At any rate, we now looked like paupers rather than prisoners or wayward bag ladies and I was no longer self-conscious about my outfit.
“Phil,” Tom Berrel, one of my old lab group, said as he gripped my arm in his muscled hand,
“we gave you quite a ribbing… But I’d like to say thanks for getting us out of there. There were ready to—”
“No thanks is necessary guys,” I said. ” I know that you’d have done the same for me. And Nikki did most of the work anyway. And if I hadn’t dragged you all into this in the first place…
Tell you what, just quit talking about that crazy outfit and we’ll call it even.”
Everyone laughed. The looks of gratitude on the faces of those Nikki and I had rescued was all the thanks we needed.
With the problems at the stadium, no one in charge seemed to be too concerned about the escape of sixteen political prisoners even if they knew that everyone hadn’t remained in their cells when the prison flooded. The Warden—whom we’d left sleeping soundly on the floor of one of the cabs—probably wouldn’t be saying anything for another two or three hours, either.
Nevertheless, things were tense since we had several major problems.
The worst was what we were going to do for transportation.
There were sixteen people we’d released from the prison and Nikki and myself. Even when Jake arrived, we would only have rides for three people. Though we could stack everyone into the van like a load of bots, the gravity rods would put too much stress on them if we flew the van and if we didn’t, getting from Miami to Jake’s place in Texas would take forever.
Since none of us had money or cards, there was no way to purchase a ride on a rocket. And we wouldn’t dare to try to commandeer a ride; it was too easy for the ground control to change the destination or even blow up a rocket. Hijacking rides was a thing they did only back in the good old days of the early 21st Century. Even though Jake usually carried some money, it was doubtful that’d he’d have enough to pay for more than two or three passengers’ fare.
So that was one big problem. Another of more general interest was that it looked like we might have been too successful in dismantling Dobrynin’s empire. In fact, as I watched the small 3V in the waiting room at the port, I thought we might have succeeded in putting the whole planet into a neo-dark age. The announcement of the discovery of anti-gravity and the dissolution of the World Energy Corporation (an addition that Nikki had added herself while in the communications room—save us from vengeful females) created quite an impact. The world stock market fell to record lows before being prematurely closed for the week. Adding to the confusion was the spontaneous walk-off of from jobs worldwide as people headed toward the nearest 3V.
(The French were the worst; they threw what looked like a nation-wide celebration boasting that
“Hunter” was actually a corruption of an old French name—a contention that undoubtedly made my ancestors somewhere rotate in their abodes).
Soon rioting broke out in Britain, Japan, and most of Africa while an interview with the president of the Flat Earth Society revealed that they thought I should be drawn and quartered. I made a note to put the Flat Earth Society at the bottom of my speaking engagement list.
Then the corporations brought out their own media guns. Slowly the 3V news specials started wheeling out the usual tired experts who explained why anti-gravity wasn’t possible and/or what impact the technology could have on our society and economy with the usual (ho-hum) graphs and file footage.
But it was too late. The cat was out of the bag, even if the public only had an inkling of what might be achieved with my research team’s new invention.
In fact I suspect that many people would have gone into shock if they’d realized that almost all types of travel and energy production would shortly become obsolete and that the whole solar system could now be used for raw materials.
Fortunately, in all the confusion, the police and bag ladies at the rocket port were all busy leaving to attempt to sort things out at the stadium and other areas that were now in full riot. All of our group just stuck close to the crowd milling about the 3V and Nikki and I kept our shotguns hidden but ready in case we got into a real confrontation.
We took up our guard duty in a spot that allowed us to watch both the 3V and the parking lot where—we hoped—Jake would be showing up shortly. Night fell as a formation of fighter planes went screaming overhead. Apparently authorities had decided to stop the rioting around the stadium in a hurry; a brilliant column of fire soon rose over the stadium area after the planes dropped their loads of napalm. After that, things calmed down since there probably weren’t many rioters left following a few more napalm runs.
Nothing like a little urban renewal to solve clashes, I thought.
“There’s the van,” Nikki leaned over and whispered to me and nodded toward the parking lot.
I stood up and addressed our small group around me, “OK. Everyone stay here while we go and talk to Jake and try to sort everything out.”
By the time we reached the auto doors leading to the parking lot, Jake stepped through, a big grin on his face. “Boy, you guys really split it wide open.”
“Yeah. I just hope we didn’t do too good a job,” I said.
“No, looks like it’s going over pretty well,” he said giving Nikki a big hug. ” It’s nice that you got the credit for your work, too, Phil. You need to get a newer picture of yourself. For the news people. That skin cut hair-do looks wild.”
“Yeah, that’s my college graduation photo. That was the only shot Nikki was able to dig up.
Look, we have a problem.” We briefly explained to him about our extra sixteen passengers.
Jake chuckled. “Money is no problem. My nephew’s proving to be quite a trader. Should’ve turned the business over to him sooner, I guess. Had a customer lined up for some of the industrial stuff we brought back from the Moon. Here,” he took a large wad of bills from his jacket pocket and peeled off two large bills, “this ought to cover it.”
“Wow, I guess so,” I said. “We’ll have them take a rocket to Houston then we’ll ferry them over to your place if that’s OK.”
“Sure,” Jake said. “We could use the extra help to get the anti-gravity rods and stuff we brought back sorted out and into the machinery we’ve been planning on building. With the publicity you got today, we’d better get some demo vehicles for the press to see or we’ll go down as the greatest hoaxes in history.”
Nikki and I got the money to the group, said our good-byes, and then headed out to the parking lot with Jake.
“Guess we’ll head out after their rocket takes off,” I said, knowing a flight to Houston would be the perfect cover.
“You guys better let me fly the van, you look pretty worn out,” Jake said as we neared the van.
“We only look that way because we are,” I said as we climbed in.
The rocket going back to Houston left only a half hour after Jake had arrived. Soon those we’d rescued were getting safely snuggled down in their rocket and we were waiting in the parking lot to follow them up.
We were slipping into our space suits (since the top of the arch of the flight after the rocket would take us into pretty thin air) when Jake said, “You know, I think I’d better use the rest room in the station. Just a minute, I’ll be right back.”