Global Warming Fun 5: It’s a Dry Heat

by Gary J. Davies

Chapter 2

  Leaving, On a Jet Plane

  Ed and Mary were up and on the Deck shortly after dawn with their packed bags. Several of their closest Tribe friends were there to share breakfast with them. Sitting at the table among them, much to Ed's astonishment, was Jerry Green himself, wolfing down acorn mush and drinking strawberry juice. He was a small, thin, hairy-faced, be-speckled man that appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Like Ed, it didn't appear that he had aged at all over the last forty-plus years.

  "Mohamed has again come to the Mountain!" Ed quipped, as he exchanged greeting hugs with the mysterious shadow-leader of the United States Government, who four decades earlier as a rogue gene splicer and fugitive from the Government had created jants and apparent immortality for himself and Ed. "I thought that you spent most of your spare time on your space project!"

  "I wanted to send you off personally, my friends," said Jerry. "And my space projects are progressing well, thank you. Among over fifty thousand planets discovered outside our solar system we have identified several candidate Earth-like planets to explore and possibly settle. The space ship however may take more than a century to develop. We can talk of such things further, but first eat your mush." He sat back down and Ed and Mary joined him and the others at the table.

  "I don't suppose I could dissuade you both from making this trip?" Jerry asked between mouthfuls of syrup-sweetened acorn mush.

  "Unlikely," said Ed.

  "So your friends have informed me," Jerry said, glancing around the table at stern Running Bear and the others. "But California is a very dangerous place nowadays, especially the South, where Mary wants to start your vacation. You should be aware that you could very easily be kidnapped or worse."

  "Swell!" said Ed. "That's just the sort of thing we wanted to hear before going there."

  "What other glad tidings do you bring?" Running Bear asked.

  "I retain a detachment of researchers in Los Angeles. I have a package of data for you to carry to them personally. Not even the encrypted internet can be fully trusted nowadays; any kid with a quantum computer can pretty quickly hack into anything. I have arranged for your mercenary tour guide to give you a tour of Los Angeles and then drive you up the coast from there. Then he'll take you inland to visit the sequoia groves for a few days. Then he will take you towards the San Francisco area to visit my Silicon Valley installations for secret discussions. From there Mary indicates that you will want to drive north to see redwood forests before returning here. I will of course want to debrief you when you return."

  "Yes, all of that is what we agreed to," confirmed Mary.

  Ed merely shrugged. Whatever Mary agreed to would be fine.

  "I have new identity papers and passes for the two of you to use," said Jerry. "You can't very well tool through most of California as yourselves; that would be pure suicide. You can't let anyone there know who you really are or what you are doing for me."

  "It all sounds sort of like a James Bond working trip, the way you put it," said Ed.

  "Pretty much," said Jerry, "but only for a few of your days. After all, this is your vacation. Most of the time you should be able to kick back and simply enjoy the sights."

  "Of course," said Mary.

  "Is it really that dangerous there?" Talking Owl asked.

  "Afraid so," said Jerry. "The North Mexican Confederacy firmly controls the San Diego area and is trying to take control of Los Angeles. The legitimate USA California State government still controls San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and all of Northern California. Much of the rest of California appears to be controlled by a loose confederation of motorcycle gangs. But you should be alright; just pretend to be average tourists. If anyone finds out who you really are and that you're acting as my agents you'll be in big trouble."

  "That's just dandy," said Ed. "What about where you plan to fly us? What about Los Angeles itself?"

  "The Mexican Confederacy, the State of California, and the biker gang Confederacy are all fighting over what's left of Los Angeles after the drought driven exodus of most civilians," said Jerry. "But don't worry; I've hired the most competent vacation guide available to fly with you to the LAX airport and watch after you all the way north almost to the Oregon border. He is a mercenary that knows who I am and your general itinerary but not your real identities or abilities."

  "Swell," said Ed. "This sounds better and better all the time."

  After they finished eating the Tribe gave them another round of warm hugs and goodbyes and Jerry, Ed, Mary, and their limited luggage all piled into the waiting Government helicopter. Wheels folded himself into a compact but inconveniently heavy cylinder the size of a golf-bag. During the quick flight south to LaGuardia Airport in New York City, Jerry told Ed and Mary a few more particulars about what he expected of them on their trip. He also handed them a small box that held a dozen or so data cubes to be given to the researchers in LA. Ed packed them in his duffel bag. Meanwhile Ed exchanged discouraging thoughts with Mary using their implants about how this all seemed more like a secret mission than a vacation, but always-optimistic Mary maintained that things would work out just fine. Right. What could possibly go wrong?

  Ed also asked Jerry if he had made any progress with regard to researching their common affliction.

  "If you are referring to our apparent immortality and good health, Ed, the answer is no. But why do you fret over it? Why fix something if it isn't broken?"

  "But if you don't understand what has happened to us, how do you know for sure that it won't suddenly kill us or do something else nasty to us?" asked Ed.

  "Good point, but most of my research is done by my minions nowadays and they can't be fully trusted like you can. How would I research the topic without giving myself away? And if they were to find the answer how would I keep it from getting out? The Earth doesn't need hordes of immortals; two of us is probably already too many."

  "Agreed," chimed in Mary. "Let's get back to the topic of our trip."

  "Here is your new identity," Jerry said in response, as he handed two small wallets containing ID and other cards to Ed and Mary. "The smart-wallets are of course programmed with all card information but using primitive individual cards helps prevent identity theft."

  "Good," said Mary. "We wouldn't want folks to steal our false identities."

  "We're Ed and Mary Smith from Cleveland Ohio?" Ed remarked, as he glanced at the cards.

  "Yes, son and mother," said Jerry. "Sorry, Mary."

  "That's OK," said Mary. "I've always wanted to come from Cleveland and have a son something like Ed."

  "Something like?" Ed asked.

  "If you were my son I'd have worked some improvements into you, that's for sure," she explained. "Very important things like how to squeeze toothpaste tubes correctly and put down toilet seats."

  Ed and Mary had many times visited Brooklyn but never been to nearby LaGuardia airport. It looked fairly normal from the air. Elevating it and building a dike around it and much of the city had prevented flooding so far, but perhaps those efforts had mostly gone for naught. Ed saw only a handful of moderate sized airliners at the gates; most of the gates were conspicuously empty. Air travel had peaked decades earlier.

  Unfortunately just about anywhere that anyone traditionally might travel to was politically and atmospherically unstable and most of the airline companies had gone bankrupt decades ago. World-wide only a handful of government subsidized carriers remained. Even with Kennedy Airport flooded and abandoned there were few flights in and out of LaGuardia. However in part because Stone-Coats were beginning to repair aircraft and generate jet fuel, airline travel was beginning to slowly re-emerge.

  After exiting the helicopter Jerry introduced the two travelers to 'Snake' Wilson, the tour guide he hired to serve as their guide and protector. Snake looked more like a para-military terrorist than a tour guide. He was a tall, wiry, hairy-headed man in his fifties with eyes as cold and unblinking as any snake that Ed had ever met. There were several marks
on his face that could have been knife scars. His otherwise darkly tanned muscular arms were covered in colorful tattoos and more knife scars.

  He was decked out in sleeveless army fatigues and openly displayed a big hunting knife and automatic pistol and ammunition on his thick leather belt. An even more deadly looking automatic rifle was slung casually over one shoulder. Evidently security standards at airports had slipped just a bit since the last time Ed had flown to California half a century ago, and the Second Amendment was live and well here at LaGuardia.

  Snake silently and mechanically shook the hands of Ed and Mary Smith. Jerry then also shook all their hands and headed back towards his helicopter, leaving the vacationers and their luggage alone with their unsmiling, heavily armed, scarred, and tattooed vacation guide.

  Snake at first simply stared at each of the travelers as if he was trying unsuccessfully to figure out what they were about. From the expression on his face he seemed to be as mystified with them as they were with him. Ed similarly tried to figure Snake out without success. He tried to reach the man telepathically but sensed no thoughts or even emotions; the man had absolutely zero telepathic ability. Good, Ed figured. The last thing he needed on a vacation was to be traveling with a chatter-box stranger that exuded goof-ball thoughts and feelings practically 24/7.

  "Our ride west is docked here at concourse C just a few gates away," Snake finally said gruffly, as he picked up Ed and Mary's heavy duffel bags effortlessly and carried them towards a nearby gate doorway. Ed followed, pushing Mary on Wheels through the door and up a long sloping hall/ramp that took them from runway to terminal level. The Mary/Wheels combination was heavy but Wheels did most of the work. They barely got into the terminal before they heard Jerry's helicopter take-off noisily. "Your boss is a busy man," Snake remarked.

  "Our boss? We don't work for Jerry," said Mary.

  "We're just doing a couple of errands for him while we're on our vacation," added Ed.

  "Nobody in their right mind goes to Southern California for a vacation," said Snake. "There are no more tourists and anyway we hate tourists. Green should have given you guys a better cover story."

  Altogether it seemed a rather strange remark for a tour guide to make, Ed thought. For one thing, didn't tour guides sort of like to have well-paying tourist clients? He carried three nice crisp hundred dollar bills in his wallet that he had planned to eventually tip their tour guide with, but so far Snake wasn't angling towards them very effectively.

  "The truth is the only story we have, Mr. Wilson," said Mary.

  "If you say so," Snake answered with a cynical laugh. He stood watchfully guarding their belongings while they made a necessary pit-stop at the closest restrooms.

  As they continued to make their way through the nearly deserted concourse Ed was amazed to encounter only a couple of dozen fellow passengers; decades ago they certainly would have encountered hundreds. Everyone they encountered looked agog at Snake, so apparently weapons carried openly by tattoo and scar covered ruffians wasn't the norm here. A couple of stun-gun armed airport security people walked past and merely glanced at Snake's green ID badge before exchanging nods of approval with him.

  "Do we have time to do any in-airport shopping?" Mary asked. "When do we board our flight?"

  "No and as soon as we get there," Snake answered coldly. "We're the only passengers."

  "We are?" asked Ed. "I guess you're right about California not being a hot vacation spot anymore."

  "What the hell is that thing?" Ed asked when they finally reached their gate.

  Through the big glass windows they could see that there was an enormous delta wing shaped aircraft parked at their gate. There was no traditional cylindrical fuselage, only an almost saucer-shaped thick wing balanced on wheels that seemed much too tiny to support it. Ed had never seen anything like it. But for over forty years he hadn't flown in anything except Jerry's and the Tribe’s helicopters, so what did he know?

  "It's the Air Force C-66 stealth supersonic transport that your boss arranged for you, one of the last of its kind," said Snake.

  "And we're the only passengers?" Mary exclaimed. "Even for Jerry it seems a bit extravagant to fly two vacationers and their tour guide across the continent in that thing!"

  "Don't it!" Snake remarked rather caustically.

  At the gate there were no cheerful airline or official looking Air Force people, only a pair of big scruffy looking mercenaries dressed and armed like Snake that nodded at Snake and sneered at Ed and Mary as they moved past them and into the boarding bridge. Again not what Ed expected but he had never flown in an Air Force aircraft before. For all he knew maybe armed thugs were SOP for Air Force flights nowadays.

  "I SHOULD PERHAPS MENTION THAT WE WERE JUST SCANNED AND THAT SNAKE ALSO SCANNED ME AND THE LUGGAGE PREVIOUSLY WHILE YOU USED THE AIRPORT RESTROOMS," Wheels reported pseudo- telepathically.

  "THAT FIGURES," Ed responded. "AFTER ALL, WE WILL BE RIDING IN A GOVERNMENT AIRCRAFT." Ed felt a little better. Security measures were indeed being applied. You can't be too safe!

  The bridge reached down and out to the aircraft's open hatch near its front end, and the travelers soon stepped into a narrow corridor that ran down the middle of the aircraft from forward to aft. To the left behind dark curtains the corridor presumably led to the cockpit and perhaps other crew spaces. Snake led them to the right. There they encountered a small storage enclave where they stored their two duffel bags and the soon folded-up Wheels.

  From there the three passengers slowly moved still further aft, with Ed shoring up Mary by doing his walker imitation. Snake soon led them into an enormous open area. This aircraft had a surprisingly huge hollowed out space down its middle for passengers and cargo. Towards the front of the space there were a dozen rows that each consisted of twenty empty seats. Behind the seats yawned a wide empty cargo bay that could have held at least a dozen autos or one reclined mid-sized Stone-Coat Ice Giant.

  "Wow!" said Ed. "It's surprising to find that this big airplane is empty except for us!"

  "Sure as hell is!" agreed Snake.

  "Prepare for departure," announced an emotionless disembodied voice from several directions. That was the Air Force pilot, Ed assumed, using the intercom system. He didn't voice any welcoming nonsense about having a wonderful time on the flight; this stoic Air Force pilot was apparently all business. Ed felt further reassured.

  Ed and Mary sat down next to each other in the second-from-the front row; Snake sat just behind them, still with his guns and hunting knife, and frequently quietly spoke into and listened to his hand-held communicator.

  Almost immediately there was a whine of giant engines and the aircraft taxied away from the gate. There were no windows, but viewing screens on the back of the seats in front of them showed the two passengers what was happening from several perspectives. There were no lines of other aircraft awaiting their turn to fly. Without delay they taxied to the end of a runway, the quietly whining jet engines thundered to full power, and Ed and Mary were pressed back in their seats as the military transport shot down the runway, abruptly took off, and was soon climbing steeply.

  Through it all Ed and Mary tightly clutched each other's hands and repeatedly told themselves and each other that hurtling through the skies in a hundred tons of metal was a perfectly safe and rational thing to do, as every primal instinct they had told them that what they were doing was pure insanity and they would crash and die horribly at any moment. They began to breathe easier once they were several thousand feet above New York City and their impossible height above the ground became an abstraction that couldn't properly register in their minds. The good news was that by flying at twice the speed of sound in only a couple of hours they would be in California, the Golden State!

  For a short while they had a good view of the City on their video screens. From above New York City looked alright, probably because from over a mile high the decay and flood damage wasn't distinguishable.

  "On the way
back let's visit with the kids in Brooklyn," said Ed. "They don't live far from LaGuardia. It would be stupid to not stop in for a few days."

  "If you wish," said Mary aloud before continuing silently using the implants. "YOU COULD SEE FOR YOURSELF WHAT PROGRESS THE STONE-COATS ARE MAKING IN THE CITY. ALSO YOU'LL NEED TO WORK ON YOUR IDENTITY PROBLEM. IT HAS BEEN ONLY FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU'VE GONE PUBLIC, BUT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO EVENTUALLY NOTICE YOUR CONTINUED YOUTH."

  "I suppose that I do look young," Ed agreed. Ed was indeed planning on dying his hair gray some day in order to look older. What else should he do?

  "You do look young compared to your mother, Smith," interjected Snake. "And from the start you look and sound very familiar to me. I must have met you before, but I don't remember the circumstances. Are you originally from California?"

  "Nope," said Ed. "Cleveland Ohio." The words almost stuck in his throat. He wasn't used to lying. He knew that many people did it regularly but even tiny lies rarely happened with him or Mary. Among the Tribe there were far too many telepaths to pull it off. Stone-Coats didn't seem to even know how to lie and jants might lie much of the time without getting caught, but not Tribe humans.

  "We'll see." said Snake. "It will come back to me where we met; I never forget a face or a voice. You sound like you're from my home state of Virginia."

  "CRAP!" Mary said silently via implant. "HE MIGHT BE OLD ENOUGH; COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW US FROM VIRGINIA?"

  "HIGHLY UNLIKELY," said Ed. "VIRGINIA WAS FORTY YEARS AGO. HE'S JUST GOOD AT ASSESSING OUR ACCENTS."

  "WHAT ACCENTS?" Mary asked.

  Minutes later the shrinking New York skyline had completely disappeared behind clouds, and they were at forty thousand feet and traveling at twice the speed of sound.

  "Do you do this sort of thing often, Mr. Wilson?" Mary asked.

  "Travel on military aircraft?" Snake replied. "No Mrs. Smith. I haven't even been back East since I was a kid. This was a sudden high priority operation that compelled my participation. And call me Snake."

  "Call us Mary and Ed. No, I mean do you often show tourists around California?" she asked. "Do you know where the best sights for photos are and where the best restaurants are and so-forth?"

  Snake laughed. "That's a good one! As sure as your name is Mary Smith I'm a tour guide that knows all the best places in California to chow down."

  "Good, I'm starving already," Mary noted.

  "Wait, are you saying that you aren't a tour guide?" Ed asked.

  "Not really," said Snake.

  "You aren't a tour guide or you aren't saying that you aren't?" asked Ed.

  "Do I look like a tour guide?" Snake answered gruffly.

  "I'm thirsty too," interjected Mary as she elbowed Ed, changing the subject. "DON'T PUSH IT!" she advised Ed silently. "DON'T PISS HIM OFF, WHATEVER HE IS!"

  "Is there food and drink on board?" Ed asked. "We probably should have gotten ourselves some brunch at the airport, but our take-off seemed to be a bit rushed."

  "Why don't I go forward to find us something nice and tasty?" Snake said as he stood up. "You folks rest up here and I'll be back in a bit with a bite for each of you. Snake bites!"

  "Thanks," Ed said. "Snake bites certainly sound yummy. We'll just rest and quietly keep each other company here as you suggest."

  Snake left them and made his way forward.

  "PHONE JERRY," Mary implored Ed, using the implants. "SOMETHING ISN'T QUITE RIGHT ABOUT MR. SNAKE WILSON."

  "ROGER THAT!" Ed replied.

  Ed attempted to use the visicom mounted on the seatback in front of him to call Jerry. He wanted to ask him how well he knew Snake. Snake was saying some strange things for a tour guide, including his statement that he wasn't a tour guide. It wasn't Jerry's image that appeared on the small screen however, but only an automated informative alert that stated that no visicom service was available. Buggers!

  "I HAVE UNUSUAL ACTIVITY TO REPORT, MR. ED," said Wheels from the storage bin directly to Ed via implant.

  "REPORT!" said Ed. "BUT DON'T TELL MARY."

  "I AM RESTRICTING THIS CONVERSATION TO US," said Wheels. "MARY EXHIBITS UNHEALTHY EXCESSIVE ANXIETY ALREADY."

  "GOOD PLAN," Ed said. "YOUR REPORT?"

  "I'VE JUST BEEN SCANNED AGAIN BY MR. SNAKE USING A HAND-HELD DEVICE AND HE HAS SCANNED AND SEARCHED YOUR LUGGAGE AGAIN," said Wheels. "HE THEN REMOVED A SMALL PACKAGE CONTAINING DATA CUBES FROM YOUR BAG."

  "BUGGERS!" exclaimed Ed. Those cubes contained Jerry's secret data that was supposed to be delivered to the LA researchers! "WHAT'S HE DOING NOW?"

  "HE HAS PLACED THE DATA CUBES FROM THE PACKAGE INTO AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND IS APPARENTLY ACCESSING THEIR DIGITAL CONTENTS."

  "SWELL," said Ed. He used his telepathic senses to do some searching of his own. Aside from Mary and himself there were nine other humans on-board, all of them forward of the passenger/cargo space. He could barely detect them; like Snake none of them were even moderately telepathic, but did unknowingly broadcast some emotions. Also there were no jants or active med-ticks. After living among dozens of powerful telepaths for over four decades, Ed was used to blocking thoughts. Now he missed their comfortingly familiar Tribal chatter.

  "I DETECT NO STONE-COATS OTHER THAN MYSELF," added Wheels. "THERE USED TO BE A STONE-COAT IN THE AVIONICS BAY BUT TOO MUCH OF IT HAS BEEN REMOVED TO SUPPORT SENTIENCE. I AM THE ONLY FULLY FUNCTIONING STONE-COAT UNIT ON-BOARD."

  "I'm going to check on where the restrooms are," Ed told Mary with a smile, as he unbuckled his seatbelt and rose unsteadily to his feet. "Just for something to do," he added in an attempt to keep her calm.

  "Be careful," Mary implored. "Remember, you aren't invincible; you're only immortal if you don't get yourself killed."

  "Thanks for reminding me that my violent death would be bad for my health," Ed replied, "and for not advising me to not do anything stupid. I get that one too often and there's nothing I can do about being stupid so it's really stupid advice."

  As quietly as he could, Ed headed forward. Very soon near the storage bin that held their belongings he came upon Snake, who had his handgun drawn and pointed at him. It was an unusual situation for Ed and it took a moment for him to respond. Then like they often did in old movies where guns were used, Ed promptly put his hands up.

  "Here he is now," said Snake into his hand-held communicator. "Good timing, Smith. I was just talking with my brother about you. We're already a tenth of the way to California and have some tough decisions to make. Keep your hands up and speak loudly so that my brother can hear us both."

  "Can't it wait until we get to LAX?" Ed asked loudly.

  "No it can't," said Snake. "We're at the point in the flight where we usually dispose of Government agents such as yourself. We simply toss them from the plane. That saves a lot of mess and bother. You and your alleged mother seem to be unusual choices for Government agents and my brother and I are both curious about you. Perhaps you could provide some enlightenment before we dispose of you."

  That didn't sound good to Ed. "I'm not a Government agent," he noted, "though in the spirit of full disclosure I used to be a civil servant."

  "Then you used to be a Government agent," Snake said. "Government is government."

  "Government yes, agent no. I used to teach school on a Native American reservation. I was paid by the Bureau of Indian Affairs so technically I was a civil servant school teacher. I even eventually advanced to become a GS-13 Tribal Government Officer before the whole agency folded. I do have a close friend who decades ago used to be an actual NSA agent, back when there was an NSA. But that's totally different from being a school teacher, I feel, and anyway I'm not him, I'm me."

  "The IA Bureau was dissolved about two decades ago; you must have been a very young school teacher," Snake noted.

  "I used to be smarter when I was younger," Ed claimed.

  "Me too. But I find that experience and intent trumps IQ most of the time. This isn't my first hijacking. What do you do in Cleveland, Smith?
"

  "I've never been to Cleveland; I've never even been to Ohio. I used to be a Cincinnati Reds fan though, before the baseball leagues started to disintegrate. Does that count?"

  "Really? So you've never even been to Ohio? What a shocking surprise."

  "I wouldn't lie to someone who has a gun pointed at my head," Ed noted.

  "What do you know about these data cubes?" demanded Snake.

  "Only what Jerry told me. He says that it's scientific data for his researchers in Los Angeles."

  "It looks that way to us too," said Snake. "It's moderately important science stuff but not important enough for him to schedule this emergency flight. That is the problem that my brother and I are struggling with, you see, ever since our spies heard of this flight. We were rather hoping for far more valuable cargo being shipped west to LA: something that would make this hijacking well worth our effort. Guns and ammunition, perhaps. But as you yourself noted with feigned surprise there is no cargo except for you, an old lady, and a few data cubes. We are VERY disappointed. Why would Jerry Green set up this expensive flight just for transferring a few data cubes of rather ordinary research data?"

  Ed shrugged. "Mary wants to get to California to see the big trees and the ocean. She talked Jerry into helping us. We're both simply old and close friends of Jerry. That's the truth."

  "Really? That's an interesting claim. You are such buddies with Jerry that he set up this flight just for you? We didn't know that Jerry even had any friends."

  Jerry had trillions of jant friends, but Ed decided not to bring that up. "We only see him once in a great while nowadays; but we go way-back."

  Snake listened to his visicom for a short time. "What's your real name and birth-state?" he finally asked Ed.

  "Ed Rumsfeld of Virginia," Ed said.

  Snake's jaw dropped. "Son of a bitch! Did your daddy teach middle-school history in Virginia about forty years ago?"

  "Seventh and ninth grades, mostly. I'm a school teacher myself. I'm doing my best to fill his shoes."

  "Son-of-a-bitch! You look and sound just like him! You seem shorter though."

  "Dad was a giant of a man," said Ed.

  "Was?" said Snake. "Too bad. My brother and I liked him and in a way owe our success to him. And the old lady is his widow?"

  "None other," Ed lied some more. Wife yes; widow not yet, though right now that status seemed imminent. He hated fibbing though, although this time he did manage to cross his fingers as he did it.

  "You and your mother have some sort of electronic implants at the base of your skulls. We've seen computer chip brain implants before but nothing like these. What are they?"

  Ed had no cover story for that. "They are of recent Stone-Coat manufacture. They allow us to communicate directly with similarly equipped Stone-Coats."

  "Interesting," Snake remarked. "We have no Stone-Coats on this aircraft, however. My men saw to that back at LaGuardia."

  "Yes we noticed," said Ed.

  Snake listened to his visicom for a minute and mumbled something unintelligible into it before putting it away in a vest pocket. "OK, my brother is intrigued enough to want to meet you in person, so I'm not going to kill you two, at least not yet."

  "That's really good to hear, Snake. Can I put my hands down now?"

  "As long as you promise not to attack me or my crew. I'd really hate to have to shoot you or gut you with my hunting knife. Imagine the mess."

  "I'd not like that very much either," admitted Ed, as he tried to not imagine such a thing happening. "But why would I attack you? We're sort of old Virginia friends, it looks like! Besides I'm a talker, not a fighter. I did have one scuffle when I was about ten years old and it didn't go very well. I've been talking my way out of scuffles ever since. And Mary has always been a non-violent person and can barely walk. So you see, she and I pose no danger to you whatsoever."

  "We'll see. Congratulations; you and Mama Mary are hereby kidnapped, which so far at least is better than sky-diving without parachutes. Go back to your seat and I'll get us drinks and snacks. I'm no damn flight attendant but I'll see what we have. Don't expect much from the Air Force though. They've become a very cheap bunch ever since their budget was cut back by ninety percent."

  "That will do it every time," said Ed before returning to his seat where he received a welcoming hug from Mary. "There's the good news and the bad news and the maybe not so good news," he announced to her. "The good news is this: we've been kidnapped and Snake doesn't like bloody messes. So I don't think that he is going to murder us, at least not for a while."

  "For a while?" asked Mary. "Our kidnapping is the good news? OK, so what's the bad news then?"

  "This aircraft has been hijacked."

  "I sort of guessed that part already as it goes rather well with the kidnapping angle," said Mary. "What's the maybe not so good news?"

  "I think that Snake was a seventh or ninth grade pupil of mine in Virginia forty years ago and that he recognizes me. But I may have convinced him that I'm my son. You are you, though."

  "That just shows that you never truly escape middle-school," said Mary. "We're all mentally scarred for life. Poor Snake."

  "Snake has matured to merit actual physical knife scars," noted Ed. "Certainly nice to see that one of my old students has made-good, at least as a hijacker! On the plus side in addition to not being a tour guide he also isn't a flight attendant either and I don't think we'll have to tip him at all."

  "Swell!" said Mary.

  ****