Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc (39 page)

Linda said, “Ed, listen to me. Come
out
of there.
Now
, dammit!"

"Linda, I'm trying to snag a recording deal, here. I'm
not
going crazy, okay? I'm looking for a way to
prevent
this kind of craziness in the world."

Steph said, “You're talking about sending copies to other innocents, Ed. Human innocents."

"These dying people under my feet came from somewhere, Steph. I'm only proposing that we send back the results of their childrens’ handiwork to try to prevent more of it. Every fundy preacher and ayatollah of every type and stripe, every right-wing rabble rouser with an agenda and a fat budget that needs fed, all of their
minions
..."

Steph said, “I'll supply a flitter and probes on one condition, Ed."

"A
condition!?
What kind of condition?"

"That you do as Linda says immediately and let someone else handle distribution if that videotape is ever made."

"How do I get their promise that it will be made, Steph?"

"I'm not sure you can, Ed. It may not be up to them."

Wallace entered the link on Linda's pad with, “If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you
are
crazy, pal, and I'll personally guarantee you
no deal at all
if you open..."

I cut him off. “
No!
I'm
not
planning to open my suit, Wallace.
Damn!
If I have to face a goddamned psych later because of something
you
said on record, Wallace, you'd better hope I never see daylight again, ‘cause I'll only use it to find
you
. Don't be stupid. My name
isn't
Jesus and I
don't
want to be a goddamned
martyr
, especially when there's going to be a
whole warehouse full of them right under my feet!
I just want to know what it will take to get the goddamned tape
made
and get it
out there!
"

"Do it
now
, Steph,” said Linda.

Do what now? Do they think I've gone nuts?

I felt the field surround and immobilize me, then snatch me upward and over to land on a flitter deck. Four gunshots sounded below us and bullets smacked into the air conditioning unit's slats, shattering and splintering a few. A man with one of those really big-assed pistols was hunkered behind a vent about thirty feet away from where I'd been standing, aiming precisely at where I had been standing. He cautiously stood and approached his target zone, waving his left arm searchingly ahead as he covered the area with the pistol.

Once by the a/c unit, he knelt and searched some more, then really became unsettled when he couldn't find his supposed victim. He quickly stood and backed away, trying to look in all directions at once and waving the pistol back and forth.

Linda said, “I don't know what tipped him that you were there, Ed. He shouldn't have been able to hear you over the air conditioner's noise."

Knowing I wouldn't be able to see her or her flitter, I looked for her anyway as I asked, “Steph? How about visual link with Linda?” then said, “We know of at least one other person who can see me when I'm in my four suit, Linda. Maybe he could, too. Maybe he didn't think much of my movie idea, either?"

Linda's face appeared on a field screen. “Apparently not, if he heard you at all,” she said. “How do you feel, Ed?"

"Would you people stop asking me that? I'm okay. Fine. No problem."

Steph said, “His bioscan is fine, Linda. All within normal. No hint of the virus."

"He is not to get off your deck until one of our doctors clears him, Steph. The bureaucrats will have my ass if we don't do it that way."

"Agreed, Linda."

"Okay, then. I'll authorize the probes, but no guarantees about publication. That wouldn't be up to me, anyway."

"I thought not. Thank you, Linda. Ed, you may wish to see this."

Steph put up a another screen that showed six glowing dots streaking toward the roof stairwell entrance. In a tight cluster, they zipped through the doorway and disappeared.

"Thanks, Steph,” I said, “Maybe I'm just tired, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how you schemed with Linda to grab me without my knowing it."

"Look at the console, Ed."

I did. On the console screen were the terse details of their planning.

I asked, “Why the hell didn't one of you just tell me to move a few feet and tone it down some?"

Steph said, “That didn't occur to me. My only thought was to get you aboard me."

Linda grinned and said, “It occurred to me, Ed. I just liked Steph's idea better."

"Wallace,” I said, “You see what I've been putting up with for thirty years?"

"I could spare you the next thirty and take her off your hands, Ed. What's it worth to you?"

"One gold doubloon. That's her whole dowry and you'll probably have to fight her for it."

He said, “The beer for saving your ass is a totally separate deal, right?"

"You oughta be glad you're getting anything, Wallace. Yeah, sure. All right. Done."

"Good enough, then. Oh, hey, will you be available to give her away? Just to make it official?"

"Sure. Just say when."

Linda broke in with, “That's it. That's enough. In fact, that's
more
than enough. This is a business line. Clear the channel. Wallace, we'll talk later. Count on it."

Wallace said, “Uh, oh. I think we found the line, Ed."

"Seems so. Did we actually cross it, though?"

"Don't know. I..."

Linda's hand descended toward the ‘off’ icon and the screen blanked.

I tapped the ‘off’ icon on my screen and asked Steph, “Do you think they or anybody else will take my video idea seriously?"

Steph appeared beside me and said, “If they don't, I'll have a copy of everything, Ed. Maybe you can make your own."

I leaned to kiss her cheek and said, “Thank you."

My lips tingled. I looked at Steph and then looked harder at where I'd kissed her.

What the hell...? Touching her has never tingled before.

When I reached to verify the tingling by touching her, I saw—or should I say that I didn't see—that I was still in my four and five suits. I knew where my arm and hand were supposed to be, but they were still invisible and shielded.

"Options off,” I said. “That was an interesting effect, ma'am. My lips are still tingling."

"I noticed a tactile difference, too,” she said. “Well, not the way you noticed, of course, but there was a minor surface disturbance along...” She went on to describe in field mechanics what had registered on her sensors. I didn't understand more than two dozen words of it.

I picked up my coffee mug and tasted the contents as I thought about my tingly experience with Steph's cheek. Cold—the coffee, that is, not Steph—so I pulled the top off the mug and dropped a tiny heat field into the coffee. Waste not, want not, and all that. I went back to my musings until Steph called my name.

"Yes?” I answered, rousing and looking up at her.

"Your coffee,” she said. “It's boiling out of the cup."

Sure enough, it was.

"Oh. Damn. Thanks, Steph. I was distracted."

I don't like scalding coffee any more than cold coffee. I dipped a cooling field into it for a moment, then tasted it. Good enough.

As I put the cap back on the mug, Steph said, “You aren't particularly tired, Ed. What's on your mind?"

"You. That sensation just now."

"I thought so. I found it most pleasant as a demonstration of affection, Ed, but I'm afraid that it would require extensive reprogramming to simulate sensual..."

"No, that wasn't what I was thinking about, although I can't think of a reason in the world not to try if you ever decide to give that kind of programming a shot. I was thinking that you're the first woman I've kissed in a long time wherein some degree of lust
wasn't
pretty much directly involved at the time of the kiss."

"You're sure about that? I have the face and body of your dreams, Ed."

"And the modesty of an advertising executive, it seems."

She grinned at me and said, “Sorry, but I know that for a fact due to measured involuntary responses. I've become your dream girl, Ed. How can you be at all sure that no lust was involved in that kiss?"

"Oh, no doubt about it, Steph. At that moment, it was a simple thank you. As simple as such things can be. It was an
'I like you very much'
kiss."

"Many experts believe that boys stop kissing girls like that at puberty, Ed. Of course, most of them are grown women by the time they come to that conclusion."

The comm signal sounded. I tapped the console on.

"Ed,” said Linda. “How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, and I've asked you to quit asking, Linda. I promise that I'll let you know when I'm not fine. The whole building is infected. What's to be done about that? This isn't some grass hut village they can burn in the middle of nowhere in Africa."

"Elkor says his generator is good for fifty years, Ed. I'm sure we'll come up with something before then."

I looked at the warehouse and the people on the roof. In a couple of hours, their symptoms would be...

Linda broke that train of thought.

"Ed."

"Yeah, Linda."

"This is as good a time as any to tell you. Washington says we may all be quarantined when this is over. We can't tell everybody about some of our capabilities, so we may have to go through some motions for the public."

"Why are you saying that we
'may'
be quarantined, Linda? If Washington is involved, it's a certainty. Pandering to paranoia is what politicians do best."

"They said
'may'
, so that's what I'm saying, but you're probably right."

"Oh, well. As long as we get breakfast in bed and room service during the quarantine, I don't mind."

"Oh, sure, Ed. Just call extension ... uhm ... I think for
you
, it's ‘
six, six, six'
for room service."

Linda and Wallace chortled briefly over her little joke. Her very
tiny
joke.

"You guys aren't gonna let me up about that, are you?"

Wallace chimed in with, “Not a chance. You
used
to be the Dragonfly. Now your ops name will be Devil."

"I'm still the Dragonfly, you overpaid rust chipper. I won't answer to anything else. You told everybody aboard about the quarantine, Linda?"

"Yes. They're nearly as nervous about that virus as Washington."

"I'll bet they are. Steph, since you're fairly uninfectable, I guess you're elected to go for the beer."

"Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Devil, sir."

As Linda and Wallace chuckled, I asked, “You, too,
flitter girl
?"

"I'm afraid so, Ed. I also thought that the manner in which you talked that woman out of shooting at you was rather amusing. In a macabre sort of way, of course."

Steph's words caused another round of muted laughter, even though the people on the roof couldn't hear us through our canopy fields. I wondered briefly at how people tend to keep things quieter when either the dead or the dying were near. At least one other person also seemed to be wondering about that.

Somebody aboard the other flitter swore viciously and said, “Those people are
dying
down there and you're cracking
jokes!
Does anybody else think there's something wrong with this picture!?” It was Pete again, this time more than a little outraged by our banterings.

Linda said, “One more word and you'll spend this mission asleep, Pete. You can bring up your objections when we get back to base."

Pete said loudly, “
No!
It's happening
now
and it isn't
right!
They're as good as dead, and whatever else they may be, they deserve some respect!"

Now and then I've been on hand to see Linda deal with disruptions. I had a feeling that this was Wallace's first exposure to that side of her.

"Pete,” said Linda, “Come up here, please."

I saw Pete enter the console's immediate view. Without a word, Linda slipped her stunner out of her sleeve holster and used it on him. Pete slumped instantly to the deck and Linda requested that he be placed in the rear of the flitter and cuffed.

"Cuffed?” asked one of the others.

"Cuffed. Put his gear up here by the console. He'll wake up in about an hour. If he can stay cool, let him loose. If he gets loud again, he gets stunned again. If necessary, he can stay unconscious until we get back to base."

The man asked, “Do you really think this is necessary, ma'am?"

Linda didn't answer him. She just gazed intently at him until he waved to one of the other guys to help him drag Pete to the rear of the flitter. A few moments later, they tossed Pete's gear on the deck near the console. I couldn't see how Wallace reacted to events and he made no comments.

"People,” said Linda, “I don't mind explaining my orders. I don't mind having to justify them, in fact, but I
won't
tolerate a disruptive argument or a refusal to comply with my orders in the middle of a mission. Each of us is dealing with what's happening in his or her own way, but none of us has the right to be disruptive during this mission or any other mission for any reason."

She took a breath and looked around the flitter, then indicated the people on the roof below and continued, “Things went to hell, people. We don't get to go in and bust a bunch of neo-Nazis, after all, because they did something
terminally
stupid. We're stuck up here until this is over, and things will get a lot worse for everyone before then, so it's up to all of us to keep things cool. Also, we may be quarantined together for a few days. Count on it, in fact, unless we hear otherwise. Anyone who can't control themselves will wind up like Pete. You have pads and your bedrolls. Use them. Read, play games, sleep, whatever. Wallace will assign two-man watches."

Someone asked, “Ma'am, none of us have been on that roof since before the virus was released. Why will we have to be quarantined at all?"

"Because some very frightened people outrank us."