by Ralph Rotten
Rolling his eyes, Jack knew there would be problems. Word in the neighborhood had been that the older of the brothers had spent the night in jail after their little drag racing episode. Knowing how low-Qs like the Burkes thought, he would likely be blamed for their legal quandary.
“Well, if it ain’t doofus number one.” Chet Burke turned to face the Sparks brother as soon as he spotted him. “You cost me a lotta money the other day.”
“Don’t blame me if they raised the price for Hooked on Phonics?” Flashing a smile, Jack continued to pour his drink as it occurred to him that it took both hands to fly the man-pack.
“Hey!” Angry, Chet shoved Jack’s shoulder hard enough to make him spill the drink in his hand.
Jack narrowed his eyes as he remembered the familiar feeling of being harassed by the brothers. Already he could detect Chauncey moving around behind him. It was always that way with these two; even though either of them was strong enough to beat him on their own, they always worked in tandem. It had never made any sense that even after ganging up on him they would feel somehow superior.
“What’s with the backpack?” Shoving him from behind, Chauncey seemed curious about the metal pack he wore. “What is that thang, an anti-wedgie protector?”
Laughing at his lame joke, the brothers would reinforce each other in all things. It was the way of simpletons like the Burkes. Regardless, Jack found himself stranded between the two.
“Hey!” The manager called out from the counter as he eyed the three of them. “Don’t you start no problems in m’ store or I’ll call the cops. Ya hear me?”
Rolling his eyes, Chet seemed annoyed with the clerk. “Yeah, sure Ralph. We was just gonna tenderize him a little bit.”
“Buy something or get out.” Wielding a baseball bat, Ralph had seen his share of troubles with the Burke brothers.
“You caused us a lotta problems the other day with the po-lice.” Jabbing him in the chest with a meaty finger, the oldest of the brothers was predictably blaming Jack for their legal woes.
“So how was jail? Keep a tight grip on the soap?” Grinning, Jack knew he would be penalized for his smugness. Nonetheless, it chafed him to knuckle under to them. It was an attitude that had led to his frequent victimization in school. “Is it true that spit is the Devil’s lube?”
Faster than Jack could react, Chet’s fist shot forward, catching the inventor squarely in the solar plexus. Winded from the blow, he never had a chance to respond when Chauncey kicked him between the legs from behind. Although the safety straps he wore mitigated some of the force, it felt like Jack’s gonads had been punted up into his throat. Sagging in pain, the inventor tried to remain standing as his vision clouded from the gut punch. Hearing them laugh only raised his ire.
“That’s it, I’m callin’ the cops.” Slamming the bat onto the counter, Ralph immediately began dialing the phone.
“Aww, quit yer whining.” Shrugging it off, Chet tossed a few dollars on the counter. “We was just sayin’ hello to an old friend, wasn’t we Chauncey?”
“That we was! Good ol’ friend.” Grinning, the younger Burke brother hefted a twelve pack from the refrigerated compartment.
“Bullshit, you two are banned from this store. You come back here again, and I’ll call the cops. Y’hear me?” His eyes aglow, the clerk’s voice fairly shrieked.
“Awww, shaddup old man.” Grabbing the baseball bat off the counter, Chet grinned. “Keep the change.”
Jack was still doubled over when he heard the doors swing shut. Trying to catch his breath, the inventor did his best to pretend that nothing had happened as he grabbed two packs of M&Ms from the shelf. He was just about to head to the counter when he noticed the jar of ketchup. Immediately the gears began to turn as he worked through the process. Moving through the store he began plucking other items off the shelves. Finally he dumped the supplies in his arms in front of the clerk.
“Doin’ some cooking are ya?” Raising his eyebrows, Ralph looked at the items there; ketchup, baking soda, electrical tape, and M&M s.
“Gimme a pack of those Trojans, the extra large ones.” Nonchalant, Jack gave a weak smile as he tried to pretend that his gonads were not screaming in pain still.
“Extra large, eh?” Giving a smile, Ralph dropped the box of prophylactics onto the counter. “You sure it’s not just wishful thinking?”
“Nope, I have the biggest, blackest dick you’ll ever see.” Showing a little false bravado, the inventor kidded the old clerk.
“How about if I just take your word for it.” Ralph gave a laugh at the joke.
Paying with cash, Jack knew better than to leave a paper trail. As soon as he was out the door he spoke into the earpiece he still wore. “Alex, hack the store DVR and delete all footage, corrupt the drive.”
“Jackie, what are you up to?” Her voice held a note of concern.
“Just do it.”
“Jackie, we don’t have the fuel for whatever you’re planning.” Urgency in her voice told him Alexis was still watching the telemetry from the pack. “We only loaded two nanograms of blue plasma. These were just supposed to be hover tests.”
“Stop calling me Jackie. And you know that Jamie would always load three times the gas necessary, just to be triple-sure.” Irritated, he began dumping baking powder into the condom. After that he used the electrical tape to fasten the rubber around the mouth of the ketchup bottle, careful not to get any of the powder inside the red condiment.
Lifting off abruptly, he jetted in the direction he had last seen the Burke Brothers. With his night vision goggles in place, he was able to pick out the black Dodge Charger easily enough.
Swooping in close, He used his free hand to squeeze the plastic bottle, squirting ketchup into the condom full of baking soda. Immediately the acetic acid began to react with the baking soda, releasing significant amounts of carbon dioxide in the process. The result was that the condom began to swell from the excess pressure. Unable to resist a devious grin, Jack dipped close enough to the Dodge to simply drop the assembly through the open skylight.
In the car, Chauncey was the first to notice the odd contraption that had landed on the center console between the brothers.
“What the hail?” Stunned, the younger of the brothers was scrambling to figure out not only what the object was, but where it had come from.
Chet turned to see what his brother was complaining about just as the condom reached its structural limit. He had only just laid eyes on the device when it exploded, spraying the red fluid in every direction, coating the brothers liberally.
“Chet! I’m bleeding!” His voice a sharp scream, Chauncey looked down at his crimson hands.
“Oh shit!” Trying to blink away the ketchup in his eyes, Chet quickly pulled a gun from under his seat. Instinctively he fired a pair of shots through the open skylight. Immediately the world seemed to go quiet in his ears, with only a ringing sound to be heard.
Rising up to treetop height, Jack could see the vehicle swerving wildly as they sought to avoid whatever mythical creature had just attacked them. Not content to let it go at that, Jack was about to drop on them again when he spotted the flashing blue and red lights ahead. From this range it looked like the officer was writing someone a ticket along the side of the road. With traffic sparse at this time of night, the inventor decided it was time to encourage the brothers a little.
Landing heavy, Jack’s boots dented the rooftop. Using the man-pack to rise up another ten feet or so, he repeated the act, slamming into the rooftop over and over again.
“What the fuck!” Chet’s voice was angry as he swerved to avoid whatever was attacking them. Out of the passenger window his brother flashed a pistol.
“It’s them gargoyles, jus’ like the movie!” Chauncey screamed out, sure that they were being attacked by the statues that adorned buildings downtown.
Seeing them accelerate, Jack finally relented. Rising up out of camera range, he watched them zoom past the patrol car. With the
Dodge’s engine roaring, and Chauncey firing wildly out the window, it would have been impossible for the officer to not have noticed them.
Hovering, the inventor let out a hearty laugh as he watched the squad car take up pursuit. From his vantage point he could see as two more sets of lights lit up nearby. No doubt the officer had called for backup.
“Jackie!” Alexis’ voice was urgent. “You need to get home right now!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Grumbling, he felt robbed of some truly-deserved entertainment as he turned the man-pack towards home. He only wished he could have stuck around to witness the police reaction to two armed men, covered in what appeared to be blood, stumbling from their car as they babbled about gargoyles. He would have paid good money to see that.
Using the pack’s leverage he was able to accelerate at a fair pace. Watching the familiar streets below, the inventor was focused on finding home when he felt the first hiccup. Dropping twenty feet, the pack seemed to catch itself at the last moment.
“Oh shite.” Realizing that he was more than a hundred feet off the ground, Jack immediately began descending to a safer altitude. Knowing that leveraging the gravitational disaffinity used fuel slightly faster than just hovering, he let off on the accelerator and allowed his momentum to carry him through the night sky. Dropping lower still, he could actually see his home when the pack seemed to sputter.
“Dammit.” He had just uttered the word when the bottom dropped out from under him. Plummeting, he flailed with the controls. Feeling the pack working intermittently, he was able to steer just enough to miss the Johnson’s house, instead landing with a splash in their pool. The cold water took away his breath momentarily. Fully clothed, and wearing a metal backpack, the inventor had a hard time resurfacing. For a few seconds he thought he may actually drown. In the back of his mind Jack could imagine the whole scene as paramedics fished his lifeless body out of the pool, wondering the whole time how the hell he got there in the first place.
“Not today!” Fighting a sense of panic, he gave one last burst of energy before surfacing in the deep end.
His boots made squishy sounds as he stomped through the front door. Still dripping water, he marched down the basement stairs before stripping off the backpack. Letting the device drop to the ground with a thud, he felt the lowest he had in years.
Poking his head through the doorway, Jamie was all smiles.
“Did you remember my M&Ms?” Grinning, he pretended to not notice that his brother was soaking wet.
“Oh yeah, got those right here.” Never missing a beat, Jack fished the waterlogged packets from his pocket. Slapping them down on the counter, the candy made a sloppy sound as several M&Ms scattered across the surface. “Enjoy! I’m gonna take a shower.”
Watching him go, Jamie still smiled with satisfaction. Plucking several of the candies from the soggy package he chewed them mindlessly. Despite the encounter with the Burke brothers, he felt that the entire test was a glowing success.
“That went well.” Alexis’ voice dripped in sarcasm.
Ignoring her negative attitude, Jamie nodded like a bobble head. “Yes indeed, it certainly did. I only wish I could have been there to see it.”
Recent developments in their gravitational disaffinity design had allowed the brothers to significantly upgrade the little Mustang. Now able to leverage the device’s effect into forward motion, the hobbyist jet engines were re-tasked to the role of yaw puffers, able to rotate the vehicle in mid air. Much like the design of a Harrier attack craft, the classic Ford would be able to change its heading mid-air by the use of small jets in the tail of the vehicle. Gone was the folding wing package that had been mounted on the roof for the FAA certification. The entire inspection had really only been to acquire the tail number that now adorned the rear of the vehicle. It had been Jamie’s insistence that they remain as legal as possible. Hence, the Mustang needed to be registered as an experimental aircraft to allow them to use it throughout the city. While the FAA official had been taken aback at first sight of the winged Mustang, the Sparks Brothers were not the first to try building a flying car, not by a longshot. Finding their paperwork in order, he ultimately signed off on their application.
Sitting back to look over his work, Jack felt a sense of satisfaction. Although the vehicle had been repaired mechanically, the body still looked like crap from being dropped into the middle of an intersection. With the quarter panels bent and twisted in a few places, the little ‘Stang really looked like she had been ridden hard and put away wet. It pained him to see that body damage, but there had not been time to get it to a body shop for a proper restoration. Besides, knowing how the plan was intended to work out, it would not be his car for much longer anyhow. No sense in spiffing her up just to let her be seized by the Feds…or worse.
“The royalty check for Warner Manufacturing has been deposited in your account.” Alexis’ voice broke the silence.
Turning, Jack looked to see her beautifully rendered on the nearest monitor. Although he knew it was all just an act to make them get along, most likely contrived by his brother, Jack could not help but admit it was working. Truly, he had come to look forward to the AI’s daily outfits. While she had settled firmly on her personal appearance, with the flaming red hair and penetrating green eyes, her outfits changed regularly. Today she seemed to have taken a dress from Dolly Parton’s closet. With bosoms that seemed seconds away from a wardrobe failure, her upper torso barely fit into the computer monitor on the workbench.
Allowing his eyes to rove her form, Jack gave the barest of acknowledgements.
“The fabber design has been your most profitable product.” Stating a known fact, Alexis referred to the elaborate 3D printer the brothers had invented. Unlike conventional designs that applied small globs of material to the design, their fabber used a klystron microwave generator to strip molecules off of a wire and project them onto the project in a tight stream. The beauty of the fabber 2.5 was that it could work with a variety of materials including silica, aluminum, plastic, and even carbon fiber. These mediums allowed them to not only build structural components, but electronic components as well. Additionally, the devices built by the fabber were far more compact than possible with conventional manufacturing methods because they could dispense with obligatory parts like screw brackets, frame clips, and other structural components needed for assembly. When building a single monolithic product there was no need for any of these things.
With his mind wandering, Jack had tried to avoid thinking about his encounter with the Burke brothers. Although he had repaid them in full, it still troubled him to remember how they had assaulted him in the store. It had been years since he had dealt with physical confrontation.
“Assholes.” He mumbled inaudibly before trying to redirect his thought process to more productive topics.
“Excuse?” Alexis asked, unsure if the profanity had been directed at her.
“Not you, I was just…” He trailed off before switching tracks. “How is Jamie proceeding on his half of the plan?”
“The big lift unit is on schedule. Two more weeks. How are you progressing on the submarine?” Flipping it about, she knew to keep his mind on his own projects, lest he inquire about things Jamie preferred to keep secret at this point in the plan.
“The big tank is due to be delivered tomorrow, the little one the day after, and the gravitational disaffinity unit is ready. I have a welder coming out Tuesday to make the cuts. Check on those orders I have pending, see if there is an ETA on the air tanks and heater unit. The project will be at a standstill without those.” Spinning about in the rolling office chair, the inventor bellied up to the desk where he could examine the notes he had pinned to the calendar.
There was silence for a moment before Alexis started out hesitantly.
“Jackie…” She trailed off.
In an effort to maintain the peace, Jack overlooked her use of his middle initial when he responded.
“What?” He grumbled;
only half paying attention.
In her own processing unit, the AI was having a hard time with parts of Jamie’s alternate plan. While she agreed that it was the logical path to achieve their desires based on the scenario he had laid out, she still did not like the risk it put them at. Never before in her synthetic life had she felt such conflict. Sworn to secrecy, she still felt compelled to tell Jack of the detour his brother had planned. Yet at the same time she knew that revealing this detail would change everything, possibly even endangering them more. Still, she had an urge to tell Jack everything, even though every part of her logical systems told her that it would be a mistake. Was this what it was to be emotional? Is this how HAL felt? It puzzled her how humans navigated their way through life with these kinds of conflicting sensations? With her cubed processor running at full speed she recalculated the issue 3800 times a second. Unable to come to an internal consensus she finally spoke.
“Nothing…never mind.” Flashing him a vixen smile, the synthetic woman did her best to distract the inventor by allowing her virtual breasts to fill the lower portion of the screen.
“Do what?” Jack looked up blithely. “That’s a nice outfit, BTW.”
Alexis smiled in response. Inside of her cubed processor she was beginning to see that Jamie was right about his brother; he was easier to manipulate once she understood his motivations.
In his own lab, Jamie intently watched the screens before him. With drones throughout the FBI office he had managed to gain a lay of the land. Already he had identified specific divisions that handled each type of crime encountered by the local field office. Having narrowed his field of observation down to just a few agents, he only had a few more questions left.
Watching the left-most screen, the savant eyed the suspect that sat defiantly handcuffed in a chair. With his exposed upper torso covered in prison tattoos, it was clear that this man wore his criminal resume for all to see. With a swastika visible on his neck, Jamie knew he had just the right thug for his research.
