Duncan Long - Anti-Grav Unlimited

I got out of that area as quickly as I could since I suspected that someone was probably coming to check me out who was using my card. At least, I was paranoid enough at this point to think so. Since I never carried money, I was now not only homeless but also centimeless.

I did have some tools, however, and soon an old fashioned coin phone had given up its change. Racing away, I stopped at a third phone to try calling again.

None of the members could be reached. All out? It was getting late and now I was beginning to sweat. What is going on?

I parked the van in a hedge on a back road and slept fitfully with my Beretta across my lap.

The next morning the last of my stolen money was spent for a news sheet.

The day’s plastic sheet carried my death notice along with those of my lab team. No details. I knew I was alive, but were they?

I hoped so but knew that it was just by the slimmest of chances that I hadn’t been at home in bed when my house had been ripped apart. I had a queasy feeling they had all been killed.

I had other worries, too. There aren’t that many vans on the road these days. I knew if anyone was looking for me, my blue van stuck out like the milk glands on a dinocow.

The first order of business was a trip to Nervous Eddy’s. Ed was where I did all my black market business. I hid the van behind his store and walked into the old concrete building he worked out of. I stood just inside for a moment so my eyes could adjust to the dark interior.

Nervous Ed sat on a tall stool behind the front counter. He looked just as apprehensive as his name suggested. I always wondered why he persisted in carrying on his illegal business—

camouflaged as a tool store—if it made him so jumpy.

“The walking dead,” he said with a twitch of his left eyelid.

“Yeah, I need some help.”

At this point his black sentinel bared its three rows of teeth and gave a growl that danced up and down my spine. Ed didn’t say a thing to the sentinel but gave a quick hand signal which made it leap over the counter and vanish out of sight. “What’d ya need and what’d ya got?” Ed chanted, a tic pulling his leathery face into a scowl.

I was glad I’d left the dome with a lot of extra tools. I slid two electric wrenches and a compucalc—that I hoped I wouldn’t need—across the scratched glass counter top toward him. Ed normally doesn’t betray any emotion but he raised one eyebrow at the wrenches. He’s a sucker for electric wrenches.

“I need some clean tag decals and instapaint. Red and white. And some swirl controls for the paint.”

“You can get most that stuff at a retail store. The decals are illegal; that’s harder,” he squinted at me trying to figure out what my angle was.

“If you have a card; mine’s been revoked,” I told him.

“You are in trouble.”

He thought a moment, then started collecting cans of instapaint, swirlers, and the illegal tag decals from various cubby holes in the store. I’ve never known Ed to be generous or trade without dickering. The fact that he was pulling out everything I needed without a fuss drove home the fact that I was in pretty deep trouble and that he probably wanted to get me out of his store as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be there with me.

“Anything else?”

I thought a moment and then remembered the magazine I’d taken out of the pukers assault rifle (which was in the back of my van). I pulled the magazine out of my hip pocket, “Got any ammunition for one of these? And I need some more nine millimeter, too.”

Ed held the magazine a moment as he studied it, hiked up his thick spectacles on his broad nose, then handed the magazine back. “Hummm.” The turned and sunk from sight behind the counter. I heard him rummaging about in a drawer.

“These are hard to come by. Cost ya extra.” He shoved three dog-eared boxes of ammunition across the counter toward me.

I fished for a moment in my front pocket for my last barter chip: an electric screwdriver.

Ed’s eyes twinkled, “Done…And…” He reached under the counter. “Here, you’ll be needing this, too.”

My eyes must have displayed my surprise: A Mastivisa card.

“It’s stolen. But should be good for another day or two. Just don’t go over fifty creds at a time.

I figure you’ll need it.”

I didn’t know what to say but just nodded. I scooped everything up and headed toward the door, “Thanks Ed.”

“Be careful.”

After inspecting the lot behind Ed’s store, I backed into the abandoned building next to his.

Out of sight, I quickly placed the decals onto the tag impressed in my rear bumper. Soon the numbers of a different van appeared on the bumper. It wouldn’t pass a check, but if they were looking for my specific tag number, it might get me by. The tag number changed, I set up the instipaint on the swirl pattern controller and painted the latest of bopper designs on the van.

I hoped the van would now look enough different enough to get me out of the area. I stowed the extra cans and the controller in the back of the van, jumped in, and pulled out onto the street.

There was just one place to go. I started the long trip with the sound of my growling stomach filling the van.

About a full minute into the journey to New Denver, I realized that using the stolen Mastivisa card could get me killed because using it would leave an electronic trail that, once the authorities figured I’d been using it, would lead them directly to me. Until I knew just who was trying to ace me, I didn’t want anyone to be able to track me.

That meant retracing my route for about fifteen minutes, crossing back into Missorark under the east side of the old and—in the smog of the late evening—nearly invisible KC dome. As I traveled under the edge of the giant dome that spanned most of the New City area, I left the darkness of the night, and the blue-green of the city’s sky lamps startled my eyes; I turned off the van’s headlights and darkened the tint of the windshield.

Knowing I’d need food, I watched the old concrete storefronts which were interspersed with new plastic buildings and slowed at the first auto-grocery store I came to and turned pulling into the line of vehicles in front of the huge yellow bubble store that proclaimed: Happy Dog Groceries and Supplies.

After waiting in line a few minutes, I eased the van to the window and opened the van window so that I could place my order. My nose was assaulted by the stale fumes of garbage and burnt coal that seemed to always float in the decrepit city’s air.

“Good evening. Generic or name brands?” the purple dog asked with a crazy, toothy grin.

I wondered why adults would want to talk to a robot dressed like a dog. “Whichever is cheaper for each item,” I answered, figuring paupers with stolen cards had to get the most they could for their money.

“Please speak slowly as you give me your list of needs,” the “dog” instructed with a wink.

Off the top of my head I recited a quick list of the freeze-dried and irradiated foods I might need, wishing I’d thought to make a list while sitting in line. “And a few of my favorite unsugar candies,” I finally finished.

“Is that all?”

I nodded.

“Total is 65 creds. Card?”

Great, I thought. A card can’t go over 50 creds without a quick scan. That would be a disaster with a stolen card.

“Uh… I don’t have that much in my account,” I said with a blush creeping up my neck. “How

’bout cutting it down?”

At this moment I noticed the growing din from the group of vinyl-and-leather-clad bikers just behind my van. They were tired of all the waiting and expressed their anger by loudly voicing obscenities. I glanced into the rear-view mirror to see what kind of brain-dead beings I might have to contend with.