The Blue-Haired Bombshell

Table of Contents

 

‘‘No one who got two paragraphs into this dark, droll, downright irresistible hard-boiled-dick novel could ever bear to put it down until the last heart pounding moment. Zach is off and running on his toughest case yet, and there is no way he is leaving us behind, no matter what the danger. This is futuristic pulp for the thinking reader, the one who enjoys a good chuckle, some mental exercise, and the occasional inside joke. Sit down with
The Plutonium Blonde
and a cold one and just see when you manage to pull your peepers away from the page again. On second thought, John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem are too damn good to be interrupted for something trivial; skip the cold one and save yourself a trip to the can.’’ —
SF Site

‘‘I had a great deal of fun with
The Plutonium Blonde
and have been looking forward to the sequel ever since. Well, it’s finally here, and it’s a good one. This is more humor than detective story, although Johnson and HARV are a pretty good pair of investigators as well as downright funny. If you like your humor slap-stick and inventive, you need look no further for a good fix.’’ —
Chronicle

‘‘It’s no mystery what kind of novel John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem’s
Doomsday Brunette
is. The title says it all. The story is hard-boiled science fiction at its pulpy best. Zakour and Ganem’s Zachary Johnson novels—which include
The Plutonium Blonde
and the forthcoming
The Radioactive Redhead—
are laugh-out-loud, action-packed mystery thrillers that both revere and lampoon the golden age of pulp fiction.’’

—
The Barnes and Noble Reviews

THE PLUTONIUM BLONDE
THE DOOMSDAY BRUNETTE
THE RADIOACTIVE REDHEAD
THE FROST-HAIRED VIXEN

The Blue-Haired Bombshell

Copyright © 2007 by John Zakour

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Michael Koelsh.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1424.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead
is strictly coincidental.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as ‘‘unsold and destroyed’’ to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this ‘‘stripped book.’’

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

First Paperback Printing, December 2007
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

To my wife Olga and son Jay
for putting up with me while I write these things.

And to everybody who attended Comic Con 2007
because it was just so cool.

Once again my thanks to Betsy Wolheim at DAW for giving me a chance to write this and the next two books. Thanks Betsy. I also would like to thank Debra Euler and Joshua Starr at DAW for all the help they gave me on this book.

Of course I’d need to thank my agent Joshua for doing all those things agents do. I also need thank my ex-co-writer Larry Ganem, I will always be grateful for Larry for helping me get this series rolling. I hope I improve with each new book.

Finally, I have to thank all the people that contributed (directly or indirectly) to characters in this book: Olga, Carolina, Natalia, Mariela, Mireya, Carlos, Carlos, Andres, Tang, Shannon, Michelle, Mary Martha, Mary, Steve, Harris, Tom, Ron, Elena, April and others I probably forgot. (Don’t worry, Jay, you’ll be getting your own character soon.)

Chapter 1

The vine twisted itself around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. No way I was going to let the holographic epitaph on my tombstone read:

To make matters worse, I hadn’t even had my morning cup of joe yet.

‘‘Come to my lab and pick up your new gun,’’ my good buddy Dr. Randy Pool had said. He never bothered to mention that he’d added an arboretum to his lab and populated it with killer plants. That’s what I get for hanging out with mad mega-geniuses.

My holographic assistant, HARV, appeared before me. Looking down his nose at me and shaking his head, he said, ‘‘Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into.’’

‘‘Me! You should have warned me that Randy’s lab was being overrun by killer plants!’’

HARV shook his balding artificial head again. ‘‘Zach, one, these are plants. They can’t exactly run. Two, since Randy modified his computer systems, I no longer have complete access. Randy built me, so he is the one person who can construct defenses to keep me out. It’s really quite impressive.’’ HARV paused for a nano in order to let me process what he had said. ‘‘Three, they are defensive plants. So technically they are just defending themselves-—it’s what they do. If you read your e-mail from Dr. Pool you’d know this . . .’’

I tugged on the vine that had a death grip on my throat. DOS it was strong! ‘‘They’re defending themselves quite well,’’ I told HARV.

HARV nodded in agreement. ‘‘Yes. They are very good at what they do.’’

Another vine grappled onto my left ankle, snaking up my leg.

‘‘Can you help?’’ I asked, struggling to pull the vine off me.

HARV shrugged. ‘‘Being a hologram, I’m not exactly built to get physical. Though I am working on it.’’

HARV is wired directly into my brain through a lens in my optic nerve. It wasn’t a pleasant experience to go through and it hasn’t always been a joyride sharing my brain with him. Still, there are instances when having him hardwired to me is advantageous. I thought this should have been one of those times.

‘‘In the past, you’ve allowed me to amplify and use the electromagnetic energy from my body as a weapon.’’

‘‘True,’’ HARV agreed. ‘‘But the new computer modifications Randy has done to his lab are also limiting our interface.’’

Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be one of those times. This meant HARV was able to critique my performance but not help in the least. Randy always insists that I’m his test pilot; right now I felt more like his crash test dummy.

‘‘I can give you the weakness of the grape plant that this plant is based on though,’’ HARV said. HARV won’t admit it, but he has a deep-seated longing to be useful. HARV’s eyes blinked for a few nanos. ‘‘They are very susceptible to cold.’’

‘‘Great! Can you lower the temperature in the building?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yes,’’ HARV said.

Finally, a small spark of hope.

‘‘Of course, I can only lower the temperature five degrees, not nearly enough to make a difference,’’ HARV added, smothering that spark.

That made it clear that HARV wasn’t going to be much help. Time to search for other options. I looked around. I was in the arboretum of my more than slightly eccentric, mad scientist buddy Doctor Randy Pool’s lab. Until a few moments ago I had no idea that the lab even had an arboretum. Randy was mainly an electronic and virtual kind of guy. I didn’t know he even had an interest in botany.

Like everything else in Randy’s lab, the arboretum was first class, over the top and through the roof, with a touch of geek. It was a room domed in clear Plexiglas. When I say room, I mean BIG room, at least as large as my house. Not sure how I hadn’t noticed this before. There was a nice, paved path traversing the room that was lined with vines and dotted with benches to sit on. Holographic birds (at least I assumed they were holograms) flew back and forth as crickets chirped in the background. I knew the crickets weren’t real, as they were chirping the top 400 hits from the last hundred years. (Hearing crickets chirp ‘‘Hound Dog’’ is almost as surreal as being attacked by a plant.) Unlike the main area of Randy’s lab, this area was designed to be quiet and serene. This was meant to be a nice place for one to sit and collect their thoughts. Except, of course, for the killer grapevines. Though I was fairly certain these weren’t the norm.

I glanced around the room. Randy was there, but he’d be no help as he was completely entwined by a vine. The vine had him so wrapped up I could barely make out his red hair peeking through the top of the plant. Another plant had a tall, blue-haired Asian woman in its clutches. Even with her mostly entangled in plant vines, I could tell she was easy on the eyes. From the blue hair I knew she was probably from the Moon. A Mooner, as we call them here on Earth. The woman was struggling, but to no avail.

I needed to do something and do it fast. If I had my gun I could pop it into my hand and blow the plants away. (Now that’s something I never thought I’d say.) Of course, if I had my gun I wouldn’t be here. The reason I was visiting Randy today was to pick up my gun, as he had just finished its latest firmware upgrade. I’ve never been a fan of guns. They are noisy and can be messy. Still, this was one of those times that reinforced why I like to carry a high-powered Colt 4500 up my sleeve. Sometimes it bothered me that I felt so insecure without a weapon up my sleeve. Of course, now I could see why.