by Darrell Bain
Once the Whatnot was ready, I plopped myself down in Rez's lap. He nuzzled my neck and began exploring my breasts as shamelessly as a cat in heat. I bit his ear to make him stop, then whispered a promise for the night to come, thinking of how far my orientation and personal beliefs had progressed since my change. He certainly didn't object to my suggestion.
"So what's new here?" Russell asked. As usual, he depended on us for news from the rest of the world. Donna didn't seem to mind him toying with her breasts. She lay across his lap with her feet propped on the end of the lounger and one hand strung out on the caddy where her drink rested. Russell had already slipped a hand inside her blouse. The change in him was remarkable; he usually came home looking and acting like a beaten dog.
"I heard the floods won't get much higher," Donna offered.
"The third Orion is almost ready for launch," I said, knowing he always wanted to hear about the space program.
"A Tinkertoy," he disclaimed. "It will be obsolete before the next one gets into orbit, even if they complete it."
"Your theory again?" I said.
"Not just mine. We've all worked on it."
Russell was modest. I would have placed a bet that the original notion, whatever it turned out to be, came from his labrythine mind.
"Whatever. That's what you meant, though, your theory?"
"Yup. When it proves out this time, there may be no limit to the applications. The new computers Rez wants to see will be just the least of what we'll be able to accomplish. I think we'll even get practical faster-than-light space travel out of it." He looked innocently around the room, enjoying the effects of his bombshell.
I jumped out of Rez's lap. "Are you serious?" FTL space travel, the dream of every boy and man and woman who had ever read a science fiction novel! How fantastic!
"Yup, I think so. Too soon to be certain yet, but that's what it's looking like."
I began thinking of faraway planets, orbiting stars throughout the galaxy, of strange alien creatures and fantastic new discoveries, as if the possibility of faster-than-light travel wasn't already enough for one day. No wonder he was downplaying computer applications. Why, with FTL on the horizon, that could mean fresh new land, new frontiers and hope for every downtrodden fourth worlder on the planet. It could be like when all the Europeans had immigrated to America to escape starvation and famine and religious persecution.
Donna had her arms around Russell's neck, with her lips locked so firmly to his that he couldn't speak again until she let him come up for breath.
"Don't mention any of this to anyone," he said. "We don't want it getting out yet, and the tests still have to prove the theory. They will, though, they will."
I couldn't understand how he could be so confident now after so many failures, but there was no doubting his certainty. "So how much longer now?" I asked.
He shrugged happily. "No more than two or three weeks, I would say. Stick close to home so you'll be here when I come back. We'll really celebrate then!"
***
We had a pretty good celebration that night. We ordered tons of pizza and laughed and talked until well after dark, soaking up lots of rum along the way. We put on a Z rated sex comedy and all of us interacted with it, with hilarious results. While I was mixing the third or maybe the fourth pitcher of Whatnot, I noticed my blouse was missing and my shorts were awry. I didn't even remember who had pulled off the blouse. Maybe I had myself, for all I know. I poured new drinks and pushed Russell away from Donna so I could neck with her. A few minutes later, I held her blouse up like a trophy from a scavenger hunt, then bent her into my lap and engulfed one of her breasts with my mouth and the other with my hand. The guys cheered. We staggered to our feet and Donna made a production out of removing my shorts. I posed for a moment, then grabbed her and pushed her back on the lounger and peeled off her jeans. She was laughing and pretending to resist all the while, but she spread her legs eagerly when I got to that point. I felt a movement behind me, hands at my waist, then the hard shaft of Russell's penis entering me from behind while I had my face buried in Donna's curly triangle. I looked up the length of her body and Rez was there beside her. She turned her head and took him in her mouth while he played with her breasts.
I don't remember when we retreated to the big bedroom, and have only disconnected memories of what happened afterward, but it was truly a momentous celebration. I couldn't imagine how the next one Russell promised could be any better.
***
The party went on almost continuously for three days. I think it stopped then only because Rez and Russell were totally depleted. Somewhere along the way, I found time to call Mary and ask her to cancel a contract I had just signed to do a story over in Louisiana among the Cajuns, one area of the country where the sex gates had been accepted almost as quickly and enthusiastically as they had in France. She tore her hair and cussed like a sailor, but I was adamant. She could either assign it to someone else or I would drop it and pay the penalty clause in the contract. Muttering under her breath about how this would give me a bad name, she said she would get someone else to do it and to forget about the penalty. I felt a mild regret; I had been looking forward to the trip and a chance to consort with the Cajun ladies, but there was no way I was going to chance not being home the next time Russell returned.
We ran out of Nohang once and I made a trip to the pharmacy and another to the liquor store. I paid the bills without a qualm. I hadn't had such a good time since my first night with Rita, way back when.
We waited anxiously over the next two weeks, then with even more anxiety as more days passed. It was like counting down for a rocket launch where the seconds had become days before the next tick of the clock. When Russell finally did get back, it wasn't anything at all like the triumphant return we had been expecting.
Chapter Twenty-One
I woke up with someone shaking my shoulder. "What is it?," I asked groggily, glancing at the clock. It read three thirty in the morning. I sat up in bed and told the lights to come on.
Russell was standing by the bed, holding a carrying bag in one hand. His hair was singed and his face blackened with soot. His eyes looked terrible, like those of a wild animal confined to a cage and being poked at with sticks. Behind his opened jean jacket, I could see burned places on his shirt.
"Russ, what happened?" I was stupefied.
Behind me on the bed, Rez and Donna sat up sleepily, then their eyes opened wide as they stared at the same apparition I was looking at.
"Get up, all of you. We may be in danger." He turned away and began peeling off his jacket as he left the room. His shirt was in tatters.
I jumped out of bed and threw on a pair of jeans and shirt and boots. At the first mention of danger, I had felt for my big gun in the drawer of the caddy. I buckled it on while the others were getting dressed and added my little automatic to a pocket. We all hurried out into the den.
Russell was sitting on the lounger holding his head in his hands. He looked up as we entered. Tears were glimmering in his eyes.
I switched the security system over to the highest setting, the one where a stray mouse could hardly move without setting off an alarm, then put on coffee. Donna had taken one look at Russell, then led him protesting into the bedroom, leaving the door open. We heard water running while we waited to hear what had happened.
The coffee was ready when Donna and Russell came back in. He had on fresh clothes. His hair was still glistening darkly from the shower and a fresh bandage had been stuck on his neck over the worst burn. I took out a bottle of brandy, added a dollop to each cup with an extra one for Russell and handed it to him. He sipped at it, then swallowed thirstily, sucking in his breath as the hot beverage burned his tongue.
"It's gone, the lab is gone," he said.
"Gone? What do you mean?" Rez asked harshly, as if he were to blame.
"Blown up. Burned. The Gaters did it."
"What! Why would they do something like that?" God's Chips, here I
had thought the Gaters were gradually fading out of the picture, relegated now to just one more of the many religious sects, and concentrated mostly among fourth worlders.
"I guess they didn't agree with our research. That's what's been going wrong the last few years. We had a ringer in the lab and no one knew it. He's the one who's been writing the programs for the instrument tests, and always inserting an error before we got ready for a run. We never suspected him until a few weeks ago." He sounded as if his best friend had betrayed him and perhaps it had been; he didn't say.
"You found him out then. That's why you were so fired up the last time you were home?"
"Yeah. I finally got smart and checked the programs myself one night when I was there by myself. I found the error, but it was too late to stop the last test. Besides, I didn't know who else might have been in on it. This time, I wrote a little program myself that would cancel the error and sneaked it in where he couldn't discover it. Our test run worked perfectly. Our theories are proved."
That obviously wasn't the whole story. I said so.
Russell went on, "We wanted to do another run or two with slightly altered parameters before writing up the results. I came back to the lab last night-this morning, I mean, after we had all gone out to eat. I was intending to go over everything again. I got there just as this same guy was sneaking out. I called him down and he denied everything except being a Gater, so I just let him go, thinking that would be the end of it. Oh, fuck it all, why didn't I check around? I might have found the charge he set."
"Do you mean to tell me that the Gaters blew up your whole lab?" I could hardly believe it.
Russell buried his face in his hands and sobbed. He looked up at us, tears streaming down his face. "They did. The charge went off just as we were making the next run this evening. I think everyone was killed except me."
"My God! You mean all your work is gone? Your whole team is dead?" Rez asked. Horror burnished her eyes, like black marbles scoured by sand.
Russell shook his head, still crying. "No, I did one thing right, anyway." He tapped the suitcase by his side. "I had been constructing a prototype light computer. Just on a hunch, I took it and a set of notes on all our work and stuffed it and the chips in here. I had gone to my office to get it and have it ready to leave right after the run. They started a little earlier than I thought. I was just coming back into the lab, down at the far end, when the explosion went off. It knocked me off my feet, but didn't really hurt me. When I got up and couldn't find anyone else breathing and heard the sirens, I grabbed my bag and ran."
"God's chips," I said. "May they be damned to hell." It was an oath I truly meant, from the bottom of my soul. Suddenly, I remembered the first thing he had said: 'We may all be in danger'.
"What did you mean about us being in danger? Do they know you got away with all the notes?"
"I don't know about that, but they'll surely learn I wasn't one of the casualties and they are bound to think of the possibility, or at least decide to come after me in order to eliminate the last one of the team. We've held this whole thing pretty close to the vest and so far as I know, there hasn't been any other research similar to it going on anywhere. I wouldn't even have come back here except I doubt my staying away would give you any protection. If I disappeared, they would almost certainly come after all of you, trying to find my whereabouts." He wiped his eyes, leaving tearstains still visible on his cheeks.
His reasoning made sense. I picked up the phone and called Chief Wilson at home. His sleepy voice answered after several repeated beeps, without visual. I kept mine on so he could see that it was really me speaking. "Chief, would you trust me on an urgent matter, without asking a lot of questions?"
"I guess so, Li. At least for the time being."
"Good. Would you send a patrol car out to our place as soon as possible? With as many men as you can spare? Tell them we may all be in danger and that no one is to approach our house without our specific permission. I'll explain later, or it may already be on the news. You know Russell. He was the only one who escaped the explosion at North Houston University Laboratory. He says it was set deliberately."
"Good God! No, I hadn't heard. I'll get the patrol on the way out immediately. Call me back in an hour or two if I haven't come out to check on you by then."
"Thanks, Chief." I clicked off.
A few minutes later, the big screen sounded off and a blinking icon come on, telling me to check one of the long distance infrared scanners. I put it on the screen. Two hundred yards away, at the head of where our driveway led onto the blacktop, I saw several figures jump from a van and go to ground at the intersection, apparently to block any stray traffic from coming that way. Their rifles looked like little faintly visible sticks, barely above ambient temperature. A dozen more figures began running down the drive toward the house. I guess they thought the movement of a car near our entrance might alert us prematurely to their presence, and it did. That was the only thing that saved us.
Not again! I thought with a sinking heart. My hands began to tremble, but there was no time to spare. No other icon was blinking, so that told me this was the only gang of intruders so far. My whole body began shaking, but I managed to spit out orders, thanking all the Gods I had been made a squad leader during the riots; it had prepared me, at least a little, for quick decisions.
"Out the back way, quick!" I ordered. "Grab your guns on the way." Russell wasn't a carrier. He just snatched up his suitcase. I gave him a shove. "Get going. We'll be right behind you. Donna and Rez paused only long enough to arm themselves, then we were out the back door. We ran for the woods, keeping the house between us and the driveway. Just as we gained the concealment of the trees, a flash of light blossomed back toward town, followed a few seconds later by the clap of an explosion. The patrol car! Oh chips, I had funneled several good men directly to their death. Somehow, the intruders must have tapped into my conversation with the Chief; either that or they had been extraordinarily well prepared; perhaps both. At any rate, that left no doubt in my mind that if we were caught, we would probably be as dead as those poor patrolmen probably were by now.
I knew the woods, even in the dark, from all my boyhood ramblings through them. We hurried down a deer trail, not stopping until we were well away from the house. Behind us, I heard crashing noises and gunshots as the Gaters began neutralizing the security system and breaking inside. I was sorry then I hadn't put up the money for a mankiller bond with the system. Those bastards deserved to die if anyone did.
When I heard Russell began to struggle, I called a halt; he wasn't in as good shape as the rest of us and he hadn't slept lately, either.
Russell dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. "God, I didn't know they would be so close behind me," he panted.
"We were lucky," I said. I touched my big pistol to make sure it was still in its holster, and glad now I had practiced with it after becoming a women.
"What do we do now?" Rez asked, deferring to me.
I tried to make my mind work. It was a cinch the Gaters knew who we were and they were certain to pass the information on to their cohorts. There was no chance of getting far without being recognized, and by all indications, a hunt was being conducted for us without worrying about the consequences. Russell could be expected to be shot on sight, and the rest of us taken into captivity if Russell wasn't located, or killed along with him if he was found. The noises of our home being broken into had ceased, so it was also certain by now they knew we had run out the back way and into the woods. They would be on our heels shortly, and maybe calling in extra help to surround this section of woods and hunt us down. It wasn't that big an area. Farms or ranches were located on three sides of the strip of forest and it ended inside half a mile at another ranch.
What to do? What to do? This was a rural area. Even if the chief called out the militia, it would take many hours to get them organized and to figure out where we were, if they could, which was doubtful. More probably, they would loo
k at our house and figure we had been captured and hauled away.
Suddenly, a name popped into my head. Whitney Horst, the NSA agent, my old nemesis. Would he send a team out if I called and told him I had vital information? Probably, but could they get here in time? The Gaters were probably monitoring my comphone code and could locate our position almost immediately from the satellite location data. I didn't see any other choice, though.
"Li? What are we going to do? We can't just stand here," Donna said, with a scared urgency in every note of her voice.
"I know," I said. "I'm calling the NSA. Horst may be able to help."
"That bastard!" Rez spat.
"I know, but he may be our only chance." I racked my brain, trying to remember the code number. It had been too long; it was lost. I called the North Houston federal building and got a night operator. I wasted precious minutes convincing her that I had a national emergency and she should immediately contact Whitney Horst. She relented only after I mentioned the explosion at the lab; apparently she had already heard about it.
A few moments later, Horst was on the phone. I told him briefly of our situation and where we were, emphasizing that he must hurry and that I was party to information which could shake the world. He made me wait for several seconds while he activated a scrambler circuit so only we could understand each other.
"All right," he said. "I'm convinced. Hide as best you can. Security code will be 'Eagle Hawk'. Got it? Eagle Hawk. I'll get a team on the way."
"Let's go," I said to the others. I remembered a little gully I used to play games in as a boy. It was the best cover I could think of. I led the way. The gully was near the end of the stretch of forest, where a blacktop farm road separated it from the adjoining ranch. A few minutes later, we were hidden below its banks, waiting for whatever happened next. I trembled nervously and hoped I would be able to steady my hands if I had to shoot.
