Paper or Plastic

by Mackey Chandler

  She killed the power and felt the truck sink a little as it took up the weight. When she went to the hatch and exited Josh was holding the big door up slightly looking for her. She squatted under it, dropped to a seated position on the rear edge and scooted off. Roger and Josh both caught her to steady her landing on the snow and, then Josh slapped a padlock back on the overhead door. When they got in the cab it was warmed up now.

  "I'm whipped," Josh admitted.

  "Me too, but we need to get out of town with the truck," Rog said.

  "Can't we just go back to the cabin for one more night?" Martee suggested.

  "No it's all set. We'd have to go buy more antifreeze for the drains and clean it all again. I don't want to take this truck there and I don't want to let it out of my sight." Rog said.

  "We can just go down to the Interstate for a room, that's an hour, maybe two if this snow keeps coming down," he corrected, "and maybe dinner at Keith's before we hit the road?" Josh asked.

  "Yeah, but we get my truck first," Rog insisted. "Otherwise somebody will be thinking we're lost out in the woods."

  "OK," Josh agreed. "Truck, Keith's, room for the night," he counted off gruffly.

  "No problem." he insisted, without enthusiasm.

  Chapter 17

  The next morning Roger woke up in the dark. That never happened at home and he hated it. There was a tiny red LED that blinked every few minutes on the ceiling. That must be the smoke alarm. He fumbled around, feeling for the light on the nightstand and found it – then had to run his hands all over until he found a switch. When he got it on, he saw the clock was in the drawer since that was where the power cord disappeared. The display must have bothered Martee or Josh and they’d stuffed it there.

  Today he'd get a pen-light he could clip on his collar or waist, for when they were staying in motels and maybe a small humidifier too. It was so dry his nose hurt and his mouth was all gummy.

  The other bed was used and the covers were on the floor. The bathroom door was closed and he could hear the shower running. He had balked at Martee sharing his bed last night and she had slept with Josh.

  Josh had staggered over, rolled up in a blanket with all his clothes on and announced he didn't give a damn who slept where, just shut up so he could go to sleep. He was snoring before he found out if anyone was joining him or not. Rog wished he hadn't made such a big deal out of it. Certainly none of them had anything in mind but sleep.

  The clock said 6:40 and there was no light leaking in around the drapes. He went over and peeked out. The snow was still coming down and the sky was so dark the lights were still on in the parking lot. The truck was on the edge of the lot, straight in front of their room and he could see from the snow knocked off the back ledge Josh was already doing something inside. The second keycard was on the table, but he didn't want to go out without saying anything to Martee and he wanted to use the bathroom first too.

  He went back to lie on the bed until she was through and think. It was too hard to exercise with a full bladder. The trip across the country would be slow and they would leave a paper trail all the way. He didn't like the idea of being on the other end of the continent and the ship back here. He didn't want to drive a truck all the way across the continent with the spaceship in the back though. The police watched large private trucks entirely too closely now because of terrorism.

  Josh's bizarre idea of making the ship look like a wheeled vehicle sounded tempting, but seemed impossible the more he thought about it. Every other scheme he could think of suffered from the fact the ship was not heavy enough to carry transport they could use locally.

  They could easily sneak across the continent slow and low, flying below most radar or making them look like a private plane on visual flight rules. The ship could not fly very fast at low altitude, certainly not anywhere near jet speeds with the aerodynamics of a brick. But they could hardly land in a McDonald's parking lot and run in for a burger when they needed. He supposed they could carry a light motorcycle, but then they would be hiding and one of them running into a town for supplies. It sounded risky to do repeatedly.

  When Martee came out she was mostly dressed, which he appreciated. He had his clean clothing ready and ducked in quickly, assuring her he wouldn't be long when she tried to talk.

  "Josh left this note for you," Martee insisted when he came out.

  It was on one of the thin freebie motel notepads and was a shopping list –Sawzall, metal cutting blades, ceramic cutting blades, power inverter, hacksaw, premium hacksaw blades, come-along and nylon strap, bolt cutters, aviation snips, gloves, knee pads, trash bags, engineers hammer, ear plugs, electric cut-off grinder, six rolls of duct tape, three pair safety glasses, Band-Aids and topical disinfectant.

  "Well," he considered carefully. "I can see why you will need a few Band-Aids with all these sharp tools, but I think he is wildly optimistic and hasn't seen me use power tools. We'll need some jumbo quick-clotting pads, surgical tape, sutures and maybe a tourniquet if I'm going to help him use these," he predicted.

  "On the plus side he hasn't asked for a fire ax or explosives. What I don’t understand is just what the hell he’s doing?" He could see he was going to miss his exercise routine this morning. He couldn't keep doing that. "What do you say we go make this mad man get some breakfast with us and talk things over?" Martee agreed.

  Rog rolled the door up a meter and climbed up the back of the truck. It had a simple grab bar on each side by the door and was awkward to climb up, off the ICC bumper that hung down in the rear. The narrow steel platform barely gave enough room to step and it was slick with snow. He pulled the door higher and once he was standing inside on the dry wood reached and helped Martee climb.

  The door to the stolen police ship was wide open and a mound of inner panels and electronic chassis, were piled knee high just outside on the floor. As they watched, a tangle of wires with a small plastic housing attached flew through the doorway and landed on the heap. Rog and Martee squeezed past and looked in the door. Josh had both front seats removed and the entire instrument panel open and disassembled, to the point the insulation covering the outer shell of the ship was readily visible in big patches.

  "You seem to be doing just fine without all the engines of destruction you put on this shopping list for me," Roger noted.

  "Hey, Rog." Josh squirmed around on the floor until he could look at them. "You were right. They make things really easy to take apart. I bet they can take one of these things apart for a rebuild in about a week. It's a pleasure to work on something so well thought out. However the body is made in big panels and welded and glued up. We're going to have to cut it up in pieces small enough to fit in dumpsters. It might even be smart to chop it up until it will fit in trash bags."

  "I thought you were perfectly happy to steal a working starship. So why are you set on cutting it up in pieces? Couldn’t you dump the shell someplace instead of all this work? Then if you ever want you could come back for it."

  "Roger! This is like stealing a police cruiser. I don’t want them finding the shell and knowing what I’ve done. It's risky enough chopping it and keeping the drive and the computer. You don't shoot a cop, then take his black and white home and park it in the driveway, with the bubble gum machines on the roof and the shields painted on the door. Most of this crap we can make just as well. I can get a carbon dioxide scrubber, or a heater core and fan made up just fine."

  "That's what I really want," Josh said, pointing to a big round housing of something, satiny silver like brushed stainless steel. "That's what makes it go. You better believe if I find any kind of serial numbers or manufacturer's marks, they are coming all the way off. I'm sure with this to take apart I'll be able to write up patents and nail down my drive rights in short order."

  "I had this all planned out before I ever lifted it off the ground last night. Sorry if I didn’t get around to explaining it to you, the shape we were in last night. I mean, you didn’t want an empty ship with no drive for
yourself did you? I don’t recommend it."

  "Hey, if that's all you need it makes sense to me. Come on with us and get some breakfast and we'll talk about how we're going to do this."

  Josh looked all worried. "I'm still scared her people are going to swoop down anytime and grab this back. How about if you bring me back a sandwich and I'll keep working?"

  "Have you found any bugs or beacons?" Rog wanted to know.

  "No, but there might be something in there and I'd never know," Josh insisted indicating the pile of torn out electronics. I disconnected the power from everything and the truck body shields it some, but I worry."

  "It looks to me as if you almost have the drive out. How about if we go get some trash bags, we'll dumpster the pile of junk here down the street, well away, put the drive in my truck and all go eat? If they were going to be swooping down on any beacon, it seems to me they would have done so in the first couple hours – don't you think?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. If there are only around thirty of them trained to walk around down here and they have to come from the back side of the moon. It might take awhile. That’s assuming they are even missed yet. They might have been expected to sit there a couple more days if they needed, before we showed back up. We killed four and I assume from what you’ve said you knocked at least one off. I don’t know how their organization works, but if they don’t have pretty strict discipline, they might not be lining up eager to volunteer to go on a rescue mission. Earth must seem like a damn dangerous place to them."

  Martee was nodding agreement.

  "If we can pitch this electronic stuff before we go eat it's a deal. Get those bags to hold the stuff and I'll have the drive housing out when you get back. This is the computer" – he indicated two cardboard boxes with the instrument panel screens and a couple metal housings. "I just cut the power wires on most of this junk, but kept these cables and feeds all intact for the computer system. There are a couple cameras on the body for navigation I'll get later. How about taking them to your truck now?"

  The computer fit on the jump seat of Roger's truck easily. They cheated a bit and got coffee and a donut from the continental breakfast before they went in search of trash bags. Roger asked at the desk if they'd mind if he dropped a couple bags in their dumpster.

  "You're nicer than most folks if you toss them yourself, instead of leaving them in the room for the maid to haul away," the young woman informed them. "Don't worry about it. Tell them Helen said it was OK, if anybody asks."

  * * *

  "That was pretty good," Josh allowed. He chased the last bit of pancake down and pinned it on his fork. "I can get too intense on a project and hate to take a break. When you are eighteen it's easier, but as you get older you pay for it," he admitted.

  "We have to pace ourselves," Roger agreed, relieved to hear Josh talk this way. "It's going to be a hard trip and lots of obstacles the next couple months and we can't do it run down and tired all the time. I'm worried about going cross country too," he explained.

  "I hate to leave the ship in Seattle, but flying it across the whole country would be risky and I don't want to try to drive a big truck the whole way. Leaving a big paper trail worries me too. Every time I think about it the problems seem more complicated."

  "Why don't we go the other way?" Martee asked.

  "What other way?" Roger asked confused, he could see Josh frowning, perplexed too.

  "West," Martee suggested, rotating her finger tip in a circle. "Why fly low and slow and attract attention when we can go the other way, out over the ocean just west of here, then lift to orbit and fly across the land on the other side of the world and drop down again when we’re over the other ocean this New York is by. We get there the long way around faster and easier, no?"

  "We always launch to the east," Josh said with a surprised look on his face. "We need the extra velocity from the Earth's rotation. I'd never have thought about going around retrograde."

  "I thought we had to be sneaky," Roger admitted. "If we go in an orbit won't your people see us?"

  "How could they?" Martee asked. "They can't run radar coverage around your world without your people knowing. I'm sure some of your countries may spot us, but they will think we belong to some other Earth government. We have noticed you aren’t very quick to shoot down each others’ satellites, right?"

  "True," Josh agreed. "They don’t just casually swat down strange satellites. That would be dangerous. You’d have no idea who you could be pissing off. Just so we don’t look like a missile coming back down. I’ll have to explain what sort of a path not to follow, because that could get us fired on."

  When Martee looked back down at her food the men sneaked a look at each other and made faces, dismayed they had missed such an obvious solution.

  * * *

  Two days later they had moved less than a hundred miles, spending most of each day in the back of the truck cutting the spaceship into pieces. They had given up fitting it in bags in tiny pieces and satisfied themselves with fitting it in dumpsters. Assemblies like the seats went into the trash whole.

  It was depressing how many dumpsters were locked up now and quite a few people would not let them dump anything even if they offered cash. At least nobody had called the cops on them for asking. Roger wasn't as accident-prone as he had intimated to Martee, but he did have several nicks and cuts. Besides that, he was just sore from the unaccustomed labor, but they were finally done.

  "We'll make Seattle in one day, now that we can just drive," Josh pointed out. "I feel pretty confident they aren't going to track us to our lair now"

  "What do you want to do in Seattle before you fly ahead to New York?" Roger asked Josh.

  "I want to do a quick preliminary inspection of the drive. If I need to send samples out to be tested, or if I need to order my own test equipment. I hope to do that before I leave. I'd like to set up deeper security around our building and I want to make a thorough list and buy security gear to take to New York. I know people in this town and I'd rather buy the stuff here than have word floating around, if I buy it in New York. Nobody there owes me to keep quiet. If you buy really good security gear it shouts you have something to protect," he pointed out.

  "As much as I don't want to, I'm going to get a gun - a couple of them actually. That will be a lot easier for me here too. I know some guys that used to talk pretty seriously about guns at the lunch table, when we worked together. If they can't help me they will send me to somebody who can. And I'm sure they won't turn me in to the law. I can ask them questions that would be dangerous to ask strangers in New York. You guys can bring them to New York in the ship."

  "I see now, that until we go public in a big way we can't afford to be arrested for anything. If we end up in custody and the authorities find out what we have, we'll never see daylight again. Doesn't matter about right or wrong, legal or illegal – doesn't matter if we could hire the best of lawyers, because we'd never be allowed to talk to an attorney, or see the inside of a courtroom. Something this big, governments just take and don't worry about laws."

  "We better take your cane too," Roger reminded him, teasing a bit. "Wouldn't that give security a fit at the airport?"

  "We need to sell some platinum too," Josh pointed out. "I'll need some cash for equipment, including my arms. I can probably pay for some of it directly with metal, if you don't mind?" he asked Martee.

  "That's what it's for," she agreed. "Roger is making me appreciate why it's better not to leave a paper trail."

  * * *

  Seattle was a bit of a disappointment to Martee. She expected they would come upon it and at some point there would be a grand view, as the great city was spread out before them. Instead there were suburbs that got slowly denser, until they passed a sign that announced they had reached the city limits. Mt Rainer was lost in clouds, so the one spectacular sight that might have pleased her was unavailable.

  The view from the building Josh had leased made her stop pouting a little. It was at
the end of a strip of light industrial rentals. The land dropped off beyond their parking lot and you could see out over the buildings below. There was a pretty good chunk of downtown visible perched on the Sound to the North of them. Roger was determined to take her once they got settled to see the boats and ride a ferry. She would probably get a kick out of the Fish Market and touristy stuff along the water.

  The closest shop with a night shift was clear at the other end of the row. The truck bay was almost a quarter of the inside space and there was an office in the front that was like a separate little building, with its own roof inside that could be used for storage. It was bare and bland and so small it had a unisex bathroom.

  The first thing Roger wanted to do was establish a secure storage area inside to hold their trade goods. Not just the ones they had now, but eventually build a big enough vault to hold what they would bring back, after visiting Martee’s worlds and trading.

  The ship they left inside the truck until the workmen wouldn’t be coming inside the building. Josh made things a little safer by removing some of the vital parts of the truck, so it could not be stolen and secured the overhead door so it was very hard to open.

  Once they had the needed walls and things up and had their privacy back, they would make a rough apartment in the office so they could stay in for security. Until then they stayed in a nearby motel and were starting to learn which area diners and restaurants were worth visiting.

  It was only their second day there, though, before Josh asked Roger to accompany him on a gun buying expedition outside town. They had a hard time explaining to Martee why they didn’t want her along. When they explained that too big a crowd would worry the fellow they were going to see she had reasonably asked why Josh didn’t go alone?