by Saxon Andrew
“Admiral, I’ve been giving this situation a lot of thought and I wonder why you don’t just go after the Coalition spies and eject them from the country.”
“Grady, most of the spies aren’t from the Coalition, they’re our own citizens.”
“That makes them traitors, Sir!” Grady replied forcefully.
Kosare shook his head, “Our constitution grants every citizen the right to free speech without any limitations. That right comes from the time this country was founded and the government may not take any action against any citizen based on something they say. Our citizens could tell a coalition agent anything and not be breaking any laws. Most of the spies keeping track of us are being paid to keep the Coalition informed and there’s nothing we can do about it. The ones doing it hide what they’re doing because they know if we’re aware we will make sure they are not in a position to hear critical information.”
“What about the Coalition agents here?”
“We could have them sent back to the Coalition, if we could find them,” Kosare replied.
“You don’t know who they are?!”
“No, Grady. They’re the professional spies and they come here on a visitor’s pass and then disappear into our society. There aren’t a huge number of them and they’re experts at not being detected. You need to remember that the Union is a free society and its citizens are protected from being spied on by the government.” Kosare paused and continued, “Even the members of the military could pass on critical information to the Coalition and they would not be breaking the law. Our freedoms work against us, Grady, and those of us in command are forced to find ways to work against our enemies against this backdrop.”
“That’s ridiculous, Admiral.”
“Most of the Coalition’s advances have come from Union scientists working for us passing them on to the Coalition. When we discover it, we remove them from critical positions, but the damage is done. That’s why you will be the only one working on this project and you will need to make sure you’re isolated and viewed as crazy.”
“Yes, Sir. My parents are heart broke by my unwillingness to talk to them. I’ve lost my girlfriend; she’s moved on and found someone else.”
“Grady, I’m not going to minimize the sacrifices you’re going to make to pull this mission off. But it must be done; our way of life is in jeopardy and we need you to help us!”
Grady sighed, “I understand, Sir. It’s just…”
“Hard!” Kosare replied. “You’ve been promoted to Colonel and if there’s anything you need, let Jeb know and he’ll get it. The faster you can make this happen, then the less time you’ll be forced to continue this masquerade.”
“Yes, Sir.” The screen went dark and Grady shook his head; where should he start? He decided to run a few experiments on the scout’s hull and move forward from there.
• • •
The checkout girl looked at the long line and hated what she was doing. She had been transferred to this new market a month earlier because the customers at her previous location complained about her appearance. She wore a perpetual frown which went well with her black outfit and lip piercings. Her hair was cut close on one side of her head and was long on the other with a cobalt colored slash on the front edge. Her eyebrows matched the color of the slash in her hair and makeup around her eyes. The manager had been riding her for a week and she knew he was looking for a reason to fire her.
The manager walked up beside her and she heard him say under his breath, “DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!”
She turned to him and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“He’s back!”
“Who’s back?”
“The Wolfman!” The manager replied.
She turned and saw a man move into the rear of her checkout line. The manager shook his head as the shoppers in front of the man began moving out of line, “I’d give anything to stop him from coming to my store!”
The girl turned to him and asked, “If I can make that happen, will you move me to delivery?” The manager looked at her and she smiled, “If I can do it, will you?”
The manager saw the last customer in line move out and the man in question arrived at the counter with a fully loaded flat cart in front of him. The manager glared at him, then turned to the girl, “You have a deal.”
The manager walked away holding his nose and she turned to the…Wolfman. She saw the description fit. His face was covered with hair and his beard hung down to his chest. His hair was down to his shoulders, except in the back, where it hung down to the middle of his back. He wore a filthy shirt and a nasty pair of cutoff pants. The man was staring at her in silence and she smiled, before asking, “Did you find everything you need?” The man glared at her and nodded. “Do you need these delivered?” The man nodded again. She saw him holding a list and he watched her closely as she ran the scanner over the items he purchased. It took a while, he had purchased enough food to last several months. She looked around and saw no one was near them. He saw her looking around and spoke his first words, “You must be new.” She forced a smile and nodded. The man chuckled, “I do have a way of clearing things out.” She looked around again and saw numerous carts in the adjacent checkout lines filled with groceries were abandoned by the customers that filled them. She sighed and started scanning the remaining items.
As she finished scanning the items on the large platform cart, she smiled, “I think I can help you with this.” He looked away from the list and into her eyes. “I see you are a regular shopper and you really don’t need to come in to purchase your items.” He continued to stare at her in silence and she continued, “What you just purchased is in the store’s computer and you can call in and these items will be pulled by the staff and delivered directly to you. You can pay for them when they’re delivered. Matter of fact, you can call me personally and I’ll deliver them myself.”
The corner of the man’s mouth went up slightly as his eyes narrowed, “And why would you be doing this?”
“We aim to make our customers happy.”
“Tell that to someone who believes it,” he countered. “If that were the case, you wouldn’t be working here dressed like that, you turn the customers off about as much as I do. What’s the real reason?”
The girl looked up as she sighed. “My manager tells me that if I can stop you from coming in and scaring the customers away, he’ll allow me to become a delivery clerk and get away from this god-forsaken checkout line.”
The man said softly, “So, you’re doing this for selfish reasons and could care less whether it helps me or not?”
She shrugged, “Yes. However, it would make life easier for you, too.”
“I often purchase items that aren’t on my list,” He replied.
“I’ll bring you a list of every item along with any new items in the store when your purchases are delivered; you can look it over before you call your next list in.” The man’s eyes narrowed as he thought about her proposal and she added, “Give it a try for a while and see if you like it.”
He glared at her and said, “And you say you will make my deliveries?” She nodded. “Alright, I’ll agree to try it for a while. However, it normally takes your drivers more than two hours to arrive with my purchase. I will be waiting above the store on my scooter to show you a faster route.”
“Give me about fifteen-minutes to get the truck loaded and I’ll meet you above the store.” The man turned and walked away from the counter. She quickly shouted, “You haven’t paid yet!”
He replied over his shoulder, “You said I can pay when they’re delivered.”
The manager rushed up and asked, “What’s going on?!”
“He has agreed to call his orders in if I will personally deliver them. He also says he appreciates not having to come in to the store. He’s waiting on me to follow him to his residence to deliver this purchase.”
“Are you sure about this? He won’t be coming back!”
“Bust me back to the checkout line i
f he shows up again.”
The manager thought about the issue and decided that having her making deliveries got her out of the store as well. “Go tell the Delivery Manager to send you out to make the delivery.”
She grabbed the handle on the cart and pulled it away from the counter toward the rear of the huge store. She arrived on the loading deck and saw a truck with the back doors open. She moved the cart in its direction and the delivery manager yelled, “What do you think you’re doing?!”
“The store manager has told me to deliver this purchase.” She looked around and saw ten delivery drivers glaring at her. They didn’t like someone new coming in to take their share of deliveries.
“And just where are you taking them?”
“To the Wolfman.” The delivery manager’s eyes flew open as he looked around. The ten drivers hanging around were no where to be seen. She added, “I’m going to make all of his future deliveries.”
The manager nodded, “Well, get moving. Welcome to Delivery.”
She smiled and pushed the large cart into the rear of the truck until she heard the locks on the front of the cart click, locking it in place. She closed the rear doors and ran around to the cab and sat down on the driver’s seat. She cranked the engine and started the truck lifting above the store. She arrived thirty-feet up and saw the wolfman on a scooter twenty-feet above her. Crap! She thought. She’d have to be careful not to run over the scooter; those things were s-l-o-w! She quickly discovered she was wrong. The scooter rose quickly, and she struggled to stay behind it. It moved out to the edge of one of the inbound city traffic lanes and remained there. After a few minutes, the scooter moved out of the lane of traffic bound for the city’s center and moved to the edge of a high-speed lane exiting the city. The scooter picked up speed and matched the traffic’s velocity. She moved in close behind the scooter and it smoothly entered the lane of traffic. She was thankful he found a break big enough for her truck to move in behind him. Thirty-minutes later, the scooter pulled out of the lane and began dropping toward the mountains located just outside the city. She followed him down and wondered what he was doing moving into the mountains. Suddenly, she saw an old house built into the side of a mountain on long stilts. The scooter flew in under the stilts and moved toward a door that was rolling up. She followed him in and stopped the truck in a large room cut into the mountain.
She saw a row of freezers on the back wall of the room and she turned the truck around and backed it up to them. She exited the cab and went around to the rear of the truck, opened the doors, and pulled the cart out. She began lifting bags and he came up and said, “I’ll do that.”
“I’m paid to do it!” she countered.
“I want them put in a certain order. Take a seat and collect your pay or return it to the store; I don’t care which you choose to do.” She saw a chair and sat down. She pulled up the man’s account on her hand biller and saw that he made regular purchases every two-weeks. It only took a little over forty-five minutes to arrive and she realized that she had more than an hour to goof off; the market allotted her two hours to make the delivery. She went back to the cab of the truck and took a card out of the dash. She walked back to him and wrote her name on the back.
The man finished unloading the bags and she smiled, “May I have your purchase card.” He took it out of his pocket and handed it to her; she ran it through her biller and it pinged acceptance. She held out the card, along with the card with her name on the back to him, “If you need another delivery, call the store’s main number and ask for me; my name is on the back of the card.”
The man turned it over and read aloud, “Taffy.” He looked up at her, “Taffy is your name?” She nodded. “What is it short for?”
“It’s short for Taffy!” she answered stiffly.
“Your parents named you Taffy?!”
She rolled her eyes, “No, they didn’t.” He raised his eyebrows and she sighed before saying, “My parents owned a candy store when I was young, and I loved taffy. By the time I was in my teens I was fifty pounds overweight because of how much I’d eaten over the years. Taffy is a nickname.”
He glanced at her and shook his head, “You don’t appear to be overweight now.”
“I hated my parents and I ran away. They were so restrictive and controlling; I couldn’t take it anymore. I lost all the weight after I ran away.”
The man glared at her and then shrugged, “And just look at what you’ve made of yourself.”
Taffy’s eyes narrowed, “Are you criticizing my appearance?!”
“I suppose,” he answered.
“Have you taken a good look at yourself?”
The man chuckled and smiled, “Touché! I’ll give you a call about the next order in a few weeks.”
She nodded and went to the cab of the truck. She flew it out of the room and saw the rollup door close behind her. Humph! The nerve of that man!
• • •
Grady watched her fly away and remembered the night he had the altercation with the body builder. This was the girlfriend that asked him to back off. Her hair and eyebrows were purple then instead of the brilliant blue they were currently. Now they were even. But she was right. Having the orders made over the communicator was safer than going in to purchase them in person. He went to the freezers and began throwing the bags into them. He finished the Job and heard his communicator. He opened it and Jeb appeared, “What’s up?”
“I have a couple of items I need you to deliver.”
“What do you need, Grady.”
“I need enough of the metal used to make containment vessels in our newest reactors to build an inner hull inside this ship along with all the conduits to operate the inner systems.”
OH! IS THAT ALL?!”
“No, I’ll also need fifty thousand gallons of hydraulic expansion fluid.”
“It’s finally happened,” Jeb said shaking his head.
“What?” Grady asked.
“You really have gone insane.”
“Jeb, it’s taken me six-months to come up with the design to rebuild this ship. I’m hoping this will be the last items you’ll need to deliver; I can’t complete this project without those items. Can you do it?”
“Do you know how large the trucks will be that deliver them? That will have to draw attention from our friends in space.”
Grady raised a shoulder, “I’m depending on you to pull it off; I know you can make it happen.”
Jeb rubbed the back of his neck, “I’ll contact the admiral and see if he can provide what you want. I’ll work on finding a way to get them delivered.”
“Thanks, Jeb. I do appreciate all you do and have done in the past.” Jeb nodded and ended the contact.
• • •
A month later, two giant haulers arrived, and one landed on the plateau at the house. A coalition satellite operator saw them arrive and called his controller over, “What?” the controller inquired.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” The operator replied.
The controller looked at the two haulers on the monitor and his eyes narrowed, “What’s written on the side of that hauler?”
The operator moved the view in closer and answered, “Planetary Pest Control.” The controller shook his head and the operator asked, “Am I missing something?”
“Have you taken a good look at that house?” The operator changed the satellite’s view and sat back. The controller added, “That house is old, and I’m surprised it’s still standing. I suspect it has been invaded by wood weevils and you have no idea how much poison has to be brought in to eradicate them in a structure that large.” The operator moved the view back to the truck, and they saw the driver emerge from the cab wearing a hazard suit and greet the man walking out of the house. It was clear they started arguing immediately and the driver pointed away from the house toward the distant city.
“What’s going on?” the operator asked.
“The driver is telling the home owner that he is
going to have to leave and stay gone until he completes the poisoning process.”
The operator nodded, “He doesn’t look very happy.”
A few minutes later, they saw the homeowner leave the house on a scooter with a bag on the back of it. “It’s going to take some time to do it,” the controller replied. “I suspect with an old house that large they are going to have to call in more haulers to get the job done right.” The controller patted the operator on the back, “There’s nothing out of the ordinary happening.” The operator nodded and changed the satellite’s view. He did see several more haulers arrive a few days later and ignored them.
• • •
Two weeks later, Grady returned, and Jeb had come through again. He placed a grocery order and had the robots move the metal and hydraulic fluid to the lower level on the freight elevator. Now the real work could begin. First, the internal systems had to be mounted with special conduits running out to the hull. Grady looked forward to filling his time with the construction. He was becoming used to the isolation and that wasn’t good.
Chapter Two
Two-years passed, and the propulsion and storage systems were finally installed and anchored in place. He stood back watching the robots finish the final welds and felt his communicator vibrate. He lifted it and saw Jeb, “Jeb, what’s going on?”
