Энди Вейр: Short Story Collection

Her mind raced. I’m naked and unarmed in a shower. I’m small and I’m a woman. He won’t expect me to fight back. He’ll expect me to give up and let him do what he wants. That’ll buy me a few seconds. First thing he’ll do is tie me up or put me in handcuffs. I have to act before that or it’ll all be over.

She looked down at her body. I’m wet and slippery. Maybe I can run past him and make a break for it? No. Too risky. He might just shoot me.

The gun came through the doorway first, followed by the arms of the man holding it. He used a two-handed grip while keeping his arms parallel to the ground. Michelle abandoned hope of it being a misunderstanding.

He knows how to hold a gun, she thought. And how to walk with one drawn. He’s moving very slowly to keep me from noticing. I have three seconds. Maybe four.

She balled her fists. I’m not just going to let this happen. I’m going to fight with everything I’ve got. I may only have a few seconds before he kills me, but by God I’ll do some damage on my way out. Maybe he’ll be surprised enough for me to escape. Either way, he definitely won’t get what he came for.

The man pivoted around the corner and pointed his gun at her chest. She had never seen him before in her life. He was young and physically fit. She might have considered him handsome under different circumstances. He looked nervous even though he had every possible advantage. They locked eyes.

The glass shower doors! She thought. I’ll break the glass with my elbow and try to grab a shard. It’ll cut my arm to ribbons but it’s better than fist-fighting an armed man who outweighs me by 50 pounds!

She summoned all her courage and cocked her arm as the man approached the shower.

“Michelle Becker,” said the police officer. “You’re under arrest for six counts of home invasion and homicide.”

“You’ll never take me alive, you cop bastard,” she said. Then she shattered the glass with her elbow.

“I tell ya, it’s the real deal!” Ray said. “The real deal!”

“Oh yeah?” Bobby replied. “Tell me more.”

“She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met!” He snatched his cigarettes from the coffee table. “I mean, we’ve only had one date, but wow! I never met a chick I could really talk to before, ya know?”

“Cool,” Bobby said.

“Her name’s Liz,” Ray said, lighting a smoke. He offered the pack to Bobby who shook his head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still want to bang her. But I don’t just want to bang her. Ya know?”

“Yeah, I get the general idea.”

“We met last week at the Kennedy rally—” He stopped. “You’re voting for Kennedy, right?”

“Of course.”

“All right then. Anyway, she’s a volunteer for the local Democratic party. Hands out fliers, knocks on doors, that sort of thing. But she’s not like the other chicks there.”

He took a quick drag from his cigarette. “She actually understands the issues, see? She’s not some ditzy halfwit whose only there ’cause she thinks Kennedy’s cute. And she’s not a campus radical or anything. She can back up her political views with reasoned argument. Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

“You don’t see that every day,” Bobby agreed.

Ray smiled. “I asked her out. Just like that. I’m a chicken, I never do that. But somehow I just had to, ya know? Ah she said yes!”

“Where’d you take her?”

“Well I don’t have a lot of money. And the election’s soon so we’re too busy to take a long lunch. I took her to Sambo’s on the corner. We had a great time! We talked, we laughed, we discussed politics… I tell ya, I could have stayed right there and had lunch with her forever!”

“Sounds like you’re really smitten with her.”

“Smitten, nothin’! I’m in love! This is the woman I’m gonna marry!”

“That’s pretty fast,” Bobby said. “You met her a week ago and you’ve only had one date.”

“One date’s all it took!” Ray shrugged. “I can’t wait till the election’s over. We’ll have time to go on a proper date. A day-long outing. I’ve got it all planned out. And if Kennedy wins she’ll be in a really good mood, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I follow.”

“You know what’s the most amazing part of her? Her eyes.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s like… like there’s this incredible intellect hiding behind these gentle, beautiful eyes. Just lurking there, waiting to be seen. And I see it, man. Believe me I see it.”

“You should tell her that.”

“Oh I will! Don’t you worry!” He took a long puff from the cigarette and stood. “I gotta use the can.”

Bobby gestured down the hallway.

“I figure I’ll start the date with lunch,” Ray said from the hall. “Maybe move on to a matinee. Think that’s a good opener?”

“You’re not going talk to me while you’re actually peeing, right?” Bobby called back.

“I think it’s a good opener,” Ray continued. “If the weather’s nice we could take a walk in the park. It’s all about maximizing conversation time with her. She’s really neat to talk to, ya know?”

“I’m sure she is,” Bobby said. “Really, though, just do your business then continue the story when you get back.”

After a few moments of silence, Ray called back “Uh, hey man. There’s some old guy in your bathroom.”

Bobby scrambled to his feet and darted down the hall.

“Who are you?” Ray asked the old man. “Can we help you with somethin’?”

Bobby grabbed Ray’s arm and said “Come on. This way.”

“There’s an old man in your bathroom!” Ray said, gesturing to the man. “Aren’t you curious what he’s doing here?”

“Come away from the mirror, Dad,” Bobby said, pulling him out of the bathroom.

“What?”

“Why don’t you tell me more about Mom.”

“What? Who?”

“Liz,” Bobby said. “Tell me about Liz.”

Ray stood motionless, his face falling blank. Then he smiled. “I tell ya, it’s the real deal!” He said. “The real deal!”

“Oh yeah?” Bobby said. “Tell me more.”

“Connors,” Jake said into the phone for the fourth time. “C-O-N-N-O-R-S.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Connors,” said the woman on the other end. “I’m not showing any citations under that name. Did you get the ticket within the last three days? Sometimes it takes a while to get in to the system.”

“It was over a month ago.”

“Maybe you misunderstood the officer at the time? Maybe he just gave you a warning.”

“I have the ticket right here,” he said. “Speeding: fifty in a thirty-five zone. And I’m guilty as sin, by the way. No argument there. I just want to pay the damned thing. But I need to know what I owe and where to send it.”

“You don’t owe us anything, sir. You have no outstanding citations. Your last citation was three years ago on May 13th and it’s paid in full.”

Jake groaned. “I just know this is going to bite me in the ass. I’m going to get a Failure To Appear and I’ll owe thousands.”

“I don’t know what to do for you,” she said. “I’m looking at the database and there’s just no ticket.”

“All right,” Jake said, exasperated. “Thanks anyway.”

He hung up.

He turned to his computer and brought up his online banking site. He shook his head forlornly at the balance. If that ticket ended up being more than $500, he’d be eating instant noodles for the rest of the month.

After a long career in the computer industry, he had somehow managed to avoid the wealth and prosperity most engineers found. Three decades of working for charities, causes, and other well-meaning (but broke) organizations had left him with a tiny apartment and no savings. “Making the world a better place” hadn’t been a lucrative career path.