by Laer Carroll
The Super Olympian: Mystic Warrior
by
Laer Carroll
Copyright © 2011 by L. E. Carroll
Summary : She is superhumanly deadly and has esoteric powers. But Olympic gold medalist Sasha Canaro hides that side of herself. Publicly she is merely a high-paid fashion model and occasional consultant to police, who call her The Bloodhound.
Then she meets a billionaire industrialist who may be another immortal shapechanger. Or something even stranger. And the woman has a job for Sasha.
Chapter 1 - AirCar's Face
In the third year of her career as a fashion model immortal shapechanger Sasha Canaro met someone who radically changed her life.
In that time she'd learned that fame has pluses and minuses. Some of her fame came from her career. She scored two major fashion magazine covers, several minor ones, and a couple dozen for more general magazines. She accepted a job as a spokesperson for a cosmetics line, which highly amused her since she used absolutely no cosmetics though she carried around a few products to strengthen her image as an average human.
Her modeling career continued to grow, for she was professional, friendly, and adaptable.
Her fame also had minor boosts from the several charities she volunteered for occasionally, and from help she gave various shooting and martial arts organizations. With those she mostly lent her Olympic gold-medal reputation, but she did give demonstrations in both fields.
For shooting she did what came to be called her trick exhibitions. She would shoot some difficult targets from unusual positions in a drum roll of fire. The "show-biz" nature of these events helped turn her deadly skill with weapons into mere tricks. Any stories, past or future, about extraordinary skill would be discounted as exaggerations or rumors or more tricks.
Much of her fame also came from the celebrities she spent time with, at parties and dinners and fund-raisers and fun outings. She dated one female and a number of male celebrities and had a couple as lovers. Her rumored lovers were legion, of course, and their break-ups legendary if fictional. She was often said to have "executed" this lover or that .
Some of those celebrities were so because of their wealth. She had become friends with the Thompsons and dined with them every few weeks or went on outings with them where she inevitably met other wealthy people.
That very fateful meeting was in a beautiful early-summer evening at the Thompsons' roof-top garden, a party for Eliza's graduation from her first year of high school. The city was a marvelous carpet of lights all around. The night air was that exact humidity and that exact balance between warm and chill which turned "velvet" night from cliché to exact truth.
Sasha had only a brief movement of the air behind her to warn her that someone was approaching. She reflexively went to slow time and turned.
"Sasha Canaro? Hi."
The woman coming to a halt near her seemed unthreatening. She was dressed in an expensive red knee-length dress and matching heels. She could have been Sasha's sister except that her hair was long, curly, and black.
She was as tall as Sasha, had the same lean curves, the same effortless grace, and was almost shockingly beautiful. Her pale skin seemed lightly tanned but it was her natural skin color. Her race was some exotic mix Sasha had never seen before. The shapechanger would have classified her as an elf if such a race existed.
Sasha came back to regular time and inhaled. The odors arriving from the woman revealed the same genetic image as her actual image, but Sasha could not read her age. It could have been twelve or twelve hundred.
Sasha smiled. "Hello."
The woman smiled back and held out her hand. "I'm Anna Prince. Isn't Eliza a darling? "
"Yes, she is." Sasha took the woman's hand and had a shock which almost sent her into slow time again. Anna Prince's hand was impervious to Sasha's sub-microscopic probes and messengers. It could have been porcelain or plastic or steel.
"I predict a long and happy life for Eliza," Prince said, finishing the shake and dropping her hand. "I will be forever grateful to you for what you did for her."
Sasha was at a loss for words, which rarely happened. She was a true daughter of her attorney mother and artist father, neither of whom were ever at a loss for words.
Anna Prince stepped forward and around Sasha to lean forward and kiss the cheek of the famous ciné star with whom Sasha had been flirting.
"Hello, Elwood. May I steal Sasha from you for a few minutes? If she'll allow that, that is."
Prince looked questioningly at Sasha, who nodded.
"Certainly. Elwood was just remembering he is married anyway."
All three laughed. The tall action-movie star grimaced comically and wandered away.
"Perhaps we could sit—there." Prince pointed at a corner of the garden which was slightly less crowded. It also had a couple of empty garden chairs turned so that sitters could look out over Central Park through the spotless chest-high glass parapet.
A wandering waiter did not miss a chance to ogle two gorgeous women on their way to the seats. They exchanged partly full cocktail glasses for full ones, gave him two dazzling smiles.
Sitting, Anna Prince put her feet up on a low garden hassock of some white weather-proof plastic and crossed her legs at the ankles. Sasha imitated her .
"I own Bluebird Security. We sell or lease a lot of equipment to the military and police and other security forces. We are in negotiation with the FBI to supply equipment. As a sweetener we are offering to lend them a few AirSUVs. These are air cars, the first practical ones ever."
"I flew in one a few months ago. The AirBus, I think you call it."
"Oh, yes, after that unfortunate business with the kidnappers."
Sasha raised a brow at the woman, who smiled back ironically. Sasha had no doubt Anna Prince knew all about the "unfortunate business." She had a strong hunch the aircraft had recording equipment which had caught all the action at the end of that episode.
"Selling the air cars is not going to be easy. They will be quite expensive for some time to come. Deliberately so, I might add. Prince Enterprises, which owns Bluebird, has done projections which show massive dislocations in the transport industry if air vehicles are introduced quickly.
"Air cars also require massive changes in the way air vehicles are controlled. Initially they will be classified as helicopters and controlled the same way. Every driver will be required to be certified the same way, and can lose their licenses for the same reasons pilots can be relieved.
"Eventually Prince will institute highly automated control of the vehicles. They will have all sorts of redundant safety features.
"But I'm letting my enthusiasm get away from me. The bottom line is, how would you like to have one of our AirSedans for the next couple of years?"
Sasha blinked at the sudden curve in the conversation.
She took a deep breath. "I'd love it. But I'd have to know more."
"Of course. Well, I see Elwood ambling this way. I'll have one of my people contact you. Is Monday too soon?"
Sasha shook her head No.
"Nice meeting you, Ms. Canaro. I look forward to seeing you again."
As Anna Prince and Sasha stood and shook hands once more the woman spoke again.
"Don't believe Elwood if he says he and his wife are separated. He's a real scoundrel, he is."
Sasha grinned. "I never thought otherwise!"
Special Agent Helen Shaker had become a friend. Every few weeks the two got together, often with "the little Shakers" and Alicia Love and David Trent and other law-enforcement people. Sasha was one of a small group of people who fought crime in some way, including medical examiners and district attorneys, who
were sort-of law enforcement.
Helen had been loudly enthusiastic about being trained as a pilot of an AirSUV at the NYPD Fund-raising and Social barbecue the two had attended a couple of weekends later. Sasha mischievously said nothing about her own good fortune.
It was a Monday a month after the graduation party when Sasha came to the north shore Long Island air base which had been an air-staging area during the Global War of the 1930s. It had languished for years until Prince Enterprises leased it for 99 years and re-habilitated it. Parts of it still had the fifty-years-weathered look. Parts had shiny modern new buildings and refurbished concrete parking areas.
Sasha's taxi let her off in front of just such a shiny modern building of a dozen stories. Other air-car training students were before her and she joined a stream of them entering two sets of double doors. They were checked into the class by using a laser card which had been mailed to them along with a class packet. Scanned by a reader in front of four turnstiles, it let them through to a door labeled Hangar 51. A corridor beyond ended at an exit.
Outside a green-canvas-covered walkway led to a huge barn with faded and in some places peeling grey paint. Inside was a large room with many dozens of skeletal ergonomic chairs arranged in rows. Near a stage on the far side of the room some of the rows had nearly filled up. In one chair Sasha's 3X binocular eyes detected Helen Shaker.
Sasha headed toward her friend. She came up beside Helen Shaker, who was frowning into her class packet, and spoke.
"Hello. Is this seat taken?"
Startled, Helen looked up.
"Why, you bitch! You let me go on and on and never said a word about this!"
"Oh, aren't you pleased to see me? I'm hurt, badly hurt." Sasha laid a hand on her heart and tried to look downcast.
"I may never forgive you." Helen Shaker could no more pull off an angry look now than Sasha a downcast one.
Sasha sat in the seat beside Shaker. "Just look at it this way. You know with me you've got someone to watch your back."
"More likely someone to drop icicles down it." Shaker gave up her fake-pique and smiled.
It was almost 15 minutes (13:33 minutes said Sasha's biological clock) before someone walked out on the stage and went through the ritual microphone check at a lectern.
This was done by a short stout (but very strong) man who looked like an American Indian. He was clad in a light blue flight suit with dark blue patches on his biceps. On his right breast was a large white circle with a dark-blue screaming bird within it. On his left breast was a dark-blue strip with white text on it, a name of some sort.
At 9:00 o'clock on the second the man spoke.
"All right. All you fuckers be quiet now. You late ass-holes tip-toe on in and sit quietly in the nearest seat. My boss is going to say some ceremonial shit. Keep your snores down."
He glanced behind him, saw Anna Prince advancing toward the lectern, and turned back to the microphone.
"This is Anna Prince. She's a god-damned certified financial genius who owns Bluebird Securities and its parent company, Prince Enterprises. Be nice to the billionaire."
With that he stood aside and faced Anna Prince when she neared the lectern. He braced and gave her a sharp military salute. She returned the courtesy just as smartly. Her dark-blue dress suit and light-blue silk blouse and dark blue low-heeled shoes did not detract from a very real military presence.
Sasha suddenly realized that this woman was much older than her apparent twenty years. And her soldierly demeanor was in some sense very true.
Anna Prince relaxed into a civilian stance and smiled at the audience. "My esteemed associate here is Colonel Adrian Storm Cloud. He is a High-Plains 'Homey' and a tough little shit. I advise you to be very nice to him. He's going to be your chief instructor for the four weeks of this class. His is the last word whether you pass or fail this course."
She surveyed the audience. The last few members were quietly taking their seat.
"I'll be short so you can get to the important stuff. As Adrian says, snore quietly and be nice to the billionaire. "
Helen Shaker was smiling. So were a lot of the people in the huge room, at least two hundred of them. No one seemed in danger of snoring.
She wondered if the two on the stage had practiced the by-play. No, she decided, she was seeing the real people.
Remembering Prince's seemingly mechanical hand Sasha amended that to: a real part of the two people. Anna Prince might be another shapechanger who, like Sasha, only revealed part of herself.
"The two main technologies behind the Prince Enterprises air car are the superbattery and induced paramagnetism. Together they will revolutionize travel on this planet.
"Rather, they COULD revolutionize it. But we at Prince have analyzed what would happen in such a revolution. It would bring economic disruption, wide-spread too-rapid social dislocation, possibly famine, and likely wars. So we are going to 'evolutionize' its introduction. We will be working with companies in the transportation industry to phase the technology into their operations. Instead of selling products based on superbatteries and paramagnetism, we are going to license that tech to them."
She took a sip of water from a glass on the lectern.
"Superbatteries in current production will hold over a hundred times as much electricity as ordinary batteries. Our scientists believe they can hold more than a thousand times eventually. The important aspect of them to you is that they won't explode if your plane is damaged or destroyed in a crash. Figuring out that took almost a billion dollars. Fortunately, I had a few billion lying around in banks doing nothing much."
She paused for the laughs, but Sasha could tell that her nonchalance over "a few billion dollars" was genuine .
"Induced paramagnetism requires a bit more explanation for those flying paramagnetic craft. The basic effect is the same as ordinary magnetism: like magnets repel like magnets, opposite one attract.
"Paramagnetism is important in two ways to you today. Ordinary magnetic levitation such as that used in maglev trains requires a roadbed with one or more iron or steel rails because only iron or steel can be magnetized. The 'feet' of maglev trains are electromagnets of like charge. The feet and rails repulse each other, so the feet and the vehicles attached to them fly above the rails.
"In paramagnetic suspension the roadbed can be concrete or wood or even dirt. Paramag vehicles can go anywhere. Even over water, though it gets a bit complicated there.
"One effect is important to you. What paramag vehicles pass over gets squashed. It gets squashed evenly so what's below is in less danger than if run over by an automobile, but it can be damaged nonetheless.
"Now think what this means. We can have paramaglev skates, skateboards, cargo pallets, bicycles, motorcycles. Cars, buses, tanks, super tanks, and even land ships as large as an ocean liner are also possible. All without superbatteries, all with conventional power sources, even muscle power. Paramagnets requires almost no energy beyond the initial oomph to create them. And, yes, 'oomph' is a technical term."
The laughter was scattered but real as Prince took a sip of water.
"So why are superbatteries important to air cars? That's because air can be paramagnetized. Once that's done it can be sucked into and through and out of ducts and acts as it does in ordinary jet engines. But without consuming a lot of liquid fuel, and without heating the air to high temperatures.
"The air IS heated, but the exhaust is more like that of hair dryers or clothes dryers. When you are flying your air cars you will need to worry less about damaging the environment when you land or take off than with ordinary jet engines. Though such damage can occur. Your classes will deal with that, and quite stringently."
She glanced back at the colonel, standing at parade rest behind and to one side of her keenly watching the crowd. It was clear who would be "stringently" dealing with students.
"Now where do you come in? Bluebird is loaning air vehicles to your organizations for two years. There is no cost to you
above routine maintenance. During that time you are basically promoting air vehicles. We count all costs toward advertising.
"After two years we will begin leasing vehicles, again at a loss, though less so, as part of advertising. The lease program will last another two years. After that we expect to be selling vehicles at a modest profit.
"All of this will be to American and allied military and police. This is to let you get ahead of the curve of air vehicle use. Eventually civilians and criminals here and abroad WILL get them. And you will have to deal with them."
She paused for a moment, looked around the room, and continued.
"I'm sure, as the Colonel would put it, you have been bored to piss. So I'm going to let you actually piss, get some coffee and a donut, scratch your balls and tits, and make any last-minute phone calls. Then you are going to go on a plane ride in a hypersonic craft we call the AirLiner. Thank you, and have a great time."
Colonel Storm Cloud behind her back was gesturing "Stand up!" with both hands. As Anna Prince smiled and turned to walk away Sasha found herself doing just that.
The Colonel braced and saluted his boss as she walked by. Completely naturally Anna Prince returned the courtesy and gestured for him to accompany her.
"Well, what do you think of that?" said Helen Shaker as the two stood to find their way to the coffee and donuts and the rest rooms.
"I think Anna Prince is a lot more than she shows."
"Amen to that, sister."
A half hour later and several donuts devoured Sasha Canaro and Helen Shaker joined the stream of students who were exiting Hangar 51. One of ten pilot teachers had approached the lectern and gotten everyone's attention. Then she had announced that it was time to take their "familiarization plane ride."
Outside the day was heating toward a warm June day. Off to the north a half mile away the Long Island Sound sparkled. Sasha could see several ocean-going vessels inward or outward bound. They were far enough away they seemed not to move.
The students all stared at the vehicle before them. It was half the length of an American football field, a somewhat-flattened finless dart with a fatter behind than the long prow of the craft. It crouched on several dozen low wheels and was painted light blue with a wide dark blue stripe running from nose to tail. On its middle was a white circle with the dark blue screaming Bluebird inside it.