Lawless Sign Part Eight (Fiction)

Chapter 13: Universe of Theft

I was standing on the corner of a side street, watching Vrecky’s one tail light diminish into the distance. The immediate area was nicely illuminated, but quiet.

Windy’s voice was in my helmet. “Scans are read. I have heard from Stan. I have been contacted by Greg Armstrong. I just got off the horn with your new pal Margo Pines. Sounds like a lovely woman. There’s news on the people you zapped at the factory. I dug up some stuff on Royce Cole. There are some readings from our pal Sulfer I discovered. What do you want first, special one?’

Naturally I asked her for something not on the menu. “What about the pyramid thing? What is it?”

She reported “They’re all over the place. In all nine of our galaxies. There’s a bunch of them on the Intersection, where Countess Rezvulga lives. They’re ancient, but not from the Teachers. There was even one on Avant Frexis.”

I said “It wasn’t in Arsenal. I remember running into one that a pirate group was using as a hangar on an asteroid. But you don’t remember what they were supposed to be?”

“Let’s not blame my scatty memory here,” Windy said. “Maybe no one knows? They’re hollow, not at all like the pyramids in Egypt. And they are always in that funny joined at the nose configuration. I don’t remember if they were all the same size. Some sort of ancient pre fab shelter, maybe?”

“Suitable for anyone who needs four giant stone caverns with plenty of forty-five degree angles?” I commented.  “We have one hundred years of space faring experience between us and we are drawing a blank. What about the Authorian Empire? Do they have bases near Earth? Did they have these pyramid things in their space? What about the Meteor Beasts and the Corona Surfers? There’s got to be a common thread here.”

“That did kind of throw me,” Windy said. “If the Authorians are still around, they’re tucked in Galaxy Six—which is totally typical space and not one of the funky areas.  I never met a Corona Surfer. Corona Surfers had gone back to living in mud huts. (Windy’s allusion was not literal. It was common for space faring races to go through phases of technological rejection, generally during a time of social disorder. Corona Surfers suffered from periods of religion-based regression.) Meteor Beasts were pretty common out in the plantations, where I lived as a girl. They were very gregarious. I can’t say I know anything about them biologically, other than they breathed air and ate food. Kind of vulgar folks, actually. Didn’t wear clothing. Huge, too. Like twelve feet tall and fat, bulbous. Kind of like a Paladine, only no tail or scales. Not much of a mouth either. Sort of undersized heads. They were all white or pink or grey. I’m not sure if it was uniform for the race, but the individuals were all solid one color. A few of them were very famous comedians.”

“So we got nothing,” I declared in a sigh.

“Wait! That’s not what I meant,” Windy said. “We’ve found the thread. Remember you said the transmat back on Tiamore reminded you of an Authorian Devotional Chamber. That might not have been wrong. Meteor Beasts and Corona Surfers are both Authorian peoples, or can be. (By which she meant that not all Meteor Beasts were Authorian.) The Authorians are a polyglot. Or their empire, empires are. There is an Authorian race, too. Big green and red lizard brutes, with all sorts of psychic stuff. The plague of space, the lot of them. They were precognizant, had some sort of automated oracles on their ships. We’re lucky they turned their guns on each other, or we would all be speaking Authorian. So they could all be Authorian, including Sulfur. Most of the Authorian people are Araks: Zeds and a type of Arak Alpha called a Starlord. Earth people are some sort of Arak Betas—really near Zeds—so it does make some sense that this would be happening here. More! The Voliant Wave collapse of one hundred and fifty years ago radiated out of the Authorian Empire—sphere five, Galaxy Six—dead center of the empire.”

I was awaiting some sort of conclusion from Windy’s masterpiece of non-linear thinking, but that was it. After I was sure there wasn’t--More!—I said “I’m glad we’re getting someplace. Where, I don’t know, but I will take your word for it. You heard from Stan. When is Stan getting in?”

“Zoom tubes! Outlaw matter! I have coordinated readings. The five  zoom tubes you have at the Roymarillo Building is wrong. There’s only three there, but one is the master—the master for all of them, if it’s the type it seems to be. The master is on the top floor, probably next to the one also on that floor. The third one is directly under it, on the first floor. The other one on Madison Street is in what seems to be a bank building, an abandoned bank. I’m not sure if it’s really empty since there’s an active business license for that address and the building is owned by a local church. There’s another one at an airport, Palwaukee Airport or Chicago Executive Airport. The map reads both ways. That goes to a hangar owned by Heritage Auctions, which I discovered has a connection to Royce Cole. Now none of those places are hot for outlaw matter although there is something around the airport that is. There’s also something showing on the top floor of the Roymarillo Building --an open gateway, perhaps—but it’s not hot for outlaw matter. The hospital. The hospital in Indian Head Park has a zoom tube and is showing a very high concentration of outlaw matter. That’s the hottest spot. Then there’s the mystery on Chicago and where Avers should go through. That’s fuzz, showing both a zoom tube and outlaw matter reflections but no direct location.”

“I’m going to drive Stan through that neighborhood, after I pick him up. Hopefully something will shake loose,” I said. “Could the extra reading we’re getting from the top of the Roymarillo be the astroglance?”

“You didn’t scan for the astroglance. But no. It would have come up as an astroglance,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure it came up as an astroglance before. You were saying that the Authorians had some sort of oracle in their vessels. That matches up with what the Nedor Services guys thought the astroglance was. They think they can predict the weather years in advance with it, pick lotto numbers, pick stocks. That’s how they were going to make themselves rich with it.—“

“—Who told them that? Sulfur?”

“Whomever sent them the videotape and the paddle weapons. Royce Cole was set up. Nedor Services had a reason to whack Cole previously. But someone sent them the weapons and gave them instructions how to breach the tower’s security. And showed them where to pick up a nice chamber to contain a walking thoughts creature.”

Windy continued “I’ve never been close enough to an astroglance to tell you either way. Could the astroglance be the same thing as the Authorian oracle? I don’t know. Stan will be coming in at 6:15 AM. That’s at Midway Airport. Greg Armstrong is not sure when he can meet you in Melrose Park. It may be as late as 5:00. His step father is missing. Hap left abruptly for some reason about two hours ago. Dana Garner, Greg’s step mother and Angie Newsome, his half sister, are still up, blowing weed it seems, and waiting for Hap to get back. Or they are worried about Hap. It was sort of garbled. Dawn is 6:36. I’m not sure if you want to be spooking around in Honey when you pick up Stan. And if you are going by car, I’m not sure if you will have enough time to meet with Greg and then pick Stan up.”

“I’ll be going by car,” I explained. “I’m hoping to get Colbert’s car from the condo.”

She asked “Are you bringing Honey back now?”

“I’ve got her on remote, in case I can’t get Colbert’s car,” I said.

“Her distortion field is not going to be worth crap come sun up. With all the UHF bouncing around, the remote is speculative. Just saying,” she said. “What do we need Doctor Colbert’s car for?”

“Back up plan. Give Stan and Doc their cars and an ATM or so full of cash and send them on their way. Maybe we throw in some new identification for them,” I said.

“Captain Meteor! You’ve returned to me. This maniac kidnapped me and jumped us through a Voliant Wave transmat and now he thinks he’s going to take on a whole alien government by his lonesome,” she said. “Thank the god and gods you’re back to save me from him.”

“Per procedure, mine, I’ll take small victories if I can’t get big ones. We can salt away the people we have sprung. We now know enough to melt away ourselves. As long as there isn’t anything imminent in the offing, I can back off this guy. That might even be for the best. Once I know more, I can expose him or gum him up at my leisure,” I said.

“I’m voting for living through this,” Windy said. She then reported “Three of the people from the factory are being transferred to the hospital in Indian Head Park. Three of the four who were admitted to the ICU as brain dead. Only George Volkman is still at Lutheran General. Oh, and Nancy Volkman has been arrested. She escaped from a minimum security prison two years ago where she had been serving a sentence for kiting checks and insurance fraud.”

That made five of the people from the factory who had been arrested on outstanding charges. There were still a few workers who either couldn’t remember who they were or were simply not willing to identify themselves to the authorities. This was casting doubt on claims of mass amnesia. Thus far, no evidence of a neurological contaminant had been found at the factory. Allegedly Greg Armstrong was going to fill me in on the owner’s next moves.

Or he was going to tell me something. He had sounded urgent.

“Anything else?” I asked. “You said you had something new on Royce Cole?”

“It seems like he is still alive, although there is a Royce Cole who is dead. The one who founded the oil company is dead. The one who owns AUAQ is his nephew, who is ninety-three. And then there is a nephew of the nephew and his son, both named Royce Cole, who are fifty-three and twenty-six, respectively.—“

“Are both of them still alive?”

“On paper at least.  They are officers of Royce Cole Oil, which is a private firm. Royce Cole the eldest was a prominent collector of antique amusement park attractions and memorabilia. The collection was sold by Heritage Estates Auctions about a year ago. The place to view the collection was at A.U.A.Q. Services hangar at Palwaukee Airport. It doesn’t say how much the collection went for.”

“Is it possible for walking thoughts to sub-divide? To reproduce?” I asked, not actually expecting Windy to have an answer. “Do the humans have any history of walking thought outbreaks or sightings?”

“Yes. The humans call beings such as myself ghosts. They have it tied directly to the afterlife,” Windy said. “Earth has electrical weather and pack animals and that’s all that’s needed for the formation of us, so we can assume some indigenous forms have manifested. And there are a lot of ghost stories across all of their cultures. They’ve gotten as far as ‘ectoplasm’, but that’s it for human understanding. I can check further, but it seems like all of their walking thoughts are typical to what we channel.”

“Every planet rewrites the rules of nature. Typical,” I said. “What did you get from Margo?”

“Charming woman. With her own private militia. Just your type. She’s dispatching a team of eight men to assist you. Black van. Silenced weapons. Helicopter.  Did we agree to something, special one?”

“Not really. She’s just showing her appreciation. It seems she’s still missing twenty-four of her employees. Although she’s a little iffy as to whether Royce Cole took these people captive before or after her husband’s raid on the Roymarillo building—“

“—West Town Bank Building is what the city calls it. The bank that was at our building was a subsidiary of the West Town Bank,” Windy reported, then adding “I found more symbols from Sulfur. It’s a little unclear when he left them. And I can’t translate them.—“

“—We should be able to translate Authorian, right?”

“Not Authorian from 150 years ago. We have all current languages. We would have a hard time getting by in our own language from 150 years ago. I don’t think these symbols are Authorian. It’s our character set. If anything, it’s an archaic accounting language.—“

“--So how the hell is Sulfur getting around on Earth?”

“Maybe Sulfur speaks English?”

“Hold that thought. I’m going to go kick myself—all the way to Colbert’s condo.”

Which is what I did. I landed Honey on the roof of a movie theater. Then I walked a few blocks east down Webster. I had Honey fly to the roof of a hospital near Webster and Clark, via remote. From what I could tell, the remote was working, at least at close range.

Pierre Colbert’s condo was on Webster street near Clark. It was in a three story, dark sandy building with protruding black windows and vine covered walls. Each of the some twenty jutting, cube-like units had its own separate entryway. Colbert’s was on the second floor, near the center of the building. Parking for the building was in a covered area, facing the alley.

Telepathic survey disclosed there were quite a few people at home and some of them were still awake. It being 2:35 in the morning, none of them were focused on activities happening in the tree lined street. I had some cover, provided I didn’t make a ton of noise.

Colbert’s house was in River Forest. He moved to this condo thirteen months ago after his wife’s lawyer served him with divorce papers. Not that the Colberts had a perfect marriage, but the divorce was a surprise. It was the first time he had ever seen the three hundred pound, five foot two lawyer Leon Bernstein before. At Bernstein’s prompting, Emile had filed a police report that day claiming that Pierre had beat her. He followed up days later with a court order of protection and a motion to vacate the family abode.

Doctor Colbert has no memory of having struck his wife. They had some trouble in their marriage ten years before. The issue was conception and fertility treatments. After ten years of increasingly more expensive treatments, Pierre wanted to give up. Emile had never come to terms with this and he suspected that she had been researching surrogates on the side for some time.

But that wasn’t a current subject. Sixteen months ago Emile had quit her lucrative private practice for a position at the hospital in Indian Head Park. The salary offered was double what she had been clearing, came with an impressive title, a staff and a large office. It was a dream job, except that she couldn’t talk about what she was doing, even to Pierre.  For the larcenous amount of money she was being paid, Pierre advised her to stick it out. She wasn’t very happy about it, missed her previous patients and had started musing aloud about the concept of them adopting a teenager out of foster care. Pierre had been trying to make as many comforting noises as he could, except on the adoption subject, which he was adamantly against.

That’s it. The next thing he knew he was being hit with divorce papers and a protection order.

This condo had been purchased ten years before, to act as a remote office. Emile had a number of clients who didn’t want to be seen visiting a shrink and the condo proved to be a good alternative. The quite meticulous and tech savvy Emile had also set up a data center here, to act as a remote back up for files originated at their home and at their other offices.

(Because you never know when some marauding extraterrestrial monk might barge in and destroy all your computer files with his sonic helmet device.)

I gained the door of the condo without anyone noticing. The iron landing was shrouded from above by the broad branches of a tree. Naked ivy strands haloed the doorway. I triggered the helmet to unlock the door, but nothing happened.

Hell of a time for the thing to blink out on me.

Telepathic survey was honing in on a person inside the darkened condo. My error. I was about to override the failsafe, too.

It’s Hap Garner, Dana Garner’s missing husband, Greg Armstrong’s abusive stepfather and, as it turns out, the owner operator of Heritage Estates Auctions. He and Leon Bernstein have been looting the estate of Royce Cole for a year and a half. And it’s not the first time they have looted an estate together. It’s actually something of a regular gig, dating back ten years or so. Normally they tip each other off and work in tandem, but this time their lead came from a young relative of Royce Cole, who is acting as an executor of some kind but who is not an heir. For confusion’s sake, his name is also Royce Cole. Of course, in this case it is not actually looting an estate, inasmuch as Royce Cole the elder is comatose in a certain Indian Head Park area hospital.

What a charming small universe of theft I have discovered.

Currently Hap is here at the bequest of Leon Bernstein to find out where Pierre Colbert has bugged out to. Currently it is probably not a good idea for me to be by the door where Hap could see at least my outline if he chances to take a look out of the condo’s smoked front window. I activated my belt and floated a story up. I hoped Hap would still be in the helmet’s range.

This is not much of a condo. It is three small rooms aligned in a cluster around a tiny bathroom with stand up shower. The kitchen door leads to a staircase down to the parking area. The door where I was previously leads to what would be a front room, if it wasn’t set up as an office with a couch. This front room adjoins the bathroom, a back room and the kitchen. Its kitchen is similarly set up as an office, complete with several computers within a curved brown pasteboard desk. The kitchen is otherwise rather cluttered with an over supply of furniture, mostly file cabinets which I am guessing were taken from the back room. Pierre Colbert has set up a futon, a night table and a hanging rod filled with clothing in the back room.

I am not sure what Hap is looking for and neither is Hap. Airline tickets. Signs of packing. Something Colbert wrote down. Any sign that Colbert was about to fly the coop. Hap does not seem to know that Colbert has largely been living elsewhere for the past few months, although he has visited the doctor at the lab. Hap has not been to the lab today and has not been ordered to check it out. Hap seems not to be aware that I have destroyed the lab.

“Bill, there’s a motorcyclist floating out our window.”

I am heading for the roof. Attempting to reestablish contact with Hap.

“No, there isn’t.”

“Yes, there was. He was holding a tuba. Or a saxophone. Or a French horn.”

“Well, he left. Could be the tree. It’s starting to rain or slush or something out there.”

I believe the technical term is sleet. I hate sleet. Honey has just issued a sleet alert. I think my queen of space is dreading another burial in sleet.

Hap has halted. He has heard the footfalls of the couple above him. He turns off his penlight. Thanks to the tinted front window, he is now in near total darkness. The only light he can see comes from the computers in the kitchen. I hope that doesn’t prompt him to take the computers.

To describe Hap, he is six feet two inches tall and lanky. He is 70 years old and has a full head of jet black hair in a military cut. Since his discharge from the Marines forty-five years ago, Hap has spent an aggregate fifteen years in prison, mostly on charges stemming from  his abuse of substances and hair trigger temper. Oddly, he is something of an expert in antiques, specifically cigar boxes and decanters. This knowledge base was what led him to a career in estate sales.

The noise now passed, Hap turns his red penlight back on. Good. He’s forgotten about the computers. Now he’s looking for cash or drugs or guns. Just while he is at it, that is. Damn. He wants to steal Doctor Colbert’s car, too. Looking for the keys. I have the keys. Come on. What is Colbert’s car? Where is it? He’s going to steal it later, but he wants the keys now. It’s oval shaped. It’s deep crimson. Jaguar. Has a cat thing on the front. Shouldn’t be hard for me to find.

His light just passed on one of the file cabinets. Wait. Look back there. There’s a name on that cabinet. He’s not interested. Headed for the bathroom. Nothing in there but aftershave and out of date Mydol. And toothpaste. Used, not his brand. Back in the living room. Checking the couch for change, are we?

He’s just being thorough. And he has found a lot of money in books and couches in the past. Hap’s made a fairly clean sweep of the place. It is dusty and it doesn’t seem that anyone has been in here recently.

Hap knows a lot of the people who were at the factory. In his auction business he has some call to contract day labor. Many of the people at the factory were originally brought in to move around things for the auction at the hangar.

He’s seen Sulfur. Up close and personal. At the hangar during the auction. Sulfur was motionless by the automated fortune teller. Just another antique amusement park attraction. He remembers it. Because Sulfur is pretty darn frightening. And because Bernstein told him not to bother to move or inventory the thing.

He doesn’t think anything has been ‘done’ to the people at the factory. Hap thinks they are just being offered an ample quantity of whatever their drug of choice is—or just cash under the table.  As for the incident at the factory, Bernstein has instructed him that it is none of his concern.  And that his voiced suspicion that Greg Armstrong in some way screwed the whole thing up is wrong. Hap has made half a million off this affair so far, so he’s willing to trust Bernstein.

Hap checks his light up watch. In two hours and thirty-three minutes he has to make a phone call. It’s to someone  who sounds as if they are underwater. Hap thinks that this distortion is due to the fact that it’s a signal scrambled off a satellite.

Hap thinks this is all about smuggling communications equipment. (And, he is sure, drugs, because everything is about drugs.) He thinks this because he personally has the giant green tubes made at a shop in McCook. He drops off the glass from the factory and then pays for the bulbs. He also drops off blueprints at various machine shops around Stone Park and picks up the finished goods.

Having seen the man-sized tubes in their assembled form, his impression of them is that they are antennas of some sort, not a neurological scrambling weapon. They have been making these for five years. Which might mean that the tubes used on Tiamore came from Earth.

There’s a plane in the hangar. A ‘warthog’, a rather well armored military jet aircraft. But it’s not there now. He’s seen the tubes loaded under the plane’s wings. Sal Lieberman has done the final fittings. From what he’s seen, the couplings appear to be capacitors of some sort. None of that is good news.  

He’s also delivered a number of other tubes to the hangar, but they are just the bulbs, Nothing is inside them. I once spent a few months of my life inside one of those. Medical suspension tubes. Just need to fill them with chilled water and anti-freeze and you can keep someone in medical suspension forever.

You’ve been very helpful, Hap. Thank you for sharing. Finding out who you are calling in two hours and thirty-three minutes would involve actually meeting you and I am not sure that is worth the risk. Hap does not have the phone number memorized. It’s not programmed into his cell phone. It’s on a card in his wallet.

That’s it. Light up a cigar. Pick your nose. He was so professional up to this moment. He doesn’t know anything about the hospital in Indian Head Park, other than he’s been told that’s where the old Royce Cole is. Per him, Pierre Colbert is just some quack Bernstein has something on. He is unaware of the warehouse on Chicago Avenue. He doesn’t know Mister Nick, Greg Armstrong’s mysterious underwater phone pal, even though he and Greg live in the same house. All in all, he thinks Royce Cole the younger is pulling the strings here, but he’s never met him. 

There’s one other person involved in the hierarchy of this scheme who Hap has met, but does not know the name of: the plane’s pilot. Short man, in his fifties, also with a military haircut. Was wearing a grey sweater with black reinforcements at the shoulders both times Hap saw him at the hangar with Bernstein. Hap overheard Bernstein saying the guy had just got in from Afghanistan. But something makes Hap think the pilot isn’t in the military, but rather a contractor of some sort.

On the other hand, Hap thinks Sal Lieberman is a co-pilot or a navigator, even though he’s a retired prison guard and kosher butcher.

Maybe I should nab Hap?. He has the blueprints for the bulbs in the trunk of his Alero. I let the opportunity pass. My thinking is that if I really want something out of his car, I can have Greg Armstrong grab it.

Hap is on his way back home. Just as soon as he is done with his little cheap cigar. It appears Dana doesn’t let him smoke at home or in the car.

Hap may have screwed me up. He left through the front door, and not all that quietly. And now the upstairs neighbors are up. It might not be worth the risk, but I need to get at those computer files and I did promise Doctor Colbert I would retrieve his spare bag. And for some reason I want a closer look at that file cabinet Hap glossed over.

Captain Meteorphone in arm, I crossed  to the back of the building and silently dropped down to the parking lot’s roof. I then hovered down to the pavement before the parking lot and ambled my way to the apartment’s back entrance.

Ever get the feeling that you have forgotten something? I forgot to look for Colbert’s car. There were several aisles of parking spaces under the canopy, all somewhat remote to the back of the building. It wasn’t so much a garage as it was a roof-covered communal lot. The area was open to the alley and not lit.

By contrast, the condo’s bright as day rear entrance was enclosed in a shaft that it shared with the unit’s two vertical neighbors. Telepathic survey detailed that the neighbors on the first floor were asleep. The neighbors above, whom I had previously disturbed, were still milling about.

The woman above thought she had just seen someone, probably Hap, going out the front door. She has seen Emile and Pierre before, knows them by face but not by name. Knows they are both doctors of some kind. She has seen Emile rather recently, within the past two weeks or so, leaving the condo. I suppose that’s good news.

I triggered the helmet and the kitchen door’s locks clicked open. The smell of cigar smoke was still present. Thanks to me, it was now in the stairway. Undaunted, I went in.

The computers in the darkened kitchen were on, but idle. Two were  big and the other one was small with an integrated screen. The small one is called a laptop. End of Captain Meteor’s computer knowledge. I waved my free hand over the computers and my helmet reported that it had copied all of the information from them. That, rationally, should have satisfied me. After all, it worked with the cell phones.

But these devices were bigger than cell phones. That was the entirety of my justification  for  deciding  to take the computers with me, just in case the transfer had not functioned. Carrying  three computers and the Captain Meteorphone was daunting, unless I wanted to distend my mechanical arm beyond human length. I wouldn’t just look like a biker with a giant ape arm, it would ruin the suit’s entire outline.

Taking a three hundred pound filing case, the doctor’s spare bag, three computers and the Captain Meteorphone was even more daunting, until I remembered my belt device. I piled everything carefully on the filing cabinet’s top and then used the belt to levitate myself and the cabinet. The whole grouping of us slowly floated in the general direction of the kitchen.

I had a much better justification for taking the file cabinet. It wasn’t like the other filing cabinets. It was older and made out of wood. All three drawers of the cabinet had the words ‘Original Alien Medical Records’ printed on them in tape.

I did take the time to examine the cabinet’s contents. The drawers were filled with seven by seven cards made from cyanton laminate—an aluminum like substance primarily known for its ability to hold a magnetic charge indefinitely. In this case the application is to ensure that the markings on the plate are indelible. The writing on them was Authorian, official Authorian, which does not seem to have changed much in 150 years. Toovy’s tool was able to read them fine.

All of the cards are from Forchan Bacha Oasis Drydock Public Library Civil Defense Bunker. “Forchan Bacha” is navigational notation, describing a non-system body that is not a planet—probably an asteroid “Oasis Drydock” is listed as the asteroid’s name. “Public Library Civil Defense Bunker” are written as if it was one building—which would not be a bad use for hollow conjoined pyramids from beyond the start of time.  These cards were originally mounted to the fronts of some very high end suspension tubes—the type people running a Voliant Wave enabled dry dock space ship fast repair facility could easily afford. (Knowing the Authorians, it was probably mandatory.) The case had to have thousands of these cards.

Listed on the cards was the person’s name, race, planet of origin, sex, age in straight years, time spent in the Voliant Wave and what they seemed to be suffering from at the time that they were loaded into the tube. I didn’t have time to scan more than a dozen of them. No two were the same race. Not all of the people were dead or even injured. The time stamps seemed similar, but this is where Toovy’s tool was less than certain.

Where were these people? What happened to them?

I wanted all of the cards.

I should note that I didn’t check any of the other filing cabinets.

The whole floating mass of us became jammed up in the kitchen. There was just no way to get through it without moving furniture around. So I laid the cabinet flat on its back and piled the computers, Captain Meteorphone and the doctor’s bag across the drawer’s faces. Configured such, we were able to wedge into the kitchen, but could not navigate the door.

It then occurred to me that I did not need the filing cabinet, but rather just the drawers. I removed the drawers and clustered the other items around them. For technical reasons I had to sit near the items, in a manner which was later described to the police as ‘Indian style’, in order to get the whole group to levitate. So set, out the back door we went.

Had I locked the door behind me upon first entering the kitchen, I would have had to unlock the door before going out. This would have triggered the failsafe system that initiates a telepathic sweep before unlocking the door. Because the door was unlocked, this did not happen. Not that this is an excuse.

Gauging from the shriek the upstairs neighbor lady erupted with, the sight of myself and all of these things blithely defying gravity in the stair well was extremely startling. I didn’t know what to say, so I just waved at the woman. She shot up the stairs to gibber at her husband and eventually call the police. At the same time, I and my collection wafted into the parking lot.

I was looking for an oval car. All of the cars were oval. A crimson oval car. Then I remembered I had the keys. I pushed a button on the key holder and the lights of a vehicle came on. It may have been an assumption, but it seemed like a good one. That is where I was going.

Not that I have checked it at this atmosphere and gravity rating, but normally the belt device has a top lateral air speed of a blistering twelve miles per hour. This device, which I will call a ‘floaty thing’, is not equipped with an atmosphere damper. The better version comes with shields and a magnetic hoist and all sorts of other wonderful add ons. In keeping with procedure, mine, I bought the cheaper one. To be honest, I previously thought of the floaty thing as just a toy.

If I wanted to go rip off at twelve miles an hour, I would have wound up splaying the contents of the drawers behind me. Instead we proceeded at an even more majestic pace through the air.

I was quite aware that the upstairs neighbor was now making her call to the police. And, no, I did not check for video cameras in the parking lot. I say that in retrospect. It didn’t cross my mind at the time.

I am sure that the Jaguar XKR is a fine car. It does not, however, have much of a trunk nor a back seat. If I wanted to take my collection with me, the car would have to be customized. Specifically I felt that I needed to remove the passenger seat.

There is probably some sane way to remove this seat which does not involve using your cybernetic arm to tear it into three pieces and then randomly hurl chunks of it out of the car body. Before the third yank I did manage to unscrew the lug nuts from the mooring. That helped. I then compelled the floaty thing to stuff my collection into the car.

As for what happened next, I would like to blame the sleet.

    

Coda

How’s this for a bad idea: Pretending to be the Colbert’s downstairs neighbor Eugene Randall, I contacted the Chicago Police to report a possible break in. I gave a very precise description of Hap Garner as the person I had seen leaving the condo’s front door. Even though it would have been impossible for me to have seen him get into his car at the hospital’s parking lot, I also detailed his black Oldsmobile Alero and gave the plate numbers. How very nice for Concerned Citizen Eugene Randall.

Eventually this did lead to Hap being arrested. Not that this did me any good.

Unfortunately, two minutes before my call, Concerned Citizen Eugene Randall was one of a pair of people to report that I had side swiped their cars on my way out of the parking lot. There were also reports from the owner of the car across the alley that I hit in the rear and from the driver of the car that I ran off the road on Cleveland. Actually, I made my call just after the incident on Cleveland. I thought it very timely. It wasn’t.

The first police car had arrived in the parking lot on Webster about a minute after I  finally cleared the area. They spotted the ripped up seat I had left behind. Within minutes there was a report out on the stolen Jaguar.

Once on Clark, I discovered that the car shifted much more smoothly when you used the clutch peddle. Much more smoothly than jamming it into gear with your cybernetic arm, that is. Sadly, I made this discovery a tad too late. The stick shift had snapped off in my hand.

Again, I would like to blame the sleet for what happened next. Desire and reality being two different things.

Chapter 14: King of Sleet City

There’s a giant sign on the face of the Hotel Allerton inviting you to visit the tap at the tip top of the hotel. It lies. There is no Tip Top Tap here. It’s a moderately sized room, but there is no sign that there ever was a tavern present. More like a meeting room. Not that I am about to turn the lights on.

I shouldn’t complain. At least the window came open--or loose enough to open. Loose enough to remove without breaking. Although I don’t know where the window is right now. The Allerton itself is a damn impressive tower of bricks. Looking out the window, where the window should be, I feel like the king of the city. The king of Sleet City.

Telepathic survey reports that there are many, many people here at the Hotel Allerton, but none on this floor. Most of them are asleep. Apparently the crescendo of the Jaguar’s head-on assault of the empty dumpster didn’t carry this far. Or if it did, perhaps the din of the sleet muffled it. It’s 3:15 in the morning and this is a very big city. I am sure the sleepers here are used to sleeping through many things.

My data transfer had better have taken. The two big computers don’t look like they made it. Their cases are cracked and a lot of what’s inside sounded very loose on the way up here. The laptop just seems to be wet. Edges of the cards in the drawers are caked in sleet, as is the doctor’s bag, as am I.  The Captain Meteorphone seems intact. Yea.

We’re all just dripping on this nice carpet here by the window I compelled to open. The window I cannot find but which I recall being of some urgent import just a moment ago. I wonder what I would have said if there was a tavern in this space? I crawl through the window and wave at the patrons, saying “I come in peace. Unless you are a fine motorcar, that is. Your fine motorcars I’ve come to destroy.”

By the god and gods in their heaven and heavens, I haven’t been that close to such an intense source of noise since I left the planet of the Incessant Percussionists. That dumpster must have been empty or hollow. It’s got about a ton and a half of something in it now.

My ears are still ringing. I hope I haven’t re-injured them. Stupid Incessant Percussionists. The six weeks I spent there did more damage to my hearing than an entire career of working in engine rooms. Nice folks, otherwise. I suppose if I were a giant crab-clam with pincer arms, banging on things would come naturally to me, too.

I hope Doctor Colbert wasn’t overly fond of that car. I knew the car was going to halt. It started to slow rather dramatically after that rod fell out of the undercarriage,

For a time I thought I was really getting the hang of it. Turning off of Lake Shore Drive was probably the big mistake. Heading sideways into that blind alley wasn’t too swift, either.

I seem to be allergic to whatever they put in those airbags.

I check my memory stick, the only real memory that I have. I have not lost consciousness. I would enquire as to the quality of my consciousness, but I have been getting snarky responses for the past twelve years.

Where the hell did these little glass cubes come from? What possibly could have possessed the floaty thing to take them with. Or all this sleet. I am starting to think the floaty thing is a sleet magnet.

There was sleet on the Incessant Percussionists’ planet, too. I should have told Elmaty’s brain box “Next planet, no sleet.”  Instead, I just requested no noise. So on the next planet I got four feet of sleet. It was silent, alright. Nothing but the sound of a spaceman digging himself out of four feet of sleet. Since the planet was uninhabited, I had no cause to summon Windy. Otherwise I would have had someone to complain at.

I was also kind of sick of Windy at that point. Windy loved the Incessant Percussionists. Probably because she has no physical ears. The people worshipped her as the Glorious Helping Ghost Queen Sent by the Great Sea Clam. “Please Ghost Queen, allow us to bang something in your honor.” We did a lot of good work there. It was quite an advance to my career as a monk, but if we stayed another week I would have gone stone deaf.

I need to get the cards out of the drawers, first. If there’s a first, there must be a next. Calling on the memory stick. I dropped the window. Everything was going as well as could be expected, and then I dropped the window. There’s a good chance that I am starting to push the floaty thing beyond its operational limits. I am very lucky that the direction the police are least likely to expect a person fleeing the scene of a car accident to go, is up.

Unless I am completely senseless, those blue flashing lights below are the police. I hope that radar didn’t pick me up. It shouldn’t have. The other buildings probably blocked my radar shadow. Hard to say. There are three radar sweeps covering this area. I am not sure they would have made sense of a man- sized object moving at twelve miles an hour up the side of the Hotel Allerton. On the other hand, I did fly straight up. And I just dropped a window straight down, back into the alley where the car is crashed. So I am a menace and an obvious one.

In my hands currently are Cody’s face and a card from the file. Cody’s face is concave and imbedded  with glass cubes. The card is in perfect condition, belonging to a juvenile male Meteor Beast-Authorian, orphaned but uninjured, the child of a repair worker, who was loaded into a suspension tube at the Public Library 150 years ago. The Voliant Wave event having ended, the universe did not come back. Whether it took hours or days, the scab universe about them started to collapse. And not without moments of terror. He survived long enough for me to have this card. Where is he? Where are the other some two thousand occupants?

I need the cards. I need to load the computer. I need to remember the Captain Meteorphone and Doctor Colbert’s bag. What am I going to do with these things? I can’t carry all of them. My last container is in another container, both crumpled and on the street below, being picked over by the curious authorities.

I am out of time. I know that feeling. For some reason, I am backing away from the windows.

Swooping down from the gloom beyond the windows is my diamond shaped queen of space. Her pointed prow bursts through the windows, splaying glass and bricks. Treads chewing carpet, Honey’s skis lower and she comes to a skidding stop. Then her slanted sides turn deep bronze, matching the color of the carpet she’s ruined.

“Nice try, but I think they spotted you,” I said. They certainly heard her. I had some doubts as to whether the interior floors of this building were designed to have a four thousand pound object roving on them. I didn’t hear the floor moan or creak, which may be saying more about the state of my senses than anything else. I also didn’t hear the police entering the hallway.

Honey was running her treads, attempting to turn herself about. She had to stop and back up a few times. Unfortunately, she had run over most of the things I had intended to take with. The metal cards went flying everywhere. I had the Captain Meteorphone and the doctor’s bag. The laptop was under one of her skis. Colbert’s other computer had gone snap, crackle, pop as it was spat out in bits behind Honey’s treads. Her canopy lifted and I stepped in.

Later reports indicated that we had so far done about six hundred thousand dollars worth of damage. Honey had circled the building for a place to enter without hitting a structural support. We would have to go out the way she came in or risk pulling down part of the roof. Had we triggered the booster motors, it would have scorched the walls and blown out the remaining windows. Not to mention incinerating the three cops who had just entered.

“Freeze! Police!”

I had just sat down behind Honey’s controls and was about to lower the canopy. I responded “Ludicrous! No!”

The police discharged forty rounds in two seconds. Honey took a twenty mile per hour mechanically motivated lunge for the hole in the wall, bullets pinging off all the way. Our momentum was good enough to clear the wall by a clean two feet. A fifteen story end over end tumble followed.

Everything said, I might have been better off placing my trust in the Chicago Police instead of the National Propulsions Laboratory. It’s rather doubtful that the Chicago Police would have been involved in shielding the activities of the murderer of an entire planet.

A little after fifteen stories worth of tumbling, we finally gyrated into a less than suicidal direction and Honey’s fast thrusters activated. We sailed east, trailing a fifteen hundred foot tail of white flame behind us. Honey hit mach two over the lake and we veered into Indiana. At South Bend I was able to take her straight up, through and out of the stratosphere.

It was at this point that the first of the helicopters showed up at the Allerton. This vehicle belonged to a local television news crew. For some reason it was quickly waved off and grounded.

Helicopters were cleared for the air space, but apparently there was an atmospheric problem. The problem, I discovered upon descending into Melrose Park, was that the sleet had become driving sleet. It was heavily laden snow-slush, gust blown and coming down in buckets.

It was now 4:35 in the morning. As per the instructions relayed to me by Windy I was supposed to meet Greg Armstrong by the Jewel and the Chicken Unlimited—or what had been them. Those were his not very helpful instructions verbatim. He would have elaborated further, but he suddenly had to discontinue the call.

What Greg was talking about were a pair of buildings located on a broad avenue off Lake Street. One was a free standing small brown brick structure with a mansard roof. The other was white tile clad and shared a wall with the building next to it. As it should turn out, these buildings were right behind the yard of the house Greg lived in.

I set Honey down in one of the very long slanted parking slots that were in front of these buildings. They seemed long enough to park trucks in and were on both sides of the street, which was lined with shops of various types.

The world was starting to wake up, at least here in Melrose Park. A steady progression of trucks were cutting channels through the sleet on Lake Street. One turned down the corner some fifty feet from me. The white long bed van, a bread truck, came to park in a slot across the street, right in front of a Mexican grocery store.

The truck hadn’t slowed when it passed. The two squat men who popped out of the truck didn’t give Honey a look. They were more intent on unloading tall roller skids full of goods in plastic baggies.

It was still a few more hours until dawn. Perhaps they didn’t see Honey. Her sides were now as black as the pavement she rested on. More likely she was passing as a piece of snow removal equipment.

Greg’s skinny figure appeared in the gap between the two buildings ahead of us. He was hunched forward, not wearing a jacket. The snow clods from the mansard roof slid off, seemingly zeroing in on him as he made his way to the store’s front.

He may have seen Honey without knowing what she was. My presence didn’t register upon him until after I popped the canopy. “Over here.”

Greg held up before Honey’s side and then froze.

I didn’t have Cody’s face on and I had my blast shield raised. My gold glowing eyes had spooked him. I explained “It’s me. Get in.”

Greg pulled up the canopy and swung his leg over Honey’s flank. He sank into a seat and I sealed the cabin. I asked him “Who did you think I was?”

“I don’t know. Some creature feature.”

“Aren’t I the only creature feature you know?”

“As far as I know. Yeah. What happened to your face?”

“It fell off. Windy said you sounded urgent.”

“The girl you got answering the phone for you sounds hot.”

“Windy? I’ll tell her that. Oh, you will be her special friend.”

“Is she? Hot?”

“Blonde hair, blue eyes, double Ds, candy ass, nymphomaniac.”

“Alright. My stupid,” he said, fishing a stack of papers stuffed into a sheet protector out of his shirt. He handed them to me, continuing “We better hurry with this. I don’t know when they are going to get back.”

Most of the sheets Greg handed me were shipping records, all for seemingly uniform 400 pound objects. They were all sent from the airport to what turned out to be self storage facilities all over the country. I asked “Where did your mother and step sister step out to?”

“I guess to get Hap. I’m not sure. Something happened with Hap. I didn’t get the full story. He broke down or something. Whatever it is, it’s going to tie him up, or so Leon says. Leon’s gonna have me do all sorts of driving around today, because Hap is out. And Mister Nick is gonna to call me in about ten minutes with some instructions on something else. And he only calls the land line at the house.”

“This is an unusual level of activity?”

“Not really. A bit. I mean, there’s always something. I should have got a harder time about what happened at the factory, but Leon was like that’s nothing. They got another issue with the lab and some place in Riverside. (At the time I made no sense of this.) And we’re flying people in town right now, so it’s always hectic.”

“Flying people in? Flying people in for what?”

“We do that every month. Once a month for two days. Normally I send guys from the factory to shuttle people around. From O’hare to the Drake Hotel. From the Drake to Indian Head Park. It’s Mister Nick’s thing.”

“And if Mister Nick says it, you don’t question it, right?

“Leon’s the boss, but Mister Nick is the client guy. No client, no gig.”

“It’s more than that. You never question what he says at all. I know who you think Mister Nick is. But you cannot recall to whom that voice actually belongs. Think back to when you were dating Millie, the eighteen year old who was so grown up. She was in such as rush to get married and play house and own things. You were so willing to play along, right up to the point of looking for houses and applying for mortgage approvals. Remember the call from the chipper mortgage broker who had news about your application? Excited by his tone of voice, you grab Millie and head to his office. There you were, sitting at his desk. He was off getting you both coffee and laughing with his coworkers. Then he sits on down, with that broad smile on his face, and in that chipper voice informs you that no one in their right mind would lend you a red cent. And that, very shortly, was the end of Millie.”

“Wow. That is the voice. But it can’t be the same guy.”

No, it wasn’t. And the effect was far and away more powerful and insidious than the device deployed on Major Pines and his bunch. Whatever this was had the capacity to custom trigger reactions in people’s minds. In Greg’s case, they are looking for learned helplessness. Greg would have done or said anything to change that mortgage broker’s verdict. Mister Nick isn’t really the mortgage broker anymore than the voice on Doctor Colbert’s phone was Emile. It’s just something they dredged up out of Greg’s mind. That made me nervous, because Greg didn’t show any signs of otherwise being conditioned.

I had removed the papers from their plastic confinement. I asked “These 400 pound objects are all glass tubes, right? 400 pounds seems a lot.”

“I have a picture of one,” Greg said, fishing his cell phone out of his pants.

My fear here was that they were planting capacitor driven mind destroyers all over the country. That would have notched up the scale on my sense of urgency. My fears were dismissed in part by the image on Greg’s camera and the uniform weight of all of the shipments. Although of a new design, the photo was clearly a suspension tube. Being filled with water was what accounted for most of its weight. That they were shuttling these things all over creation was curious, but not urgent. Again, my immediate plan was to bug off from this situation and then perhaps hit them at a later time. Having gone over the shipping notices to my satisfaction, I prompted Greg with “What’s the big news you’re so bursting to tell me?”

“Almost forgot. Right!” Greg said, pulling a wad of plastic cards from his pocket. He quickly passed them to me, saying “They don’t care when you do the site inspections. Leon practically threw the access cards at me. He said just do it, make sure they get done. The only place they wanted some sort of covert warning on was the Indian Head Park place, and then just for the next couple of days.”

“Which one of these is for the Roymarillo Building?”

“What?”

“The West Town Bank building?” The cards were all marked in thick black ink. They were smudged from frequent handling. I started flipping through them.

“The big white place? It’s padlocked. They were gonna place it with a real estate company, rent it out or something. It’s like four million dollars to bring it to code. The place is empty. There’s nothing in there.”

“Why make it entirely easy for me,” I thought aloud. “I have two cards for Chicago Avenue here. Chicago Avenue Mech Lab and Chicago Avenue Bio Two. Are these two different facilities? Which one is at Chicago and Avers?”

“I’ve never been there. I know one of them is new. They’re right next to each other. Like one’s an addition to the other.”

“Two cards for Indian Head Park. Indian Head Door One and Indian Head Bio One. Are these the same facility? Which one do they want me to stay away from?”

“It’s all the same place. It’s not like they were all that nutty about it. And they can get nutty. Leon’s a big screamer, 24/7, unless he’s got food in his puss. He was just like give us a heads up, if you can. Or try to get him to go to the other places first. But it was casual, like no more screaming than normal,” Greg explained.  “Door One is to the patient suite. It’s a hospital. You can just walk right into Reception. Door One is right past the front desk. Bio One is the truck dock under the hospital. I’ve never been in it, but it’s just a truck dock.”

“And you have no idea who is being flown in to work at Indian Head Park?”

“Yeah, I do. Last three pages of the print out. I gave it to you.”

“Forgive me. So you did. Very thorough, Gregory.”

“It’s the same twenty people and their spouses all the time. It’s the guy and his wife. Sometimes it’s the wife that’s the guy who is working there. They get twenty thousand dollars for two days work, in cash. And it seems like they’re just there for an hour. It’s not always all the people. It’s like ten people at a session and they rotate, but I got all twenty listed. I think we have twelve coming in this week.”

“Any idea what these people are doing?”

“Osario Giovanni. He’s on the list. He’s a doctor. Last time he was in his wife shot all twenty grand on Michigan Avenue. Didn’t even have cab fare to get back to the Drake. And she didn’t even make it to Water Tower Place. She was like ‘Next time I start at Water Tower Place’. I know he’s a doctor because she made me put it on the address label when I shipped her purchases back to Italy.”

“Was she hot?”

“Osario Giovanni is a fireplug with hair. So, you know, a lot of these people are foreigners,” Greg explained, by which I think he meant no. “When am I going to disappear?”

“If all goes according to plan, a day or maybe two.”

“Can I be relocated someplace sunny? I’d like enough money to go into—“

“—The auto painting business. Yes. And your mother will be safe. What about you step-sister?”

“I forgot about her. Is it too late to include—“

“—Fine. In. Evacuating the known victims is my priority. You will probably be contacted by a Mrs. Pines. She’s hot. And she has a thing for scurvy little drug users, so drool all over her.”

“Right. Best behavior. Understood.”

Greg didn’t know anything about a Warthog airplane being kept at the hangar, other than the group had engaged in some project assembling something from boxcars full of military salvage about two years ago. Whatever they had been building was long gone. After that, the hangar was used as a place to stage auctions, but then that ended. About a year or so ago, quite a bit of money had been spent on electrical work and sheet metal at the hangar, but Greg was not sure what for.

And Greg had never heard of any aliens being involved in this operation. To date, I am the only alien he thinks he knows.  

That said, Greg handed me a treasure trove. Everything I needed to know was here. I just had to follow up and put it together.

I found the access cards problematic. On the one hand, the conspiracy had every reason to think it was still being protected by the government. If they need to endure some sort of perfunctory procedure, so be it. After all, the government knows what they are doing. They paid for it. Why not let them see it? On the other hand, the conspiracy has suffered a spate of security breaches and is demonstrably expert at running covert operations. Why expend cover searching for me? Just give me these cards. The moment I use one, they know exactly where I am.

Come to us, Captain Meteor. We have something for you.

Despite all of my aggressive mental fishing, I missed one key fact: Greg Armstrong had met Myron Feldman in Nasus’s office. Nasus didn’t tell me that. Impressive as my rooting around for the origins of Mister Nick might have been, it missed the forest for the trees. Had I known this, I might have discounted everything Greg gave me. Which would have been a mistake. So thank the god and gods for happy accidents.

Even without knowing this, I was more than a little leery. Polka Fusion was looking good.