Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc (2 page)

"Who filed the reports and when? And what reasons were given?"

"Both reports were filed by their employers four days after the missing workers called in sick because neither worker could be contacted."

"Elkor, the employers probably wouldn't have filed missing persons reports based on absenteeism alone, and the cops might have sent someone around to see if those guys were alive, but they probably wouldn't have begun a real investigation without more reason. Did somebody prod them a little?"

"Both workers were known to be members of One Earth, Ed. Their actions had been under loose surveillance for several months by federal agencies. Local police were used to avoid revealing the ongoing federal surveillance efforts."

I laughed. “If the guys managed to make themselves disappear, what the hell are the feds
'surveilling'
? Empty apartments?"

Elkor said, “It would seem so, although several agencies are making other efforts to find the missing workers."

"Maybe they'll think to look in Idaho and Wyoming,” I said. “Oh, well, I'm going to clean up a bit and get those web pages finished today."

When the woman at the party in Tampa—Lynn Harper—had suggested using a flitter to search for sunken treasure, Steph had been inspired by the idea of finding things lost in the sea. She spent quite a bit of time scanning the Atlantic seabed while I attended a new-age giftware show in Orlando.

The show had been over for three days before Stephie had found her first artifacts; a few silver coins and some frail, rusty iron fittings that divers had missed near a wreck that had already been salvaged. She brought the stuff home and we spread it out on the kitchen floor so I could take pictures of it with my old 35mm Nikon.

Steph asked, “Ed, why are you using that kind of camera to take pictures?"

I had to stop and think. “Habit, I guess. I hauled this camera all over Europe, Steph. When it's time to take pictures, it's the first thing I think of. Does it matter?"

"No, but it seemed odd, since I can produce any pictures you may want."

I shrugged and clicked the last two frames of the roll, then asked, “Got any idea why it took so long to find this stuff, ma'am?"

Steph's Ingrid Bergman-like hologram appeared on the other side of the little pile from me and said, “It just did, Ed. These items were in the 127th grid. The ocean certainly seems a lot bigger when I'm searching the bottom of it. I appear to have been expecting quicker results."

Admiring the lines of her latest emerald green jacket and skirt “ensemble", I said, “Wow. Nice outfit, miLady. That's how it is when you're searching for things, Steph. The stuff will probably never be exactly where you think it should be, and the longer you search, the bigger the job will seem. Are you going to continue searching?"

"I don't know yet. I'd like to, I think, if only to have something of interest to report to my other self aboard the factory, and it isn't as if I have an otherwise full daily schedule Earthside. Do you think it's worthwhile?"

"It is if it interests you. Are a few coins enough to make you keep looking for more? You might find other things of interest, too. A lot of ships and boats have gone down around Florida and in the Carribbean.
'An otherwise full schedule,'
huh? Are you hinting—yet again—that I don't make enough use of you?"

"Well, I suppose that you could construe that portion of my remark in that way if you tried hard enough."

"Uh, huh. Okay, how about I drop everything and we go for a ride, Steph?"

"That shouldn't be too difficult, Ed. You aren't doing anything at the moment."

"That's beside the point, and I have to get your stuff off the kitchen floor, so just give me a minute or two to saddle up, lady. You didn't answer my previous question. Do you really want to continue looking for treasure?"

A human might have paused for thought in some obvious manner for a few moments, if only to appear to be considering the matter. I'd gotten used to Elkor's and Steph's apparently instantaneous decision making, so it didn't surprise me when she instantly responded, “Yes. I'd like to continue."

"Good enough, then. Read up on the subject of sunken ships before you go looking again, though. It may save you some time."

"What makes you think that I haven't already studied the matter?"

"If you had, you wouldn't have spent so much time looking where you did. Ships that draw more than a few feet like deeper water for the most part, and rumor has it that most of the Spanish ships went down in storms, not from running aground."

Steph said, “I hadn't considered the possible reasons for their sinkings. I simply began scanning the seabed. Ed, why didn't it occur to me to wonder why they sank?"

"You would have, sooner or later. Anyone as new to the world as you are might have done the same, Steph."

Her tone was flat as she asked, “Are you comparing me to a child again?"

I shrugged and grabbed a six of beer and another six of Dr Pepper in order to restock Stephie's onboard cooler, then headed for the front door and the flitter in my driveway.

"No offense, Steph. Tell one kid there's money buried in the back yard and he'll grab a shovel and start digging up the whole yard, but tell his older sister and she'll try to figure out why someone would have buried money out there and study the yard so she'll have some idea of where to start digging. Or rather, where to make her little brother start digging."

"I see. You
were
comparing me to a child."

"Sorry ‘bout that, but you asked, didn't you? I tried to give you an answer."

Could a computer pout?

It seemed so to me as Stephie rather stiffly said, “Yes, I suppose I did. I'll be more careful with my future questions, Ed."

Having said that, she disappeared.

Ah, hell...

"Don't be that way, Steph. You're just newer at some things than others. That's just the way things are. It isn't a big deal and I don't want you to not ask me something for fear that you'll get an answer that reminds you how young you are. Jeez. Youth isn't a crime, you know. Even extreme youth. How many other two-year-olds can do what you do? Only one, that I know of, and that's Elkor. Relax, lady."

She made no answer to my attempt to reason her out of her snit and seemed disinclined to initiate conversation as I restocked her cooler.

"Where do you want to go today, Steph?"

In a ho-hum, disaffected tone, she said, “I don't really care at the moment, so I'll defer that major decision to someone
much
older and presumably wiser than me."

"Cute. Big city or open country? You know, there's nothing to stop you from going places alone when you're bored."

"I do that sometimes, but it isn't the same. Open country, I guess."

"How about the Blue Ridge mountains? Haven't been there in a while."

"Good enough."

I went back in the house for Tiger, who pretended to need an invitation, of course, and then tried to appear to give the idea due thought and consideration.

"Get your stripedy little ass in gear if you want to come with us,” I said.

Tiger gave me his
'oh, well, I guess it can't hurt'
routine and said something that caused Elkor to field-generate his cat-carrier. As we approached the flitter, he greeted Stephie and she returned the yowling greeting with one of her own.

Minutes later, settled in my seat with a Dr Pepper and watching the sky slide past at 40,000 feet, I glanced at the field-generated cat that was Elkor's poppet and the real cat who was Tiger, both of whom were sitting together like dashboard ornaments as far forward in the cabin as Stephie's design would allow. Steph's lovely image appeared next to me and asked what music I'd like during the trip, which only added to the surreal effect of the moment.

"How about something classical, this trip, Steph? The lady you're named after was fond of Tchaikovsky's violin concertos. Try the one in D, opus 35."

"I can access three versions by three artists. Do you have a preference?"

"Itzhak Perlman or Sarah Chang. You pick."

"Okay,” said Steph, as the music started. “Try to tell me which one I chose."

"Will do. Gimme a minute."

Three minutes or so into the music, something about the way the artist handled the piece made me say, “That's Chang."

Stephie's surprise was very evident. “How did you know?"

"Sorry, ma'am. My secret. You're too smart for me most of the time, you know. I don't get to surprise you very often."

"I think you simply made a guess, Ed."

"A guess? Did I sound as if I was guessing?"

"Well, no..."

"Yes, you
do
think I was guessing. Don't you think us paltry-minded humans can do something as simple as analyzing a bit of music?"

"Well, of course, Ed. I'm sorry that I..."

"Gotcha. Hell, yes, I was guessing, and you fell for it."

"No, I didn't. I just didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"You were about to fall for it, Steph. You were right on the edge. Don't even try to deny it."

Tiger sounded off at us. Stephie spoke to him in cat, then said to me, “Tiger thinks we're about to fight, Ed. I'm reassuring him otherwise."

"He's a cat, so he'll be disappointed, I'll bet. He watched two lizards fight outside the kitchen window for almost an hour the other day."

The canopy seemed to flicker, then did it again a second later.

"I'm telling him ... Just a minute, Ed. I'm experiencing a field anomaly."

"The word
'anomaly'
covers a lot of ground, Steph. Can you be more specific?"

"Not yet."

"How is the anomaly affecting you?"

"My fields are..."

The sentence was left hanging as Steph disappeared, the console went blank, and the flitter began a long fall. The field that ordinarily held me in my seat during odd maneuvers also disappeared, allowing me to free-fall within the cabin as the powerless flitter turned on its side. The patchwork surface of the Earth below began to expand.

I glanced at Tiger. He, too, was free-falling, and had automatically adjusted himself as if to land on his feet. He looked at me with wide eyes, but made no sound. Elkor was also floating above the dashboard, and that seemed odd to me, along with the fact that none of my Dr Pepper was trying to get out of the bottle, even when I wiggled the bottle enough that the liquid should have escaped.

I let go of the bottle, watched it for a moment, then said, “It won't work, Steph."

The fall continued in silence. I pulled myself over the seat backs to reach Tiger and said, “No sweat, kid. She's just messing with me to get even,” as I ruffled his chin, but the motion sent him into a slow spin. I stopped him and turned him back to face me.

Tiger seemed less than convinced of the truth of my words as the fall continued, but he made no sound. I gathered him to me and let him brace himself against my chest, turning him so that he was looking at me instead of the uprushing planet below the flitter, but after a few moments, he turned his head to look down.

As Tiger's claws began to dig into my chest a bit, I patted him and said, “It's
okay
, little guy.
Really.
Take it easy.” Raising my voice a bit, I said, “Check Tiger, Steph. You're scaring him, and the joke's supposed to be on
me
."

The flitter righted itself and Tiger and I were guided to a standing position on the deck and Stephanie's image reappeared in the cabin as my Dr Pepper bottle found its way to my hand. Tiger didn't jump down right away, as he ordinarily would when aboard Steph. I gently disengaged his claws from my shirt and ruffled his ears and chin as I sat down with him.

"I was monitoring you,” said Steph. “Your heart rate barely increased fifteen percent during twenty thousand feet of falling. Why, Ed?"

"Details, Steph. Too many things didn't add up. If you'd lost your field, the canopy would have disappeared, but the air pressure never changed. Elkor's field-cat was floating with us. Gravity has no effect on fields, so there was no reason for Elkor's cat to be falling with us unless he wanted it to. Also, you both use broadcast power. What would affect your field would likewise affect his, but he didn't disappear when you did. Then there was the Dr Pepper that wouldn't flow out of the bottle, even with a little extra effort. There was one other thing, too."

When I didn't immediately say what that one thing was, Stephie asked, “Okay, Ed, what was that one other thing?"

I said, “Tiger. He was in on it. Even when he began to worry, he kept his little furry mouth shut because he has implicit faith in us."

Stephie made no reply beyond some cat-noises. Tiger settled into my lap and regarded her image for a moment, then switched his attention to Elkor, who was sitting on the dashboard again. Then Tiger looked up at me. I ruffled his neck and ears.

Elkor said nothing, regarding Tiger and me in a thoughtful manner. A few minutes later we were skimming above the snow-covered Blue Ridge parkway at a height of perhaps three hundred feet, still in a state of silence.

"Hey, Steph?"

In a tone containing frost, she asked, “Yes?"

"It would have worked on just about anyone else, except maybe an Amaran."

"It would have worked on Amarans, too. No flitter has ever crashed."

"
Never?
Not even in the early days?"

"Never,” she said flatly.

"No Earth aircraft has that kind of record. That's pretty impressive, Steph."

"Yes,” she said, still in that frosty tone. “I suppose it is."

While the view was nice for a while, one snow-covered mountain looks much like any other when they're as worn-down as the Blue Ridge chain. Half an hour later we were back at the house. Steph had responded when spoken to during the trip, but hadn't initiated any conversation. I unlocked and opened the front door to let Elkor transport Tiger into the house, then went back to the driveway to talk to Steph.

"Think back, Steph,” I said, sitting down on the edge of her deck. “Remember when we had to intercept Ellen before she reached Gary on the big ship. You left one bay and entered another in something like three tenths of a second."