“Dude, you did not just dis science, the very same science that puts food on your table, and allows me to build wondrous devices in your she-shed.” The bus jerked to the side, bouncing painfully over a large rock before Mac came to a skidding halt on the dirt-covered shoulder. Around us, dust rose in a veritable cloud, obscuring our view outside for a few minutes. “Are you sure you weren’t high or something when you thought you could move through walls?”
“No!” I said, outraged. “You know how I feel about recreational drugs. Besides, it wasn’t so much moving through walls as just ... well, kind of projecting myself about ten feet forward. At least, that’s what happened last week, when I was recovering from you damn near blowing me up. Last night I tried it again, and the next thing I knew, I was outside the house, in the neighbor’s yard.”
“You should have called me to see it. I could have filmed you and submitted it to one of those places offering money for proof of ESP and ghosts and things. Just think of the equipment I could buy with the reward money.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment.
“You have more equipment now than can be safely stored,” I pointed out. “I won’t even go into the dubious ethics of what you’re doing with all that decommissioned equipment. If you keep getting more, you’ll end up with enough for a full-fledged nuclear reactor.”
“Don’t be silly,” she scoffed with a little snort. “Like I’d want one of those?”
“I should hope not,” I said.
“I could have put together a reactor any time in the last three years. Now, a proton synchrotron, that’s another matter.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “I’m going to have to contact Amir on the Dark Web and see when CERN is having their next garage sale.”
I stared at her for a moment, not sure if she was joking. It was never easy to tell with Mac.
“But!” she said, unbuckling the seat belt. “First we have to take care of this.” Her gaze slid to the rearview mirror. I glanced back, and noticed that now that the dust from our sudden stop had cleared, the guards at the entrance to Krebbs had come out to the road to look at us.
“I got this.” I answered her warning look before she even put it into words. “It’ll work, Mac. Stop worrying.”
“I just hope your magical thing isn’t all due to you inadvertently imbibing some edibles, because the MIBs are not going to understand if you really aren’t a magical marvel,” she said with a little shake of her head.
“They won’t notice anything,” I said with much more confidence than I felt. While it was true that the previous night I had managed to duplicate the experience I’d had the week before (when I was relaxing after the fireworks show that Mac had let get out of hand), I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could do it again. Not in the light of the day, and under pressure. But what choice did I have? I nodded toward the gate behind us. “We’re getting attention. Let’s go out and eyeball the tire like it’s giving us an issue.”
We both got out and moved to the rear of the bus, bending over to look at the tire. I could feel the interest of the guards some sixty yards back, and knew that we were the focus of their attention.
“I heard a rumor that some physicists in Russia have mastered translocation,” Mac said softly. She pulled a socket wrench out of her pocket and began tapping the tire with it. “But only on a subatomic level. For you to be able to blip yourself ... well, I just really hope it works, because otherwise we’re out of luck.”
“Blip?” I tried the word out. It felt good. “I like that. Blipping. I blip. I have blipped. I will bloop. That’s a good description of what it feels like.”
“If it doesn’t work, I’m fully on board with us going in with guns blazing,” Mac said, her eyes alight with the same fanatical glow they got whenever she worked on what she called her little projects, but which most authorities would refer to as illegal, potentially radioactive devices. “I have these new neural disruptors that don’t do any actual damage—they just make people very, very dizzy. And nauseous. And possibly have projectile diarrhea, but that’s just a side effect, and not an actual feature I’d count on. I can go back to my lab and grab us each a disruptor, and—”
“No guns, not even the barfing kind. And ew on the side effect. Is that why you had me order so much anti-diarrhea medicine? I thought you said you had food poisoning?”
“You know I don’t test on animals,” Mac said with a pained expression. “We can drop off little packets of meds for the guys we shoot if it bothers you—”
“No guns of any kind,” I repeated. “I will blip.”
“They have laser sights. We won’t miss.”
I straightened up from pretending to look at the tire, and gave her a pat on the arm. “You have lasers on the brain, and no, I don’t mean that literally.”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I have had. My part will never be the same. Or the synapses on that side of my head.”
“I’ll be fine without the barf guns. Just be at the rendezvous point at two twenty, because I have a feeling Britt isn’t going to be happy, and waiting around for you may try her patience.”
Mac and I stood glanced back.. She waved at the guards, all of whom were openly watching us, before we turned and entered the bus.
“Let me just get my phone. ...” She pulled out a Frankenstein object that was the result of her merging several cell phones into one, aiming at me. “Right. Test subject is about to blip approximately ... what would you call that? Thirty feet? Forty?”
I glanced at the back of one of the low squat buildings that was about forty feet beyond the fence next to us. “Fortyish. OK. Getting focused now.” I stood with eyes closed, shutting out the sound of not just cars passing but the fans running lethargically in the early summer heat, and even the odd drone of machinery from the Krebbs facility, while adopting the calm mental state that I’d managed the night before. Once I had that, I reached out and pulled aside what I thought of as the strands of matter that wove together to create the world, and stepped through it, leaving Mac and the bus behind.
16 June 1889
Miss James:
This is to acknowledge receipt of the copy of Any Port in a Storm, or A Young Man’s Folly amongst the Sheep. I am unsure of why you felt I needed a copy of this prurient sort of literature, but I will attribute your gesture to one of general goodwill rather than a comment about either the gender (not to mention species) I prefer for romantic endeavors.
That said, the chapter regarding the acquisition of garments better suited to women rather than sheep was particularly eye-opening. Who knew they made stockings for ewes? I certainly didn’t, and I’m not at all sure that I couldn’t have gone through the course of my life without knowing that fact.
However, I have never been a fan of ignorance for ignorance’s sake, and thus with the assumption that your gesture was intended to inform me about the possibilities available regarding sheep as potential romantic partners, I thank you for the book.
It cannot leave me but wondering if your family is aware of your interest in such a ... rare, I believe was the word you used? ... form of literature. Perhaps your husband is the connoisseur of all things ewes? Father? Older brother? I fervently hope they do not discuss such things with you. Or at least that they do not do so against your will.