by Terry Bisson
“Yeah? Who are you?”
He sensed motion at his back and turned to see a small woman in a trim business suit standing behind him.
A little too close.
She was as small as the man was huge—but just as menacing in her trim way.
“Come with us, please,” she said in a voice that was casual but cold with authority.
Adam wasn’t buying it. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked.
“Just cooperate,” said the man, “and everything will be fine.”
“Fine?” Adam pointed toward the window. “Someone’s in my house, eating my birthday cake with my family … and it’s not me.”
“We know,” said the woman, in a smooth voice that was anything but soothing. “There’s been a Sixth Day violation.”
Adam gave her a black and angry look.
“A human was cloned,” she continued. “That human was you.”
“We can help you,” said the man, taking Adam by the arm.
“Then get him out of there!” Adam hissed.
“But you’ll have to come with us.”
Adam pulled away. “I don’t know who you people are, but I’m going inside my house…”
He reached for the doorknob, and the woman pulled a powerful miniature taser from her sleeve.
Zzzzppp!
Adam fell to the ground, unable to move or breathe.
His eyes wide open, he saw a Foosh gun aimed at his head. The man in the gray suit looked eager to pull the trigger.
The woman’s hand stopped him. “Not here.”
The man holstered the gun inside his suit jacket while she grabbed one of Adam’s arms. He grabbed the other.
“Get the doll,” said the woman, who was clearly in charge.
The man scooped up the Sim-Pal which Adam had dropped, and they all started down the walk toward a waiting SUV at the curb.
* * *
At the end of the walk, there was a faux-wood gate Adam had bought for Natalie a few years back, to give the home character.
It had a latch.
The man in the gray suit dropped Adam’s arm to open it—and Adam made his move.
He grabbed the taser from the woman’s hand and jabbed it into the back of the man’s leg, just behind the knee.
Zzzzppp!
The man went down hard.
The Sim-Pal hit the ground and its eyes opened. “Oooops! Cindy fell down!” it squealed.
The woman’s kick was a perfect example of ancient martial arts adapted to modern clothing—short and swift and deadly.
Unfortunately for her, she missed.
Adam grabbed her leg and threw her on her back, exposing a brief glimpse of feminine lingerie under her martial exterior.
He turned and saw the man already on one elbow, aiming his Foosh gun.
Foosh!
Adam had bent down to pick up the Sim-Pal, and the laser blast went over his head, charring a big circle in the trunk of a tree behind him.
Adam started running. It looked as if he might even make it …
Except that two doors of the SUV opened at once, and two men jumped out.
“Go! Go!”
The driver was a big man with a slow, confident way of moving. The other was a nervous, feral-looking young thug with a Foosh gun.
The young thug clicked the safety off and fell to one knee.
Adam threw the Sim-Pal at him just as he fired.
Fooosh!
“Ooooah!” Cindy squealed in simulated pain as her trim little body turned to toast.
Adam dove into the bushes.
Fooosh!
Fooosh!
Two shots missed, but barely. Leaves smoldered underfoot as Adam vaulted the fence into the next yard.
The man in the gray suit and the trim, vicious little woman were struggling to their feet.
The man threw the charred, still squealing Sim-Pal into the open door of the SUV.
Then all four fanned out in pursuit.
Ten
Inside the Gibson house, music was playing. The party was in full swing.
Natalie handed the man she thought was her husband a beer.
“Were you really surprised?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I look surprised?”
Natalie backed away, shaking her head. “Hank told you, didn’t he?”
The man in the aloha shirt took a sip of his beer. “Where is Hank, anyway?”
* * *
Been doing this too damn long, thought Vincent. The back of his leg stung where it had been zapped.
He limped along the fence toward the garage, one hand covering his flashlight beam.
The kid, Wiley, was right behind him, gun in hand.
The garage was dark, so Vincent aimed his flashlight through the dirty glass.
The beam picked out tools, a lawn mower, kids toys, bicycles …
And a ’57 Cadillac, parked on a low service ramp.
“Look at that thing,” Wiley whispered, a little too loudly. “Wonder if it still runs.”
Worf! Worf!
Wiley staggered back as the dog lunged at the fence.
“Damn piece of shit dog!”
He pointed the Foosh gun at the dog. He was just about to pull the trigger when …
Craaash!
The garage door splintered as the Caddy burst through backward, scattering splinters all across the driveway and lawn.
Foosh!
Foosh!
Wiley and Vincent both fired, and both missed, as the Caddy accelerated in reverse toward the street.
Vincent followed the car on foot, firing wildly.
Foosh! Foosh!
The passenger side window shattered, but the car kept going.
* * *
Inside the Gibson house, Natalie and the man she assumed (and who wouldn’t?) was her husband, heard the noise and exchanged worried looks. “What was that?”
* * *
What the…? Talia wondered, as she saw the Caddy coming toward her down the drive, tail fins first.
She grabbed hold of the door handle as it passed. With an expert gymnastic twist, she pulled herself in through the shattered window. Then with one swift, sure motion, she shoved the cold steel of her foosh gun against the side of Adam’s head.
“Stop the car!” she said in a low, commanding voice.
Adam took one glance into his rearview mirror.
“Okay!”
He floored the gas pedal. The Caddy careened into the street and plowed into a parked car with an ugly, neighbor-awakening, tooth jarring, metal-folding …
Crash!
Talia was thrown against the bare metal of the antique dashboard and her foosh gun fell to the floor.
She reached for it just as Adam jammed the Caddy into drive and floored the gas pedal, throwing her against the back of the seat.
She lunged again for the gun, which was skittering across the wide floorboards of the massive antique car.
Too late. Adam already had it; in fact he was pointing it at her cheek.
“Don’t even blink,” he said, easing in to the curb and slowing to a stop.
Then in the rearview, he saw the SUV, right behind them.
“Shit, go ahead, blink!” he said as he pulled out into the street and floored the gas once more.
* * *
Good thing I’m driving thought Marshall, as the SUV rounded a corner on two wheels, in pursuit of the Cadillac. He didn’t trust Vincent or Wiley behind the wheel. Wiley was too nervous and Vincent was too slow.
Talia was another matter. She knew martial arts and had an MBA; she was almost as cool and competent a killer as Marshall was.
But she was in the car they were chasing!
“Car chase,” said Wiley from the front passenger seat. “Pretty cool, huh?”
Marshall was too busy navigating a winding lane between huge Victorian homes to answer.
His answer would have been pure scorn anyway. Car chase? Cool? Spare me!
* * *
Natalie stood in the front door surveying the broken glass in the driveway and the wreckage of the garage door.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Somebody stole the van!”
“No,” said the man beside her. “They stole my Cadillac!”
Natalie looked at him in puzzled wonderment. “They stole the Cadillac? It doesn’t even have a Nav-System!”
“Thanks, honey,” he replied dryly, turning to go back into the house. “I’m calling the cops.”
* * *
“Please secure passenger seat belt. Please secure passenger seat belt.”
The auto voice repeated its command, patiently but firmly, as the SUV bounced across curbs and careened around corners.
Marshall shook his head in disgust. Stupid car. Can’t tell a doll from a person.
He looked over his shoulder into the backseat. “Buckle up the damned doll, Vincent!”
Vincent knew better than to hesitate when Marshall gave an order. He buckled up the damn doll.
The auto voice shut up—but now the Sim-Pal started.
“I’m Sim-Pal Cindy. I have a boo boo!”
* * *
Adam checked the Caddy’s rearview, which was an actual mirror.
The SUV was gaining.
He turned to the woman by his side, and jammed the foosh gun into her throat.
“Who are you people?”
Talia smiled, a thin, cold, scary smile.
“Shoot me. I’m not afraid to die.”
As if to punctuate this, she swung her fist at Adam’s chin.
He caught her wrist before she could connect.
And squeezed. “Oh yeah? Are you afraid of pain?”
No answer.
Adam squeezed harder. “Who … are … you.”
Still no answer.
He squeezed harder.
Talia’s eyes filled with tears as she felt a pain beyond anything she had ever inflicted. And she had inflicted a lot.
“I was hired to kill you,” she said. “That’s all I know.”
Adam nodded, as if considering this—then suddenly, unexpectedly, spun the wheel of the Caddy hard to the right.
On two wheels the ancient sedan jumped the curb, screeched across a sidewalk, and powerslid across a freshly mowed yard.
A picnic table, two lawn chairs, and a Japanese ornamental plum tree were run down as the car swapped paint with a screened-in porch, barely missed a maple tree, scattered a sandbox, mowed down a picket fence—and disappeared between two houses.
* * *
The SUV, following too closely, missed Adam’s sudden turn.
Damn! Instead of slowing, Marshall sped up, heading around the block in the hope of catching the Caddy coming out the other side.
“Let’s be friends!” said Sim-Pal Cindy from the backseat.
“Do something about that thing,” said Marshall.
Vincent did his best to hush the doll. He looked frantically for a button to push. He knew better than to annoy Marshall when he was already annoyed.
Wiley was more straightforward.
He put his foosh gun to the doll’s head and shut her up with with a swift and deadly—
Foosh!
Eleven
The caddy slid sideways across a front lawn and then fishtailed out into the street again, leaving a trail of grass and dandelions on the asphalt.
As he fought to maintain control of the Caddy, Adam scanned the street in both directions.
He had lost them, for the moment, anyway.
He floored the gas pedal and sped off down the street, which seemed like a race track after the off-road terrain of the suburban backyards.
“This is crazy,” he said to the woman who had jumped into his car. “Why would anyone want to kill me?”
Talia looked at him and shrugged. “Because you were cloned.”
Then, with a single swift movement, she opened the door of the car and tried to roll out.
Adam’s painful grip on her wrist pulled her back.
“Why kill me? Why not the clone?”
“Don’t you get it?” the woman asked scornfully. “He got home first. You saw him; he didn’t see you.”
Adam gave her a look. So?
“You’re screwed,” she said viciously. “He’s going to live out the rest of your boring little life and never be the wiser.”
“I’ll make him wiser!” said Adam fiercely.
“If your wife and kid see you and him together, they’ll be killed,” the woman added. She spoke coolly, as if all this murder and mayhem were activities in a summer camp.
Adam was about to respond when, just ahead, he saw a board fence explode into faux-redwood splinters! The SUV crashed through and hurtled into the street, heading straight for the Cadillac.
Do these people have no fear? Adam wondered. He yanked the wheel to the left and barely avoided a collision.
With a scream of tortured rubber, the SUV matched Adam’s turn and hit his rear bumper—once, twice.
Wham!
Wham!
Adam lost control.
The Cadillac swerved into a front yard, and smashed through the door of a—fortunately empty—two-car garage.
Crrrraash!
Adam ducked as a storm of lawn mowers, picnic gear, car parts, canvas chairs, weed eaters, wading pools, old boots, tennis rackets and assorted garage junk flew into the air around the Caddy.
Crrraash!
He crashed through the back wall of the garage just as the SUV was plowing into the front, following his trail.
The Caddy bounced across a backyard, then between two close-ranked rows of trees.
The SUV did the same.
Both cars emerged from the trees into a long pedestrian plaza flanked by glass-and-steel buildings.
Adam floored the Cadillac again, but the SUV was newer, and faster.
* * *
Wiley rolled down his window as the SUV gained on the Cadillac, then pulled alongside. This was the best part of the car chase!
He grinned down the barrel of his foosh magnum, centering the infrared dot on Adam Gibson’s temple, just above and to the front of the left ear.
Foosh!
* * *
Adam ducked at the last moment. He could feel the heat as the blast went inches over his head.
When he straightened up, he saw that the woman beside him had an alarmed expression on her face.
And who wouldn’t—with a cauterized hole the size of a grapefruit through her neck?
She seemed to be trying to say something, which can be difficult when your larynx and spine have both been severed.
Adam had no time to listen anyway. The car was veering off the road and the steering wheel had just come off in his hands. The shot that had almost severed Talia’s head had also severed the Cadillac’s steering column.
Adam tossed the steering wheel out the window and gripped the mangled end of the steering column. He managed to find just enough to hold onto.
Twisting the naked shaft in his massive, powerful fist, he straightened the wheels just before the Caddy hit the curb.
The passenger-side door flew open, and the woman who had been trying to kill him tumbled out.
* * *
Marshall figured out what had happened when his left front tires bounced over Talia’s body.
Whump!
“Dammit, Wiley!” he said accusingly.
Wiley shrugged and recharged his laser magnum. “He ducked.”
“Blow his tires out!” ordered Marshall.
Wiley unbuckled his seat belt and leaned out the window, gun in hand.
“Please secure passenger seat belt,” said the auto voice. “Please secure passenger seat belt.”
“Please shut the fuck up,” muttered Marshall, as he followed the Cadillac down the wide, deserted pedestrian mall.
The Cadillac plowed straight ahead. It threw up two silvery sheets of water as it crossed a shallow pond, then plunged down a wide flight of concrete stairs.<
br />
bumdebumdebumdebumumdebum
The SUV was right behind.
umdebumdebumdebumumdebumdebumde
The Caddy bottomed out, striking sparks off the concrete, then climbed a shorter stair into a pedestrian mall covered by a glass roof.
The SUV was right behind.
* * *
Car chase!
Screaming pedestrians ran out of the way as the ancient car, followed by the newer one, skidded around a fountain, then sped out the other side of the glass-roofed mall.
Wiley leaned farther out of the window. His face was split by a wide grin as he gripped his foosh magnum and took aim at the distinctive taillights of the Caddy.
And between them, through the rear window, in the driver’s seat, at the distinctive bull-neck of his quarry. He elevated “quarry” to “target”—as the laser dot found its kill zone.
This was the part Wiley liked best.
The fast car chase!
The long, slow trigger pull …
* * *
Adam saw a flash of red in the rearview.
A laser sight!
He looked in the mirror and saw Wiley, leaning out of the front window of the SUV, taking aim.
The red dot was on the mirror, on the dashboard—then it was gone.
Adam knew it was on the back of his head. Wiley had found his target.
Adam hit the brakes hard!
The SUV was too close. It hit the Caddy’s broad chrome rear fender—Whump!
Damages to Caddy: $122.76 (estimated)
Damages to SUV: $1,254.67 (estimated)
But Adam was after bigger game.
He watched, pleased, as Wiley flew through the air, over the hood of the SUV, over the Caddy, to bounce off the hood, into the street.
Adam floored the gas again.
Wiley slid to a stop, a pile of broken bones, but still alive. He was just struggling to raise his head when the Caddy’s left front wheel hit him, followed quickly by the left rear.
Thump. Thump.
The Caddy’s big soft bias-ply tires left tread marks straight up the gun-thug’s face. The SUV’s tires were newer, AllWeather steel radials.
Krunk. Krunk.
The bias-plies ground Wiley’s face to a paste. The radials made it a smear.
Twelve
“Too deep,” the engineers had said, when Mayor Survant had wanted to dam up Hell Gorge. “Too rocky,” said the geologists. “Too wild,” said the environmentalists.
