3rd World Products, Book 17

by Ed Howdershelt

  “Yup.” I headed for the coffee pot. Marie rested her pack on the table and Tanya stood up.

  She said, “Dee Dee called in sick, so I have to work today. You two have a good time and stay out of trouble.”

  With that, she headed for the bedroom. I finished filling my mug and turned to Marie. She hitched up her pack and we went to the back yard, then called up our boards and lifted north at about forty miles per hour.

  Only seconds passed before Marie flew close and asked, “Why are we going so slowly?”

  “There’s no hurry, ma’am. All you have to learn is ‘higher’, ‘faster’, and ‘underwater’.” Pointing ahead where dark green pine forest surrounded a small lake below, I said, “And we can do that right there, but first I want to introduce you to board commo.”

  We landed beside the little lake and I sent a ping to Marie’s board. She startled slightly and glanced down at the control hexagon on her left forearm. I pinged it again and she startled again.

  “That signal,” I said, “Means someone is trying to contact you through your board matrix. Once you have the hang of using it, we can continue your training.”

  Without looking up, Marie asked, “How do I answer it?”

  “It’s harder to explain than it is to do. You sort of think into it, same as when you command the board.”

  “I ‘think’ into it? Are you telling me this thing can do telepathy?”

  “Nope. It just sends what you tell it to someone else.”

  Looking up with a tight gaze, she asked, “That isn’t telepathy?”

  I chuckled, “More like a radio, ma’am. The other person has to have field capability, too.”

  Her still tight — but now more studious — gaze focused on mine and Marie was silent for a moment, then she said, “Interesting phrasing. You didn’t say the other person has to have a field device.”

  “If you’re thinking of Lori and Aria, they have PFMs.”

  After a moment, she nodded and looked down at her hex disk.

  “Marie,” I said, and she looked up again. “Don’t try to read between lines. Don’t interpret or look for hidden meanings. We’re just messing around with boards.”

  She flatly responded, “Old habits die the hardest, and you have your own to worry about. What’s next?”

  Instead of replying aloud, I silently sent, ‘Nothing’s next until you get the hang of board commo.’

  Marie froze solid, staring at me in astonishment until her gaze slowly fell to her hex disk. She muttered, “Oh, dear God…”

  Sighing, I sent, ‘Not exactly a useful response, ma’am.’

  Her gaze narrowed as it met mine.

  ‘Come on, Batgirl,’ I sent, ‘Send something back. Think at your disk the way you’d talk into a phone. Just focus on it a bit.’

  Looking at her disk again, she falteringly sent, ‘Uh… can you really hear me? Am I doing it?’

  ‘Yup. Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound this insecure before.’ She turned a dim glower on me and I added, ‘And since I’ve always thought of you as some kind of perpetually angry goddess, I really don’t like hearing you sound insecure. Don’t do it again, okay?’

  Holding her left forearm up so the disk was within her range of vision, Marie sent a sharp-toned, ‘Do I sound insecure now?’

  ‘Nope. And you don’t have to actually look at the disk, by the way.’

  ‘Then why’d you tell me to?’

  ‘I said to focus on it. Not the same at all.’

  From the woods just south of us, a man said in a tense voice, “You just hold it right there, dude. You ain’t gonna be hittin’ her while I’m around.”

  I turned to see a guy in his twenties with a scoped rifle loosely aimed in my direction. Sending a tendril to rustle the leaves by his feet made him look down and step sideways. As he did so, I stunned him and walked over to pick up the rifle as I woke him.

  He got to his feet, saw me holding the rifle, and his confusion turned to alarmed anger. I held up a hand and said, “Take it easy. She was just checking something. See that silver spot on her arm?”

  The guy looked and Marie obligingly raised and turned her arm to show it to him as she said, “I wasn’t sure it was working.” To me, she said, “Now give him back his rifle so we can get going.”

  Rolling my eyes as if in sufferance, I said, “Oh, yes, milady. As you command, milady,” and handed the guy his rifle with, “She’s like that all the time, dammit. Do this. Do that. Always thinks she’s in charge of something, y’know?”

  Marie had called up her board. I called up mine and we lifted northward as she grinned and sent, ‘Chivalry isn’t quite dead yet.’

  ‘Guess not. You ready to go hot?’

  I wondered if she’d heard the term ‘go hot’ since our team days. Her grin grew larger and her demeanor changed from simply amused to enthusiastic. She sent, ‘Who’s the fox?’

  Boosting my board to two hundred, I sent back, ‘Catch me if you can, sweetie.’

  What followed were some gentle and then not so gentle aerobatics. After most of an hour, she almost did catch me, but I nose-dived and leveled out at four hundred miles an hour about three feet above the lake. Marie followed me down instantly, but my turbulence kicked up a rooster tail of spray. That made her falter until she realized the spray couldn’t reach her, then she was right back on my trail and closing in.

  Dropping a foot made the rooster tail worse and I gave her a few seconds of the blinding spray to get her used to it, then nosed straight up. Marie shot clear of the spray and her own rooster tail continued a full second before she came up after me. Hm. She was still damned quick; it had only taken her that long to realize what I’d done.

  ‘Cute trick,’ she sent, ‘I’ll bet it works over sand, too.’

  I sent back, ‘Sure does. Got a fix on me yet?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You either do or you don’t.’

  ‘We’ll both know shortly. I’m at full power. If I guessed right, I should see you inside five seconds.’

  I boosted my speed to match hers and asked, ‘And if you don’t?’

  Did her silence reflect a lack of an answer? More likely she was just stalling her reply. Sure enough, only a few seconds passed before she triumphantly sent a chuckling, ‘Got you.’

  ‘Um… well, no, milady. You might see me, but you most certainly don’t got me yet.’

  Her tone was dismissive. ‘Semantics. How high are we going?’

  ‘Space.’

  ‘Come on, seriously.’

  I repeated, ‘Space. I’m gonna take a coffee break. You’re welcome to join me.’

  There was a long pause, then she growled softly, ‘If you think I’m going to turn back, you’re sadly mistaken.’

  ‘Whatever. This isn’t a test.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  ‘Because we can. Because you’ve never been that high. How many reasons to you need?’

  I stopped about five miles up and let her catch me. When she was alongside, I moved close so our fields merged and handed her my coffee mug. She refused it with ‘No, thanks,’ and asked me to reach into her pack’s side pocket for a bottle of water. I did so and handed it to her.

  After a couple of swigs and a long look around, Marie asked, ‘How high are we now?’

  Shrugging, I said, ‘Figure your top speed is just under eight miles a minute. We’re only about five miles up.’

  Marie looked thoughtful, then said, ‘Then this isn’t really space. Not even close. Why’d you stop?’

  Sipping coffee, I said, ‘Because when I asked how many reasons you’d need, I realized I didn’t really have one. Been there, done that. Sat around a while, came back.’

  ‘But I haven’t.’

  ‘Exactly. So tell your board how high you want to go, then do it. You don’t need me to get there.’

  She looked rather dissatisfied with my answer. Heh.

  Canting her head slightly, Marie peered at me f
or a moment, then said, ‘Well, maybe I’d like some company for my first trip to space.’

  I met her gaze briefly, then had Galatea manifest near us in standard flitter form and slid aboard. As I stepped off my board, Marie joined me and stepped off hers.

  Speaking aloud as I took a seat, I said, “Boards can go as high as flitters, but their fields can’t stop space junk.”

  Taking the seat next to mine, Marie asked, “You have more than one flitter?”

  “Nope. Same one, just a different shape. Tea, take us up to five hundred miles, please. Put our altitude on the monitor and make the climb last fifteen minutes. Marie wants to be a space tourist.”

  Marie stiffened, sat upright, and stated softly, “That’s two thousand miles per hour.”

  Did that need a reply? She already had the math. I sipped coffee in silence. Marie leaned to look below the flitter. I watched her stretch and brace herself on another seat. It was like watching a big cat move.

  Looking at me again, Marie seemed to study me for a time, then asked, “Are you really so jaded, Ed? So jaded that being five hundred miles above the Earth means nothing to you?”

  “I’ve had a flitter for thirteen years, Marie. I used to come up here all the time. Not so much anymore.” I shrugged. “Well, not at all, really. But we don’t have to be anywhere else today, so feel free to soak it in as long as you want.”

  Taking another sip from her bottle, Marie nodded. “Thanks. I will.”

  I called up a screen and checked email and messages for a time, then switched to working on chapters from my latest book. A few members of my edits group had turned in some nits, so I applied those edits and examined the results. All good.

  Marie asked, “What’s all that?”

  “I thought you were stargazing, ma’am.”

  “I was. Now I’m not. What’s all that?”

  Pushing the screen over to her, I said, “Edits. By now you’ve dug up everything you could about me, so you know I’ve written a few books.”

  She read some of the two-chapter segment, then passed the screen back to me with, “Very impressive. Especially so since I never figured you to become a writer. You had trouble sitting still between missions.”

  Saving my work and letting the screen dissipate, I said, “I still get fidgety when things turn boring.”

  Eyeing me briefly, she asked, “Was that a hint?”

  Meeting her gaze, I replied, “No, and I told you not to try to read between lines. We’ll get along better if you don’t.”

  Sipping again, Marie got to her feet and strolled to the edge of the deck. Several silent moments passed, then she turned and said, “Linda once said we didn’t get along because we were too much alike.”

  Swiveling my seat to face her, I asked, “You really want to go there? I’ve got nothing to lose by being honest.”

  Her gaze narrowed a bit. “That almost sounds like a threat.”

  “No, just plain truth. I think it went a lot deeper than similar personalities, Marie. You always seemed touchy as hell. Angry all the time for no particular reason. During missions you were all business, but I avoided you between runs because I had no idea what obscure, pissy little thing would set you off.”

  Holding up a hand to forestall a reply, I added, “You know how Connie felt; she didn’t exactly sugar-coat her opinions. Will wouldn’t even go in the break room if you were there. Ever wonder why we all chipped in to get you that moped?”

  Moving closer to lean on a seat back, she chuckled sardonically, “You hoped I’d break my neck on it?”

  Ignoring her response, I said, “One night at the NCO club we talked about how to get through to you. Connie thought maybe a belated ‘welcome aboard’ gift might do it. Since we were already calling you ‘Batgirl’, we decided to fix up that moped and spring it on you. If it worked, wonderful. If it didn’t, we could write it off as a joke.”

  Marie just looked at me for a few beats, then spun the seat around and sat down heavily. Sipping her water, she sighed, “I thought it was a joke, so I tried to derail it by acting as if I really liked it.” Capping her water bottle, she said, “Funny thing was, I really did like it. I used to run all over the place on that thing.”

  Sipping my coffee, I said, “You should have said something. There was another one I nearly bought for myself. We might have been able to run all over the place together.”

  Rolling her eyes, Marie said, “Yeah, sure. Then Linda would have landed on us the same way she landed on me when she found out about Mike.”

  I grunted agreeably and chuckled, “Yeah, but if we’d been getting along better, you might have been worth one of her ass-chewings.” I very obviously looked her up and down and added, “Maybe even two.”

  “Uh, huh,” Marie looked over the side and asked, “How long are we going to be up here?”

  “That’s up to you. Had enough of space yet?”

  “I think so. For now, anyway. It’s nearly lunch time.”

  As we headed back down, I asked, “Back to the barn or did you have a restaurant in mind?”

  “Firehouse Subs. It’s on NW Pine Avenue.”

  “Good ‘nuff. Tea, let’s go down, please.”

  Hm. Marie’s body shifted and tensed, but her expression hadn’t changed. I decided to say nothing and leave things as they were unless she became agitated. To allow her some mental decompression time, I halted the flitter five miles up and told her we were switching to our boards.

  Looking around, she asked, “Why?”

  “Stretch a little on the way down. Knock the kinks out.”

  She chuckled, “You think I have kinks?”

  Standing and calling up my board, I said, “Whether you have any or not, the flitter’s gonna disappear in a few seconds.”

  Marie stood up and called up her board. I let the flitter vanish and heard her exhale sharply when the deck disappeared.

  “My God,” she said, “It’s like… well, I don’t know what it’s like, but it sure gave me a jolt when the deck vanished.”

  I gave her a grin, then let my board vanish, as well. Instantly dropping, I lay on my back and watched to see what she’d do. Marie arced left and downward so quickly she almost flipped her board over to dart down after me. As she plummeted alongside me, I rolled into a head-first dive, tucking my arms in and spreading my feet slightly.

  Marie sent, ‘Having fun?’

  ‘Some. A little. Kind of. How about you?’

  ‘Oh, sure. You could go even faster with your board.’

  ‘This is fine. I’m just messing around.’

  Once my speed had pretty much maxed, I began using little motions of hands and feet to guide my ‘flight’. It didn’t take much at all to affect direction; extending only my fingers as a sort of flap caused enough drag to spin me around. I played with large and small motions until the south end of Ocala seemed to begin rushing up to meet me.

  Calling up my board, I changed course northward and followed Marie as she led the way down to the restaurant. We were still a few hundred feet up when she veered toward a gas station. Taking my eyes off Marie to look ahead, I saw an overweight tall guy in a black t-shirt grab an equally overweight blonde woman’s arm and yank her out of a van’s passenger seat.

  Marie landed behind him as he cocked a fist to punch the woman in the stomach. Leaning forward, Marie quickly slapped the back of his bicep hard to get his attention. When he whipped around, she planted her right sneaker in his gut. He doubled over, gasping for breath, and backed up a few feet to collide with the side of the van.

  Without a word, Marie simply stood in front of him, her hands at her sides. The woman glanced at me and I gave her a little wave and a smile as I leaned comfortably against the sedan in the next slot.

  Would the guy be stupid enough to attack a woman who showed not even the slightest fear of him? Oh, absolutely. Yes, indeed, he would. The dumbass launched himself forward with a loud grunt in an attempt to plant a fist in Marie’s face. She deftly slappe
d the fist aside, ducked slightly, and drove her knee into his gut as he roared past.

  He gaspingly doubled over again before he reached the sedan and head-butted the driver’s door fairly hard. When he looked up at me, I uncrossed my arms to point a finger behind him. He turned to see Marie standing with her arms crossed and her head canted slightly. She wore a questioning sort of expression, as if to ask, “Well? What now?”

  When the guy glanced at me again, I shook my head and said, “She doesn’t need my help.”

  “But you’re with her?”

  “Yeah, but this is her workout. She thought you were gonna hit that woman.”

  Straightening a bit, the guy snapped, “She’s my wife!”

  His emphasis on the word ‘wife’ led me to think he probably considered her a form of property. However people come to think that way, it takes more than a parking lot encounter to change their minds. I shrugged.

  “Whatever. My ladyfriend is your immediate problem.”

  The woman cowering by the van ventured a soft, “Please… If… If you hurt him, he can’t work.”

  Marie had been standing there without much expression. Flashing instantly to anger, she rounded on her with, “That’s all you care about?! Whether he can work?!”

  Cringing, the woman whined, “We got four kids!”

  That’s when the guy made his biggest mistake yet; he lunged at Marie from behind. There wasn’t a doubt in my little mind that Marie had been watching him in some reflection or another. She ducked below his head-punch, spun right to ram her left knee into his ribs, and then her right foot moved to trip him as he staggered past clutching at his right side. He went down hard and fast, with no real chance to catch himself. His head hit the ground fairly hard just before the rest of him landed. Groaning softly, he drew his knees up and lay where he’d fallen.

  I asked, “How long are you gonna keep at this, ma’am?”

  Looking up sharply, Marie snapped, “As long as it takes.”

  “Uh, huh. Then I’m going to lunch.”

  She flared. “If we leave now, he’ll beat the shit out of her!”