines for Thomas. Miles later there it was, Nan and Andréa in the giant HALO, pulling the heavy conductor cable to the last tower. Tower Twenty-two.

  Everon steered the comparatively tiny MD-900 out past the woods over Route 1, giving the monster a wide berth.

  They hovered a moment to watch Metalhead, the silver-hatted, head-bobbing lineswoman in a bucket a hundred feet above her truck, as she carefully checked the porcelain bells of the last long white insulator for cracks. The more bells, the higher the voltage. Twenty bells. 69,000 volts. Very dangerous.

  The last link, Everon thought. If there’s any damage . . . changing the insulator out — more time Enya doesn’t have.

  “This one’s good!” Metalhead transmitted and hung the last clamshell on the tower arm.