But I did have a plan.
It was time to use our drug kit to program Dobrynin.
Chapter 20
“Nikki,” I said, “get out your drug kit. Nikki?” She was nowhere around. I gave the room another look. “Nikki!”
“Don’t panic, Phil,” she said from the room I’d tried to get into earlier. “Just a minute.”
A few moments later she entered from the doorway leading to the communications room, She’d taken off her bag lady mask and helmet/wig since it was so warm where we were. “I’ve been playing with Dobrynin’s computers. I could see you weren’t going to reach a gentleman’s agreement. I sent out the press releases and public announcements we recorded earlier.” She held up the mini-D we’d recorded them on. “Before too long, the whole world will know about your anti-grav rods.”
“That can be undone,” Dobrynin said. “A few news broadcasts about the ‘hoax’ and everyone will be laughing about the impossibility of any such thing. We have already got them conditioned to scoff at the idea that there could be anti-gravity anyway. It will be a big joke.” He dismissed us with a wave of his hand and went back to watching the ball game.
I looked at him a moment. As the game became more violent, he started drooling. I turned back to Nikki, ” I think we’re going to have to help him see things our way. Let’s do for him what we did for Lincoln. That drug worked pretty well.”
Nikki handed me her shotgun and took the drug kit out of the large pocket in her bag-lady uniform.
Dobrynin was—I thought—engrossed in it as it seemed. But when the kit came out, he screamed, “No!” and rose to his feet.
I glanced over as he rose, his face red with rage. Dobrynin was the first obese man I’d really ever seen. Yes, they do have them in the 3V’s but we all know those are just actors in fat suits.
Maybe even a little synthaskin. But not real flesh-and-blood, honest-to-goodness blubber.
So I didn’t realize how fast a fat guy can move when he needs to. I just assumed he was sort of like a whale on land. Not so. While Nikki was looking into the kit, Dobrynin’s obese fingers grabbed a tray of fruit as his body lurched forward and he threw it.
The edge of the try collided with Nikki’s temple and she fell, dropping the black medical case.
I watched as Nikki, the tray, a rainbow of fruit, and the kit did a complicated ballet with gravity and dropped in a tangle. The case and fruit hit first, then Nikki landed on them. The tray continued past her and shattered another section of the mirrored room.
I was furious and afraid Nikki might be seriously injured.
“Good night,” I said grimly, pumping a stun slug into Dobrynin. He blinked in surprise. I suppose he didn’t realize that they were only stun shells. I pumped three more into him figuring anyone with that much mass to him might need an extra-large dose. He just stood there. I got ready to fire again and he toppled face down into a bowl of fruit on the table next to his chair.
The table wobbled a moment and then collapsed under the enormous weight.
Lincoln looked at me. Our programming of him had made it impossible for him to do anything once the action started but I decided not to take any chances. I fired at him, missed, and fired again twice, hitting his body.
His eyebrows shot up as he looked at me with disbelief. “But—”
“Sorry, but you’re not really on our team. You’re only as good as the chemicals we trained you with.”
He toppled over without protest further protest. I laid the shotgun down and knelt beside Nikki who was struggling to get up.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a whale of a headache.” She laughed. “That’s probably fitting, isn’t it, considering who threw the tray.” She turned the medical kit over. It was a mess of liquid, fruit, and splinters of glass. We checked the other bag lady, but she had no kit with her.
“Now what?” Nikki asked.
“Now, we get out of here the best way we can and get to Jake. We’ll figure out another plan later. If we were smart, we’d kill Dobrynin and end one of the major contributors to Earth’s economic woes. But I know that neither of us can do that.”
“And someone else would just take his place.”
“Right.”
“Wrong,” Nikki said.
“You’re not going to kill—”
“No. I did better than that. I was able to get into the computer system while ago and mess things up royally. It’d been left on so I didn’t need any access codes. I just created a major sellout of World Power stocks. Also, I created a few press releases. The company is going to make an announcement of your discovery and how you made it. The population is going to be primed for cheap energy, space exploration, and you-name-it in a few minutes.”
I swallowed and tried to let it sink in. “Are you sure that…will it…what?”
“Never at a loss for words, Phil.” She grabbed me and gave me a quick kiss. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“Right. Now let’s see. We can’t drug them. You can get out as a bag lady. Maybe I could be the prisoner and you could…”
“I have a better idea. See that bag lady sleeping on the floor? If I can dress up like one of them, then so can—”
“Now wait a minute. You will never, ever get me to dress up in women’s clothing. Never.”
I soon had her clothes on; it was either that or one of the cute pink G-strings the boys were wearing. I figured the bag lady outfit was more masculine.
We calmly slipped out the door and let it close behind us and marched down the hall to caught the elevator without being stopped. We knew we had to get away quickly because all hell was going to break out in the stadium in five minutes. Nikki had explained that while she had been in the communications room, she had taken the liberty of ordering the game to end, its broadcast to be replaced by a continuous loop of our canned release stating that anti-gravity technology was available and would change the world with new modes of travel and energy production.
Now an angry roar was rumbling from the stadium. “Let the games end,” was not going over well.
Over the next few hours, Nikki realized that she had underestimated the love of a fans for their sports. Once the unrest started, it spread like wildfire through the city. And yes, in case you haven’t guessed it, that was the game that the fans tore down the Miami stadium. The destruction of the structure was added to the many other losses World Power totaled up that day.
Chapter 21
We had just managed to flag down a taxi outside of the stadium elevator when inside the high walls of the stadium, the din of thousands of voices cursing and hollering grew to a roar. The dozens of bag ladies outside Dobrynin’s elevator went scurrying and four headed up the elevator as we opened the taxi doors and climbed in, knowing we didn’t want to be around when word came back that their fearless leader was down for the count.
“Where to, ladies?” the tiny little man behind the wheel asked unaware of the impending riot.
I slid into the seat behind him, “The rocket port,” I said. Then cleared my throat and tried it again in my best falsetto, “The rocket port.”
“No,” Nikki said from her side of the seat as she slammed the door.
The driver turned around. It was only then that I saw that he was standing on the seat, “Come on ladies, I don’t have all day.”