3rd World Products, Inc. Book 7

by Ed Howdershelt

  The target chimed loudly and fell flat in the grass, and I didn't need the flitter to tell me she'd maxed out with the stunner. I let the field screen dissolve, called up my five suit, and stepped off the flitter.

  As I left the flitter's field and became visible to her, I said, “Congratulations, ma'am, that was full power. See? A little emotion can really crank things up."

  Screaming, “Crank this!", Donna sent a stun blast at me. My five suit grounded it and Donna—evidently thinking she'd somehow missed—fired another one at me.

  "Save it,” I said, “I thought you might do that, so I suited up before I came out here. Go check your target."

  She yelped, “Do what?!"

  With a sigh of exasperation, I asked, “How the hell did you ever make it through Army training? Go check your damned target, lady!"

  Glowering at me, Donna stalked over to the target, looked at it, then turned to face me, her expression unchanged.

  "Okay, I checked my target. Now what?"

  "What's the number?"

  "One hundred. Why didn't it have a number before?"

  "Well, damn. You're just never gonna be happy, are you?"

  She stomped toward me. “I don't like being tricked!"

  "Well, I don't like wasting time. It took you an hour of pissing at the damned target to get to sixty percent, but it only took five minutes of being pissed off to make you top out."

  Wheeling around so she couldn't see my grin, I stepped back aboard the flitter and turned off my five suit as I sat down.

  As Donna came stomping forward no less angrily than before, I considered raising the flitter ten feet, but ultimately decided against it.

  She stopped and located the flitter's field by watching her hands disappear, then came aboard and stood by the console with her hands on her hips.

  I looked up at her and said in a flat tone, “Sit down and cool down. Flitter, suit up as an A-10, please, and as soon as we're in the air, play ‘Mucho Mambo Sway’ at about volume four. Only very muted engine noise, please."

  Donna's eyes widened and her mouth fell open as the flitter's deck elevated sharply and its field reshaped into translucent grey thirty-foot wings on either side of a narrow fuselage. The console and pilot's seat elevated four feet from the deck and a narrow canopy formed around me.

  Aiming the nose of the field illusion at a nearby road, I taxied the flitter over a fence to the blacktop and lined up on the broken white line, then gave it full flaps and throttled up.

  Hurriedly taking the seat next to mine as the engines spun up and shoved us forward, Donna hissed, “What the hell are you doing now?!"

  Glancing at her, I put a finger to my lips and said, “Shhhh. Try to remember you aren't really there, ma'am. This is a single-seat aircraft."

  "Screw that! What the hell are you doing?"

  Lifting the nose made the A-10 simulation practically hop into the air and ‘Mucho Mambo Sway’ began playing as we climbed. At two hundred and fifty knots and one thousand feet, I began tossing the fake aircraft around the sky. The heavy rhumba beat of the music seemed perfectly suited to flying an A-10 Thunderbolt.

  Over the muted engine noise provided by the flitter's simulation, Donna screeched, “Jesus! Would you please tell me what ... ahhh! What-the-hell-you're-doing?!"

  I finished the wingover with a hard right. Our right wingtip came within about fifty feet of the ground and Donna stared starkly at the scenery rushing past before I leveled out and pulled the nose up.

  For the next few minutes I played with the A-10 just above the trees and buzzed a retention pond a few times, then the music stopped. I told the flitter to cancel the simulation and sat back to sip my coffee as we cruised along in the general direction of my house.

  Unclenching her fingers from her seat, Donna took a breath and quietly asked, “What was all that about?"

  "Fun. I like A-10's and P-51's."

  "This thing can act like a P-51, too?"

  "It can act like most anything flyable. Change seats and pick something."

  Nibbling her lip, Donna asked, “Can it do a Blackhawk helo?"

  As we changed seats, I said, “Flitter, Donna has the conn for now. Provide her a Blackhawk helicopter simulation, please."

  Softly muttering, “Oh, my God..!” as helicopter controls appeared, Donna situated herself and rather gingerly took us up, down, and side-to-side, then dropped the nose and gave it the gas to make us almost bolt forward.

  To each his—or her—own, I guess. I'd always preferred fixed-wing aircraft to helos, although I'd learned to fly both. She danced the chopper simulation around the sky for a time, then Donna almost hesitantly asked the flitter to become an F-18 and seemed truly surprised when the flitter complied.

  Donna bored holes through the patchy clouds for a while and we were somewhere above the state of Georgia when she said, “Flitter, end this simulation."

  The flitter did so instantly and Donna turned to me.

  "Ed, why would a flitter be able to emulate various aircraft?"

  "It can because it can, that's all. Explain the question. What are you really asking?"

  She hemmed and hawed briefly, then asked, “Why was it thought necessary to give them that capability?"

  "It wasn't. I came up with the idea."

  "You? May I ask why?"

  With a tiny sigh, I said, “No, and you shouldn't have to after putzing around with an F-18 for more than half an hour."

  I guess that's when I decided that Donna just wasn't my type at all. She might make a good friend in the long run, but her tendency to question every little thing bugged me.

  She asked, “Are you curious as to how an Army captain came to learn how to fly an F-18?"

  Shaking my head, I answered, “Not really. I was trained for a lot of odd stuff, too, including flying jets in a rudimentary fashion. Takeoff. Navigate. Land. Nothing else and nothing fancy, though. Maybe they thought we'd get a chance to grab an enemy jet someday."

  Laughing dismissively, she said, “I was just a backup pilot. After training, I never flew one again.” With a little shrug and a grin, she added, “Until today, that is. Thanks."

  Something seemed to occur to her and she glanced at her watch, then muttered, “Oh, damn,” and looked back toward Florida as she said, “I'm supposed to meet Jenny in half an hour. How quickly can we get back?"

  "Quicker than that. Flitter, back to my house, please.” Through my implant, I added, “Half speed, flitter."

  The flitter got us there in seventeen minutes. Donna had her board out of her backpack and ready when we settled to my driveway. She leaned to give me a quick kiss, stepped onto her board, and sailed into the sky as I stepped off the deck.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  I pinged Linda's datapad as I made a fresh coffee. Linda answered after almost a full minute and said she'd been in the middle of something.

  Emory Wallace stood in the room behind her, so I didn't ask if I'd interrupted anything in particular, I just offered to make the call a quick one.

  "Flitter,” I said, “Send a copy of the day's activities involving you, me, and Donna Perrin to Linda's datapad, please.” To Linda, I said, “That's it, Fearless Leader. I thought you might want a candid look at her."

  "What's your assessment, Ed?"

  "Capable. Hard to spook, but she has a tendency to question everydamnedthing I do. That may only be because she doesn't relate to me as an official authority figure. She might've said no to a 3rd World position until this afternoon, but I think she'd probably take one now if it involved the use of a flitter."

  Nodding slightly, Linda asked, “Anything else?"

  "Nope. Watch the rerun; it'll answer your other question."

  Wallace's face morphed from simply irritated to quizzically irritated as he stepped up behind Linda and put his hands on her shoulders possessively.

  He asked, “What other question would that be, Ed?"

  I looked at Linda and asked, “Do you want to tell him?"r />
  She rolled her eyes and sighed, “Oh, don't tease him, Ed. I have to live with the results."

  "You're just no fun anymore, Fearless Leader. Wallace, I was referring to whether my relationship with Donna Perrin might have flavored my assessment of her."

  His gaze narrowed. “Well, has it?"

  "Would you trust my answer? Just watch the video, Cap. You can assess my assessment."

  Linda nodded and said, “Okay. Are you free to bring her out here sometime this week?"

  "No problem. I need Wednesday, but any other day is fine."

  We signed off and I sent a signal to Tiger's collar, then had my datapad give me a GPS location; he was still at the pond. I finished checking email and spent the rest of the afternoon working on the latest chapters of my current book.

  At about five-thirty I heard a car cranking for what seemed longer than necessary. The noise stopped, then began again. I shut down the computer and went outside to see a blue sedan stalled at the corner.

  The good-looking and thirtyish blonde driver tried again to start her car as I approached. This time it fired up, but ran very roughly and finally stopped as I neared her door.

  I said, “It's jumped timing or the head gasket's shot. You steer it. I'll push you onto the swale over there."

  As I pointed to the area where I wanted her to park, she snapped in a New York accent, “Whadda hell do you know about it? You don't look like a mechanic."

  Without a moment's hesitation, I did an about-face and walked away. Some New Yorkers have a special snottiness about them that's matched only by the snottiness of French waiters.

  "Hey, wait!” she yelped, “I'm sorry! I've had a crappy day!"

  Turning around, I said, “You steer. I'll push. Put it in neutral and aim it over there."

  Opening her door as I went to the back of the car, she said, “I'll help you push."

  "You'll have enough to do without power steering. Just stay put and steer."

  She ignored me, got out, and put her shoulder to the door. The car didn't budge. I leaned on the trunk and waited until she swore and screeched, “Why won't the goddamned thing move?!"

  When she turned and saw me leaning on the car, she looked about to go ballistic. “You're not pushing! Why the hell aren't you pushing?!"

  "No point. You didn't take it out of park."

  Her mouth was open to snap at me again. She closed it and looked into the car, then softly swore again and got in to pull the shift lever back viciously. Her hand slipped off and her elbow bashed the plastic seat divider. She swore again as she nursed her elbow with her other hand.

  "Lady,” I said, “Stop. Think. Take a breath. Relax.” I closed her door and said, “Just put it in neutral and let's get it out of the street, okay?"

  She pulled the shifter back and got a grip on the steering wheel without looking at me. I went to the rear and leaned hard against the car to get it moving, then turned around to push. A couple of minutes later, it was where it needed to be.

  The woman snapped open her cell phone and started poking numbers as I again approached her door.

  She yapped a dismissive, “Hey, thanks a bunch, y'know?” with a little wave and turned her attention to the phone with, “Tommy? That goddamned car died again! You gotta send somebody to get me! No, right now! It's hot out here!"

  Hot? Hardly. It was about eighty. I left her to deal with her situation and headed back up to the house. As I was about to open the front door, I heard her yelling, “Hey! Hey, mister!” and turned to see her waving and hurrying up the hill.

  She seemed about five-eight or -nine and fairly well structured, but her pants suit was made of some kind of knit material that didn't really flatter her figure at all. Her high heels dug into the dirt and she nearly fell a couple of times on her way to the porch.

  When she was still a dozen paces away, she brayed, “Hey, you gotta phone book? I gotta call a taxi! I gotta be somewhere by six!"

  It didn't seem likely to me that a taxi would pick her up and get her anywhere by then, but I decided I'd rather let the taxi people tell her that and let her into the house.

  She found the number and called it, yelped, “Twenty minutes?!” and began to argue with the dispatcher instead of calling the only other cab company in town.

  I tapped her arm and pointed at the other taxi ad. She shut up, tapped her phone to hang up, and called the number with a quick nod to me.

  I made a fresh coffee and returned to find her arguing with whomever. Picking my keys up from the table, I shook them a couple of feet in front of her and said, “Let's go."

  Eyeing me sharply, she asked, “You're gonna give me a ride?"

  "You got a better idea?"

  "What about my car?"

  "What about it? It's blue and it doesn't run. If it's here on Thursday, I'll mow around it. If it's here in a month, I'll see if I can find a way to turn it into a planter."

  For a moment, she just stared at me, then she barked a short laugh, stuffed her phone in her purse and grabbed her keys, and said, “It'll be gone by tomorrow. I gotta get some stuff out of it. Bring yours around, okay? Thanks!"

  And with that, she headed for the door at a march step. I watched her go and the rear view let me realize that she was actually very well structured. Not much jiggle and a confident stride, even in her high heels.

  She glanced back as she opened the front door, saw me eyeing her, and her gaze narrowed slightly.

  "Just looking,” I said as I held the door for her, “That's what men do, y'know."

  That comment got me a raised eyebrow, then she went out and started down the hill, again sinking to her heels in the dirt and swearing all the way. Heh. Oh, well. She could have made better—and safer—time on the sidewalk.

  I started my car, popped the locks up on her side, and drove around the corner to the blue car, where I saw that she had two suitcases and a makeup kit on the edge of the street.

  She locked her car and tossed her bags onto my back seat, then dropped herself into my passenger seat and made a little ‘shoo’ gesture as she said, “Go. Go. I can't be late."

  Moving us down the road, I asked, “Where to?"

  "Take nineteen south to County Line Road. You know where that is, right?"

  With a wry look, I said, “I can probably find it."

  We'd reached US-19 before she asked, “How much'll this cost me?"

  I glanced at her as I turned south and said, “The first ride's on the house."

  "I'd rather give you something."

  "Not necessary."

  She insisted, “I don't like being obligated."

  "Then five bucks'll cover the gas. Good enough?"

  Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her wallet. Riffling what seemed like quite a few bills, she asked, “You got change for a ten?"

  Sighing, I said, “Just forget it, okay? Give somebody else a ride someday and call it even."

  After a moment she put her wallet away and watched the road ahead with occasional glances at me. At the intersection of Forest Oaks, we hit a red light.

  As we waited, she asked, “You don't like me, do you?"

  I laughed, then apologized. “I've only known you for about fifteen minutes, ma'am. You're a little loud and brassy, you're kind of abrupt with people—especially when you're pissed at your car—and you have a rather heavy Brooklyn accent, but I guess all that's survivable."

  If anything, her accent got thicker as she asked, “Whatsa matter with the way I talk?"

  The next light got us, too. I looked at her and asked, “Have you ever heard someone from rural North Carolina or deep in the hills of West Virginia? You can usually figure out what they're saying eventually if you try hard enough."

  "You're saying I talk like that?"

  "Not quite that bad, but it's very distinctly Brooklyn."

  With an edge in her voice, she snapped, “You gotta problem with that?"

  Laughing again, I said, “If I did, you'd be waiting for a taxi. Don't
worry about it. Around here, you'll fit in fine. This area's full of people from New York and New Jersey."

  She unpuffed a bit and asked, “So where are you from?"

  "All over. Sometimes when I'm tired you can hear Texas."

  The next two lights missed us and we approached County Line as I asked, “What are we looking for?"

  Sitting a little straighter, she said, “'Legends Two'. It's on the right a little farther ahead. Ever been there?"

  I shook my head. “Nope. I don't go to places like that."

  With a tight gaze, she snapped, “What do you mean, ‘places like that'?"

  "Places that nick you hard on the way in and gouge you for every beer because they have a few dancers.” Looking directly at her for a moment, I said, “That's it. I don't have anything against skin bars; I just outgrew going to them by the time I got out of the Army."

  She didn't seem to relax much for a few moments, then she asked, “How long ago was that?"

  "1970."

  "Damn! You haven't been in a topless club in all that time?"

  "I did a website for one a few years ago. Didn't seem to me that anything's changed much in thirty years. Girls dance around poles on little stages. Drunks stuff dollar bills in bikini bottoms to cop a feel. Three bucks or more for a beer in an eight-ounce bottle. Like that. No thrill."

  Pointing ahead, she said, “There it is."

  Apparently a lot of other people didn't share my view; the parking lot was nearly full. I finally found a slot three rows from the club's front door and parked, then went around to help her with her bags.

  As I picked up her two suitcases and she grabbed her makeup kit, she said, “I'm Sandy. Well, I'm Sandy when I'm on stage, anyway."

  Nodding, I said, “Good enough. I'm Ed, on stage or off."

  Checking her watch, Sandy said, “I have fifteen minutes. I need to make a call and tell Tommy to take care of you."

  'Take care of me'? What would that mean? A few beers and no cover charge? Whatever. I figured to visit a few minutes and then go find a restaurant.

  Sandy stalked across the parking lot and said something to the guy at the door as she thumbed at me, then went to a table by the bar and spoke to some guy as I angled the suitcases through the door and followed her.