Revolution World (9 page)

"This corn is good," said Seth, just to have something to say after conversation petered out.

"I'm glad you like it. One of my early projects actually," Clio laughed. "Mom let me start splicing as soon as I was old enough to pull things off her lab bench. This one is adapted to the high heat and low rainfall, but see?" She cupped her hands over the corn. He could see that it glowed a repulsive green color in the dark.

"I spliced in a fluorescence tag so I could tell if the graft took, but then couldn't get it out without messing up the new genes." She shrugged. "We sold it cheap to the local farmers."

They got up and began strolling around the field when Seth heard gunfire. He was about to hit the deck when he thought the better of it and jumped to cover Clio with his body.

"No, it's alright," she said, pushing him back. "Look, it's alright." She giggled and pointed to a cleared area away from the main group. It was filled with people facing away from the party.

Seth watched as a line composed of everything from teens to graying ladies took aim with a variety of weapons and suddenly fired off a volley into the trees. As they walked up, he could see two holographic birds suddenly dart out and fly around in front of the line of gunners. They took aim again and fired. One of the birds flickered out of existence.

"Bubba wins!" called out the woman operating the holograms. The crowd cheered for an older man who accepted the praise with a nod.

"Sweet! So I guess they are using bullets with RFID tags in them to tell who hits the targets?" he asked Clio.

"You got it. We have a guy who makes plastic bullets with the tags in them. He can make all sorts of bullets."

Seth laughed appreciatively. "I guess you couldn't use laser guns?"

She shook her head. "Nope. They aren't popular around here anyway. They gobble too much energy and most gun enthusiasts here take pride in the old-style shooters."

"Do they do this regularly? Because I really want to play." Seth rubbed his hands together gleefully.

"Oh sure. The Lions Club holds practice every other Tuesday. Nancy is the woman running it. Here, I'll give you her contact information." Clio tapped away on her handheld and it was done. Seth smiled at her with satisfaction. Every day he spent here, he was more convinced he'd made a wise choice in moving.

Seth watched a group of children lead around a small pony with a headless straw man tied to its back. Clio explained that one of Bigfoot Wallace's escapades had been to tie the headless body of a horse thief to a wild mustang and turn it loose.

"He thought it might get the word out that horse stealing was frowned upon," she said. "That horse ran around with a headless corpse on its back for a couple of years before someone caught it. Scared the bejeezus out of everyone for miles."

"Charming," he said, looking at the straw man.

Clio shrugged apologetically. "Not many of his stories are child friendly so we altered a few. In the kid version, he puts a headless straw man on a horse to scare everyone."

The smile on his face disappeared and he stood up abruptly. Before she could ask what was the matter, he strode off without a word. Her mouth hung slightly open as she followed his path. Then she looked beyond him and understood his alarm.

*****

In the distance, she could see a group of men surrounding Max and Gloria. They were too far away to hear, but their gestures and posture were obviously hostile. She darted after Seth. Her pulse raced as Max backed away from the men with his hands up in an entreating gesture. He was clearly trying to diffuse whatever the situation was, even as they pushed him roughly. Max backed up and the group disappeared from view into the brush.

Seth plunged into the woods. As Clio hurried after him, she caught the eyes of Kalliope and Harmony and gestured to indicate that trouble was brewing. They quickly followed her.

Harmony made her way through the crowd, but her path attracted notice. She heard some of the workers from the next town over grumbling that these foreigners were asking for trouble and deserved what they got.

Clio knew she was just behind Seth, yet it seemed like hours before she caught up to him in the woods and stopped in amazement at what she saw.

There were five large, red-faced men wheezing on the ground in various poses of pain. Gloria was gently dabbing blood off Seth's lip while unleashing a tidal wave of curses. Max was leaning against a tree, breathing hard and probing his jaw tenderly.

"What happened?" Clio cried. Max gestured to the men but didn't elaborate. Clio had trouble believing that Seth and his uncle could have taken out five corn-fed rednecks even if they had some weapons. And to do it so quickly was simply impossible. Seth pushed Gloria away and gave Clio a broken smile as she rushed up. Gloria clenched her fists as she watched him stumble away from her towards Clio.

"These two fools decided to show off," Gloria spat out heatedly. She stalked off towards the parking lot, flinging her shiny black hair over her shoulder.

Harmony arrived and, after a moment spent sizing up the situation, wordlessly began helping Max. Clio sputtered incoherently as she examined Seth and tried to form her question delicately.

"How on earth did two skinny nerd boys like you take on those huge rednecks?" she asked. She winced, knowing that had not been as diplomatic as it could be. Seth looked offended, which is to say he looked like a stuffed frog.

"We've been practicing Wing Tsun martial arts for decades," he said indignantly. He flung the empty beer bottle in his hand down for emphasis.

"Really?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow with a hint of a smile on her lips. "Decades?"

"Years." Max wheezed. Harmony began herding the men towards the cars. Kalliope bent down and spoke to the men on the ground in a low, growling tone. As Seth limped off with Clio in his wake, Kalliope waved them on and stayed where she was.

Seth got halfway to the parking lot before he turned and opened his mouth to lecture Clio on the benefits of not leaping to conclusions about people based on their physical appearance. Before he could start, Max spoke up.

"We also hit them with beer bottles the second they started throwing punches. All that time spent playing virtual games gives a man mighty quick reflexes," said Max quickly, shaking his head at Seth.

Max whispered soonly his nephew could hear him, "Sometimes it's best to lay low, nerd boy." Then he clapped the younger man on the shoulder and began walking briskly towards the cars.

"Well ladies," he announced with gusto, wincing just a little. "It appears we foreigners have derived all the fun allotted to us at this party. However, the night is cool, the stars are twinkling and it's the weekend. We should continue this party elsewhere. Also that magnificent cow, Gloria, took my car. Can I tempt any of you ladies to give me a ride back to our site? I can offer quite an elaborate array of alcoholic delights in exchange." He beamed at them optimistically.

"Uncle, I have my car," Seth began.

"You shut up." Max said to him with a poke in his ribs. "I think your car may be broken. Yes, it definitely looks broken. And who would not take pity on two marooned men?" His winning smile encompassed Kalliope as she walked up, shaking her head.

"My car is a nuclear-powered hover car," laughed Seth. "It never breaks."

"Really?" Kalliope asked with interest. "Nuclear?" She eyed the car with the piercing gaze of one who enjoys taking apart new things.

Clio knew that look well, since she currently possessed a compressed-air scooter that still made strange pinging noises after her sister had tinkered with it. She leapt into the conversation.

"Seth, you've been hit in the head and before that you had quite a lot of beer after a long day at work. You really shouldn't drive. Why don't we give you guys a lift over to our house for a while? Mom always has margarita fixings and an awesome collection of classic kung fu movies."

The plan was enthusiastically endorsed. Seth insisted on driving his car and asked Clio to go with him. He claimed that he needed someone with him in case his head wound made him woozy. She agreed and the rest of them smirked openly. As they drove, Clio warned him not to leave Kalliope alone unattended near his car, especially with tools in her hand.

"And she always has tools in her hand," Clio said as they followed Harmony's battered old truck, retrofit with an algae fuel-cell battery. They could see Max's animated form as he sat between Harmony and Kalliope.

"So those guys picked a fight with Max for being a foreigner," Seth said with a frown. "But I don't think they even realized that we aren't from the US. They kept calling us Yankees."

"I think Texans have always been a little house-proud," Clio said sadly. "It's pretty common to refer to all non-Texans as Yankees. Some folks around here think even Dallas is too far north to be considered safe from Yankee-ness. Since The Troubles, anti-foreigner sentiment has been pretty high. But I didn't think you'd have that kind of problem," She hoped this wouldn't spook him into leaving, but she could understand if it did.

"Me neither," he replied, lost in thought.

"Heck, most everybody in town is just tickled to have you here," Clio continued. "Even the anti-foreigner guys were impressed after they heard how Omerta negotiated those islands away from Canada and set themselves up as an independent country. They all want to hear that story from y'all firsthand. Those boys that bothered you aren't from our town, so they must not have heard when we put the word out."

"And we do look like foreigners," agreed Seth. "I think I must thank you again for helping to welcome us here. We can hardly expect everyone to be so receptive."

Clio had to agree that the Omerta people all seemed to be exceptionally pale. She decided it was because she was used to darker skin. After all, she lived in a sun-drenched state where Caucasians were a minority. Even she and her sisters were all deeply tanned. She supposed the Omerta transplants would get darker if they would ever leave their compound during the day.

"It could be worse. You could be from the government. Everybody hates those guys," she replied.

"Everyone outside of the US certainly hates your government," he said. "They are not popular inside their own country either?"

"They do to us what they do to everybody else," she said with disgust. "They accuse anyone who has what they want of being a terrorist and use it as an excuse to attack. At least other countries can fight back. Here, people just disappear in the night and their families find all their assets disappeared into the Homeland Security's grubby little hands. It's been pretty bad in Texas. We have lots of oil here and other things they want. On top of all the other problems, we have to worry about the government coming in to bulldoze our houses to get the oil underneath them."

"No wonder you people drink so much," Seth laughed as he pulled into the yard of a large rambling country house. The lights flickered on to reveal a long covered porch facing a large garden. Fireflies and the smell of honeysuckle floated through the night.

"Too true," she said as she got out of the car. More cars pulled in behind them. Kalliope and Harmony had apparently called a few friends.

The group headed into the house, but Kalliope caught Clio and pulled her aside.

"He has a nuclear-powered hovercar," Kalliope said significantly.

"I forbid you to take apart that man's car," Clio replied with feeling.

"No. I mean, yes, I would if given half a chance. But I was thinking the intruders in the lab a few months ago had a nuclear-powered hovercar."

Clio dismissed the idea with a laugh. "You can't be serious. Why on earth would Seth break into our lab? What could a bunch of computer guys want with gene techniques?"

Kalliope shrugged. "I don't know. Why is a high-powered country-owning company like Omerta moving into a backwater nowhere town like this? And why would they send their top guys to run it? Look, the whole thing is strange. Maybe they needed the money and they couldn't just hack in with their computers. I'm just saying they beat the snot out of those guys at the party in five seconds. That's weird. You need to be careful, my dear sibling."

"Oh come on, Kalli. We might as well suspect Bigfoot Wallace. We still have no idea who at Floracopia helped them out, do we?" Clio cried and threw up her hands.

Kalliope winced. "We are narrowing it down, anyway. And with all the new security features, it's much harder for someone sneak stuff out," she said defensively.

"Who is on the short list?"

"Bob the Money Guy, Joanna our Management Goddess, and Nancy the Super-Secretary," Kalliope replied.

Clio winced. "Dang! Not a good list. I would have said any of them were one hundred percent on our team. If any of them are passing company secrets out the back door, it hits us pretty hard."

"My bet is Bob. You know how he is," whispered Kalliope dramatically. "He gets all choked up at the idea of a pile of money. He'd sell his Grandma for the right price. And where does he get the money for all those suits and trips to the big city?"

Kalliope shook her head. It was not good to wonder if your lifelong friends and neighbors were selling you out to make a quick buck. "Well, look into him and the other two, but do it quietly. We can't really afford to lose any of them."

Kalliope raised a hand. "What am I? An idiot? I'll be the soul of stealth. We don't want the guilty party to leave before we figure out what they sold and to whom they sold it."

Clio shook her head again and changed the subject. "What did you say to those guys who attacked Max anyway?" Clio asked.

"I just explained a few things to them. We can't have too much attention drawn to this town right now. It's a sensitive time for us, as you well know." Kalliope was referring to certain little side projects the sisters were involved in.

Clio nodded heavily and turned to enter the house with a sigh. Kalliope stopped her again.

"You like him," Kalliope stated, giving her sister her total attention.

Clio just shrugged and blushed a little. "I'm single. He's single. There are possibilities there."