Mysterious Cairo (17 page)

But the morale of the troopers stationed in Cairo also had to be maintained. Give a soldier too much time with nothing to do and open revolt was inevitably the result. So the companies were sent systematically from neighborhood to neighborhood securing the area and weeding out any treasonous or revolutionary factions and stealing anything that might be of use to Mobius and his minions.

Generally, the residents of an area would have at least six hours warning through the grapevine to prepare for being searched. Obviously, too little had been turning up in the latest raids and so the grapevine had been fed misinformation. This retrieval sweep had come with no prior warning. As a result, the haul was considerable.

In the center of the street were two large trucks with canvas canopies. Shocktroopers were coming out of buildings carrying all manner of items, from children's toys, to small printing presses, to roast chickens, and throwing them into one of the flatbeds (although the foodstuff was invariably consumed before reaching the truck).

"This is distressing," Philip said half-aloud.

"Why? This is routine, isn't it?" Bob whispered back. He was ever-conscious of how close the troopers were.

"Well, yes," answered Philip, "but I usually store all my finished products in a floor-safe before an inspection. In this case I had no reason to expect a search, so I left everything lying about."

Bob's eyes widened. If the soldiers found incriminating or dangerous materials in the lab, Philip would be arrested immediately.

"What did you leave out?"

"Nothing much," Philip said hesitantly. "Just some dummy skeletons, power sources ... and your new belt."

"Ouch!" Bob's eyes darted back and forth and his forehead crinkled. "How dangerous does it look?"

"Oh, not at all. It's just a belt."

"Good." Bob was relieved.

"A thick, armor-plated belt," Philip added.

"... oh."

"A thick, armor-plated belt that's plugged into a heavy-duty recharger."

"Is that all?" Bob's tone was less sarcastic than desperate.

"It has a blinking red button on the buckle."

"We're in trouble."

"I'd tend to agree," said Philip looking over his shoulder.

One of the troopers doing crowd control had noticed the two fair-skinned men among the darker natives. He was stepping out of the restricted zone and walking toward them.

"They must already know that lab is yours," hissed Bob. "This is your neighborhood. Do you know an escape route?"

Philip stared wide eyed at the approaching soldier. "Yes," he said quietly.

The trooper, thinking that Philip meant that he was willing to answer questions, stopped and began his inquiries. A few garbled consonants were all he got out as Bob spun on his heels and punched the man squarely in the face.

"Go, go,
go!"
yelled Bob as the shocked soldier's helmet went flying and the crowd, already disgruntled, cheered madly.

More shocktroopers were making their way through the crowd as Philip set off at an ungainly, but rather quick, sprint. Bob followed with no trouble, and gave much more the air of someone accustomed to being chased (or, more likely, to giving chase).

They ran to the second corner, about seventy yards, and turned left into an alley that ended with a fifteen-foot stone wall.

"What are you
doing?
I thought you said you knew your way around!"

"I do," said Philip breathlessly. "Climb in."

He was ambling into a large garbage bin, the only thing in the whole alley large enough to hold the two men. There were many smaller trash cans and even some wooden crates, but nothing else to divert immediate attention from the dumpster Philip was now standing in.

"Phil, get out of that thing! If we break now we can still find a way out of here, but we've got to hurry!" Bob, used to tough situations, was controlling his voice very well. But he was worried. The soldiers had stopped to tend to their fallen friend but would be there any minute. If he and Philip were to avoid being trapped in the alley they had to leave immediately.

"I've got a way out!" insisted Philip, who had crouched out of sight. His voice had a fine edge of panic in it. "Please get in the bin or we may not make it."

Sure now that they would be caught, Bob considered the tactical error of letting a research engineer plan his escape. He could hear the troopers getting closer and decided that the dumpster at least provided enough cover to put up a good fight.

"Maybe they'll think we jumped the wall," he said while climbing in, " 'cause no one in their right mind would hide in this . Philip? Where are you?"

Bob stood in the bin alone. In one corner was an empty six-pack of beer and in another was some waste paper and Philip's head and shoulders.

"Get down here!" the scientist chided. "I've got to close the hatch. This bin is the first place they'll look!"

It was then that Bob noticed the circular hole Philip's torso stuck out from. Down the tunnel he could see a ladder that his friend was straddling, making room for Bob to go down first.

The troopers' voices were clear now so Bob, a thousand questions on his lips, quickly decided the ladder. Philip shut an iron door over the hole and bolted it.

The two now stood, stooped really, in a earthen tunnel lit eerily by a few yellowed bulbs. It was impossible to tell how far the tunnel went as only the entranceway was lit.

"I didn't know this section of the city had sewers." Bob said in amazement.

"It doesn't," Philip chuckled. "I built this. It backtracks into my lab. Of course, I rather expected it to be used for escape, not entrance. Be quiet and stay close. The lab is only fifty meters away."

The air was much cooler down here; almost seventy. Perhaps that was why Philip shivered as he led the way home. But the sweat on his brow and palms defied that theory.

Light shone down as they neared the drainage grating that was the entrance to Philip's home. Two men could be heard arguing in the room above.

"There's nothing here," one voice said. "Let's go search the room upstairs. The wife there cooks like a gourmet."

"Look at all this equipment," said a deeper voice. "It must be used for something."

"So the guy likes to make model airplanes. So what?" The first voice was saying. "Let's go get something useful, like food."

"Sala, this equipment is not used for models. And just look at this belt."

"So?" the first voice was pleading. "Maybe he's building a diving suit. It doesn't concern us." He paused. And even in the tunnel you could feel the weight of the deeper voice's stare. "If it bothers you so, take the belt. But the only good it will do is to hold up the sergeant's pants after he steals it from the bins."

As the two soldiers left, they walked directly over the grating. The belt passed within three inches of Philip's nose. Now that it was unplugged from the charger, the activation button no longer blinked and looked like a faux-ruby set in the buckle.

After climbing onto the floor Philip did a quick inventory. The shocktroopers took nothing other than the belt and half a sandwich left over from lunch.

"We must get it back," he said to an empty room. He heard the toilet flush.

Moments later, Bob stepped into the room, transformed. Gone were his blue jeans and plaid shirt. Instead he wore a full body suit the color of the Sahara, with leather gloves and thigh-high boots. His face was covered with a pull-over mask that matched his suit, and covering his eyes were obsidian goggles. Just for flair, he had a soft leather cape. Emblazoned on his chest was a stylized picture of a dust devil.

In truth, this was no longer Bob Foster — it was Sandstorm. Philip had noticed that most of his friends who were involved in adventuring — who were heroes — showed a noticeable change in posture, gesture and tone of voice when they were on a case or in costume. It was as though they really were two different people. The average man, his friend. And the hero, defender of the downtrodden.

He supposed that everyone had a hero inside waiting for the right moment to save the day. It simply took the right combination of stimuli and encouragement to bring it out.

Or,
he thought dejectedly,
crush it out forever. Back in school that's what I was really doing. Killing the adventurer inside me. Slaying the hero that could be me.

"We must get it back!"

"Eh?" Philip had almost forgotten that Sandstorm was in the room.

"Your invention. My new belt. We must retrieve it." Sandstorm said this with such enthusiasm and charisma that Philip forgot that he had said it first. "Have you got everything you need?"

Philip felt every pocket twice.

"I think so," he finally said.

Sandstorm struck an even more heroic pose.

"Then let's away!" he yelled already halfway out the door.

This is very strange,
thought Philip. Ten minutes ago Bob was running to hide from one shocktrooper. Now, as Sandstorm, he was rushing headlong into a squad of them. Is that heroism or stupidity?

"Hurry!" Sandstorm shouted. "They're getting away."

"Getting away?" Philip said incredulously. Had his friend gone insane? Or was the hero within truly capable of miracles when released for a fitting reason?

The young scientist got to the door and saw the truck of confiscated items driving off around a corner. Near where the truck had been parked, Sandstorm was entertaining the now-cheering locals by thoroughly beating the one remaining trooper.

After one final right hook, the soldier collapsed to the pavement. The crowd surged in, stealing the helmet and gun from the soldier and carrying the unconscious man off into the darkness.

"They were leaving when I got here. Luckily, that fellow had some trouble starting his bike. Get in the side car, quickly."

Philip, who was having trouble keeping up with the pace that things occurred when Sandstorm was involved, looked where the crowd had been. There stood a somewhat dilapidated motorcycle with a rusty side car. On the side of both the vehicle and the trailer was the Imperial seal of Dr. Mobius.

"Let's go before they get too far ahead."

Philip sat in the side car as Sandstorm gunned the engine to life. With a squeal of rubber, they were off. Philip had always preferred to travel in enclosed vehicles. Even bicycles made him nervous. But this time something was different. Perhaps it was because Sandstorm was next to him. Perhaps because their mission was so personally desperate. Whatever the reason, Philip was not only enjoying the ride, he was happily anticipating the confrontation to come.

After only a few blocks they were within ten meters of the rear truck. Luck was with them in that the troop transport was in the lead and was cut off from sight by the bulk of the supply carrier. Sandstorm edged the cycle closer to the rear bumper.

"Okay. When I count three, you jump on the bike and take over driving."

"What!?! Where are you going?"

"I'm going to jump into the flatbed. This road is so bumpy the driver won't notice. I'll find the belt and then jump out into the sidecar. All you have to do is stay close to the truck."

"Not bloody likely," Philip screamed. All the fun had just gone out of adventuring for him. "You want me to switch seats at forty-five miles per hour and take over driving a motorbike three inches from an Imperial Shocktrooper vehicle?"

"Yes. On three, okay?"

"No, it's not bloody
okay!
In the first place, I've never driven a motorbike before."

"Don't worry," Sandstorm reassured. "It's really easy. You'll be fine."

"You're damned
right
I'll be fine. There's no force on Earth that is going to get me out of this seat until you come to a complete stop."

In this Philip was wrong. There was a force that could (and would) move him. And its name was Inertia.

He would never know about the poultry farmer who was late making a delivery to a five-star hotel downtown. How, in order to make up time, the farmer was speeding through a back-street shortcut to the hotel's loading docks. How, after narrowly missing a young woman crossing the street on her way home, the truckload of chickens plowed headlong into the Imperial transport forcing it to stop short and, in turn, causing the supply carrier to pile into the unsuspecting troopers.

All Philip knew was that, very suddenly, the debate about who would be driving was infinitely moot.

Sandstorm, using every iota of his combat experience, US Postal Service driver training and more luck that any three men deserve, simultaneously applied the breaks and angled the bike so that the front of the sidecar would absorb most of the impact. At the same time, he grabbed Philip and shielded him as much as possible.

When the collision came, Philip briefly felt something poke him in the stomach at fifty miles per hour. Then, inexplicably, he was weightless. Quickly he realized that, in truth, he and Sandstorm had been thrown off the motorcycle. He also realized that he should relax his body as much as possible to lessen the damage from the soon to follow impact with a relatively immovable object. CRASH!