The Blue-Haired Bombshell (17 page)

I turned my attention to Sputnik. ‘‘So, you know Carol?’’ I said.

Sputnik grinned slightly and touched Carol on the cheek. ‘‘Of course. We on the Moon are very interestedin psionic individuals. My people tell me she is in the top 2 percent of Earth psis. Very impressive.’’

‘‘Thanks,’’ Carol said. ‘‘More like the top 1 percent of psis,’’ she corrected.

‘‘More like the top 5 percent if you count the Moon,’’ the younger woman traveling with Sputnik noted.

Sputnik turned and smiled. This was a true smile, not a crocodilian political one. He held out his hand. The girl approached. She was slightly shorter than Melda but no less stunning; you could tell the two were either related or commonly cloned.

‘‘Mr. Johnson, Ms. Gevada, I’d like you to meet my daughter Lea,’’ Sputnik said.

Interesting . . . I was sure Melda was the mother, but Sputnik wasn’t giving her any recognition.
‘‘Typical human male,’’
HARV ranted inside my brain.
‘‘Takes credit for everything.’’

Lea moved past me as if I wasn’t there. She was intent on making her point to Carol. ‘‘On the Moon we psis are allowed—no
encouraged
—to practice openly. It lets our powers flourish. You’ll like it there,’’ she said to Carol.

I wasn’t sure if that was a statement or an order.

‘‘My daughter is quite spirited and quite a promoter of our cause,’’ Sputnik couldn’t have been glowing anymore if he had just swallowed uranium.

Lea took a step back, now focusing on me. She held out her hand up to my face. I assumed she wanted me to kiss it so I did.

‘‘You will like the Moon also,’’ she said, though this time it was more of a command. She looked up at me.
‘‘Just don’t stay too long or cause any problems,’’
she said without moving her lips.

Her words passed right through my mental defenses directly into my subconscious. Before they could sink their claws in though another voice rang through.
‘‘Don’t listen to the little false princess,’’
the voice said.
‘‘She’s so conditioned by her father she can’t tell her ass from a donkey.’’
The voice was familiar. It was Elena.

I looked up through the crowd of Mooners. Sure enough, Elena was bringing up the back of the line, just behind two gorillas carrying luggage.

‘‘Don’t fret, I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay,’’ I said.

I gave a polite tip of my fedora to Sputnik and his ladies. With that, Carol and I headed toward security so we could board the shuttle.

Security was going to be the next obstacle. After all, I was traveling with a weapon up my sleeve. Sure it was a very hard to detect weapon. Plus HARV assured me that security to the Moon was extremely low. For some reason Earth Gov didn’t feel the need to provide a lot of security. Still, I hadn’t exactly made a lot of friends here and I thought security (being Mooners) would be tough on me.

I walked up to the door leading to the concourse. A blue-clad security guard, a big box of a man, stepped out in front of me. ‘‘Are you traveling with any weapons?’’ he asked. He was flanked by a large guardbot on his left and another tall, older Mooner lady on his right. Her blue hair almost blended in with her uniform.

My first instincts were to lie. I fought back that urge. I popped the Colt into my hand. ‘‘I’m carrying this,’’ I said. ‘‘I have a license to carry a weapon.’’

‘‘Sweet,’’ the male guard said, waving a scanner up and down my body. He looked at the screen on the scanner. ‘‘According to this, yes, you are registered to carry a weapon. Which means you may carry just one weapon on the Moon.’’ He looked at the screen and frowned. ‘‘Also, according to this, you’ve been known to carry a knife and an old-fashioned fire arm in ankle holsters.’’

‘‘I dressed in a hurry. No time to bring all my usual equipment,’’ I said.

The guardbot extended a clawlike arm and started patting me down from my hips to my feet.

‘‘Careful around the midsection,’’ I told it.

After a significant pat down the guardbot retracted its hand announcing, ‘‘He’s clean.’’

‘‘I hope your claw was,’’ I told it.

It growled at me. I get that a lot from guardbots.

‘‘You may pass,’’ the human guard said.

I walked by him. I turned and waited for Carol.

The guard stepped in front of her. ‘‘Do you have any weapons to declare?’’

Carol put a hand on her chest. ‘‘Please,’’ she said with just the right amount of disdain. ‘‘I’m a powerful psi. My mind is my weapon. I could tell you all to drop dead at my feet and you would gladly do so.’’

The guard, the psi, and even the bot all gulped.

‘‘Pass, friend,’’ the guard said.

Carol passed by the guard. We walked down the tunnel to the concourse together. Carol looked at me and winked.
‘‘I’ll give you your backup gun and knife when we get to the Moon,’’
she said in my head.

I was just glad she was on my side.

Chapter 19

The Moon shuttle group was very efficient. They didn’t keep us in the waiting area for more than ten minutes before they boarded us on the shuttle.

The shuttle itself reminded me of the old airplanes I used to ride as a kid, only a bit wider and the chairs seemed a lot more comfortable. The cabin was broken into two areas: a first class zone in the front that held 50 people and a regular class zone that held the remaining 350 people (though the allotted area was no bigger than first class). Where first class had twenty-five rows of big, comfy seats side by side, regular class had seventy rows of little seats two on one side of the aisle and three on the other.

Carol and I were given the two seats farthest away from first class. The only good things about them was that they were near the bathroom and that there was nobody sitting between us. So at least we could stretch out a little.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the passengers to settle into their seats. It took even less time for Carol, HARV, and me to deduce that Carol and I were the only two Earthers on this flight.

Sputnik and his main entourage sat in the first class section. The gorilla baggage carriers and rest of the Mooners, including Elena, were spread throughout the remaining section of the shuttle. You could almost see daggers shooting from Elena’s eyes as she looked at Sputnik. Though her assigned seat was near the front of the cabin, she came back and sat near Carol and me. She didn’t talk to us but I had the distinct feeling that she wanted to.

The robot pilot came on the intercom informing everybody that the flight to the Moon would be five hours, that we might expect a little choppiness leaving Earth’s atmosphere, but after that it expected clear sailing to the Moon. The hostessbots would be serving drinks and breakfast once we reached the ionosphere. I wasn’t all that thrilled with flying through space, but at least there’d be food.

The shuttle was a strange beast. It took up off the ground vertically like a regular hovercraft. Unlike a hover, though, the shuttle rose until it reached five miles above the Earth. As we climbed, I looked down on New Frisco, watching it grow smaller and smaller. From this high up the city, lit by the rising sun, looked blurred, kind of like a hastily made quilt.

Once the shuttle reached optimal height it stopped its complete vertical assent.

The pilot’s robotic voice came over the com, ‘‘Passengers prepare for acceleration boost.’’

I held onto my seat. Not sure why, but it seemed like the thing to do. Rocking forward, I felt the speed increasing faster and faster. The shuttle shuddered. I kind of liked the speed, kind of hated the shuddering. I glanced over at Carol who was looking at me. Carol was loving this burst of acceleration.

Carol touched me on the hand, ‘‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,’’ she said. ‘‘Once we break out of the gravitational pull of the Earth you won’t even notice the speed.’’

I sat back and closed my eyes. Not much else to do really. Just relax my mind. I said to myself.

‘‘Just relax your mind,’’
Carol said inside my mind.

‘‘Don’t be a baby,’’
HARV said inside my mind.

‘‘Relax,’’
another voice said—yes, inside my mind. I thought it was Elena’s.

I opened my eyes and peeked over at Elena sitting across the aisle from Carol. She was sitting on her seat in the lotus position like psis like to do. She seemed calm, like she didn’t have a worry in the world. That worried me.

After a few minutes, which seemed a lot longer, the jittering stopped. The ride became smooth. It was as if we were gliding on virgin ice. I looked out the window. I could see the Earth growing smaller and smaller. It made me feel small, but in a good way, like I was part of something bigger than I was. (Space travel must bring out my poetic side.)

The pilot informed us that we were now in space and we would be traveling at an average speed of sixty thousand kilometers an hour, which meant we’d be at the Moon in less than six hours. Jules Verne would have been so jealous.

‘‘We have reached cruising speed,’’ the pilot informed us. ‘‘The servingbots will be around shortly to serve drinks and a delicious breakfast.’’

I sat back in my chair, at least as back as I was able, considering we were in the last row and my chair didn’t recline all that much. I decided to relax and enjoy the flight. Not much I could do here on the shuttle.

‘‘Zach, close your eyes now,’’
HARV ordered inside my head.

Against my better judgment I took HARV’s advice. I closed my eyes.

‘‘Droop your head, like you are sleeping,’’
HARV said.

I did.

‘‘Now drool a little,’’
HARV coached.

‘‘I don’t drool!’’
I shot back in my brain.

‘‘Should I play video proof in your mind?’’
HARV asked.

‘‘I can pretend sleep without pretend drooling,’’
I said.

‘‘A true method actor would drool,’’
HARV said.

I thought about drooling for a nano and decided against it—tough guys don’t drool. I curled back in my seat.
‘‘Why am I feigning sleep?’’
I asked.

‘‘Why is she doing that?’’
I asked.

‘‘Who knows? She’s the mindreader not me,’’
HARV said.
‘‘But by fake sleeping we’ll be able to discover why. Even with your eyes closed I can still watch her through your wrist com and the shuttle’s computer system, then I can relay the images to your brain.’’

The images of everybody else on the plane scrolled through my brain. Sure enough, they were all sound asleep, except for Elena.

‘‘Why aren’t I napping like the rest of them?’’
I asked HARV.

‘‘How was Elena able to catch the other psis off guard?’’
I asked.

HARV made a raspberry sound in my brain. My guess was space does weird things to intelligent cognitive systems also.

I watched in my mind as Elena stood up. The blouse she was wearing had a long sleeve on one side and no sleeve on the other. Reaching up the long sleeve, she pulled out a sharp metal object.

I made my move. I had surprise on my side. Leaping up, I lunged across Carol, grabbing Elena’s knife hand with my right hand. Moving my body forward, I pulled her arm back toward me, catching her totally off guard. I drove her to the ground keeping my weight on top of her all the while and locking her right arm behind her back. Popping my Colt 2062 into my left hand I forced the barrel behind her head.

‘‘I don’t want to kill you but move and you’re dead,’’ I growled.

Elena wasn’t the type of girl who was used to being on the bottom and out of control. She started to squirm. I pressed down harder on her.

‘‘I’ll repeat it just once more. I don’t want to hurt you,’’ I warned.

‘‘That’s not going to be a problem,’’
was the reply in my head.

I went flying off of Elena, crashing into the back wall of the shuttle. I crumbled to the ground.

‘‘What did I tell you about not letting her focus on you?’’
HARV scolded from my brain.

I needed to react fast. I started pushing myself up off the ground. I felt a spiked boot on my back, forcing me back to the ground. I fought it. I lost. I collapsed back to the ground under the weight of that boot; it felt like a metric ton holding me in place.

‘‘She’s not just using the boot, she’s also using her telekinetic powers,’’
HARV told me.

‘‘Thanks, Captain Obvious,’’
I said.

‘‘No need to get snotty just because some psi is about to wipe the floor and ceiling with you,’’
HARV said.

‘‘The computer in your brain is correct and will no longer be able to help you,’’
Elena said inside my head.

I tried to look up. I couldn’t.

‘‘You may look at me,’’ she said.

I moved my head up. Elena was towering over me, holding my Colt 2062 in her hand. That was my chance.
‘‘GUS, shock her good!’’
I shouted in my mind.

Nothing happened.

‘‘Elena is blocking your mental link with GUS,’’ HARV said.

No big deal, that was easy to remedy. ‘‘GUS, shock her!’’ I shouted.

‘‘Gotcha! And with pleasure!’’ GUS responded from Elena’s hand.

This tipped Elena off. She quickly opened her hand, letting GUS drop to the ground. DOS! I knew the talking gun thing would come back to bite me in the ass. But all wasn’t lost yet. Moving forward just enough to catch the falling Colt/GUS, I grabbed it and aimed. I had Elena locked in my sights. I didn’t fire. I couldn’t blow her away. I wasn’t sure she was the real bad guy here.