3rd World Products, Book 17

by Ed Howdershelt

  The lone guy in the car was on his cell phone, saying, “…walked out and sat down. I don’t know. He isn’t doing anything, just sitting out there.”

  His ID was NIA. I traced the call to the same hotel room, but the people were different.

  A guy there said, “Well, at least we have eyes on him.”

  Another guy in the room muttered, “For now.”

  The phone guy said, “I’ll pass the word. Keep us posted,” and ended the call. After a moment, he pressed a number and waited, then said, “Agent Berens, he’s back.”

  Berens? As in NSA ‘Myra’ Berens? What the hell? Following that call to its source, I found Myra at her desk.

  She replied, “Thanks, Agent Milner. We appreciate your help.”

  Milner said, “Yes, ma’am,” and thumbed the phone’s ‘end’ button.

  Myra shoved her lunch to one side, opened her purse, and used a compact mirror to check her face and hair. Taking her datapad from a drawer, she thumbed the hotspot to turn it on, then poked an icon. A password box popped up and she tapped some letters and numbers before the box disappeared and her ping sounded in my implant.

  Leaving the probe in her office, I put up a screen and saluted as I answered, “Yewww got me, Super-Secret Agent Berens, ma’am! Oh, wait! Should I have mentioned the ‘Super-Secret’ part? Damn. I’ve prob’ly blown your cover all to hell.”

  She grinned. “Hi, Ed. Would you like some company this week?”

  “Your leave came through? Who’d you have to kill to make that happen? What about that satellite thing?”

  “No, no leave. I’ll be liaising at the Cape Wednesday to Friday. I just thought maybe I’d visit and stay with you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Ha! I might even be able to find you a ride to work. Can you stay the weekend, too?”

  “I think so. I’d have to head back Sunday night.”

  “When do you want me to pick you up? Would now be good?”

  Myra laughed, “I wish. How’s tomorrow after work?”

  “Agh! That’s like… forever, y’know?! What’ll I do until then?!”

  She laughed, “As you once told me, ‘suffer gracefully’. Sorry, but I just can’t get away any sooner.”

  We chatted another few minutes before her desk phone buzzed. She held up a hand to me, then answered her phone with, “Berens.”

  My probe linked into the line and found nothing. Nobody. It was an open connection. Cute trick. After saying, “Uh, huh. No. Just a minute, then,” she said to me, “I have to take this, Ed.”

  “Okay. Call me if anything changes. Bye, Myra.”

  “Bye, Ed. And thanks.”

  She dropped the link. Through the probe, I watched her sigh as she put the phone receiver down, then poked a button. When a light came on, she picked up the receiver again and said, “He’ll pick me up here on Tuesday. I really don’t like this, Newberg. He’s a friend and he’s helped us a few times. You know that.”

  Again tracing the call, I found a fortyish balding guy in an expensive-looking suit. He sat in an equally expensive-looking overstuffed leather office chair.

  Rolling his eyes in a ‘yeah, yeah‘ expression, he said, “Agent Berens, you know I sympathize, but I need to know what the hell he and his AI friends are up to. Stan Maxwell himself…”

  It was Myra’s turn to do the ‘yeah, yeah’ eye roll. She cut in, “Don’t throw Maxwell’s name into this. It’s your idea and you posed it in a meeting instead of talking to him first. I hope you know he doesn’t forget or forgive underhanded crap like that.”

  Newberg sighed, “Agent Berens, don’t push your luck.”

  Visibly angered, Myra snapped, “Luck?! Let’s not pretend luck has anything to do with it. You’re in that office because someone else is under investigation for damned little reason.”

  With that, she poked the button off. Newberg glowered dully at his phone receiver for a moment, then hung it up. Turning his chair, he sat looking out his window. After a time, he let a small grin appear as he got up, slipped into his jacket, and left his office.

  Hm. I linked to my core and had a look at Newberg’s 201 file. At a glance, about half his promotions looked as if they’d been due to who he’d known at the time rather than what he’d done to deserve them. Too many too soon in the early years.

  A prodigy would have left a trail of accomplishments, but Newberg’s achievement jacket was almost empty. Strictly routine stuff all the way. Sometimes lots of it, but that can be due to pushing subordinates like he was pushing Myra.

  And nobody in management gets consistently good reviews. In all but one early recommendation, there were no caveats. No ‘he could improve this or that‘. In an outfit like the NSA, that just doesn’t happen; they strive to help create the types of management people they want.

  I also noted all but two of his promotions had moved him to new projects before previous projects had been dropped or completed. Maybe they moved him up just to get him out? But there was nothing specifically negative to focus on. Shrug. That just meant more digging was in order.

  Or maybe not. Maybe a big sidestep was in order. I pinged Myra and when she answered, I told her I wanted to speak to Stan Maxwell.

  “Mind if I ask why, Ed?”

  “Nope. Ask away. But I won’t tell you unless you’re in the office when I talk to Stan.”

  Giving me a fisheye, she said, “Again… mind if I ask why?”

  “Sure. I don’t want Newberg to grab the credit. That seems to be all he’s really good at.”

  That raised both her eyebrows.

  She asked, “When do you want to have this talk?”

  “Now’s good.”

  Myra got to her feet and began walking. I didn’t bother with a probe view. She stopped at Maxwell’s secretary’s desk and tapped her pad as she said, “It’s an incoming call for Mr. Maxwell.”

  The secretary craned to see the screen. I grinned and said, “She’s right, ma’am. That’s what it is.”

  “Ah… Yes. Of course. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “No games, please. Just see if he has a few minutes.”

  Looking a bit frosty, she did so and shortly ushered us into Stan’s office. He blustered a greeting as he took the pad, then seemed puzzled that Myra was still standing there.

  I said, “She’s with me, Stan.”

  Looking moderately enlightened, he said, “I see. Well, then, may I ask the reason for this call, Ed?”

  “Well, that depends. Can you keep a secret?”

  Myra let out a nervous snort and grinned. Stan gave her a glance, then said, “I guess that would depend on the secret.”

  “Close enough. Myra’s coming down here for a week to ‘liaison’ with NASA, so she can do some liaising for us, too. You guys have been wondering about those wandering satellites. Well, they and a lot of other debris are going to clump together in two big balls, one on each side of the Earth. The balls will be smelted and the metals will separated so they can be used to make inner and outer hulls. At least, that was the plan, but it occurred to us that NASA might have some ideas of its own for space stations.”

  Motioning for Myra to pull up a chair as he took a seat at his desk, Stan replied, “Ah… I see. May I ask why you’d need Myra — or anyone else, for that matter — to be your liaison with NASA?”

  “Sure. She’s going to be here anyway. She has a datapad. After they know what’s going on, she can deal with the suits and egos and call me if there are any questions or suggestions.”

  After a glance at Myra, Stan asked, “Ed, had it also occurred to you that most nations will be — shall we say, ‘very upset’ — about losing their satellites?”

  “Yup. They were already lost. Irretrievable, uncontrollable, dangerous obstacles in space. We’re just salvaging junk, Stan, and nothing else. I won’t ask anyone’s permission for that.”

  “What about your own government’s permission?”

  “All the junk’s already in motion. The stuff will
be clumped at two points in space in about forty-seven days, so the question is really whether my government wants to be involved.”

  “Ah… I see. And by ‘involved’, you mean what, exactly?”

  “I mean they can take the lead. Once the balls are in place, turn ‘em into labs, crew quarters, whatever else. Other nations can help by sharing setup expenses. The right orbits could make getting to the moon a milk run. Hell, they could haul tourists. We don’t care, as long as nobody tries to install weapons.”

  With a glance at Myra, Stan asked, “Who is ‘we’, Ed?”

  “AI friends who help when they can spare the time.”

  Sending a probe to ring my door bell, I said, “Great. That thing only rings when I’m busy. Stan, that’s the whole story. It was just a spur-of-the-moment idea that became a project and now I’d like to hand it off to NASA. Myra, I’ll see you Tuesday. Bye, guys.”

  I dropped the link as Stan began a protest and Myra smilingly said, “Bye, Ed.” Sipping coffee, I considered whether to call Lori. Yeah, prob’ly should.

  When she answered my ping in her BOQ room, I filled her in and offered to send her a recording of my chat with Stan and Myra.

  As she watched, she laughed, “He’s trying so hard to stay cool!” Then something seemed to occur to her and she asked, “If you’re telling them, why is it supposed to be a secret?”

  “That was a joke, ma’am. Well, unless they decide to make it a secret, I guess. Hey, if you drop by, you can go to NASA with us.”

  “Uh… no, I can’t. I have classes all week.”

  “Oh. Well, okay, then. I just thought you’d like to know what was going on with the space junk.”

  Lori nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” Looking away from the screen, she nodded again and held up a ‘just a minute‘ index finger. Turning back to me, she said, “Speaking of classes, I have one in ten minutes, so I’d better get going.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep you posted if you want.”

  She nodded. “Sure, I’d like that. Thanks, Ed. Bye.”

  Unlike most everybody else I’d spoken to by pad lately, she waited until I replied, “Bye,” before poking her ‘off’ icon. I liked that.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  All I had to do was get comfy and relax a bit. Tea let me know of another 911 call almost immediately. A kid had gone missing from a trailer park in Brooksville. Calling up my board, I grabbed my pack and gathered more info on the way. Male, age nine, height, weight, hair, address. Last seen in jeans, no shirt, and might have fishing gear. No picture yet.

  I found the place on the east side of US-41. Room for about thirty mobile homes had been gouged out of the forest decades ago. To the south and east were low forested hills, to the north was a combination of pasture and swamp spotted with clumps of trees. Across the highway were a convenience store and gas station and a number of other small roadside businesses.

  The place was already swarming with town cops and deputies. A deputy lieutenant I knew in passing was talking to a city cop near the parking area when I landed. I sent a probe to the kid’s home to get a whiff of his scent and his DNA.

  The deputy finished his chat, stepped away from the cop’s car, and turned to me to ask, “You here to help search?”

  Looking up as I sent out fifty probes in all directions and had them begin spiraling outward, I nodded. “Yup.”

  He told me to head for the shuffleboard court and find somebody named Lewinter to be assigned to a search team.

  Nodding, I said, “Thanks,” and sipped coffee as I studied the area. Uphill or down? An adult might wander the easiest path, but there was no telling what a kid would do.

  The LT was a dozen paces away when he looked back and saw I was still standing at the edge of the parking area. He turned around and marched back to me, pointing at a building and saying, “The shuffleboard court is over there.”

  One of the probes bingoed on the kid’s scent and I put up a screen, startling the hell out of the deputy. I added two probes to follow the bingo scent and let the others continue spiraling. Two more hits, both in a line generally northward.

  A third hit occurred less than twenty feet from the edge of the swamp, then other probes began signaling along the shoreline. I had the two sniffers continue following his trail at their best speed, but the area was heavily laden with scents and it slowed them down.

  The deputy muttered, “Oh, dear Lord, he’s down by the water,” and said, “Come with me,” as he trotted away.

  Nope. Not my plan. Calling up my board again, I headed for the bingo points at the shore and lifted fifty feet for a look around. No kid, but more bingo blips appeared on the screen. I continued following the blips and moved ahead of them along the anticipated line of travel.

  Now it made more sense to have the probes generally follow that line and criss-cross it while some of them followed it directly. When I looked back the buildings seemed tiny. Had to be almost four hundred yards so far. I saw several people hurrying after me. One of those four-wheel ATVs came roaring around some trees and barreled down the slope to get ahead of them.

  Returning my attention to the screen, I saw that three of the probes had gone stationary some distance ahead. I spurred the board and studied the shore line. Oaks, Willows, and other overgrowth made it impossible to see anything, but a high pitched scream ahead made me think they’d prob’ly found the kid.

  Switching the probes to view mode, I saw why the kid had screamed. He was standing in a waterlogged canoe that had been dragged half-ashore. He screamed again as he used a two-foot gator to pound at the face of one about eight feet long. The bigger gator was nosing along the side of the boat, and every time he shoved his face up for a look at his intended meal, the kid smacked him with the little gator. As I was about to stun the big gator, it managed to chomp on the small gator and yanked it out of the kid’s hands.

  By that time I was there. The kid had backed as far away as he could, fetching up against the other side of the soggy canoe. The gator moved away into the water, chomping again twice and then letting the smaller gator drop before it turned around. Apparently realizing it would be easier to get to the kid from the submerged end of the canoe, it moved toward him.

  To avoid drowning the gator, I let it clamber over the end of the canoe and scoot forward until water no longer covered its head, then stunned it as the kid screamed again.

  Standing on my board above the muck surrounding the canoe, I said, “Hey, kid…” and the urchin screamed yet again as he spun around. I finished, “Don’t worry, I stunned him.”

  The kid screeched, “What?!”

  “I knocked him out. He can’t get you now, so climb out of there. Where’s your fishing gear?”

  Clambering over the side of the canoe, he slogged up the bank to solid ground and said, “I ain’t got no fishing gear.”

  Mimicking him, I said, “You ain’t got no shoes, neither.”

  Still shaking, he nonetheless gave me a sour look.

  “I lost ‘em in th’ mud.”

  Sending probes around the canoe, I found them, then turned the probes to tendrils and shook the sneakers in the water to get the mud off before dropping them farther up the shore on solid ground.

  The kid yelped, “Why didn’t you just give ‘em to me?”

  “Would you have put them on right there in the mud?”

  He started toward them grousing, “It wouldn’t a-hurt ‘em none.”

  Well up the shore from us, the noisy ATV slid to a stop and backed up, then turned toward us and gunned it down the slope. It again slid to a stop, this time sliding halfway into the water in the slick mud. Backing up, it stopped beside us.

  The kid seemed to know him and began yammering about what had happened in the canoe as a bunch of very winded searchers arrived on the trail. Seeing the kid seemed okay, the deputy in the lead slowed to a quick march and stopped near me.

  Though I figured he’d seen everything well enough on his way down, I pointed at the canoe and said
, “There’s a big-assed gator in that canoe.”

  “Yeah, I saw it coming down here. You the one who killed it?”

  I chuckled, “If it was dead, I wouldn’t be warning you about it.”

  He said, “Oh, shit!” and ordered the ATV guy to get the kid up to the trail, then began yelling at the others arriving to stay up there.

  Lifting carefully up through the dense branches, I headed west as soon as I cleared them. Clumps and strings of people all along the shoreline were heading toward the ATV. I waved and some waved back, then I was over US-41. I followed it south to Sandy’s Place.

  Sandy wasn’t there, but Brenda was; she tapped me a beer and I fed the pool table. Three regulars sat at the bar. They watched, but didn’t seem inclined to play pool. The beer and the balls ran out at about the same time. I thought about another of each and decided not to bother. Waving at Brenda, I headed for the door.

  My implant pinged as I stood under the awning letting my eyes adjust to bright sunlight. It was Myra. Calling to cancel, now that they had the info? Nah, maybe not. They’d still have questions.

  Putting up a screen, I answered, “Hi, Myra. I’m trying to suffer gracefully, as ordered.”

  Reading the letters on the window behind me, Myra laughed, “So I see. Well, you won’t have to suffer as long as I thought. Mr. Maxwell’s sending me down there today.”

  “Great! How soon can you be ready to go?”

  “Six this evening. Pick me up out front and we’ll stop by my place for some things. We have a meeting at the Cape at ten tomorrow morning.”

  I saluted. “Aye, aye, ma’am. Don’t forget your summer pants.”

  She chuckled, “My shorts, you mean?”

  “Yeah, them. Maybe a bathing suit, too. It’s in the high eighties down here.”

  “In November?!”

  “Yeah! Check it out, we’re sweltering and stuff. I’m having to hang out in bars to keep cool.”

  Lifting a piece of paper, she said, “This says you were hanging around a swamp a little while ago.”

  “Wow, you NSA types are really on top of things! It’s almost like you were watching me or something!”