3rd World Products, Book 16 (51 page)

He glanced at his monitor and saw only darkness. Tea was still blocking cameras in my proximity.
 

“Ten seconds,” I said, “Nine. Eight. Seven.”
 

He said, “Okay, okay. But it’s against policy. I’ll get in trouble.”
 

“Not as much trouble as if they have to bust the door in.”
 

Refund in hand, I headed to the parking lot and let him watch me disappear into Tea’s field. I’m sure that made his day.
 

Instead of a fast food place, I looked for a breakfast buffet restaurant I used to see when Toni and I visited Gainesville. Found it. We hurried in and ate quickly, then got underway to Ocala.
 

As we descended to Vicky’s motel’s courtyard, she asked, “Sure you won’t change your mind and give yourself up today?”
 

“Nah. I’m more useful out here monitoring 911 calls.”
 

Nodding, she said, “I’ll call you later… oh. No, I won’t, will I?”
 

“I’ll call you, if you want. This afternoon or evening?”
 

“This evening. Wait until I’m back in my room unless it’s urgent or case-related. Can they see us in here?”
 

“Nope.”
 

“Good.” She kissed me firmly and said, “Thanks again. I had a great time. As soon as we can put all this other crap on the shelf, I want you all to myself for a while, okay?”
 

“I’ve never heard a better plan in my life, ma’am.”
 

She kissed me again, then I dropped the hull field. I made a show of handing her the DVD bag and the flash drive, then I hopped down and handed her to the pavement. Hopping back aboard Tea, I had her lift away from the motel and watched as half a dozen people rushed out to gather around Vicky and stare upward. One of them was Fullbright.
 

I sent a probe to listen and there was gabble about the DVDs and how she’d been gone all night, then an unhappy big guy came marching up to loom over Vicky and rant about how he’d do this and that and make a report that would screw up her world. He was a Larcon-type as noisy and nasty as Larcon had been when I’d first met him.
 

As he started to say something else, I sent my sim to appear beside Vicky and had the sim reach to touch big guy’s arm. He dropped like a sack of feed and lay motionless. With a long, critical look around at people who were either frozen in place or retreating quickly, I had my silent sim give Vicky a nod and a respectful little two-fingered salute before he vanished. Let them figure that trick out. They’ll probably think I’m watching her all the time.
 

After a time some of them went to rooms as the rest entered the motel’s small restaurant the others rejoined them with laptops and soon four tables were in use as people watched the DVDs. I noted that Vicky never gave the flash drive to anyone or even showed it.
 

Reason for watching; I wanted to see how regular people would react. Marjory represented
something the world had never seen outside a science fiction movie. The gathered agents — even though NIA — were people a bit tougher of mind and spirit than Joe and Jane Average.
 

Most sat in silence. A few muttered expletives at certain events. All seemed thoughtful when the show ended. The first to speak was Fullbright; she stood and surveyed the gathering as someone rapped a spoon on the table for attention.
 

“As far as I’ve been able to determine,” she began, “We have the only copies of this footage thanks to the efforts of Agent Elgin.”
 

There were a few smiles. Someone snickered and someone else coughed. Fullbright pounced on the guy who’d snickered with, “Nelson. On your feet. She managed to acquire this footage while
none
of the rest of this gathering turned up diddly-squat. If you think anything about this is funny, I can remedy that right now with a great deal of extra work nobody else wants to do.”
 

Nelson fidgeted like a kid in school and said, “Understood, ma’am.”
 

Scanning the room, Fullbright said, “If I hear of anyone giving Agent Elgin any trouble at all… Just go ahead and test me, people. This isn’t a frat-house and I won’t stand for it.”
 

One woman stood up and said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t sign up to prostitute myself for the government. I think what she did was altogether immoral.”
 

Vicky stood up and asked, “Exactly what did I do? The man talked. I listened. There was no ‘
trade
‘ as you seem to want to infer. He won’t allow himself to be arrested, so he insisted on meeting aboard the flitter. He bought the DVDs used to make copies of his flitter’s recordings and he put me back where he found me unharmed. Maybe
you
haven’t realized this yet, but he
didn’t
do all that for me or us. He did it so someone else would have a factual record of what happened at that nursing home. Homeland would slam a lid on this if they could, just like the Canadians did. We all know that. Now they can’t and it’s a damned good thing, because native field users have apparently been popping up for years. He said his stuns and fields were like throwing pebbles at a bear. A
supercomputer AI
couldn’t stop her. In other words, you can stick your prissy attitude and your filthy suspicions right up your… where the sun doesn’t shine, Agent Lee, because there are far more important things to worry about.”
 

Some guy actually applauded a few claps before he stood up and said, “Damned right. Now I have a question. What are
we
supposed to do? The girl turned herself in for her own reasons and there’s no point in even trying to tail him. Even if we did manage to catch up with him, how the hell would we capture him?”
 

Agent Lee said, “Wait ‘til he comes back for her. If he puts up a struggle, shoot him like any other fugitive.”
 

Fullbright said firmly, “Sit down and be quiet. We’ll talk later.”
 

Lee sat down with some real attitude showing.
 

Fullbright said, “Agent Reed has a good point. He can stun anyone who tries to take him down and I doubt our service weapons would have much success.” She chuckled, “Besides, from what’s on record, one of his hobbies is answering 911 calls. Even if we got a good chance to arrest him, we could be doing more harm than good.”
 

That was it for Lee. She stood up, said, “That’s called ‘dereliction of duty’, Agent Fullbright. I’m not listening to any more of this,” and strode for the door. Nobody tried to stop her.
 

Reed remained seated as he said, “No, I believe it’s actually called ‘recognizing your limitations’. We can’t arrest him.
Can’t
, not won’t. And he’s not a dangerous criminal, so as I see it, we’re wasting our time and resources on him when we could be working other cases.”
 

Fullbright said, “I agree, but that isn’t our call to make. We have to continue to try, even if we’re wasting our time. I have, however, instituted a quiet investigation into the motives and methods by which our lawmakers were motivated to draft and pass laws against Amaran medical devices.” She grinned and added, “Strictly as a means of gaining a better understanding of the motivations of our quarry, of course. To better enable us to try to capture him, also of course.”
 

Reed snorted a laugh and said, “Sign me up for
that
task force!”
 

Fullbright said, “How gracious of you to volunteer, Agent Reed. I’ll assume you were serious and find you a few other volunteers to fill out your team.”
 

Several hands went up. A few people stood up, as well. Fullbright pointed at four of them in turn and said, “All of you report to me at three this afternoon. We’re going hog hunting.”
 

Chapter Thirty-two
 

A woman pointed and said, “Oh, God,” as she got to her feet. I turned the probe to face the room’s big east window and saw she’d been watching an accident in progress about two hundred feet away on I-75. Tea reported a 911 call about it even as I watched a rental truck fail to stop and climb up the back of a car at the tail of the four-vehicle crash.
 

Splitting Tea into three neon-red flitters, we flew to the scene. I sent two flits ahead to block the exit ramp and warn other traffic away from it, then hopped on my board and flew off Tea’s deck as I parked her above and to one side of the crash.
 

Apparently a car had drastically slowed or stopped halfway down the ramp for some reason and a car behind it hadn’t, slamming into the first car. Another car had hit them and spun away to roll into the ditch on the right. Then the rental truck had climbed almost fully on top of the rear car and crushed the roof. My core said two dead, five injured.
 

I called Athena and she appeared, then split into five sims to begin working on the survivors. The truck would be a problem. My probe showed it to be fully loaded with bolt-together metal patio furniture and bench kits in boxes, which could explain why it hadn’t been able to stop in time. Adding that to the truck’s weight, it didn’t seem to me that a flitter would be able to lift it.
 

Galatea agreed, stating the load was almost two thousand pounds above her maximum. Most of the cargo was bound or boxed. We’d just unload the cargo on the side of the road first. Athena’s clone in the car with the victim simply said, “Hurry, please.”
 

Two sheriff cars showed up almost immediately, one entering the off ramp from the Interstate and one approaching from the US-27 intersection below. I flitted down to the back of the truck, fired up my saber, and sliced the lock off the doors. I tried the handle, but it wouldn’t move, of course. If I cut the hinges or the latch points, the stuff would spill out, but not enough of it.
 

I cut the bottom latch and hinges first. The doors buckled outward and bundled cast iron parts protruded. While hovering above, of course, I cut the hinges at the top and then I cut the top latch. It parted with a loud bang before the cut was complete. The doors were slammed flat to the ground by cargo spilling out.
 

One of the deputies who’d been walking alongside the crash came running and yelled, “
What the hell are you doing?!
”
 

I began fielding bundles of metal chair and table parts to one side of the road as I said, “Lightening the load so my flitter can lift the truck off the car.”
 

Athena’s clone again said, “Hurry, please.”
 

An ambulance showed up, then three more and two fire trucks with two more sheriff cars. A deputy came trotting up and had a whispered conversation with the first deputy. More of the load slid out and soon I had all but the pieces on the ground directly behind the truck out of the way. Galatea lifted, then said the car was entangled beneath the truck. I tried to see what that meant exactly, but had to send probes to get a good look at some of the spots.
 

It was a matter of freeing the car from the truck at half a dozen points of contact. I sent probes to cut the points I couldn’t reach with my saber and the deputies really freaked.
 

One of them yelled, “You could start a fire with that thing!”
 

“No, I can’t. I’ll explain later.”
 

The other deputy yelled, “Stop, dammit!”
 

I understood his concern, but stopping to explain would take longer than doing it and Athena very much wanted that guy out of the car for better treatment. When one deputy grabbed my arm, I stunned them both enough to make them stagger back.
 

Two more cuts and Galatea was able to lift the truck while I lifted clear of it. Though she didn’t really need it, I fed her field a five-foot-wide, emerald-green power boost from my own capabilities. She blended my field with hers without comment.
 

Both deputies backed way off as she placed the truck well behind the crash. I dropped down and sliced the roof free of the car for Athena, then fielded it off to one side for her.
 

A deputy aimed his gun at me, yelling for me to drop my weapon and put my hands behind my head. Huh? I’d let my saber vanish. My hands were empty. What weapon was I supposed to
drop?
 

I stunned him cold and stunned the other one almost as hard. He fell to a sitting position. Athena lifted the driver out of the car as I waited for the deputy to gather his wits.
 

When he looked up, I said, “Put your gun away or I’ll stun you again. Now that she’s got him, I can take time to tell you why there was no problem.” Firing up the saber as a practice weapon, I said, “Touch it. It’s cold. When I thin the blade, it stays cold, but it’ll cut damned near anything. No sparks, no fire, no danger.”
 

Athena sent a copy of herself to us and said, “We removed him just in time, Ed. One of his broken ribs punctured his heart. I was able to contain and reoxygenate his blood, repair his injury, and restart his heart. He should recover well.”
 

“Thank you, ma’am.”
 

That copy of her smiled and vanished. As the deputy got to his feet, he waved a hand through the space where she’d been.
 

He said nothing as he looked up and down the accident scene, then thumbed at the guy on the ground and said, “Don said you’re wanted by the feds. I’m supposed to arrest you. Is that even possible?”
 

I shrugged. “Nah, prob’ly not, and even if you could, where would I be when the next crash happens? Sitting on my ass in a cell. I think I’m a lot more useful out here.”