Far-out Show (9781465735829) (22 page)

Krinkle with his backpack and Nerber with
Wilburps over his shoulder backpack style came out the back door of
their room to find Gorilla and Sparker, their backs to the
building, looking in the car windows and considering whether the
cartons on the back seat were interesting enough to make opening up
the car worth the effort.

“What made to happen out here,” Nerber asked
noting the wet pavement and puddles.

“Just the little passing rain shower that we
saw out the window. This is the result. It’ll dry before long.”

“I am much interested in your rain since we
have no such events on Ormelex.”

“You’d be really fascinated by snow then. Uh
oh,” Krinkle said. “Trouble.”

“These are searchening for us?” Nerber
asked.

“No, they’re thinking about stealing my car
which will leave us stranded here.”

“So they are bad ones who should be defended
against, is okay correct?”

“Yeah. Why should I coddle them.”

Sparker glanced over his shoulder as Gorilla
prepared to break a back window. He alerted the big man.

Gorilla turned to assess the threat. He
smiled and guffawed. These two weirdoes would be no problem. He’d
even enjoy roughing them up to teach them not to be so strange.
Heck, the one with metallic-looking backpack was even turning his
back like he was too scared to look at the would-be thieves.

Then the two were blasted by a force which
they couldn’t see and maybe couldn’t hear but could definitely
feel. In fact it sent them reeling off to the side wondering if
they were dying then and there. The two collapsed in a pile,
Gorilla on top of Sparker - which made things very uncomfortable
for the small guy.

The pair stayed sprawled there, unable to
focus their eyes or their brains, while the others got in the car,
Wilburps in the back seat, and drove off.

“Your car has changed its look,” Nerber
noted.

“The rain washed off the layers of dust and
dirt. It was always like this underneath all that. It rained hard
for those few minutes but it didn’t hurt it,” Krinkle assured
him.

Only when the car was at the far end of the
motel building were the hoods able to sit up and look around. They
were dazed and unsure of what had happened or what they had been
doing for the last half hour or so. That would present a problem
when they felt able to stand because they wouldn’t remember where
they had parked their car back in the trailer park so it wouldn’t
be associated with them or their nefarious deeds if they committed
any of those.

* * *

Regimentator drove back to the motel by way
of the trailer park. She had decided to drive around a bit so she
would know the general layout of the area in case she decided the
best way to proceed was to box Krinkle’s car in some spot where she
could get pictures before she let him go. With digital images from
her camera and wireless Internet access with her laptop she could
be taking bids for those while she continued to follow him around.
She had loaded up on grab-and-go sandwiches and snack foods so she
felt ready for a stake out.

As she got near the motel parking lot she
hesitated. Gorilla and Sparker, obviously confused and not happy
with that state of being, stumbled this way. Why risk any
distracting encounter with them, although she felt confident she
could take them since she would fight dirty as a matter of
routine.

When those two moved out of the way she
pulled past them. Normally she would have taken a moment to make
some disparaging gesture but she was focused on the spot where
Krinkle’s car had been parked but now was not.

She drove by the motel at high speed, only to
have to slam on the brakes when she got to where the car had been
and confirmed that it really was not anywhere in sight. One vehicle
was pulling out of sight up the road to the main highway and
another one was pulling out of sight at the far end down behind the
motel building. Was one of those Krinkle?

Torn by indecision, she screamed and pounded
her fists on the steering wheel for a moment which vented enough of
her rage to allow her to then function.

She backed and turned sharply so she could
see that the vehicle moving onto the road and into the trailer park
was a pickup truck. So the one that went up onto the highway was
her better bet. But first she drove down in front of the building
to scrutinize the cars outside rooms and up behind it to make sure
Krinkle’s car wasn’t there.

Then on to the highway as fast as she could
go. She drove right over the spot where the would-be thieves had
been piled up and we can only speculate whether she would have made
any effort to avoid them if they were still there.

* * *

Wary of inviting scrutiny by the police,
Krinkle drove at the speed limit and let most of the vehicles pass
him. He had been lucky to find no traffic when he got to the wide
highway so he easily made the left turn across the traffic lanes.
At the traffic light he turned left and retraced his path over the
railroad tracks. Now he was getting close to the area where the
shopping center he wanted was located but couldn’t remember exactly
which of the several local shopping meccas that had been.

He checked his rear-view mirror for police
trouble and saw that he had Reggie trouble instead. She was coming
up fast in the left lane, maybe not yet realizing who he was.

Something like that was the case. She was
almost on top of it but didn’t recognize the washed off car as the
one she wanted to find. She strained to see what vehicles were
farther ahead that might be her quarry.

Since he wasn’t going fast and had no
tailgater at that moment Krinkle risked slowing a bit more so he
could slide down in his seat as much as possible to be less visible
to Reggie as she passed without totally sacrificing control. Noting
the man’s action Nerber also slid down some in his seat.

Regimentator sped by with only a quick glance
in his direction. There was a traffic light a block and a half
ahead and she intended to get across that intersection before it
changed so she wouldn’t get farther behind the dweeb Krinkle
wherever he was ahead.

The very next cross street was small and
didn’t have a traffic light. Krinkle was able to make a smooth
right turn onto it without any giveaway screeching of brakes or
having to fight the strong centripetal force that would be trying
to roll the car onto its side.

Partway into the turn he pushed himself back
up into his normal position behind the wheel and took a better look
at what the new street had to offer. After a short straight drive
he turned right into a bank driveway. Continuing to adopt to what
he saw ahead, he pulled through the bank’s canopied drive-thru
space that was now directly ahead. According to the arrows on the
ground he was going the wrong way but no one else was using the
space so it worked.

As calmly as he could in case he was being
watched, he pulled behind the bank and parked close to the
building. Whoever reviewed the security tape might wonder what his
maneuver was about but there would be no reason to connect anyone
visible in the grainy pictures with an effort to hide an alien
being.

“Sorry if I scared you but I saw someone
who’d turn you in and I had to avoid her. We’ll just sit here for a
few minutes. I don’t expect anyone to be upset about the way we
drove in and come to complain.”

Nerber gestured to suggest sliding down low
in the seat. “Sitting like that was to make somebody go away?”

“She was coming by on my side in her car. I
did that so she couldn’t see my face well as she went by. It’s hard
to control the car slid down like that though. I could barely see
out the windows. But it was only until she passed us. I hope we
won’t see her again – and even more, that she won’t see us.”

Nerber considered the translation of that for
a moment before he asked, holding out a hand and turning the palm
from up to down, “Those are not the flip of the flop?”

“If she sees us but I don’t see her she could
cause trouble and I wouldn’t know I needed to take emergency escape
action.”

Nerber nodded that he got that
distinction.

* * *

For her part Regimentator was frustrated all
over again. If there were not the possibility of a good payoff and
the bragging rights of efficiently using Krinkle despite his
efforts to lose her, she would have called it quits and gone home
and never mentioned stepping outside her door today to anyone.

“I’ve lost him. I’ll punch out anybody who
laughs or cheers.”

She pulled around a wide right hand curve in
the road and then immediately turned farther right into the parking
lot of a medical practice group. Here she stopped in a slot in the
second line of parked cars. From here she could see the highway
without being obvious from it.

She turned off the engine and slid down in
her seat a bit to watch as a local police car whizzed by on the
highway at reckless high speed, chasing a reported speeder.

Thinking about the police report that would
say the supposed speeder had simply disappeared she wondered aloud,
“What’s the chance he really has an E.T. in the car with him and
that thing can make his car turn invisible? It’d be a great idea to
build into a story but how could I take pictures of an invisible
car? Only useful to me as embroidery on the facts to make any
pictures worth more by giving an interview with them. But no top
dollar for my pictures, no crazy stories that only get my name in
the paper, no dollars in my pocket.”

She got out a book of local street maps and
flipped through the pages to find the one that corresponded to this
general area. “Where the heck can he have gone? Almost anywhere’s
the only true answer since I don’t know a thing for sure since I
saw his car parked near that sleazy motel. Who can I blame this on?
Somebody has to owe me that I missed my chance. But don’t anybody
misquote me, I did not say I messed up my chance. I might pray for
help finding him but I’d be more repulsed by the hypocrisy of that
than anybody else. Poor me.”

Then she jerked in excitement and, except for
her safety shoulder harness, might have thrown herself face-first
against the windshield. His car was passing on the highway! Going
slow enough that she had a good look at him and the stranger beside
him. She was back in the game!

She started the car and pulled out after him.
“I don’t know where he was or how I lost track of him but he’s just
ahead of me now and I won’t lose him this time. He’s going so slow
that my problem’ll be staying patient enough to stay behind
him.”

Seeing a city bus coming up behind her she
pulled into the left lane, let it pass her, then got behind it.
That would be perfect camouflage. She only needed to stay alert for
him turning off on any cross street or into any parking lot on the
right. That simplified things.

So she drove on behind the bus pretending to
be in no hurry. She pulled into the left lane every block or so to
check that Krinkle was ahead, then back out of sight when she saw
that he was.

She hoped they wouldn’t go very far since
this bored her and her always limited supply of patience was
already pretty much used up and not recharging.

Krinkle stopped in a suburban shopping center
parking lot, well away from any other vehicles or the pedestrian
traffic areas. A line of three parked tractor-trailers blocked the
view of half of the area which suited his purposes.

“There’s a line of cars at the bank ATM so
I’ll wait here where no one will pay attention to us until that
clears. The costume store’s over there and a hardware store over on
the other side. All close by and open for business.”

Nerber looked around getting oriented to the
area while Wilburps hovered high enough to see and record it all
out the car windows.

“Maybe we should take one more little
precaution,” Krinkle said. “Why don’t you get in the back seat
until I’m done at the ATM. There’ll be a security camera taking
pictures of me there and you’re less likely to show in those. Just
in case they ever trace us this far. And maybe tilt your hat
forward a bit so the camera can’t see your face. It’s probably not
needed but it won’t cost us anything and it might help. Is that all
right?”

Nerber nodded his agreement and made that
change of seats.

In the back seat Nerber casually leaned
against the carton holding the jammer. He was startled when the
carton moved, jostling him since he was in contact with it.

Since this was the first time he had made
actual contact with the box he didn’t know if this movement was a
normal part of its functioning so he decided not to mention this
but edged away from it.

Wilburps announced, “The news summary is that
much of the planet is reported to be near panic because of reports
of an unidentified object near your moon. The official leaders are
promising strong action to protect everyone while various groups
accuse one another of being the cause of the end of life on this
planet.”

“That's typical,” Krinkle said in a scornful
tone. “The extremes have a hay day when there's something scary and
not easily explained. Various religious groups will insist this
can’t be Armageddon or their equivalent of the final time because
their texts don’t mention space invaders. But others in those same
groups will insist the texts can be interpreted to fit this
situation and will do so. Dissention, confusion, and charges of
heresy will run rampant.”

Nerber said, “Report on your status,
Wilburps.”

Wilburps replied, “I am glad you made an
asking for that, Nerber. I was preparing to report that I still
cannot contact
Whizybeam
when the full range and force of
contacts was just reestablished. I also now detect signals going
from me that I did not know about before. I may have been sending
messages for some period of time but neither of us knows it.”