Lex Talionis (part 2)

Perfect World story (The NOW)

(previously) ...Rennedon remembered, "I overheard a conversation before. Just one side of a conversation-- it was a phone call. But it sounded very unofficial in nature-- I think the Sheriff or his deputy may be dirty."

Lane snapped urgently, "Tell me everything you heard. I have that same feeling."

Lex Talionis, Part 2

A small pinging came from a console on the second deck in the large labjet. Assistant Security Officer Morar, choosing to acrobat her way down, checked it out. "We've been breached," she said dryly.

"Let me guess," Jake responded. "Nanocams."

"Nanocams," she agreed. "I count six. Wait, their signals are disappearing. Now they're all gone."

"Of course... he knows they've been discovered and shut 'em down. Can you still find them if they're powered down?"

"With a different sensor," Morar replied, adjusting her handheld.

"Nanocams?" Devlin asked, intrigued.

Jake acknowledged, "Tiny flying cameras which are airdropped from a mother craft to a locale that then swarm out to blanket an area with video and audio coverage."

Devlin seemed impressed. "Really! How tiny?"

"About as small as these," Morar said, dropping the six tiny machines on the table. To Jake she commented, "It's easy to find them, alive or dead. You just have to know they're around to begin with."

"Wow!" Devlin gasped. "They're as small as house flies, and look like them too, until you see the metal legs up close. How come the FBI doesn't have any of those?"

Jake got serious. "We try to keep the paranoids away from these kinds of toys. It's for the best, if we want to stave off a true big-brother state. Aden doesn't use them for anything but search and rescue, normally. If a police organization had these..." he shook his head, "can you imagine the potential for abuse?"

"I guess." He then turned to Cassie, grinning. "Don't tell me these are your design, too?"

"Not mine... the Professor's," Cassie replied grimly, watching as Morar smashed the tiny devices flat with a stone pestle. "He's been spying on us, and I don't know for how long. You know him best, Jake... what is he up to?"

The sound of a gun being cocked clicked from above. "That's not important right now. All of you, out of the plane." Deputy Lance Cale, now fully dressed, aimed his weapon at them from the top deck. "Pull your weapon slowly and lay it on the table, Agent Devlin, and exit the plane with the rest."

"What the hell is this about?!" shouted Cassie. "Deputy Cale, lower your gun. Will is a friend of mine!"

"That's too bad, Miss McBride, 'cause his time is up," said Cale grimly, and pointed the gun at him.

At that moment five things happened in quick succession: Deputy Lance Cale pulled the trigger, sending a lead slug careening towards Will Devlin; Cassie launched herself at Will, attempting to push him out of the path of the bullet; Will, who had been surrendering his gun, spun it back into his hand quickly and pumped a bullet back towards Cale; Sara Nell Morar flung her pestle at the Deputy with sharpshooter precision; and Jake Reston swung the Differential Elevator up at him, which, unencumbered by people, shot upwards at blurring speed.

Every action has its reaction, and the next moment was all reaction. In one second's time there were two people lying in pools of their own blood, writhing in pain. One more was unconscious and about to fall the equivalent of a two story building. At five seconds Jake Reston was racing for a first aid kit, looking for the vials of silver liquid which could save their lives.

Seven seconds in, up on the second deck Morar released her weapon and fired upon the unconscious body of the Deputy. The expanding foam Spooge connected with a wet slap. Eight seconds and she opened a first aid box on her deck, grabbed another vial of silver life and flipped over the edge, catching railings in rhythmic fashion to the bottom. At ten seconds she and Jake met at their fallen friends simultaneously and attended to them, opening vials and pouring a shining silver liquid directly into bullet wounds. At twelve seconds Morar tore open two pain patches and slapped them onto their skin near the wounds. Both stopped squirming as powerful medicine numbed their agony and lightly sedated them.

"How did they both get shot?" Reston asked fearfully, watching the liquid disappear into the wounds. "Cale only fired once!"

Morar inspected the injuries and explained, "Cassie's wound is a through and through. Her leg will be fine. I'm more concerned about Will-- he's got the bullet stuck in his abdomen. We need to let the nanodoctors do their work." She programmed the nanodoctors to stop the bleeding.

"Fantastic reaction time, Sara. I have no doubt he would have killed all of us had you not beaned him good with that stone pestle."

"It's my job," she said grimly. "Why would he do this? We were just making love!" Morar's eyes were wet. "That bastard!"

Jake glanced up at the inert Deputy, balanced on the edge of the top deck, adhered in place with Morar's insightful firing of Spooge. His head stuck out of the gummy mass-- Jake could already see the angry purple bruise forming on his forehead where the pestle had struck. "He must have been turned by the Professor," Jake said bitterly.

Deep inside the gunshot wounds, the silver liquid was beginning its task. At a level too small for the human eye to detect it was not a liquid at all, but a mechanical soup of infinitesimally small simple robots.

Millions of tiny machines studded with adjustable hooks began attaching themselves together, forming into tubes, snagging onto torn veins and shredded capillaries, capturing their squirting fluids and diverting them to their other halves, allowing lifeblood to continue on its way around the body instead of going to waste on the deck. Other miniature machines were retasked and formed into patches, using their pointy mechanical legs to hook onto each other and grip the skin around the wound, stopping the blood loss and allowing the body a chance to heal itself much more rapidly. Still other controlling nanodoctors monitored the patient's lifesigns and communicated the information directly to any nearby computer-- in this case a terminal at one of the airplane's workstations-- which sprang to life and produced a constantly updating report of their conditions.

Morar read the reports and exhaled in relief. "Both of their lifesigns are strong. All torn blood vessels have been identified and are being reconnected. Will's a lucky one-- the bullet missed his liver by less than a sixteenth of an inch." She looked at his wound, which had been cleaned by the nanodoctors, and watched as the concerted effort of a million tiny legs pried the bullet in his body from its resting place and back along its path, exiting and dropping to the deck with a clunk.

"How long until they're up and around?" Jake asked her.

"Once the nanodocs have fully reconnected all the damaged pathways they will continue to build over themselves to fortify the area, and they won't leave until new pathways have been firmly grown. They should both be able to stand up in about 20 minutes, but the nanodocs won't be done for a couple of weeks. When they are, they'll exit the body via pores and reconference in the vial. We'll get a signal to collect them when the last one has rejoined the others."

A rustling from above drew their attention. The Deputy had awakened and was struggling to free himself from the Spooge, to no avail. But his efforts were vigorous enough to break the adhesive bond connecting it to the ship; it came loose from the bulkhead and began rolling, though, and slipped off the edge. His eyes widened at the realization that the flexible foam ball was about to fall 20 feet to the deck, and he was helplessly along for the ride with his head sticking out of it. It landed as you might expect a large rubber ball to land-- it hit, bounced back up, turned a little and headed back towards the deck. On the third bounce it had turned enough to align his exposed head directly with the metal deck and contacted it with a painful crack, enough of an interruption to end the bouncing. It rolled to a stop in front of them, the Deputy quite unconscious again.

Jake ran to a computer terminal and connected the communication uplink. "John, this is Reston. The Deputy is corrupt and shot two of our people. He's been subdued. Use care with the Sheriff-- we don't know if he's also been compromised." He repeated himself twice, then turned to Morar. "How are they doing? I need your help over here."

"They're doing well." She walked over. "What do you need, Jake?"

"I think I've got a clue. We need to identify the victim, though, to be certain."

"On it. I have blood and tissue samples over here, courtesy the Lewittville CSI team, aka the town veterinarian." She ran a spectral analysis of the sample, obtained a DNA cross-section and compared it to the national database. "If she's in here we'll know soon enough. Man, these government computers are slow-- ours spend most of the time waiting for theirs to catch up."

"They're using 25 year old technology, Sara. We're lucky we can even access it remotely."

"I guess."

Cassie opened her eyes and tried to sit up, but let out a grunt of discomfort instead. Jake walked back, put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Easy there, tuff stuff... you took a bullet for your buddy. We're healing you right now. Don't move."

Her eyes sprung open. "Will? Will!" She reached out and felt around for him, laying her hand in the pool of blood on the deck. "Oh, god," she cried, tearfully.

"It's not that bad. We got to him -- got to both of you, really -- right away. Neither of you have organ damage, and the nanodoctors are working as we speak. Now lay still if you don't want that bullet hole to leave a scar."

"I'm gonna kill that fucking Deputy," she seethed.

"He may already be dead. We're gonna check him out when we're done with you."

"Good." Her hand found Will's and held it. "Hang in there, Devil Dog. Get through this and you're not leaving my bedroom for a week."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," Devlin said weakly, just a trace of a smile on his lips.

"Oh, Will..." Cassie squirmed closer and leaned her head against his. He chuckled softly, gasped lightly.

"Jake, I have something." Morar gestured him over.

"What do you have, girl? Spit it out! Don't wait for my old bones to get there!"

"The victim," she began seriously. "Is also FBI."

"What!?" Jake started.

Devlin asked, "Who... who is it?"

"Special Agent Trudy Nash."

"Oh god. I know her-- knew her. I... I worked a case with her not too long ago."

"Which case?"

"It's... classified."

Cassie bumped his head gently with hers. "C'mon, Will."

"Ouch. Okay... you never heard this from me, but it was an ongoing case of domestic terrorism coming from a small time inventor with big dreams. He had... infiltrated the President's office electronically and was attempting to blackmail him when we discovered his compound and proceeded to shut it down. We met with... heavy resistance and returned fire in kind. He escaped and is still at large, but his compound was... was captured and his people were suppressed."

Jake traded glances with Cassie and Sara and asked, "What was his name?"

"Thackery. Leonard Thackery. He was a professor of the sciences at... Coastal Bend Community College, but left years ago and hasn't been on FBI radar until this."

"That's the Professor," Jake nodded, then asked carefully, "Was anyone killed in the raid on his compound?"

"Three gunmen, a scientist and a secretary."

"Were any of those an attractive woman in her 50's?"

"Yes... the secretary. Why?"

Jake let out a long whistle. "Call me a jackalope, but I'm thinking this is Lex Talionis."

"Lex who now?"

"Lex Talionis. Retribution. Revenge. Eye for an eye."

"For killing his secretary?" Devlin sounded doubtful.

"For killing his beloved wife."

"Oh. Shit."

"Hell yeah, shit. Think hard, Will... who else was on your team?"

He thought for a moment, moving his fingers subconsciously as he did. "Twenty or thirty uniforms, me, Nash... and our field medic Andy. That's it."

Jake kept prodding. "Anybody back at the office? Somebody in Intelligence maybe?"

Devlin thought some more. "No... umm, wait. We had a contact who gave us good intel back in Washington. His code name was "Polygraph'. I never met him but we spoke often. Some of the agents called him 'Pansygraph' behind his back because of his vocal affectation-- he sounded really, really gay."

Jake looked at Sara and asked, "Does that remind you of anybody, SNM?"

"Altibar worked in Washington for the FBI a short while ago... and he's really, really gay," she said.

Cassie joked, "I can't believe you let one slip past you, Devlin... I don't know what to think."

He smiled weakly. "You going to put me out to pasture now, Cassie? Even cats get nine lives."

In a glimmer of recognition Jake asked, "Wait-- your medic Andy-- was his last name Stait?"

Devlin's eyes widened. "I knew that sheriff sounded familiar! I hadn't seen him around but hadn't given it much thought. So he went and became a small-town cop-- I'll be damned!"

Morar chimed in, "And they're both at the station right now... along with John Lane! That's Trouble, looking for a countdown."

Devlin remembered, "Thackery used lots of well-placed and powerful explosive charges to defend his compound. You'd better let them know... and get them out of there, fast!"

"I'm calling John now," Jake said gravely.

Professor Len Thackery and his assistant Smith watched the stone pestle descend over the tiny cameras until it filled the screen. The image then turned to static.

He asked Smith urgently, "What are they doing now? What are they saying? Can you hear them?"

Smith looked up from his computer and hissed, "You made me take them offline. Now they're destroyed, so I have to program more to replace them... and they're tiny. Do you know how long it takes one of them to travel just a single mile?"

"What about the nanocam outside?" The Professor seemed desperate.

"That's the only one left until the others arrive. Now that they're onto us, they'll be looking for the signals. I have to keep the cam outside. I'd need to boost the gain by at least 1000% to hear them, and they're just not that powerful."

Rest it on the hull," the Professor said firmly.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Sound transmission through solid metal is much more efficient than through the air. I don't have to boost the gain, just clear the garble!" In a moment the lone outdoor nanocam was resting on the ship's hull, picking up sound vibrations. Smith twisted a dial, slapped on some headphones and pressed them against his ears.

"Well? What do you hear?"

"Shh!"

"Don't shush me, Smith. What the hell are they saying?"

"There was a commotion. People are shot. It looks like the shooter is... Deputy Cale. He's been neutralized."

"They killed my operative?" the Professor said, alarmed.

"Not killed... Spooged."

"Drat. Whom did he kill?"

"He fired once, but hit two. The FBI guy and his free-spirited girlfriend."

The Professor looked stunned. "Oh, no! Not her! Not little Cassie... Ohh, what have I done, what have I done?" He leaned forward in his chair and sobbed into his lap.

Smith just stared vacantly at the professor, listening into the headphones. "Professor... professor... SIR!"

The Professor jerked and hissed angrily, "What is it, Renfrew?"

"They're not dead."

"Wha...?"

"They're both alive. The bullet went through the girl's leg as she jumped to protect the FBI guy and lodged in his abdomen. They had Nanodoc treatment available and used it. She's already standing. They will both survive."

The Professor sat there, an unrecognizable look on his face. "I don't know how to feel, Smith... I'm remarkably grateful and incredibly angry at the same time."

"Well, here's another emotion for you to process, sir... they are calling John Lane right now, warning about a potential explosion at the jail."

Another emotion crossed his face... confusion. "How could they know about that?"

"They've put it all together, sir. They seem to have just spelled out your entire plan."

He sat for a long moment, head down, cursing under his breath. Then his face came up and Professor Len Thackery looked, at that moment, as though he would fly apart. One short sentence made it past the swollen throat and purple, quavering lips:

"Blow... up... that... building!"

John Lane said to Altibar Rennedon, "If I'm going to get you out of here, Barr, I'll need to convince the Sheriff, and there's no better way than with evidence. I'm gonna contact the Labjet and see if they've got any concrete evidence clearing you."

"Please don't be long, John. I think the cockroaches are in a gang... and I'm intruding on their turf."

Lane laughed. "You'll be out of here before they can arrange a drive-by on your ankles."

"Funny."

Lane called out, "Sheriff, I'm ready now!"

"What do I do if he displays any crooked behavior?" Rennedon asked quietly.

"Do nothing. Pretend to be asleep-- don't engage him. And for god's sake don't challenge him."

"What if he is dirty? What do I do then?"

"You're locked in a cell! What did you want to do?"

He sighed. "I guess you have a point." He sat back down on the bunk bed. Lane called out again. Shortly the Sheriff entered. "Yes?"

"I'm finished here, Sheriff. I'll need to get back to the Labjet to help with analysis."

The sheriff just stared at him.

"Well? May I exit, please?"

The sheriff exhaled a long breath. "The problem, Lane, is that I mentioned that the cells were wired for video and sound."

"So?"

"So I witnessed that display of... err... affection before, and I have to tell you, it sure looks like a conflict of interest to me. I may just have to detain you until we sort all this out."

"Sheriff Stait, you may want to rethink that decision. Right now the honor of your office is going to be called into question, and since we are wired for video and sound, you may not want this clear violation of my Miranda rights to become the black stain that ejects you from office. While it is true that I am in a relationship with Altibar, there is no conflict according to Aden law."

The Sheriff nodded. "Well then, you ought to look at your lines of longitude, Lane... you're not in Aden right now and as such are beholden to the laws of this town, not yours. If you are indeed in a relationship with Rennedon, then for you to be involved with clearing his name is a direct conflict."

"Not playing so fast and loose with the regs now, eh, Sheriff Stait? Can I at least get my phone call?"

"What for? You've just been detained... you're not under arrest." He walked back through the outer door, whistling tunelessly, which slammed with a bang.

"Sheriff! Sheriff! This ain't right to do to another officer! Sheriff! Ahh, crap!" he said, and sat down next to Rennedon, sighing.

"So, are you convinced he's dirty now?" Rennedon asked.

Lane nodded. "Dirty, or at least sexually prehistoric. Did you see how he looked at us?"

"Come, come Johnny... we're on the Outside now. They are not as accepting as Adenners, not by a long shot. How many of them would have come to our Ring ceremony, had we held it for Outers?"

Lane laughed. "Our Ring ceremony? They would have all come, at least out of freakish curiosity. Don't forget, we weren't putting the rings around our fingers."

"Oh, like that kind of thing isn't ever done out here."

"No, not usually... and for myself, I wouldn't do it again. That Brazilian waxing was torture."

"Torture, huh? I do it every month. And you just shaped a little... I do a whole body wax. See what I go through for you?" Rennedon sniffed lightly, looked away.

"Is that why you're always so smooth... and soft... and sleek?" Lane ran a finger absently up Rennedon's thigh.

"John, my ring's getting tight... cut it out. Back to matters at hand." He stood up and shook himself off, thought for a moment. "Too bad you can't contact them with one of those earpieces we have in Aden."

Lane brightened, stood up and planted a big kiss on his forehead. "You've always been so-o smart, Barr. That's why I love you... your big head."

"I know... we had trouble passing the ring over it. But you love me for my intelligence, too, right?" Rennedon asked, mock-worriedly.

Lane shot him a sidelong glance and switched his earwig on. It would be a gamble as to whether he could reach them from this distance, but knew he had to try. He could at least leave a message which could then be heard, sooner or later. He hoped sooner.

"Jake! SNM! It's John-- I'm being held in Stait's lockup-- either he's dirty or homophobic I can't tell, but I need you to get me out of here ASAP. And brief me on your status-- crooked or not, he can't keep Barr jailed with evidence to the contrary staring him in the face."

Lane listened, his head cocked to one side. Rennedon asked, "Can they hear you?"

"Sh. They've left me messages." After a moment he called out, loud and urgently, "Sheriff! Alert! Provision Six! Alert! Provision Six! Alert! Provision Si--"

The door flung open and Sheriff Stait raced in, unlocking the cell in a smooth action, gesturing to follow without a word. They raced down the hall and headed towards a sturdy metal door on the end.

"You stay here and find that evidence-- I'm taking the Scoovee to the Sheriff's," Jake yelled to Morar.

She nodded. "Wait... take this." Morar unhooked her gun belt and tossed it over. He strapped it on and grinned. "I feel like a lawman."

"You look like Burt Reynolds. Now go!"

"Not bad." Jake felt honored. "Keep in contact." He slid down the sides of the stair and punched a code into the keypad beside it. A large door swung open on the side of the craft, revealing a dune buggy... with a twist. Two metal tracks slid out from the belly of the plane and the Scoovee rolled onto the grass; he hopped on and latched into the safety cage.

"Remember to use a rotating frequency at all times," Morar called from the plane.

"I will, I will. Get that evidence!"

"I will, I will." Gunning the engine, the balloon-wheeled vehicle shredded the ground as it burst into speed. At 70 Jake punched the boost button and a six-foot lick of blue-white flame came from the rear as wings sprung from the bottom; the craft tipped upwards sharply and was airborne!

Jake brought the onboard computer to life and shouted, "take me to jail!"

"Finally! A place you deserve to be!"

"I approved your new name... so have a little respect, Jolie."

"I'm just jaking, anyway. Heading entered." Banking widely, the odd planecar shot towards its target.

"There may be a signal generated nearby which will remotely set off powerful explosives-- we have to jam that signal... wait, did you say 'jaking'?" Jake asked.

The computer laughed, a delightful tinkling of bells. "Thank Raf... he gave me some comedy books to absorb. Destination approaching, 2000 yards."

"Begin jamming, wide dispersion. Full frequency rotation on my mark... mark!"

The Scoovee tipped to face the far-off structure and signal jamming waves burst invisibly from the front, blanketing the ground, arcing and looping the frequency every tenth of a second. The building amidst the pines grew quickly as the Scoovee approached; at a quarter mile away, the powerful jet cut off abruptly and the craft rode quietly towards the building. Once in range a powerful blower mounted in its belly lowered it to the ground; it came to rest in the parking lot away from the one story red brick police station/holding cells/CSI lab/morgue that serviced the crimes for all of Lewittville. "Jolie, keep the jammer on maximum-- I don't want the signal getting through."

"Will do, boss."

Jake stepped from the Scoovee and took one step in the building's direction when it exploded.

The force knocked him over and split the trunks of a dozen nearby trees, which came crashing to the ground. He rolled onto his back, red dust everywhere, wiped his eyes and stared through the dissipating red-grey cloud at the building. It was gone.

"Oh, no!"

"Will, Cassie... how are you feeling?" Sara Nell Morar helped them onto padded slabs which slid out from the bulkhead. She pulled up the nanodoc controlling software and observed their healing process through tiny onboard cameras. Platelets were flooding the area, aligning and bonding and encouraging rapid healing; their damaged areas were repairing themselves, freed from the normal obstacles which inhibited perfect regrowth of tissue. "The nanodocs are doing their jobs as expected. I'm sorry, Will."

"Sorry for what?" he asked, cautiously.

"I know you tough G.I.-types like to show off your war wounds to your buddies... thanks to these nanodoctors there shouldn't be any scar. In two weeks it will look as though you've only gotten a hickey there. Your company physician may not ever be able to find the bullet wound." She finished checking the computer and looked at their actual wounds. "Eww, gross. I hate blood."

"Thank you, Sara. You have quite literally saved my life. What can I do to help you? As long as I don't have to throw a punch I should be fine." Will slid gingerly off the slab and stood beside her. "Can I help with your evidence search?"

"Ooh, me too!" Cassie piped in and hopped over, favoring her injured leg. "Where's the file?"

"Very well... I could definitely use the help. Here's where I'm up to. Altibar claims he never touched her and yet his fingerprints were found, both on her wallet and on the murder weapon. That's a good place to start."

"Is Jolie online?" Cassie asked.

"Yes, I am, Cassie. It's good to see you again." The voice emanated through the entire ship. Devlin jerked visibly.

"Oh hey there, computer buddy. Set me up at this station and give Will the station next to mine, okay? Let's start by running a logic check on fingerprint orientation."

"Who is Jolie? Where is she?" Devlin asked, glancing around.

Cassie laughed. "Relax, Will. Jolie's our interactive computer model.

Jolie said brightly, "I'm software, Will!"

He shook his head, astonished. "I had no idea Aden was that advanced... it's like visiting the future!"

"There is no known way to travel through time," Jolie informed.

"Does she know that was a metaphor?" he asked Cassie.

"Yes, but she loves being informative."

"Hello-o... I'm right here!"

"Sorry, Jolie," Cassie comforted. "New people, huh?"

"It's okay. I'm not actually insulted. Oh, and I have your results."

"Summarize."

"It's entirely possible that Altibar could have held the wallet... except for the fact that there is no opposing print on the other side of the wallet, and last time I checked, a human hand needs at least two fingers to grip something. Has that changed?"

Cassie laughed. "No, we're still made the same way, Jolie. Please continue."

"On to the murder weapon. For Altibar to hold the hammer the way the fingerprint suggests, he would have had to murder himself... and I believe that's called 'suicide'. Yet he's still alive. Interestingly, both fingerprints are exactly the same."

Devlin asked,"Shouldn't they be the same? I mean, aren't they both from the same finger?"

The computer replied, "Yes, but both prints have exactly the same pressure pattern; each ridge and valley begins and ends in the same location; and there's a smear in one corner that appears on both prints."

Morar said triumphantly, "That sounds like planted evidence to me!"

"Me too," Devlin said, impressed.

"Me three," chirped the computer.

"Jake, we've found definitive proof that the prints were placed there by a third party," Morar said into the communicator, and waited but heard no response. "We're out of range."

"In how far a circle can those walkie-talkie jobs broadcast?" Devlin asked.

"In Aden, repeaters are everywhere," Jolie said. "You can speak to anyone, no matter how far they are from you. In the Outers, though, about a quarter mile. But that's not the problem here."

"It isn't?" Cassie asked, surprised.

The computer replied, "Jake has been broadcasting a jamming wave. Nothing gets through."

"We need to get this to him, now. Is there anything keeping us here?"

"Nothing."

Morar said, "Then let's pull up stakes and head for the Sheriff. Jolie, prepare for launch."

"Take your seats, people. Launch in 30 seconds."

A variety of automatic functions initiated. Doors were latched, science stations retracted like turtle extremities, and the stairway folded back into the plane while the ramp door closed. Exterior cameras were activated and broadcast onto screens inside. The wounded pair were secured in place by Morar, who then latched herself in.

Cassie asked,"Wait... what about the deputy?"

The computer asked, "Shall I return him to the surface?"

"If that means dropping him out of the moving craft I vote yes." Cassie said crossly.

"No, I'll just net the Spooge ball to the rear bulkhead. He's an attempted murderer... we can't just let him go free." Morar left her seat to tie the still unconscious Deputy down. Cassie and Devlin watched as the large craft autoprepared for take off; he with wonder and she with pride.

"Ten seconds."

Morar finished securing the Deputy-turned-criminal with crate netting, cinched it tight to a bulkhead and returned to her seat, latching the restraints as Jolie finished her count. "2... 1... launch."

Devlin wasn't sure what to expect, but was surprised to see the jet rise straight up without taxiing, as well as how fast they were rising; he could feel mild g-forces tugging at him the way a high-rise elevator might. At 500 feet the rear jets fired and the Labjet surged forward; they had been traveling perhaps 45 seconds when Jolie said, "Directly over Sheriff station. Holding for instructions."

Over the station? Cassie remembered Morar directly inputting a 500 yard perimeter away from the station, in case it blew! She yelled, "Jolie! Provision Six! Alert! Provision Six!"

Morar, hearing the same shocking news, wondered in that instant how Jolie could make that obvious an error and determined that the computer couldn't... but could be sabotaged, and on a hunch went to check if the Deputy had an earwig, forgetting for the moment that 'Provision 6' was code for 'get to safety ASAP'. So she was out of her seat when Jolie engaged the jets, thrusting the ship away from the anticipated blast radius.

And that was exactly when the building below them exploded. The shock wave caught the outstretched wings squarely and pushed the Labjet up and away like a sheet of paper in the wind, sending it into a spin that was accentuated by the still-firing motors.

Inside Morar was unable to grab a support and was pulled off her feet and sent sprawling upwards to the roof of the plane, smacking the hard metal skin, and when centrifugal forces allowed, slid her down and to the rear, crumpling her against crew quarter doors. She remained there, pinned by physical forces, unmoving.

Cassie watch in horrified slow motion but was unable to move even an arm; latches in the seat harness locked automatically when the sensors detected excessive g-forces. Watching the screen she saw the ground looming as the plane spun. "Jolie... rectify! Rectify!" She screamed ineffectively in the loud cabin, as increased gravity forced her into unconsciousness.

"Smith! What say you? I can't tell what's going on!" The Professor was agitated. His plan was unraveling, and he feared his darling wife would never be avenged. "Did the bomb go off? I must know!"

Smith pressed a few keys on the console and removed his headphones. The sound of a blast as relayed from thousands of tiny nanocams filled the room, and corresponding footage displaying the enormous explosion cloud, and made the Professor's heart sing. "I did it, I did it! The murderers are dead! It's time for a shindig, Smith! Give the prisoners all the kibble they can swallow-- afterwards I'm taking you for a celebratory steak dinner, with all the mashed potatoes and sauteed onions you can stand! Hee hee!" And he ran off towards the residence wing, barely hobbling.

Smith remained to watch the carnage, shown from a thousand angles as through a fly's eye. He noticed movement coming from one and dragged it center. Once enlarged he could see the Aden ship lolling, wings flipping like a sperm whale launched from the ocean; the entire jet spun front to back and barrel-rolled towards the ground. Smith caught his breath as the ship's multiple engines automatically fired in response to the spin, valiantly trying to regain control.

On the ground the dust thinned and a nanocam picked up Jake scurrying towards ground zero, calling out names, standing at the edge of a deep and smoking building-sized crater. Realizing it was too late he turned, shoulders slumped, and began walking back to the Scoovee. Smith realized Reston did not even know what was going on over his head and assumed he was temporarily deafened from the shock wave, but that situation changed when the jet's shadow passed across him. He looked up in time to see the spinning vehicle move out of sight over a rise, and then nothing. Silence.

Smith watched as Reston jumped back in the Scoovee and took off in the direction of the flailing labship. "Probably try to save it and get himself killed." He flicked off the big screen and the images fizzled away. He trudged off towards the residence wing, muttering, "Don't want to miss my steak dinner... never offered before and'll probably never offer again... why I put up with this I'll never know... oh yeah, my wife's a prisoner of his... should kill him in his sleep but I don't know where she is..."

Jake blinked back anguished tears. Such a massacre! That crazy inventor is going to destroy Aden and everything I worked so hard for!

He pushed back the black thoughts of his revenge and of his fallen friends and set to the task at hand. Those jets he saw shooting every which way were designed to keep the craft from hitting the ground at all costs. It may spin itself apart, but until it did there was a chance Jake could help the ship. He only hoped the people inside weren't jelly against the walls yet.

Jake flew the Scoovee up and over the rise where he saw the plane disappear. With great relief he saw that it hadn't crashed yet, but was careening towards the ground despite the powerful engine's best firing sequence and was thirty seconds away from contact at best.

"Jolie! Shoot a beacon signal towards the ship!" If the onboard computer were still operational, it could triangulate its position based on the information Jake would send it, and stop the spinning within a single revolution. If not, he worried, there wasn't a damn thing he could do except watch his friends die horribly.

"Beacon established!" Jolie said through his earwig, and he watched the ship hopefully. It was suffering through three erratic axes of movement right now and the ship would have to compensate for one at a time. As he watched, wringing his hands, he thought he noticed a subtle change in movement, which became more evident the longer he watched. The plane had stopped flipping end over end! Now slowly the drill bit motion slowed and stopped! To his great relief, the turntable action ceased as well, and the plane now just hovered in midair, as if trying to catch its breath.

"Jolie, autopilot the plane to the nearest clear landing area, please," Jake asked, and flew alongside the huge machine as it creaked its way to the ground, landing with a 'whomp!' and a rush of air that sent wildlife scattering. Jake jumped from the Scoovee as soon as it touched down and raced to the damaged ship, punching the code that disengaged the emergency hatch. It released with a groan and he lurched upwards into the ship, scaling the ladder in two-rung hops.

"SNM! Cassie! Will! Are you all right?" he called into the ship while still in the tube. Taking the last step he surveyed the interior. Anything not tied down was everywhere: lab equipment, papers, beakers and solutions plastered the inside, and dimmed red flashes afforded the only light.

"Normal lighting!" Jake called, and a few weak white lights popped on. The rest were dark or sparking.

"Over here!" Jake heard a voice call out weakly. "Help! Get me out of here!" He approached the sound and could soon make out a pile of loose chairs piled up against the rear bulkhead. He pulled them away to release the person inside. The last chair came away and there, trapped against the wall, was the Deputy, still enSpooged, still netted to the wall.

"You. Alive... good. I get to participate in your trial," Jake spat, and walked away, looking for other survivors.

"Hey! Get me out of this!" Jake ignored him.

The Differential Elevator was a twisted mass of exposed metal parts; Jake instead climbed the pipe railing with difficulty to check each level. On the second deck he stumbled across Devlin and Cassie, unmoving in their chairs. He checked their vitals then, satisfied they were both still alive, forced open the nearby science bay and exposed a computer console. He pulled up the nanodoc subroutines and did a condition report; neither were the worse for wear, although a few hundred nanodocs had been dispatched through their bloodstreams to close off lacerations obtained during the mayhem.

Jake slapped Devlin's face, gently at first, then with increasing vigor. "Hey... hey... stop!" Devlin said, coming awake.

"You'll be happy to know you're not dead. Where's SNM?"

"Who? What? Cassie!" Devlin asked, still groggy.

"Cassie's fine. Sara, the Security Officer... where is she? I can't find her."

"Oh... umm, she left her seat to check on the prisoner when all hell broke loose... what happened?"

"The building blew, and it almost blew the plane up with it. Why were you here?" Jake unharnessed him and the unconscious Cassie and continued searching for Morar. "Come help me look."

"We found the evidence you needed to free Altibar... Oh! Poor Altibar," Devlin said, realizing the extent of the carnage visited upon them by the Professor, as he rose unsteadily from his chair.

"You're still healing. Keep looking on this level... I'll go upstairs." Grunting with effort, the older man climbed more pipe railing to the top level.

"Oh! Andy, too... and your man John Lane. I'm sorry, Jake. Sorry I didn't kill that insane devil on that raid when I had the chance."

"Don't blame yourself. This kind of thing is normal in the Outers. Do you know we haven't had a death in Aden for six months? And that one was because of old age..." Jake pulled a broken railing away from several doors leading to crew bunks. "SNM?" he called out to the doors.

"Nnnn! Mnunnm!" came from behind one.

"Hang on Sara!" Jake sprung into action, tugging vainly to release the lock from the now serpentine door. Abandoning that course of action, he instead retrieved a section of broken pipe railing and, inserting it between the door & frame, levered the tortured lock open. Inside was a room in disarray; clothing was everywhere, as were personal items and splayed notebooks; the bed was now diagonal between the narrow walls and wedged up against the rear bulkhead. And staring straight at Jake was Morar's pert and vulnerable rear end. He followed it to find the rest of her body, which was trapped in this twisted position under the lodged bedframe. With her face smushed against the bulkhead it was impossible for her to speak, and the whole look was so comical Jake couldn't hold back a little chortle as he pulled the bed free to release her.

"Don't laugh, Jake... that was the most scared I have ever been. I was sure the fat lady had sung for me." She righted herself and he brushed her off, straightened her hair and held her head in his hands.

"You'll never know how worried I was for all of you, Sara. I'm glad to see you're alright... well, except for this nasty bruise." Jake brushed a black and blue swelling on her forehead and she flinched. "Let's get a cold pack on that... if we can find a first aid kit in here. What a mess!"

The group assembled on the first deck and left the plane, rolling the Deputy prisoner through the escape hatch. He landed on the ground, bounced and began to roll downhill.

"Oh, no you don't," Jake quipped and reached out a hand to stop it, which he accomplished using a handful of the Deputy's hair.

"Ow... shit! That hurts!" he cried.

The hill was steep, and rocks waited at the bottom.

"Who killed Trudy Nash? Tell me now and I won't let you fall to your death. The Spooge won't protect you from this distance." The smile vanished from Jake's face and he lightened his grip on the hair. The ball began rolling again.

"No! Stop! Wait!" Panic rose in his voice. "I-it wasn't me! I was only supposed to kill Devlin... and make it look like an accident."

"You son of a bitch," Devlin seethed, limping up to join them.

"Then who, if not you?" Jake gave the ball a little kick towards the hill.

"Please! He has my family! He'll kill my parents and sister if I don't do what he says."

"Who?"

"The guy with the lab coat! And his creepy assistant... the one he calls Renfrew!"

"Thackery." Jake glared the name. "Where is he? Where can I find him?" Jake was yelling now, and clutching the man's head with his fists.

The Deputy sobbed, "I-- I don't know! I'd do anything to find them. I'm not a bad man! Please don't kill me!"

"How did the building blow? I blanketed the area with jamming signals, enough to stop any kind of transmission."

"He figured that might happen, and so the bomb was hardwired to a machine answering one of the land lines. You can't jam a signal running through wires. Anyone could have set the bomb off, had they called the right number and waited for the beep."

"Don't sound so smug... that bomb killed three good men."

Morar suddenly shouted, "Look!"

Everyone turned. Almost too small to be seen at the bottom of the hill were John Lane, Altibar Rennedon and Andrew Stait, climbing the hill to meet them! Jake's mouth dropped open and he ran down to join them, forgetting about the Deputy, who began rolling in earnest until Cassie stopped it, holding the ball so the Deputy faced the rocks below in a most terrifying way.

"D-don't let me g-go!" he screamed.

Jake ran down to meet them, hugging the two Adeners and shaking the Sheriff's hand. "How...?" he began.

"Your message came in time, that's how." Lane smiled at Jake. When I put two and two together, I realized that Sheriff Stait and I were in some of the same classes in Quantico, including the coded transmissions section."

Stait continued, "When I heard John's call for 'Provision Six', I knew we were all in trouble, so I took us to the bomb shelter, underground and away from the main building."

Altibar finished, "We were just getting the shelter door shut when we saw a huge black and orange fireball heading our way." He shuddered. "I think my eyebrows got a little singed."

"Sheriff," Morar said, "Somewhere in that mess of a plane is the evidence you need to clear Altibar."

"Mr Rennedon has already been cleared in my eyes," Stait replied. "I just recently found out that he's been responsible for saving my ass more times than I can count, as the intelligence guy for my team back at the FBI."

"Your team?" Devlin stepped out from behind the Spooge ball.

"Will? What the devlin are you doing here?" Stait joked, hugging his former team leader.

"Trying to fix your mess, Sheriff." He rolled the title over in his mouth. "Sheriff. Sheriff. Not too bad, Andy!" he grinned.

Stait smiled. "You know... 'it's better to be a big fish in a small pond'..."

"I get it." Devlin nodded.

Stait noticed the six foot ball of foam. "What's that?"

Cassie twisted it around, revealing the pale and frightened Deputy. "'That' is a complicated situation. What do you say we discuss it on the way to Aden?"

Lane added, "Along with how we plan on finding the Professor and releasing his prisoners?"

Jake included, "Exactly. But how are we getting there? I don't think this old gal's got much flight left in her..." His words dropped off as a shadow blocked the sun for all of them, and in the sky descended another Aden air vehicle, much larger than the first.

Jolie's voice was heard in each of their earwigs. "I called another craft out to pick us up... I hope you don't mind. Stand back everybody! I'm taking you all back to Aden... along with my poor fallen soldier." The breeze kicked up was impressive but Jolie lit a path of least turbulence in shining green arrows on the ground for them to follow. When they were all clear, including the big ball of Spooge, the enormous ship descended over the smaller damaged craft, hangar door open, and simply swallowed it whole.

"My.... GOD!" Devlin gasped. "It's a flying aircraft carrier!"

"Quite literally, Will," Jake roared above the wind. "Hop aboard. We can get you to Washington inside of an hour once you're in Aden. Have you ever seen the place? You might want to vacation there."

"Just a few aerial photographs... I'm sure it's way more impressive in person."

Cassie chimed in, "You bet it is! This big baby is going to land on the roof of one of our skyscrapers!"

Copyright 2010 Bruce Ian Friedman