The Ship Finder

by John Bluck

  "That's an easy one. It only costs $2.50."

  "Okay," Lena said.

  The lady quickly painted a butterfly icon on Lena's cheek, and Wilson paid the artist.

  "Thank you, folks," she said as they left.

  As they walked towards the parking lot, a policeman looked their way, but he didn't identify them.

  "That was close," said Wilson.

  "Good thing I didn't have to stun him," she said.

  "That would have gotten us into trouble for sure," Wilson said. I didn't know she had her weapon with her, he thought.

  The pair rented an electric sedan and drove it back to Wilson's flat in San Ramon. It was dark when they got there.

  "Your place makes me feel safe," said Lena. "Now I can relax after all of the stress we suffered today."

  "There's no place like home," Wilson said.

  After another day relaxing on Earth, they returned to the dimension ship, The Ghost Liner, for the trip back to planet Sunev. It was late in May, about ten o'clock at night, when the ship neared the Sunevian dimension. After The Ghost Liner stopped its vibration, Lena unfastened her seatbelt.

  "I'm sorry we had to return here," she whispered. "It was a nice, quiet visit to Earth, away from the war." He knew, though, that she was ready to renew her fight against the Sunevian government.

  "I hope the war's over soon," he said.

  "We must trust that Fate will be on our side," she said. "And that our Inner Ones will guide us safely to peace."

  They took a taxi through the dark, cool night to his hotel. Despite Lena's fame, they did not try to hide that they now lived together.

  While still in the cab, Lena said, "I'll set up a meeting for you with your new friends."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow," she said.

  Wilson thought, she told me in the taxi because she's afraid my room's bugged. He unlocked his apartment door, and as Lena slowly walked in she looked tired. He helped her take off her coat.

  "Let's tour some more of the city tomorrow," she said. "Let's just play it by ear."

  "Sounds like fun," he said. He wondered, what's Ramon Black like?

  Chapter 18 – Ramon Black

  Lena and Wilson got up early the next morning, refreshed. "I'll scramble eggs. Do you want some?" he asked her.

  "Yes, please. I'll make coffee and heat up some ham." She opened the heavy Sunevian refrigerator and took out the meat. Wilson leaned over her and took out an egg that was as big as a baseball.

  I need to ask about the powwow with the rebels, he thought, and he began, "When . . . ," Lena quickly placed her hand over his mouth and put a finger to her lips. She thinks the room's under surveillance.

  "When will you to go back to work?" Wilson asked to make his last word make sense.

  "Not right away. Let's take a couple of days to tour the city," she said as she gave Wilson an okay signal with her hand. She snatched a piece of notepaper from a tablet attached to the refrigerator.

  She quickly wrote, "We have to be careful when we speak about the revolution."

  "Okay," Wilson said. He referred to her note, but also agreed to a tour for the benefit of any eavesdroppers.

  They ate breakfast quietly and then left the hotel. While they strolled along the sidewalk, Lena said, "I have a mobile phone with a scrambler. I'll make a call from the middle of that park." She pointed to a large grassy lawn surrounded by trees. There also were four or five nearby sports fields crowded with people.

  The duo walked into the grass holding hands and found an empty park bench where they sat.

  Lena tapped in a number on the keypad of her phone. "Hello, Ramon?" she asked. "Yes, he's with me." She glanced at Wilson as she listened. "Okay, we'll be there in an hour. Goodbye."

  "That was quick," Wilson said.

  "Ramon Black likes to work fast when he believes it will help the revolution."

  "He thinks that I'm that vital?" Wilson asked.

  "You could hear something important," she said. "You might even be called in to speak with the Great Leader himself. Or more likely Raven will get careless and reveal a detail that he should keep secret."

  "If I get some intelligence, should I tell you so you can pass it on?" Wilson asked.

  "Maybe that's how it'll work," she said. "But Black could set up another way for you to report in case I'm not around. He'll go over procedures during our meeting."

  "Where will we go?"

  "To the ghetto where you rescued me from those idiots who didn't know I was on their side," she said. "Those dolts decided to grab me for a ransom in gold. They paid with their lives because they didn't clear their plan with their commanders."

  "After you told me you were a rebel, I wondered about the kidnapping," Wilson said.

  "No organization is perfect," she said. "But we try to minimize problems, and that's why we have procedures. You'll learn about our command structure, and how we work. Right now we have to leave. We'll take the number twelve bus to the eastside and meet in an abandoned warehouse in the burned out section of the city."

  They walked through the green, dewy grass and thick moss to the sidewalk where there was a bus stop. It struck him how alike Earth and Sunev were in some ways. Of course, that's why Raven looked for gold nuggets in similar places on three worlds superimposed on one another, each just a dimension or two apart.

  The bus soon came, and Wilson and Lena stepped up into the vehicle. She chose to sit near the rear door. Wilson thought, she did that so we can make a quick getaway if we have to.

  As they traveled through the city's eastside, Wilson saw that many buildings were run down. When the pair got to their stop, just three other passengers were still on the bus.

  "This is it," Lena said as she stood. She grasped a pole near the rear door, and Wilson got up and pushed the bus doors open.

  He noticed that weeds grew through cracks in the sidewalk near a gutted apartment complex. Some houses were occupied and clean, but nevertheless the area looked like it had been through a war.

  The pair walked a block down the street, and Wilson spied the large, two-story warehouse that Black had chosen for their meeting. Colorful, bright graffiti on the walls between hundreds of broken windows contrasted with the dull, run-down structure. The artwork portrayed the clone's revolution, which many Sunevian intellectuals and the cyborgs of Triod also supported.

  Lena stepped carefully over the broken glass that was scattered on the sidewalk, as she approached a door half attached to its frame. Peeling blue paint covered the frame and the door, and when Wilson pulled it open, its hinges squealed.

  "Ramon," Lena's voice echoed. "Where are you?"

  "Up here," said Ramon Black from a dark second floor walkway that ran around the inside space of the big warehouse. Wilson looked up at him in the dim interior. He had deep tan, olive skin. There was a second man who had striking blond hair that made him stand out in the murky light. He was handsome with an athletic build, about six feet two inches tall, and his light complexion and clean-shaven face contrasted with Ramon's dark skin. A stocky, redheaded cyborg, who looked like a body guard, accompanied them. As Wilson's eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed that the steps which led upward were made of rusty steel.

  "I see you now, Ramon," Lena shouted. "We'll be up in a second."

  Bill and Lena clambered up the dirty steel staircase to reach the second floor walkway. On that level there were offices that faced the street as well as the land around the sides and the rear of the warehouse.

  "Nice to see you again, Lena," said Ramon. He had a black beard that was trimmed to a point under his chin.

  Lena and Ramon hugged.

  "This is Dr. Bill Wilson," Lena said.

  "Pleased to meet you, Ramon," Wilson said as he shook Black's hand. His handshake was firm. Wilson's guts told him that Ramon Black was okay. The swarthy man smiled.

  "I'd like you both to meet Red Murphy, the leader of our Sunevian cyborgs. And please, also let me introduce you to my aid,
compatriot Art Terac, who's a skilled fighter and a clone like me," said Ramon.

  Terac smiled. "I'm glad to be allied with the first earthling to visit Sunev. General of the Armies Black is wise to encourage friendship with a person who knows what freedom is."

  "Pleased to meet you," said Wilson, and he shook hands with the blond clone.

  The tough looking redheaded cyborg also stepped forward and clutched Wilson's hand, "I'm honored to be aligned with a man from Earth," he said, and then he gave Lena a gentle hug. "And it's good to meet you, too, Lena." She smiled and nodded.

  Terac stepped closer to Lena and said, "I'm fortunate to become acquainted with you in person, Lena. I've seen you on TV many times." He shook her hand.

  "The pleasure is mine," said Lena, ill at ease when Terac talked of her fame, which had been fueled by the news media.

  "Up front, I'd like you both to know that I'm glad that I'm a clone, and proud to be a unique person, too," Terac said. "Lena, you're a model for me because of your individuality and your scientific research on other worlds."

  "I'm glad you realize that you're one of a kind, Mr. Terac, just as I've learned I'm unique," said Lena, smiling. He nodded as he made a close-mouthed grin, which hid his perfect teeth.

  Ramon led the small group into one of the abandoned offices that were along the walkway. He brushed dust off an old office swivel chair and sat at the head of a scarred wooden conference table. The four others pulled chairs away from the table, knocked dirt off them, and sat.

  "Bill, I'm grateful that you decided to join us in the struggle to free our peoples from the grasp of a powerful few, an oligarchy, which would compare to the most vicious ancient regimes of Earth," Ramon began. "I'm a clone from this planet, and I'm proud to lead the combined revolutionary armies of Sunev and Triod. We call this The Alliance. Who knows? Someday like-minded people of Earth may make a treaty with us because our aim is to join with all free people to aid in the establishment of democratic states."

  "I hope that someday, the people of Earth will learn about Sunev and Triod," said Wilson. "By then perhaps democracy will take root on both of those planets." He paused. "To be honest, I was troubled early on about what I saw on Sunev. But because Raven had saved my life, I felt that I owed him a lot, and I ignored the flaws of Sunevian society."

  "That's forgivable," Ramon said. "It took a brave man to do what you've done. We welcome you to our cause."

  "What do you want me to do?" Wilson asked.

  "Just keep your eyes open and your ears tuned in on conversations. When you learn something you think we ought to know, contact me," Ramon said. He looked at Wilson, trying to read his face.

  Wilson supposed the swarthy rebel just wanted to see if his new recruit was strongly devoted to the revolution. "How do I pass along intelligence to you?" Wilson asked.

  "I'll put a special card with a new computer chip in your mobile phone. The card looks like the phone's main controller," Ramon said. He held up a tiny electronic part so Wilson could see it in the stream of light that entered one of the broken windows. "Do you have your phone with you?"

  "Yes," Wilson said. He took it from his pocket and handed it to Ramon.

  "Thanks," said Ramon. He snapped the back cover from the phone and took out its battery and the original computer card. Then he put the new one in and reinstalled the battery.

  "Here," Ramon said as he handed the phone back to Wilson. "All you have to do is enter a series of numbers. They'll be the code to turn on the scrambler computer program that's embedded in the new computer card. Then you can dial my number, talk to me, and others won't hear us."

  "Sounds simple," Wilson said. "What's the code I have to type in?"

  "You can choose a code now," said Ramon. "Just don't tell me what it is. That way, if I'm caught, there's no way the enemy can get your code from me."

  "What'll I do to enter the numbers?" Wilson asked.

  "Punch them in on the keypad. When you're done, press the hash mark key, and type in the code again. If you entered the code correctly the second time, the phone will beep once," Ramon said.

  Wilson chose his parents' old address in San Jose. He mixed the house number with the zip code. After he finished entering the numbers, the phone beeped.

  "Okay, I'm done," Wilson said.

  The rebel leader smiled, reached into his pocket, pulled out a small piece of folded paper, and handed it to Wilson. "Here's my phone number," Black said. "Memorize it, then rip up the sheet, and throw the shreds away."

  "All right," Wilson said. "Anything else?"

  "Call as often as you like, even if it's not important," Black said. "I hope we can be friends as well as colleagues-in-arms." The rebel patted Wilson on the back, and the two men shook hands.

  "I'll try not to overdo it," Wilson said.

  "There's something else important for you both to know," said Ramon. "We think the Sunevian Secret Service, the SSS, has started to investigate Lena."

  "How do you know?" she asked in a shaky voice.

  "We have an agent working in the SSS, and he's heard third hand that they'll soon put you under close surveillance," Ramon said. "If you want us to hide you, we can do it now. We could take you to a safe place on Earth."

  "I think I can still be useful where I am," Lena said, her voice quavering.

  "We'll pull you out, if the SSS gets too close," said Ramon. "One other thing, we have developed a chemical that blocks the effects of truth serum." He handed a pill to Lena and another to Wilson.

  "Do I take this just when it seems like the SSS is about to close in?" asked Lena.

  "No, you and Bill can take it now," said Ramon. "Your nanobots will absorb the truth serum antidote along with other new chemical updates that fight more diseases. You'll be protected from truth serum from this point on. If anybody forces you to take it, pretend to be under its influence. Act hyper, and talk a lot. Let your mind follow a disjointed thought pattern."

  "Okay," said Lena, and she swallowed the small pill.

  Wilson took his dose. "So, your scientists have improved nano medicine?" he asked.

  "We've made lots of progress," said Ramon. "After our ultimate victory, you can meet with our scientists to learn more. Even before the war ends we may take you on a short visit to our main underground laboratory on Triod."

  "Thanks for the offer," Wilson said.

  "We're aware of your genome research. If our people work with you, it would be of mutual benefit," Ramon said. He shifted his weight and was silent for a moment. "You may also be in danger because of your close link with Lena, so take care. We may move both of you to safety, if things go bad."

  "When you gave me the anti-truth serum pill I knew that things must've been getting riskier," Wilson said. "I'll call you if I have a problem."

  "If you believe you've been discovered, you need a code to use when you talk on the phone, even if your cell has a scrambler," Ramon said. "Use the phrase 'New York Yankees.'"

  "You must know my background very well," Wilson said. "I was a college pitcher, and the Yankees wanted to sign me."

  "We chose the Yankees phrase after careful thought," said Ramon. "By the way, we think that the Great Leader does not yet suspect you."

  "That's good news," Wilson said. "What'll I do if Lena has to hide?"

  "We'll see how it works out, if that happens," Ramon said. "If it does happen, we'll give you instructions and protect you."

  "Bill, if I have to leave, you can carry on," said Lena. "But don't take undue chances."

  "I'll be careful," Wilson said.

  "We've had a good meeting, but it's time for you to go," Ramon said. We have lookouts in the neighborhood, and you haven't been under surveillance. Goodbye, Dr. Wilson. And, Lena, be safe and cautious."

  "Farewell, Ramon," said Lena.

  "Nice to have met you, General," Wilson said, as he and Lena began to leave.

  "Again, welcome to the cause, and good luck," Ramon said. He waved as Wilson and Lena clambered down
the metal steps and made their way to the door where they had entered.

  They trod on crushed glass on the cracked walkway through which tall weeds grew.

  "I think that Yarnell may well be an undercover SSS agent," Wilson said. "He's a policeman, and he's second in command after Raven."

  "I agree," said Lena. "I've been on his radar. I thought at first he did nothing more than act like a normal male. But my Inner One told me he didn't like me that way."

  "Women have a sixth sense," Wilson said.

  "I have to be on guard not to act like I suspect him, or Yarnell will sense it," she said. "Guys sometimes have good gut instincts, too."

  "There's something else, Lena," Wilson said as the pair stepped onto the wider sidewalk on the edge of the street. "Our side, the rebels, and our enemies, the Great Leader's people, misread each other. My gut tells me that first side to understand its enemy will have a great advantage."

  "As a citizen of Earth you once had an advantage because you could better see this from a neutral position," said Lena. "But now, you've taken our side."

  "I suppose I'm more biased now," Wilson said. "I hope my instincts will tell me the right things to do."

  They caught the bus back to the hotel. Something bad is about to happen soon, Wilson thought.

  Chapter 19 – Lena's Ordeal

  It was 10 o'clock at night two days after Wilson and Lena had met with the rebel leader, Ramon Black. Wilson was relaxing when there was a loud knock on his Sunevian apartment door. He looked through the peephole and saw three uniformed policemen.

  "It's the police, Lena," Wilson said. Then he attached his translation box to his upper left arm and opened the door.

  "Excuse me, sir," said a young plainclothes officer. "Is Lena Lavelle here?"

  Lena walked into the front room from the bathroom. "I'm Lena," she said. "What's the problem, officer?"

  The clean-shaven young officer walked to her. "Lena Lavelle, you're under arrest for aiding the enemy and spying," he said, and he reached behind Lena and handcuffed her.

  "This is a mistake," she said.