One Rule - No Rules

by Lawrence Ambrose

  And so I could be climbing into bed with the devil, she thought, frowning. She'd have to think that one over very carefully.

  Dr. Sandra Walken had gotten back to her with a two million dollar plus estimate for purchasing the necessary equipment. Thalma had transferred the funds from one of her dummy biotech firms, and had them delivered to her in the usual circuitous manner.

  So some things were looking up, she thought, as she squared off for another afternoon romp with Socrates. She was embarrassed by a surge of sexual energy as she wrapped him up in the late going, squeezing his ribs so hard that he couldn't breathe and had to whine his submission.

  "Sorry, Soc," she said, lying beside him in the grass with one arm draped over his thick chest. "I'm a little lonely and frustrated, and I'm afraid I'm taking it out on you."

  Socrates rumbled skeptically. She massaged the tight muscles at the base of his neck, and his rumble evolved into his version of a purr.

  Then the rumble transformed into something much more ominous: the growling of approaching vehicles. Socrates lunged to his feet an instant before she did. Big black armored vehicles and police cars were approaching in a cloud of dust on her driveway a half-mile away.

  "Come on," she said to Socrates. "We need to go."

  She sprinted toward her woods one hundred yards distant, running out of the approaching vehicles' line of sight.

  So it's finally happened, she thought. The raid she'd dreamed of all these years.

  "Come on, Socrates, run damn it!" she urged on her dog, who was barely achieving a fast trot – still weary from their mock battle. She knew Socrates was the one in danger. The police wouldn't shoot her – not unless she resisted – but they would kill her dog without hesitation, as a matter of course. That was how police departments operated these days on raids. She had to get him to safety.

  They arrived at last in the woods, and Thalma hurried her panting dog over to the armored shed. She assumed they'd be searching the house and the surrounding buildings; she wasn't sure they even knew about this shed. That would show a remarkable lack of thoroughness on their part, but then they were just the local police, despite being dressed up in military garb and driving armored vehicles.

  Inside the shed, Thalma lifted the heavily camouflaged floor panel after entering its combination. Now for the awkward part: carrying her dog down the ladder to the escape chute below. She dropped to her waist in the chamber, and eased the big dog toward her with both hands. Maybe the police would never attempt to enter the shed, but she wasn't taking any chances.

  "Okay," she said, peering into her friend's deepset brown eyes. "I need for you to be calm, to trust me. This is going to be a little awkward."

  Socrates groaned as she snaked one arm around his chest and swung him slowly off his feet. She started down the ladder rungs as fast as she dared, with her bewildered and anxious companion dangling in one arm.

  "There!" she exhaled with relief when they reached the bottom and she released Socrates onto the metal floor. She scrambled back up, closing and sealing the door.

  Back on the floor, Thalma stretched out on the dolly and herded Socrates ahead of her through the chute. They'd wait out the police search in her underground haven. They'd tromp around her house and basement and find absolutely nothing, since she kept all her high-security items down here. They would probably seize her computer, but would find nothing there as well, since she'd wiped it like a good little girl that morning as always after reviewing her accounts. If the police somehow made it down here it was over, but she doubted very much it would come to that. She was sure they hadn't come prepared to unearth a labyrinth.

  Thalma was a little surprised at her calmness. This is what she'd prepared for the last nine years – what she'd made herself anticipate every day of her life – and now that tedious routine and all of her safeguards were paying off. All she could do now was wait. She decided to make the most of it by checking the nutrient balances and creating a few more clones – normally Louis's job.

  It was a bit eerie, because she knew heavily armed men were stomping around in her house and in the outlying buildings, but she heard nothing more than one or two muted shouts. If they'd come while she was down here, she might not have suspected a thing until she emerged through her basement entrance. She guessed she should count herself lucky she saw them coming.

  So why were they here? She assumed it had to do with the events in Fargo and Bismarck. The DEA must've taken a hard look at her – probably talked to local law enforcement, including her friendly sheriff, and noting that the property was off the grid drew some unfavorable conclusions. Where was all the energy from the wind generators going to? They would've failed to reach Peter Ulbright, of course, and might've decided to dig into Land Trust Investments. She doubted they could've come close to unraveling all its mysteries in such a short time, so she guessed they settled for the one visible, above-ground target: herself.

  After a couple of hours, Thalma poked her head out of the shed and surveyed her house. The armored and police vehicles were gone – all but one: the sheriff's white SUV. The sheriff himself was perched on her front steps, leafing through sheets of paper while sipping from a coffee thermos, as if he was sitting on his own steps enjoying the afternoon newspaper.

  Thalma dropped back down to the chute and reversed her nerve-wracking carry – nerve-wracking to Socrates, anyway – with her now mostly limp one hundred thirty pound dog tucked under one arm.

  "Good boy," she praised him at the top, rubbing his powerful head. "Let's go home."

  The sheriff was still waiting on the front steps with his sheath of papers when she and Socrates walked up. He straightened stiffly to his feet.

  "Don't get up on my account," she said. "You look so comfortable sitting there on my front steps."

  "Where have you been? You missed all the excitement."

  "Taking my dog for a walk. So what's the problem now, Sheriff? More judgments against Louis?" She'd decided to play it dumb.

  "If I wanted to serve him, I know I wouldn't find him here."

  He handed over the papers, which turned out to be a list of items removed from her house or "damaged in the course of the search."

  "A search warrant was served on your house and other structures on the property," he said. "You weren't here, so they helped themselves. Just finished a half-hour or so ago. They had a SWAT team, armored vehicles, the whole shebang. The warrant's on a desk in your living room."

  "Why the hell would someone want to search this property?" Thalma didn't have to work hard to summon up outrage.

  "It wasn't me." He raised his hands. "Turns out your little road trip a couple of weeks back drew some federal interest. They couldn't locate your employer, so they decided to take a closer look at you."

  "That's not making any sense."

  "To me, you didn't make any sense. Until the federales showed up a few days ago and explained a few things. Turns out you have a military special forces background and you work, more or less, as a hired gun for Land Trust Investments."

  "And because of that, they searched the farm."

  "Your employer has two properties that were involved in drug dealing. They saw a pattern."

  "Must've been embarrassing for all those make-believe soldiers and their big MRAPs showing up and finding nothing."

  "I'm not sure they found nothing. One of their dogs indicated on a portion of your carpet. A short time later, he was climbing the walls inside the SWAT vehicle."

  Thalma battled to keep a calm expression as a chill rolled through her. She knew that dogs were capable of sniffing out a miniature needle in a haystack. Still, this one had probably inhaled the evidence.

  "If I'd known you were coming, I would've vacuumed," she said.

  Sheriff Martson cracked a thin smile. "Believe it or not, Miss Engsrom, I'm not here to bust your ass. I'm guessing you're working for a corporation that's crooked as hell, but then what corporation isn't? You served our country – went through so
me obstacles as a woman in the WASP program I probably can't begin to imagine. That's worth something."

  Thalma stood watching him with a neutral expression. Even Socrates' expression, as he studied the sheriff with his dark eyes, seemed more reflective than hostile.

  "You had dinner?" she startled herself by asking. "I'm starving myself."

  "You're inviting one of the people who ransacked your house to dinner?" His smile was disbelieving.

  "Maybe I should take a look inside first. Did they break a bunch of shit?"

  "Not really. They were relatively gentle."

  She moved past him into the house, leaving Socrates to slump contentedly on the front lawn for a well-earned nap. Not much was disturbed in the living room. Some stuff was on the floor near the pantry, and they'd left a few containers from the fridge open on the kitchen counter. She returned them to the fridge. Sheriff Martson stood with arms folded, half-leaning against a wall, a half-frown on his craggy face.

  "Help yourself to a beer if you want," she said.

  Upstairs, she found more of the same – her closets emptied out on the floor, the attic door ajar. Her computer was missing. No surprise there. She expected to feel violated, a barely suppressed fury, but after all that had happened in recent weeks, this felt somehow anticlimactic – almost like a relief. They'd come, done their best, and left empty-handed. They'd think twice about going after her again, and with nothing found, no judge would sign off on another search in the foreseeable future, even if they weren't satisfied. She was in the clear, for now.

  "Feel like some barbecued spareribs?" she asked the sheriff after returning downstairs.

  "That would hit the spot. And thanks for offering."

  Sheriff Marston followed her out to the back porch, where she fired up the gas grill. He dropped down on one of the lounge chairs and popped open his beer. Thalma lathered up some spare ribs in barbecue sauce and tossed them along with some potatoes on the grill.

  "Looks good," said the sheriff. "I'm glad my shift's ended."

  Thalma grabbed a wine cooler from the kitchen, and settled on a lounge chair a few yards from him. Out on the backyard, high in one of the oak trees, a red-tailed hawk regarded them with raptorial curiosity.

  "How's your boyfriend doing?" he asked.

  Thalma caught herself bridling at the term – she still wasn't sure how much she cared to reveal to the sheriff – but then gave an inner shrug.

  "He's enjoying the world-class cuisine," she said. "And the extra-firm beds."

  Sheriff Martson chuckled. "He seems like a good kid. Obviously smart as a whip. I'd be sorry to see that potential go to waste."

  "He's talking about going back to school."

  "Good. That's the place for him – not hanging out with low lives dealing drugs."

  "I hope you're not calling me a 'lowlife'."

  "I was thinking before he met you. I'm not sure what he's been up to since then."

  Thalma drank from her wine cooler, eyeing the red-tailed hawk, perched as still as a statue as the branch he was on swayed in the late-afternoon breeze. She was beginning to wonder if inviting the sheriff to supper had been a good idea.

  "It was just a coincidence you two meeting that day?"

  Thalma shot him a hard glance.

  "The deal has already been made. Nothing you say about it now is going to change that. It's just personal curiosity."

  "Sometimes synchronicity seems almost real," she said.

  "I'll take that as a yes. He was damn lucky he bumped into you. If he hadn't, he'd be serving a lot more than a week in jail, I'm sure of that. I assume he was fleeing because he was carrying dope – enough to place him in serious trouble."

  Thalma shot him another hard glance, and resumed drinking her wine cooler. The ribs sizzled and oozed on the grill. A blue jay fluttered down to a nearby low-hanging branch for a look.

  "Anyway, I hope he's on the straight and narrow, now," said the sheriff. "And about the raid, for what it's worth, the warrant looked mighty thin to me."

  "Can I expect your department to issue a formal apology?"

  "Not likely," he said with a low laugh. "That's not how it's done."

  "No. It wouldn't do for police to start admitting their mistakes, and how much harm they cause."

  The sheriff's smile stiffened. "Not sure where you're going with that."

  "I mean that if they apologized, that would undercut their authority, wouldn't it?"

  Sheriff Martson lowered his beer and regarded her with flinty eyes. "If you offered me dinner so I'd sit here and listen to you bash cops, you got the wrong guy."

  "I guess I was curious how you felt about what's happening in this country with police these days – with cops routinely killing dogs, dropping flash grenades on sleeping babies, and killing unarmed people."

  "I wouldn't say it's routine at all. I'm not defending police who act outside the law, but they're the extreme minority. Most cops respect the law and honestly want to help people."

  "Maybe," said Thalma. "But I'd place a heavy bet that if I my dog had been here when your people showed up, he would've gotten off one growl and maybe two steps before they opened fire. Am I right?"

  The sheriff made an irritable loosening motion with his shoulders. "Officers are taught to protect themselves first when a threat's present."

  "Even when they create the threat in the first place?"

  Sheriff Martson sipped his beer as though arriving at a slow deliberation.

  "Let me ask you this," he said. "What if officers did shoot your dog. What would you do about it?"

  Thalma's cold blue eyes met Sheriff Martson's hard-eyed gaze straight on.

  "I'd say that those officers would've been much better off letting themselves get bitten," she said.

  The sheriff nodded as though he'd expected that. He set his empty beer bottle on the patio table, and shuffled to his feet.

  "Thanks for the invite, but I think I should be getting home," he said. "You have a nice evening, Miss Engstrom."

  Thalma watched him go, a thin smile on her lips. What had she been thinking? A kind of glasnost with the local police?

  THALMA HEARD back from her chemist, Sandra Walken, the next day. Her new equipment was in place, and she'd soon start synthesizing LSD 35, which she'd stated was "roughly twice as technically difficult as creating normal LSD." She went on about some of the technical chemical differences between the normal hallucinogen and the new version; declaring the creator to be "an unqualified genius," while expressing safety concerns ("The effects of this drug on the brain seem potentially far greater than standard LSD"). She estimated that she'd have the fifty ounces in about a month.

  All Sandra's praises and cautions rattled around in Thalma's head as she packaged her latest "Special B" and "Purple Haze" crops. In the past, she'd entertained speculations about someday creating a mind-altering substance that could improve intelligence or lead to genuine insights or even furnish a gateway to some other reality. Purple Haze – a gene-spliced mushroom–salvia hybrid - came closer to all those things, she thought, than anything she'd ever tried or knew of, but even it hadn't made her able to fly.

  With those thoughts in mind, she retrieved the sample jar of LSD 35, which she estimated held one or two hundred milligrams – perhaps enough for a thousand hits – and raised it speculatively into the broad spectrum grow lights. Though she hadn't discussed that drug-altered night much with Louis, it had done a profound number on her head. Even after watching the video recording, she still only half-believed it. This could finally be the drug that could transform the human race. Or at least that part of the human race which shared some critical qualities with her, whatever they might be.

  In two days, Louis would be back, she thought. Maybe now – with twilight settling in - would be a good time to revisit the experience, give it a more thorough testing when Louis wasn't around (to avoid any replays of that night).

  Smiling at her own rationalizations, Thalma opened the jar and
lightly touched the side where some powdery residue clung. She then dusted off her forefinger, resealed the jar, and sniffed her finger deeply. Was that a reasonable dose? She'd find out soon enough. She lowered the sample jar back into her floor safe, and locked it up.

  Outside, she sat in the backyard with one arm curled around Socrates, feeling as if he might be her anchor to the earth. The last of the sun clung to life in an indescribably beautiful sunset. The colors flowed like molten liquid over the horizon – an eruption of shimmering watercolors and pastels. Thalma smiled and rubbed Socrates' thick neck.

  "I wonder if that means I'm ready," she said. Socrates whined as though he feared that might be the case.

  She rose to her feet, feeling near-weightless, holding her arms out from her sides, opening herself up to her strange new world. Odd forces seemed to be at work in her backyard: she felt as if she were caught in a magnetic vortex, with everything in the yard tugging and pushing on her with different force. If she focused on the tugging, her body shifted in that direction. Focusing on pushing propelled her in the opposite direction.

  Interesting. She couldn't remember feeling those sensations before. Were they illusory? Let's find out.

  She located a repelling force beneath her feet and concentrated on amplifying its force. She rose a few inches off the grass. She realized part of her was fighting the upward push. The instant she relaxed and embraced the force she shot upward at a dizzying speed. In a flash of panic she squeezed down mentally on the repelling force, and her upward motion stopped.

  Fifty yards below, her roof revealed a thin line of moss growing on one end. Whoa, she thought. Who knew I had moss growing on my roof?

  Socrates was on his haunches, head craned up at her. His bark had a frantic, panicked edge, as if he were begging her to come back down. He almost never barked.

  "Just hold on," she called down to him, a laugh breaking free in her voice. "I'm going to try a few things."

  Thalma sensed it was all about balancing the "forces" around her, whatever they really were. She was able to rotate slowly by latching onto "power points" in her mind. The red-tailed hawk launched itself in a burst of feathers from the top of a nearby tree as she spun to face him. In a startled second she dropped thirty feet before willing herself to stop. Like flying in a dream, she thought. Panic makes you fall.