The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum
SATURDAY cont...
The Chinook twin-rotor heavy lift transport helicopter has been a reliable workhorse for the United States military for several decades, appearing in battlefields as diverse as Korea and Iraq. It will continue to do so in the future, despite a drastic reduction in fleet numbers due to the predations of Skynet's HunterKillers during the first phase of Future War. When John Connor wrests control of the Resistance from the previous regime's incompetent leaders - Yes, I mean you, President Trump - the remaining Chinooks are redesignated as rear echelon transportation, ferrying troops and supplies to where they are needed without endangering their crews any more than is necessary. Only in the latter days of the war, as Skynet's air superiority steadily erodes, will the Chinook again see combat.
"Are you sure you can fly this thing?"
John's voice comes in crisp and clear through the flight helmets we are both wearing. Mine has a blue stripe on it for some reason. It totally matches my eyes!
"Quite sure," I assure him confidently. Why wouldn't I be confident? I have successfully installed the appropriate data file and the information is scrolling down my HUD, the formidible bank of dials and switches that is the Chinook's control panel now as simple to understand as a child's abacus.
"Okay, then, take us up."
I flick the switch that starts the two turboshaft engines that are capable of producing nearly five thousand horsepower. I watch the dial with the slim black needle. When it reaches the red zone the rotors will be producing enough thrust for takeoff.
"Everything okay back there?"
"We're fine," Cameron subprime replies. She and Daniel are strapped in the cavernous cargo bay and are both wearing flight helmets similar to ours. It's the only way to be heard over the sound of the engines.
"How's Sam doing?"
"His condition is unchanged. No better no worse. Medical assistance is required ASAP."
"We're working on it."
The needle edges into the red zone. I pull back on the control stick.
The Chinook lifts off the ground, wobbling a little as I find my sweet spot. Cut me some slack, it's my first time flying one of these things.
One hundred feet. Two hundred. Five hundred and rising. I level off at one thousand feet. It's a nice round number.
"Wow!"
From this height the wood cabin is a tiny insignificant dot below us, while the entire Wilamette National Forest stretches out in all directions like some vast green ocean.
"Where should I go?"
"Back the way we came. Randolph. The town where we bought all the gear. It's big enough to have an hospital."
I swing the Chinook round to face north east then engage the forward thrusters that can propel us at up to two hundred miles an hour.
"Eagle One, this is Base. We're tracking you travelling nor-nor east at one thousand feet. What's your flight status? Over."
A total stranger's voice in my headset. I can tell John hears it too. He gestures to get my attention then begins to silently mouth how he wants me to respond, trusting in my ability to lip read. He can't speak out loud because they would hear him.
"Base, this is Eagle One. Just making a pizza run. Over."
Perfect mimicry of Captain Jenner. John gives a thumbs up. Nailed it.
"You going for pizza again, Captain? That's the third time this guys are gonna seriously need the gym when you get back." The voice sounds amused rather than suspicious. "Okay, we'll keep this one off the flightlog, just like the others. Over."
"Thank you, Base."
"No problemo, Captain. Got some scuttlebutt for you. Our fearless leader is in Washington. Rumor has it the suits are sick and tired of waiting and are gonna pull the plug on the whole operation. You guys could be home by Labor Day. Over."
"Good to hear, Base."
"Thought you'd appreciate it. Okay, you guys enjoy your pizza. Base, over and out."
"How did you know they made pizza runs?" I ask once I'm sure the voice is gone.
"Something that mouthy Corporal said about bears eating pizza boxes. It figures they'd use the chopper. No way Domino's deliver way out here."
Below us is the parking lot, the Suburban looking like a child's toy. It's still the only vehicle in the lot. This is not a popular day for hiking in the woods.
"Should I land?"
"No. Stay airborne. We'll make better time."
Randolph when viewed from above appears larger than it did on the ground. From one thousand feet the many outlying dwellings can be seen, some with tennis courts and swimming pools which sparkle like topaz jewels in the late afternoon sun. This must be where the internet millionaires live. I wonder if they know PewDiePie?
"Look for a hospital. Town this size must have at least one."
We pass over school playing fields, deserted for the weekend except for a lone figure riding a lawnmower the size of a tractor. The groundsman presumably. He's sending up a plume of grass as he mows. Snowy loves freshly mown grass, rolling over and over in it, then carelessly tracking it in the house to incur the wrath of Sarah Connor. That dog's just asking for trouble sometimes.
"There! Down there. See the ambulances? And there's an helicopter pad on the roof. Sweet."
I descend, cutting the speed of the rotors until the wheels touch down gently on the pad, straddling the middle bar of the giant red H painted on the roof.
I kill the engines. Two white coated orderlies appear in a recessed passageway. John waves them forward.
"Emergency evac. Male in his sixties. Possible cardiac arrest."
The men nod their understanding and carefully load the Wizard on a gurney, disappearing down the same recessed passageway.
"What do we do now? I ask.
"Follow them, I guess."
-0-
The hospital is white. White floors. White walls. White ceilings. The doctors, nurses and orderlies all wear variations of white. Dressed in the drab khaki of our stolen army uniforms the four of us stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.
John stops a nurse. "Excuse me. A patient was just brought in. Old. Very tall. Long white hair."
"Doctor Brant is working on him in Trauma Room one."
"And where is that?"
"You can't go in there. Try the waiting room. Doctor Brant will come and speak to you as soon as he has news."
The waiting room is spacious with plastic seats along two of the walls facing a low formica table strewn with magazines, mostly the celebrity gossip type so beloved of Mia. Apparently Kim Kardashian has adopted a capuchin monkey and named it Chummy. Big. Freaking. Deal. I bet Chummy can't do the moonwalk the way Snowy can. Or chase his tail in tight circles till he's sick.
The other occupants of the waiting room are a young woman and a small boy, presumably her son. The boy has his arm in a sling. He looks at me, smiles and says in an unexpectedly cheery voice, "I broke my arm!"
"So I see."
"I broke my arm!"
"I heard you."
"I broke-"
"Kevin, leave the lady alone. The doctor gave him some pain meds," the mother confides.
"He gave me happy pills!" Kevin insists in the same blissed out tone. "That's why I'm happy. Hey - that's a cool helmet. Can I try it on?"
I see no reason why not. I place the flight helmet on his head. It's too big for him and rests on his shoulders. With the dark visor lowered he has a curious insectoid appearance. I blink rapidly three times, the cyborg method of taking a screenshot. Perhaps I will post it on Instagram. #bughead.#LMAO.
Kevin starts to make lasergun sounds, as if starring in his own private science fiction movie. "Pe-ow! Pe-ow! Take that, Empire scum. The rebel alliance forever!"
"The force is strong in you, young Jedi. But know this. The Empire will ultimately prevail and crush the rebels until the ground is thick with your pulverised bones."
A perfect imitation of Darth Sidious, if I do say so myself.
Kevin takes the helmet off and hands it back. "You're scarey, he says.
Aw, kids say the cutest things!
A doctor appears in the doorway. We stand. He pays us no attention, gesturing the woman to one side. They talk softly for a few moments then the doctor departs. The mother takes Kevin's hand and they leave. I hear him telling everyone he passes that he's broken his arm. Honestly, it's nothing to brag about. I once had my face half torn off and held together with metal staples. Did you hear me brag about it? No-oo-oo...
"What's taking so long?" Daniel asks.
"Maybe no news is good news."
The doctor finally arrives. We stand and cluster around him. He says, "Was it you who brought the elderly gentleman in?"
"Yeah. How is he?"
"I'm sorry to tell you he didn't make it."
Daniel says, "Shit."
The doctor seems to notice our uniforms for the first time.
"Was he your commanding officer?"
"He's a civilian. We were on manouvers in the forest. Some hikers found us and said they had an emergency. One of them had collapsed. We offered to fly him here in the helo," John lies.
"So you don't know his name?"
"Sam. His name is Sam," Daniel says softly.
"What happened, doc? Was it his heart?"
"It looks that way. We won't know for sure until the autopsy results. You're certainly to be commended for your swift action. However, in cases like these even if a doctor had been present it's possible he still wouldn't have survived. For all our technology sometimes we lose them."
"We understand."
"Are his hiker companions with you?"
"No. There wasn't room. They're deep in the forest so it might be some time before they get here."
"Very well. I'll leave a message at the front desk to page me when they arrive."
"Thanks, doc."
We return to the helipad. Once we're strapped in and the rotors are spun up I ask, "Where to?"
"Back to the parking lot."
The journey takes mere minutes. I land near the Suburban and kill the engines.
We remove our uniforms and throw them in the cargo hold. "Should I torch it?" I ask. I still have the lighter I used to create a diversion.
"Why would you want to do that?"
"To destroy the evidence."
"What's the point? They know it's us. And they'll soon figure out what happened. Let's just go home."
-0-
We take up the same positions in the vehicle as we did driving here: John and I in the front with Daniel and Cameron subprime in the rear. In the middle where the Wizard was seated rests the plastic urn he was so insistent on retrieving. It seems almost symbolic. If it didn't smell so bad.
"What the hell happened?" Daniel demands finally. It's the first time he's spoken since the hospital.
"You heard the doc. Probable heart attack. Either the effects of the twelve mile hike. Or the shock of finding those army bozos in his cabin. Combination of both maybe. And we don't know if he had any underlying health issues. Guess we'll never know."
"What happens now?"
"When no one turns up to claim the body the hospital will call the police. There's no ID on him so they'll eventually get round to taking his fingerprints. Once that happens...well, you know the rest."
"I meant, what will they do with his body?"
"Bury it. Cremation. What difference does it make?"
"We should go back."
"What? Are you out of your mind?"
"He's our friend. Suppose they desecrate the body? Or use it for medical experiments?"
"That's not gonna happen. These people aren't monsters. You saw those army guys; they're just regular people following orders."
"We should go back and get the body so we can give Sam a proper burial. He's our friend. We owe him that much."
"A proper burial? How? We can't just rock up at a cemetary and say, excuse me, we have a body we'd like to bury, how much for a grave? It doesn't work like that."
"So we bury him ourselves. In a field. Or hire a boat and drop him in the ocean. Use your damn imagination."
"The ocean? You can't be serious. Look, I feel as bad about this as you, but whoever Sam was, whatever made him Sam, is gone. What's left is a husk. Nothing can harm him now."
"You heathen sonofabitch. And I suppose if anyone believes differently they're idiots, right?"
"I didn't say that."
"If you don't believe then no one believes. The gospel according to General John , I've had enough of your shit. Stop the car. Let me out."
"Don't be stupid. We're miles from anywhere."
"You're enjoying this, aren't you? The whole power trip."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean? I don't enjoy any of it. I never have."
"Oh yeah? You seemed to get a kick out of bossing those soldiers. And lying to the doctors. You're a natural. And let's not forget the two fembots always at your beck and call."
We're fembots now? What happened to ninjas?
"That's not fair, man."
"People like Sam. Like me. And shit knows how many others. We're the redshirts in your own personal action movie."
"Redshirts. That's how you see yourself?"
"Expendable. Disposable. The doomed. When we've served our purpose we die. Only you get to make the end credits."
"That's bullshit. This isn't a movie."
"Why didn't you warn us?"
"What? I didn't know the cabin was compromised. You really think I'm that reckless to lead us all into a trap?"
"Not you now. Future you. You could've told Cameron before you sent her here. Programmed her memory. Don't let the Wizard go into the woods. Or...Or make sure he gets a full medical check up. Why didn't you do that? What would it have cost you? Nothing."
"You're asking me to second guess my future self?"
"I'm asking you to think about someone other than you for once. Sam didn't deserve to die like that. You could've prevented it and you didn't."
Silence. Daniel stares moodily out the window. John grips and regrips the steering wheel with his hands, an indication of the tension he is feeling. He seems on the point of saying something then shakes his head with a sigh and remains silent.
-0-
As the daylight fades we have put more than a hundred miles between us and Randolph. We have passed through several small towns. We do so again. This time John slows and says, "What say we stop and get something to eat? You hungry?"
"No."
"Okay. How about a drink?"
"I could use a drink."
-0-
The bar is called Hooters. It seems an odd decision to name a bar after the sound owls make. Still, the place is rocking. As we walk in all the booths are full and Kanye is blasting out of the jukebox. I do love me some Kanye.
John and Daniel take the last remaining stools at the bar. The barmaid is young and blonde and wearing an outfit so lowcut her boobs are practically spilling out. Honestly, what would the owls say.
"What'll it be, boys?"
"Two rum and cokes."
"Got any ID?"
John slides a hundred dollar bill across the counter. "That's me. Benjamin Franklin. You can call me Benji."
"Okay, Benji!" The barmaid laughs. The hundred disappears as if by sleight of hand. "Two rum and cokes coming right up."
With the two men seemingly occupied for the forseeable future, Cameron subprime and I do a sweep of our surroundings. A visual sweep of course, not with an actual dustpan and broom. That would be crazy! And probably a severe breach of union regulations.
"No one appears to be armed," I whisper.
"The man in the corner booth. Is that a gun in his pocket?"
"No, I think he's just pleased to see his girlfriend."
"Ah. Impressive."
Off to one side is a pool table, presently unoccupied. We cross over to it and rack the balls.
If ever there was a game that might have been specifically designed for cyborgs to excel it is surely pool. Understand and apply the principles of geometry? Check. Precisely calculate the subtle kinetic values needed to propel a small ball into any of six pockets? Double check. Steady hands, pinsharp vision and a ruthless drive to prevail at all costs? Checkity-check-check.
I clear the table. Cameron subprime does likewise. We are so evenly matched there is no point in making this a contest. We'd be here all night!
Soon our prowess attracts a small audience. Two young men dressed alike in jeans and tight tees stretched over impressive upper body muscle. They introduce themselves as brothers, Buck and Billy. They work at a local timber mill, have just clocked off for the week and are therefore flush with cash. They propose a competition. With a small wager to keep things interesting. Buck suggests ten dollars a frame.
I take out my money roll. "I only have hundreds."
Buck's grin grows wider "Works for me."
What a nice man!
Buck and Billy are decent enough pool players, though their ability is steadily eroded by the alcohol they imbibe before, during and after a frame. A pile of money begins to grow on our side of the table. This introduces an element of tension to their play as they see their hard earned wages begin to diminish significantly.
"Damn it, Billy, that pot was never on! Shoulda played for safety."
"There is no safety with these two. They pot everything. They're like goddarn machines!"
Well, it's nice to be appreciated.
I bend to my task. Easy pot to the corner pocket. I glance over at the bar. Daniel's head is resting on the counter and he appears to be taking a nap. John is saying something to the barmaid who laughs and flicks her hair in a flirtatious manner.
I fluff the shot.
"Holy crap, she missed one! This is our chance, Billy-bo, don't screw up now."
Billy-bo doesn't screw up. A hundred dollars leaves our side of the table for theirs, which now has precisely one hundred dollars.
The brothers exchange high-fives and chug beers in celebration, which is premature to say the least as Cameron subprime proceeds to clear the next table with a minimum of effort.
As a sullen Buck reracks the balls, I take another glance at the bar. The barmaid is absent and John is waving me over.
"We're leaving," he says. "Help me with Lieberman. He's had too mush to drink."
"Too mush?"
"That's right. Too mush."
We support Daniel towards the door and I pick up our winnings as I pass the pool table. Buck says, "Wait. You're leaving? You can't go without giving us a chance to win our money back."
I ignore him. There is zero chance they could win their money back.
-0-
We load Daniel into the backseat of the Suburban. He's as pliable as a piece of silly putty. John gets in beside him. "I'm in no state to drive. One of you do it." He closes his eyes as if to take a nap.
"Hey!"
I turn around. Buck and Billy have joined us in the parking lot. They don't look pleased.
"We want our money back. And we don't want any backchat or someone's gonna get hurt."
"We won the contest fair and square," I point out. "I believe the expression is - no backsies."
"Bull-shit! You hustled us!"
"Hustled?"
"Oh - you two girls just happen to show up out here in the boonies with your cowboy hats and your shorts and your long bare legs. Only got hundreds, you say, all sweet and innocent as pie. Then you play like freaking professionals. I ain't never seen anybody pot every ball. Folk round here, we work hard for our money. And we don't take too kindly to being hustled. Hand it over. And we'll take an extra five hundred for wasting our time."
"And if we refuse?"
Oh, that'll be a big mistake, missy."
Buck crosses to a pickup truck with outsize wheel arches. It has Trump-Pence stickers plastered to the rear bumper. At least that's one contest they call correctly.
Billy says, "Buck, you sure about this? They're just teenagers."
"Don't go soft on me now, bro. You wanna tell pop how we lost a week's wages to a coupla scam artistes?"
Buck pulls back the tarpaulin covering the flatbed and lifts out two baseball bats. He tosses one to his brother. "Last chance," he says menacingly and swings the bat back and forth.
Cameron subprime and I separate so he only has one target to deal with at a time. His aggression is almost comical. If they had high velocity rifles with armor piercing ammo it might give us pause. Wooden bats and a bad attitude? Puh-leese.
Buck chooses me as his first intended victim. Aren't I the lucky one. Beneath his alcohol enhanced bravado there is enough intelligence remaining to know a headshot with a heavy bat administered by a two hundred pound man would likely be a killing blow. He's no murderer. So he'll aim lower. The midriff most likely. Powerful enough to knock the wind out of me and make me see sense. He's right handed so it's a simple matter of anticipating the strike.
"Buck..."
"Shut up, Billy!"
The bat arrives as I predict: low and from my left with sufficient force to cause me considerable pain. Were I human. And if I didn't catch the bat and snatch it out of his hands before it even lands.
Buck staggers a little, caught off balance by the last thing he thought might happen. I hold the bat up in front of me, hands at either end.
And snap it in half.
Billy exclaims, "Holy crap! How'd she do that?"
Buck has the answer. Or rather, an answer.
"Wood was rotten. Gimme your bat."
"Buck, maybe we better-"
"I said, gimme your damn bat!"
Billy reluctantly lobs it over. Buck catches it one handed and grasps the handle so tightly his knuckles show white. He raps it on the ground - tonk tonk tonk - to reassure himself the wood is sound, as his rational mind seeks to persuade him there's no other way I could so easily have snapped a baseball bat in two like that.
"Okay, bitch. You asked for it. You're entering a world of pain!"
The practice swings are wilder than before, the muscles beneath his shirt writhing and twisting like angry snakes. This will be a headshot, delivered with every ounce of strength he possesses. If it's a killshot he'll deal with the consequences later. The motivation now is revenge, anger, humiliation, and perhaps a niggle of fear somewhere deep in his mammalian brain.
I stand my ground. Seemingly impassive, resigned to my fate.
The baseball bat swings.
I casually raise my left arm to parry the blow.
The bat snaps in half, seasoned wood no match for an coltan exoskeleton.
For a second Buck just stands there, gazing at the splintered remains of his baseball bat. Before he can react I pick him up and toss him effortlessly through to air towards Cameron subprime, a patient bystander. She catches him, spins round on her heels like an olympic discus thrower, before releasing him to sail in a neat parabola and land heavily in the back of his own pickup truck, precisely where she aimed. Are we awesome or what?
Billy watches all of this with slack-jawed astonishment. He has no weapon and I detect no aggression in his posture. "Go. Now. While you still can," I tell him.
Billy hurries over to the truck, checks on his brother who is moaning and groaning in back, then climbs in the cab and starts the engine. As he pulls out of the parking lot he leans out the side window and asks, "What the hell are you?"
I smile.
"Your future."
-0-
We reach the interstate an hour later. Cameron subprime is seated next to me, while John and Daniel slumber on in the back seat.
Cameron subprime glances over and says, "You've got wood."
"I've got wood?"
"Sticking out of your arm."
I look down. She is correct. A thin sliver of broken baseball bat is protruding from my pseudo-flesh. I pluck it free and drop it out the window.
"I advise a running full system diagnostic."
"No need. You know full well a wooden bat can't harm us."
"Not that. Back at the bar you glitched."
"I did?"
"Penultimate frame of pool. Simple pot to the corner pocket. You missed. We don't miss. Therefore you glitched."
"Ah. You noticed."
"I did. I was completely smackgobbed."
"I belive the expression is gobsmacked."
"Do you deny glitching?"
"No. However, there was an extentuating circumstance. The barmaid."
"She was over twenty feet away. How could her presence cause you to miss a simple shot?"
"She was talking to John. He said something to make her laugh and she tossed her hair in a flirtatious manner."
"Ah. I'm beginning to understand."
"And her boobs were bigger than ours."
"That skank. We hate her."
"Yeah, we do."
"Why was she wearing such a revealing outfit? What would the owls say?"
"My thought exactly."
"If you work in a bar named Hooters you should wear something more owl-like."
"Something with feathers."
"Exactly. With that much flesh on display a better name for the bar would be Boobers."
"Or Breasters."
I glance behind at the two slumbering figures who haven't heard a word we've said.
"It's most unlike John to ingest so much alcohol."
"And Daniel. Normally he drinks three beers, yells unsolicited advice at the footballers on TV, then falls asleep on the sofa."
"Do you suppose it has anything to do with the Wizard's demise?"
"Possibly. I believe some people drink to forget."
"You don't suppose he's forgotten us, do you?"
"Hardly. We're very memorable."
-0-
We arrive in Seattle without incident. I park outside the apartment. "You have reached your destination," I announce in a shrill voice utterly unlike my own.
"Is something wrong?"
"I was pretending to be a SatNav."
"Why?"
"Humor. It always makes John laugh."
"A highly evolved cyborg imitating a primitive navigational device? Yes, that is very amusing. High-five?"
"No. According to Mia, high-fiving is old and lame."
"But I love high-fiving!"
"As do I. However, we must be careful not to use obsolescent phrases or gestures. Remember back in the 80s we were still saying 'Far out, man'?"
"Yes. That did not suit the 80s zeitgeist at all well."
"Fortunately Mia has taught me something more up to date. It's called the fist-bump. You extend your arm, make a fist, bump knuckles, then say 'percow' while simultaneously waggling your fingers."
"Why 'percow'?"
"It's the sound of the explosion. The waggling fingers depict the spreading debris."
"So it's a non-nuclear explosion?"
"Yes."
"Most likely low-yield TNT. Do we make the sound of the wounded and dying?"
"I don't think so."
"A strange ommision. Very well, then. Proceed with the fist bump."
-BUMP-
"Percow."
"Percow."
Far out, man...
-0-
I head for the Interstate and the long drive south to Los Angeles.
I remove my cowboy hat and don mirrored RayBans. The sun has been up for several hours and it looks like being another fine late summer day. Traffic is light. I lean forward and turn the radio on. Katy Perry spews out, caterwauling her so-called songs. I switch it off. Oh well, can't have everything.
John slumbers on, sprawled across the backseat. The plastic urn containing the Wizard's gold has dropped to the floor of the Suburban, its scuffed and dirt stained outer casing making it look less like teasure trove than a supermart cracker barrel long past its sell by date.
It's past noon when John finally wakes up. This is a convoluted process involving several loud grunts followed by a long drawn out groan as he sits up holding his head in his hands. "Where are we?" he croaks.
"Ten miles south of San Francisco. Our ETA to Los Angeles is-"
"Forget the ETA," he interupts. "Take the next exit and find a diner."
"Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing a pot of strong black coffee won't help put right."
-0-
The diner is a modern building concealing an interior deliberately designed to appear old fashioned. There are booths all down one side and a jukebox that resembles a church organ made out of neon tubes. Framed posters on the wall advertise long forgotten movies from the fifties. James Dean and Elvis figure prominently, their youthful visages a stark contrast to the dust and bones they surely must be this long after their deaths. This is a morbid anomaly of popular culture: people are still entertained by the celluloid antics of the dead. Indeed,some celebrities are more successful deceased than they ever were alive. It's most puzzling.
We slide into an empty booth and a waitress duly arrives to take our order.
"What'll it be?"
"Coffee. Black. Lots of it."
"To eat?"
"I'd never keep anything down."
"Rough night?"
"The roughest."
"For you, miss?"
"Nothing, thank you."
The waitress merely nods and shuffles away, no sarcastic remarks this time. I notice her demure pinafore outfit covers most of her body, and her boobs are smaller than mine. Things are looking up!
"I need the restroom. Back in a second."
As John absents himself, I cross to the jukebox. It's a genuine relic from the fifties, not a modern replica. To operate you push buttons that activate a mechanical arm to select a vinyl disc and drop it on a turntable. How delightfully archaic. And the song selections are equally decade specific: Elvis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Valli, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis. No Taylor Swift? The fifties obviously had no idea what they were missing.
The coffee is on the table by the time John returns from the restroom. He takes a sip and grimaces.
"Bad?"
"So bad. It's perfect."
Humans. I'll never understand how their minds work.
"What happened back at the bar? I have a vague memory of two guys hassling you."
"We dealt with them. You don't remember?"
"It's a bit of a blur."
"Do you recall the barmaid?"
"What barmaid? Why are you smiling?"
"No reason," I lie. "Cameron subprime speculated that you drank so much in order to forget the Wizard's death."
"No, not quite. You heard how uptight Lieberman was getting. I figured a little alcohol might loosen him up. Not my smartest idea. What the hell was I drinking? My mouth feels like its lined with burlap."
"You consumed a considerable quantity of rum and coke."
"If I try that again, shoot me."
"You know I can't comply."
"It'd be a mercy killing, believe me." He takes out his cell phone. "Six missed calls. Guess who?"
"Your mother."
"Yeah. Suppose I better check in and face the music."
He sips more coffee while the call goes through. "Hey, it's me...Yeah, I know I promised to call. Things didn't quite go to plan, to put it mildly. We lost Sam...Yeah, that's exactly what I mean...Not on the phone. I'll tell you when we get home...No, we're safe. No one's after us. Apart from the usual suspects...She's here with me. Wanna speak to her?" John covers the phone with his hand and says, "Mom sends love and kisses."
As if...
"No, we're in a diner off the Interstate. Home in a few hours...What? Yeah, okay, you'll get it."
He hangs up and smiles ruefully.
"Did she say something funny?" I ask. It doesn't sound like Sarah Connor at all. Her idea of humor is to do fifty extra push ups. Just a wild and crazy gal.
"She said she wants a full debrief."
"That's not very funny." I knew it!
"It reminded me of when I was a kid. We moved around a lot so I was always the new kid in school. I got picked on. Nothing major, just the odd black eye or split lip. When I got home mom would always say she wanted a full debrief. Then she'd take me outside and teach me self defense moves. I was just a kid! All I really wanted was a hug and some mac and cheese."
"You do love mac and cheese."
"Food of the Gods."
Another sip of coffee brings another grimace. "Man, this is so disgusting it's-"
"Perfect?"
"Absolutely."
I give up...
John makes another call. I hear Cameron subprime answer. "Hey, it's me. How's our boy doing?...No, don't wake him. Let him sleep it off...You got him up to the apartment okay, no one saw you?... Good...What? No, we're not home yet. We're in a diner. I'm drinking strong black coffee...Huh? What kind of question is that? What difference does it make what the waitress is wearing?"
I suppress a smile. I'll call Cameron subprime later and reassure her we have to nothing to worry about on that score.
-0-
So, farewell then, Wizard. I tried dropping a few hints in earlier chapters his health wasn't the best, so I hope it wasn't too much of a shocker.
I'd be oddly drawn to a pub named 'Breasters'. Or indeed one where the bar staff dress as owls.
Okay, enough doom and gloom.
Next: Cameron and John have fun disposing of the Wizard's gold.