One for the road
Minerva rolled a joint on the desk top, pulling the ingredients out of the pockets in her skirt, as Dyspepsia joined in the singing.
Lido, whoa-oh-oh-oh....
He's for the money, he's for the show
Lido's a-waitin' for another go
Lido, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh....
He said, "one more job oughta get it"
"One last shot, we quit it"
"One more for the road"
“I think it’s working,” Minerva said. “Keep singing. Louder this time.”
Lido be runnin',
Havin' great big fun 'til he got the note
Sayin' "toe the line or blow it"
And that was all she wrote
He be makin' like a beeline,
Headin' for the borderline, goin' for broke
Sayin, "one more hit oughta do it"
"This joint, ain't nothin' to it"
"One more for the road"
“That did it,” Minerva said, watching the alien dematerialize. “He’s gone. Lightweight. We’ll withstand any alien invasion so long as we have Bozz.”
“Maybe we should alert MI6,” Dyspepsia suggested. “What if he’s trying to warn us about a real alien invasion? What if he’s not the threat?”
“You want to get that grant proposal okayed, I don’t recommend clouding the issue with talk of alien invasions. We’re responsible for the welfare of those morons. You think they’re going to hand them over to alien-talkers?”
“Guess not.”
Minerva lit the alien’s drawing afire and used it to ignite her joint. “Thank God for these interdimensional beings or I’d hardly have sufficient reason to get high. If Lady Harding thought I couldn’t handle the staff around here, that’d be that. Interdimensional beings on the other hand, hard to speak out of turn about my lighting up to that.”
“Blooming hypocrite. She’s the biggest druggie there ever was,” Dyspepsia said.
“Don’t speak that way about the woman who’s about to co-finance our promotion.”
“She can be really sweet when she wants to be.” Dyspepsia grabbed the joint from Minerva, and took a pull.
“There you go,” Minerva said. She took her turn on the joint, then held her breath. She coughed on the smoke as Li Wei entered the room. “I better get going. Me and that Chinaman don’t see eye to eye.”
“You’re such a racist.”
“In my day it was more fashionable.” She exited the room with a world-wariness for which she was renowned. It hit her in waves, alternating between bright-eyed wonder and ennui like a manic depressive—which she swore she wasn’t.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Purnell found his way to Perdue’s side. “This is your idea of a vacation for the men?”
Perdue seemed to enjoy the bird’s eye view the watchtower gave him, even if it came with this little canary chirping in his ear. The view of the Alaskan mountain ranges on a clear day like today, admittedly, took the breath away. “Be happy,” he said. “We get to save people for a change, instead of putting bullets in them. Should be good penance for the soul.”
The shortwave radio crackled. “Gotta guy with a broken leg’s gonna need airlifting out. Over.”
Bruno, the mountain rescue squad commander, an aging grizzly bear of a guy, pressed the button on the com. “Roger that.” He looked over at Perdue.
Perdue grimaced as if biting into a sour lime. “Too tame.”
Bruno glanced over at his team. “You heard the man. Too tame. Take the red chopper and go pick him up.”
Lara, a Cuban five-foot-six firecracker, puffed out her chest as she launched herself out of rest mode on the bench against the wall, and grabbed her gear. She aimed her bile Perdue’s direction. “We gotta save the leg, and save him from hypothermia; that’s if he lives. You try doing surgery at thirty below with a pair of tweezers. What’s so tame about that?”
Bruno waved her off. “Don’t get all sensitive on us. We’ll think you’re possessed. Might start throwing holy water on you.”
Lara and Perdue snorted in two part harmony, about the first time either of them appeared in sync since he showed up to piss on her parade.
She was barely out the door when the shortwave acted up again. “Hate to do this to you back to back, Bruno. Over.”
“Roger.” Bruno grabbed the mike off its stand and pressed it to his lips. “Let’s have it. Over.” His face had hardened and his eyes looked like they could see an additional fifty miles on their new setting.
“Gotta party of five trapped on McKinley, trying to summit the damn thing. Over.”
“Wrong time of year for that. Over.” Bruno had already adjusted his tone in anticipation of what was coming.
“No shit. Storm approaching. I give them a couple hours on the West Buttress before that head wind makes popsicles out of their asses. Over.”
“Roger. Yeah, all right. We got ‘em. Over.” Bruno glanced over at Perdue, looking more hopeful this time.
Perdue nodded to Go Long and Chew Toy. “You boys need some time on POSTAL?”
“Nah,” Robes-Pierre cut in. “We were expecting this. Already reprogrammed with the latest skill sets.”
Perdue gave them a casual two-finger salute. “Good fishing, you two.”
Chew Toy yanked his hatchet out of the log it was wedged in. So much for stoking the fire, Purnell thought. It now had a higher calling.
Go Long rescued his boomerang from the cleft in the wall between slats of wood.
“Can I go, please?” Purnell tugged at Perdue’s shirt like an excited seven year old, deliberately hamming up the part. “I can’t wait to see how those two rescue five from a mountain with nothing but an ax and a boomerang. In their pajamas, no less.”
Perdue bit his lip. “Settle your ass down. My gut tells me there’s marlin in these here waters. Let them troll for bluefin.”
“How do you like that?” Go Long said, grabbing his pack.
Chew Toy hoisted up his gear. “He could’ve said guppies. Bluefin get mighty big.”
“Yeah, right.” Go Long opened the door and the gust of air nearly blew them back against the walls. For a second Purnell thought he was in a 747 in midflight.
“Fuck. Someone rescue me with a cup of coffee, please. And shut that damn door!” Purnell shouted.
Go Long was only too happy to accommodate. Like the rest of Perdue’s gung-ho types, none of them were much on sitting around.
Anastasia, another member of Bruno’s rescue team, brought him a cup of coffee. “You just saved my ass from a helicopter that’ll likely crash into the mountain before it reaches those fools, the air pressure dropping like it is. You can have me bring you coffee, anytime, sugar.” She winked at him and sashayed off with enough hip action to hypnotize Mesmer himself. Her long blond hair and legs seemed better suited to Vogue than these mountains, but Purnell wasn’t complaining.
“See that, Perdue.” Purnell warmed his hands on the coffee mug. “Not everyone in the rescue business feels a need to abandon common sense just to play hero.”
Perdue grabbed the cup of coffee out of his hands and helped himself to a sip. “Glad you can make a good call once in a while.”
Purnell pursed his lips. “Hey, rescue me again, why don’t ya?” It was his turn to wink at Anastasia. She didn’t seem any less excited about bringing him another cup of coffee.
***
“How did I let you talk me into this?” Phoenicia eyed the cavernous mouth of the cave descending straight down into the upper echelons of hell. “It’s cold. It’s dark. It looks like I’m trying to swim up the ass of a blue whale.”
“Trust me, the ass end of a blue whale—way more accommodating.” Johnny checked the wrist-watch gauges on their arms. “Just so you know, that water is actually several degrees below freezing. Something to do with the mineral content and the algae and their masterful ability to manipulate the environment to suit them. These battery packs are rated for four hours. We have backups jus
t in case, giving us eight hours, but we don’t want to rely on that. Two hours down and two hours back, and a four-hour margin of safety. I hope you don’t think I’ve lost all sense of adventure. There was a time I’d have tried this without any cheats.”
“Electrically-heated diving suits? In water? Don’t tell me, your barber is the direct descendent of a French guillotinist.”
“Think of it this way: the suits are heated, these parkas aren’t.” He blew into his hands to warm them, which wasn’t terribly bright, considering he had gloves on. But cold—this degree of cold, anyway—did that to a person.
She eyed the snowfall, which was increasing. The storm blowing in. “Have to admit, the ass end of a blue whale is starting to look mighty cozy in all this.” She shuddered. He rubbed her back.
She did the last thing in the world she should have done to motivate herself: she looked down. Into that abyss of a hole. Screw it. “Let’s do this.”
Johnny rappelled down the sheer wall of the cliff ahead of her. He wanted to be standing on the first landing looking up to catch her if she fell. He had a strange way of taking care of her, but there was no denying his terms of endearment. She came out alive, or else.
By the time she reached him, she was ready to set up base camp right where they were. Top physical conditioning in this weather mostly meant she wouldn’t go numb as quickly as most, and so had nothing to deaden the pain.
“It’s all rock climbing from here. If you hit the water ahead of me, remember where your flippers are.” He pointed to the side of the backpack, where they dangled.
“You mean, if I fall.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I mean, if you fall. If you weren’t the squeamish type I’d tell you just to jump. Hell of a lot more fun, not to mention saves your energy for the dive.”
She studied the water some one-hundred feet below, tempted. “You’re right. Worst case scenario, I save myself a lot of hard work.”
“That’s my girl.”
He took the lead again so he could find the choice hand and footholds for her. All she had to do was ape his actions. Not that that was a walk in the park.
She followed him down maybe twenty feet before she lost her grip.
As she fell, she thought, So far, so good. Look on the bright side, Phoenicia—Soft landing ahead of you; the hard work’s behind you.
And then the unimaginable happened.
She hit her head against one of the cliff walls.
Lights out.
***
Johnny watched Phoenicia fall, smiled. “Express elevator down.”
She hit her head. The sound was identical to cracking a coconut on a kitchen counter with a hammer.
The pool of blood widened around her. Her body sank into the black abyss. And just before he lost sight of her, the rip tide took her down a side cavern—not on his map.
He activated the GPS beacon, set it on the closest thing to a level surface he could find. Not a bright idea to create any distance between himself and it. But he couldn’t risk the signal getting lost descending further into the Earth. He activated the miner’s lamp on his forehead. Thought better of it. Flicked it off. Instead, he made an adjustment on the wristwatch dialed into the suit.
He did the only thing left to do. He released his grip and dropped into the inky darkness.
Following the sequence of steps he’d already outlined in his head, he let his body go limp so the riptide would whisk him in the same direction as Phoenicia. If he fought against it even a little, he could end up far, far away from her.
The countless fiberoptic lines stitched into the diving suit bioluminesced and threw an even radiance in all directions; he glowed brighter than a deep-sea squid. The miner’s headlamp, or diver’s equivalent for one, would have created a brighter narrower beam of focus, but would have left too much in darkness, making it even harder for his eyes to scan in all directions.
He wondered how many more bright ideas he’d need before this day was out if either of them were to make it out of here.
***
Robin tipped over the coffee mug that was seated in front of the fifty-inch monitor. She figured that’d get Bruno’s attention. But when she returned her eyes to him, he was glaring at her.
Just her luck he could see ghosts. He must be close to death; the very old and the very young were often prone to a psychic openness that was lost during the years where rational mind dominated.
“Forget about me, Bruno. Follow the trail marker.” Technically, she was a thought projection, not a ghost; Bruno didn’t seem a stickler for details, judging by his refusal to look away from her.
She dematerialized to avoid being any more of a distraction.
***
Bruno’s eyes glanced up from the spilled coffee to the flashing light on the digital map on his flat screen TV monitor. “Shit!” His eyes were failing him, necessitating he step closer to the screen, but his instincts were as sharp as ever, meaning he knew where that light was flashing, even if his retinas could not as of yet confirm.
“What is it?” Perdue said.
“Diver’s Cemetery.” Bruno’s lips failed him, explaining the lack of supporting narrative, as his mind started to lock up.
Perdue’s eyes went to the diving equipment. “Was thinking that looked out of place. Guess not. Grab that equipment, Purnell. Throw it in back of the truck.”
“There’s still one helicopter left. I’ve never ridden in a helicopter.”
Perdue threw him a look that curtailed any more repartee. Purnell morphed into pack-mule mode, shuttled the equipment out to the SWAT truck. Bruno took all this in through his peripheral vision. He had to rub the back of his neck to give his head some range of motion back.
“If you’re going to turn white as a sheet, Bruno, I’ll throw you out in the damn cold, so at least you have some cover for your cowardice.”
Bruno shot him an angry look before he realized Perdue was trying to make him angry so he forgot about his fear, got some of his fight back. Classic rescue tactic. He collapsed in his swivel chair.
“Damn fools. There’s a reason we don’t tell anyone about that cave, and it’s not on any map. Save the ones gone viral, which we keep deleting. Every diver that’s tried it, save the one only too happy to post the location, has died. Some of them took some of my best people with them. Fools. Damn fools.” He slammed his fist into the desk, then reached for a couple of nitro pills, stuck them under his tongue, to forestall the heart attack he was having.
“Dial back the drama, Bruno. Just the facts.”
“I gave you the facts. You go, you die. Your job is the same as mine now. Stare at that blinking light until it burns out, until it burns a hole through your soul.” Bruno appeared to be following his own advice.
Perdue snorted. “You got old, Bruno, and soft. I’ll take it from here.”
Robes-Pierre busied himself on the computer keyboard. “I’m going to need at least an hour to reprogram POSTAL. You’ll need at least a couple more hours for it to bring you up to speed.”
“They don’t have that kind of time,” Bruno said, speaking as if talking to one of the voices in his own head; his eyes remained locked on the monitor.
Perdue lifted the last of the equipment. “You heard the man. No time.”
Robes-Pierre rushed to get some miniature cameras attached to Perdue’s face, making him look as if he was getting a case of chicken pox. “This way the men can use your little jaunt as a case study.”
Perdue didn’t grace him with a comment. Already in battle mode, his eyes burned, presumably from formulating rescue scenarios in his head.
“What’s my mission-impossible?” Widget asked, testily, getting in Perdue’s face.
“Keep the old man alive. He dies, you’ll spend the rest of your life cleaning my rifles.” He brushed Robes-Pierre’s hand away before he could finish his handiwork, and stormed out the door.
Robes-Pierre shook his hand out. A love tap in this cold conveyed the sense of gett
ing horse-whipped.
“Yeah, okay.” Robes-Pierre kissed the back of his hand. “Have enough cams on you for a high-def, three-dimensional composite.”
Bruno imagined he was able to process the dynamic between Perdue and his people because he was probably out of his body, dying ahead of the ones in Diver’s Cemetery. That at least would be a noble exit, allowing him to usher them into the halls of Valhalla personally.
***
Widget opened the first aid kit. Slipped Bruno’s sleeve up to expose his forearm.
Anastasia whistled over his shoulder. “Fuck me.”
“Yeah, keeping people alive is a little more evolved where we come from, being as what we do is a hell of a lot deadlier.”
Impressed, Anastasia said, “I’m stealing that kit from you the second your back’s turned.”
Widget smiled. He supposed if she could figure out how to work half the gadgets in the box, she deserved to enjoy her new toys.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as he stuck the needle in Bruno’s arm.
“Dialysis—a rather advanced form of it. The computer will analyze his blood chemistry, and correct for more than just his kidneys; his liver; his gallbladder; all his organs, including his brain. All under-secreting the necessary substances to maintain the vim and vigor of a younger man.”
He glanced back at her. “Don’t look now,” he said, “but I think you have a fish on the line, judging from how your Adam’s apple is bobbing up and down.”
She whacked him affectionately on the back. “I think I’ve earned the right to a gulp or two, smart-ass.”
***
Perdue turned the SWAT truck’s engine over. He couldn’t touch any surface without his hands burning or doing their best to stick to it. He’d sloughed off more skin just touching the steering wheel and the key than could have been removed in a dozen beauty treatments, if he was so inclined.
Anastasia’s voice erupted over his com. “Piping their coordinates to your GPS now.”
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 150
