No Small Bills Read online

  Then again, she hadn’t had to play any of the wheels.

  We just lay there for several minutes, catching our breath and letting our limbs slowly return to normal. Man, playing car had been a lot more fun when I was a kid, and a lot less painful. Then again, we’d mainly just run around making noises and pretending to hold a steering wheel, so it hadn’t required as much acrobatics. And I was a lot more limber then. Plus I hadn’t been lugging a ten-pound duckbill on the front of my face.

  “Okay,” I said after I thought my arms and legs were solid again. “So what now?”

  “Now we wait for Benny to finish inspection and pick us up,” Mary reminded me.

  “Yeah. Right. He’s either trapped in that Playschool hellhole for the next decade or long gone,” I groused. “I say if he doesn’t show in the next hour, two tops, we move on.”

  “How?” Tall asked. He groaned. “I am not doing that car thing again!” To prove his point he yanked the “license plate” off his butt and threw it down on the ground behind him.

  “No, we’d never be able to maintain it,” Ned agreed. “Or go any faster than we were already.” He was folding the tarp back up into its little tiny square. It was like one of those wet-naps, only a thousand times bigger and silvery. And, well, not wet. “We’ll need to hitch a ride again,” he concluded.

  “Will anyone else stop for us, d’ya think?” I tried lifting my head up to look at him but the strain was too much and I collapsed again. “I mean, last time it was Mary getting us a ride at the truck stop. This time we’re on the side of the highway. Is hitching even legal out here?”

  “It is not technically illegal.” I could tell Mary was frowning without even seeing her, just from the tone of her voice. “But it is not encouraged. We might have a difficult time convincing anyone to stop for us this close to the highway, and this close to the weigh station.”

  “Then there’s the whole ‘going my way’ thing,” Ned pointed out. “Benny was heading to the core, same as we were. Here, everybody’s going every which way. There’s no telling which ships are going coreward—if any.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked again. “If we can’t find somebody going the right direction, how do we get there? Do we hijack a car, or what?”

  Dead silence.

  After a minute I forced my head up and glanced around. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

  “We’re trying to save the universe,” Ned replied. “I think a little grand theft auto is a small price to pay for all that.”

  “Yeah? Tell it to the cops when they arrest us and throw our butts in the outer space equivalent of a hoosegow!” I shot back. “Tall, back me up here, man! You’re a federal agent! You’ve gotta uphold the law, right?”

  But Tall was shaking his head. “I’m authorized to break certain laws in the pursuit of my duties,” he argued. “And this would definitely be for the purpose of our mission. Ned’s right—we can’t let something as minor as car theft prevent us from saving the universe!”

  “Mary?” I looked at her. “Mary, tell me you’re not seriously considering going along with this? We’re talking about stealing a car!”

  “We have no choice,” she answered. I couldn’t pull away from her eyes. “As you yourself said, it is unlikely Benny will return for us in sufficient time. And if that is the case, we must make our way to the matrix by any means necessary. I am sure, once we explain the situation, any driver would understand our pressing need.”

  I tried to think of something to say to that, but I couldn’t. They were right, really. What was stealing a car versus saving everything? And why did I care, anyway? It’s not like I’d get my license revoked—out here I didn’t even have a license.

  “Okay.” I lay back down. “So we’re gonna steal a car. A ship. How?”

  Ned chuckled, which sent shivers down my spine. “Leave that to me.”

  “This,” I muttered, “is insane.”

  “Hey,” Tall countered, “you’re the one who suggested we pose as a car.”

  “I know, I know.” I ground my beak. “But that was only to get us past the weigh station! Not for this! No one’s gonna fall for this!”

  “You wanna bet?” Ned laughed. “Universal truth—most people are idiots.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Some of my best friends are idiots!” And I’m sure most of them said the same thing about me.

  “Which is exactly my point,” Ned argued. “Would your friends be dumb enough to fall for this?”

  I started to say no, then stopped and thought about it. Well, maybe—okay, definitely for at least two of them. Three. Five—no, wait, not since that last thing with that one chick. Okay, four. Oh, right—seven. And of course if we were talking about my old frat buddies . . .

  “Yeah, okay, fine.” I would’ve glared at him if I could’ve moved my head. “Let’s just hope somebody takes the bait quickly. My back may start spasming otherwise.”

  “That’s fine,” Ned assured me. “It’ll just add to the realism.”

  Great.

  We were saying all of this in hushed tones, of course—wouldn’t do to have the car talking to itself. At least not if we weren’t just saying “Check your oil” and “door is ajar” and “please fasten seatbelts” over and over again. Mary wasn’t involved in the conversation, either. She couldn’t be. Not and still play her part in this little charade.

  I was starting to wish I’d never suggested the car idea in the first place.

  One of Ned’s little gadgets began beeping. “Somebody’s coming!” I could hear him tapping out some kind of command. “Nope,” he said a second later. “It’s an Artusian roadster. Only seats three, and that’s if they’re triplets. No good.” He pressed a button on another doodad and it gave out a short squawk.

  That was Mary’s signal to let the car pass us by.

  “No, I am fine, thank you,” we heard her telling someone. “My engine overheated but it will be fine in a few moments.” I could have sworn I heard a cat meowing, and then nothing. I wasn’t sure if that had been the car or its driver.

  Another vehicle stopped to offer its assistance—funny how that works when it’s an incredibly hot chick standing there looking all helpless—but Ned said it didn’t have the range we needed to get all the way to the core. A few minutes later a third slowed down, but it was the equivalent of a space jalopy—according to Ned it would take us over a year to reach the matrix in that thing. So we threw both of those guppies back and waited for a bigger fish to take the bait.

  And boy, did it!

  Ned’s toy was beeping so fast it was one continuous whine. Then that blended with a sound like a bell ringing, overlaid with the hiss of compressed air.

  “Need some help, little lady?” we heard a voice say.

  A big voice.

  A big, deep voice.

  A voice like John Wayne’s if the Duke had been twelve feet tall and carved of solid stone.

  “A Ratavari sonic glider,” Ned whispered beside me. “It’s one of the fastest things on the road, it’s built for long-distance travel, and it could fit ten of us and have room to spare! It’s perfect!” His signal device gave a chirp, and we could almost hear Mary turning on the charm.

  “Why thank you, yes,” she all but purred. “I do not know what is wrong with my vehicle. It just sputtered to a stop. I was lucky to get to the side of the road.”

  “Hm, I don’t recognize it,” the mysterious Good Samaritan rumbled. “Is it new?”

  “Brand-new, yes,” Mary told him. I was assuming anything with a voice that macho had to be male. “That is probably why it malfunctioned.”

  Well, let me just take a peek under the hood,” her savior announced, “and I’ll soon figure out what’s what.” Earthshaking footsteps signaled his approach, and then two massive feet parked themselves right in front of my face. Which was also the hood.

  Then two massive hands reached out, gripped the edge of my bill, and lifted.

  Whic
h is when Ned slid out from beside me, raised one of his ever-present technosticks, and said, “Gotcha!”

  There was a bright light, and a second later he called back, “Okay, you can come out now.”

  I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. No, scratch that—I’d been expecting a towering figure, all machismo and chromed steel, a cross between the Marlboro Man and a Transformer. What I saw instead was—

  —a bunny rabbit.

  No, not a real one. A cartoon one, with the oversized eyes, the cute little nose, the great big front teeth, the little tuft tail. Only real.

  I know, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But that’s what was standing in front of me, and that’s whose oversized mitts I had to pry off my face.

  Because this guy was maybe five feet tall, tops. Long, lanky limbs, just like Bugs. But his hands and feet were ENORMOUS!

  So were his ears. And they stood straight up, like they had wire in them. Maybe they did. Or maybe it was just a result of whatever Ned had done to him, because he was stiff as a board, and his eyes were completely glazed over.

  “He’ll be fine,” Ned assured us. “Temporary paralysis, light-induced. He’ll wake up in a few minutes with a mild headache.” He grabbed a little green pouch hanging from the bunny’s neck—he wasn’t wearing any clothes, and I guess why would you if you were covered in rabbit fur?—and rummaged in it for a second before producing something that looked a lot like a miniature flattened Rubik’s cube. “Got ’em! Let’s go!”

  Which is when I finally turned around and saw the car.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  I must have started hallucinating again, or masking reality, or whatever. But I didn’t care. It was a Corvette. “It’s a Corvette,” I said. At least I think I said it. I must have, because Ned frowned.

  “No, it’s a Ratavari sonic glider,” he corrected me. “Look at the dorsal fins, the emitter array, the subsonic housing.” I could almost see the little hearts in his eyes as he turned back to stare at it. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I agreed softly. “But you’re wrong about what she is. She’s a Corvette, no question. And not just any Corvette, either—she’s a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. Just look at the split rear window—they discontinued that the following year.” Yeah, so I know a lot about Corvettes, okay? My friends and I were into muscle cars when I was in high school and early college, and this was one of the great classic American muscle cars. She was in perfect condition, too, from what I could see.”

  “You’re both high,” Tall interrupted us. “That’s not a Sting Ray—are you blind?” A look of sheer adoration claimed his face. “She’s a 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback. Which means she’s got a solid V-8 under that hood.” He sneered at me. “She’d run one of those little sissy Sting Rays right off the road.”

  “Oh yeah?” Figures he’d be into Mustangs. Gearheads always seem to divide into three camps when it comes to the great American muscle car: Sting Ray, Mustang, and Charger. I was half-surprised he wasn’t a Charger enthusiast, since they were monstrous, heavy road hogs. Which didn’t mind I’d turn one down if someone offered me one.

  Mary shook her head. “I do not know why you are unable to see it properly,” she informed all three of us, “but you are all mistaken in your identification of this vehicle. It is a Ya’atum Transwarp Jumper, which is precisely what we need to complete our travel with the utmost speed.” She was already walking toward it. “Shall we?”

  “Okay, hold on a second here.” I stepped in front of her and put up a hand, forcing her to stop short before she bumped right into me. She managed it, more’s the pity. “You’re seeing some kind of jumper thing?” she nodded. “Ned’s seeing a glider?”

  “Ratavari sonic glider,” Ned corrected.

  “Right, that.” I glanced at Tall. “You’re seeing a Mustang—I know, I know, ’68 GT fastback. Which is an awesome car, by the way. Just not as good as the ’63 Sting Ray I see.” I scratched my head. “So each of us is seeing something completely different. What’s up with that?”

  We all stared at the car—or cars—for a second. Then Ned burst out laughing. “Not just different,” he explained after he caught his breath again, “but exactly what we want. We’re each seeing our perfect vehicle!”

  I nodded. “Okay, yeah. So?”

  “So,” Ned replied, still chuckling, “it’s gotta be a Get Lucky.”

  “A what?”

  “A Get Lucky. It’s a device some people use to pick up chicks . . . or guys, or whatever,” he explained. “It basically taps into the viewer’s thoughts and makes them think you’re the person of their dreams. And this guy’s got one installed in his car!”

  “So whoever looks at it sees whatever they really want to see? Nice!” I wondered how I could get one of those, and whether it was strictly visual—looking like Hugh Jackman wouldn’t help me a whole lot if the first time some chick leaned in to kiss me I accidentally crushed her nose with my bill. Hey, there’s an art to it, you know. And the learning curve was pretty steep—let’s just say when I mentioned how disgusting a nose would taste I was speaking from experience.

  “So what is it really?” Tall asked.

  “Does it matter?” I gestured toward it. “We can each take our dream car to the prom! How sweet is that?”

  But Tall was giving me that you’re-so-stupid-it’s-a-wonder-you-can-talk look again. Or maybe that was just his default expression. “Think about it, genius,” he sneered. “The Mustang’s got a back seat. The Sting Ray doesn’t. So how many seats does this thing really have? And how much head room? And where do the doors open?”

  Oh. Right. Okay. I glanced at Ned. “So how do we turn it off and get a look at the real car underneath?”

  “There’s gotta be a control here on the key,” Ned replied, studying the thing he’d taken from the bunny rabbit. “I just have to find—ah, here we go!” He pressed two different spots on the shape and it squeaked like a deflating balloon.

  And the car behind him changed.

  “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” I stared at it, then at Ned, then back at it again. “Can we make it go back to looking like a Sting Ray? Please? Or a Mustang? Hell, I’d settle for a Ford Pinto!”

  Because the real shape, the actual vehicle we were in the process of stealing, was . . .

  . . . a bridge.

  Okay, no, not really. But that was my first impression, was a suspension bridge like the Brooklyn Bridge or the RFK. Steel girders and arches and linking it all like somebody with twelve hands trying to do Cat’s Cradle using four sets of string.

  On second glance—well, it still looked like a bridge. Just not one I’d ever seen before. It had weird curves and the angles didn’t seem to add up right and the planes kept twisting when I studied them, like they were shy.

  So it was more like an alien bridge. And only a model of one at that, seeing as how it was only ten to twelve feet long and about eight feet wide. Or maybe it was an alien bridge for little tiny aliens. I didn’t see any of them around, though.

  What I also didn’t see was a seat. Or a steering wheel. Or wheels of any sort.

  “That’s not a car,” I pointed out. “It’s what cars drive across to get from Point A to Point B.”

  “It’s not a car, no,” Ned agreed, “but it is a vehicle. A Dreymar Suspension Cluster, to be precise.” He glanced over at Mary and shrugged. “It can get us where we’re going, and it is fast enough to get us there in a hurry,” he admitted.

  “Fine.” She tossed me a disapproving frown like I used to get from old Aunt Mildred (and that was before the duck thing! If Aunt Mildred had still been around after my little cosmetic surgery she’d have hit me with a frown so hard my bill might have snapped!), then threw one at Tall and at Ned for good measure. “The vehicle’s appearance is unimportant. We must reach the matrix in time, and if this vehicle can accomplish that goal we will use it. Quickly.” And she stepped around me and walked to the bridge-cluster-thin
gy.

  “Okay, okay.” I hurried after her. “So how do we use it, exactly?” I looked for anything to indicate a start button, a gearshift, a control panel. Or seats. “And where do we sit?”

  Mary had clambered up onto the part that would have been the roadway on a real bridge, and sat herself cross-legged just behind the central spar. Guess that answered that question. I pulled myself up and sat next to her. Tall grumbled a bit more before settling himself behind us, and Ned took up a position in front, leaning back against the spar like it was a backrest. Which maybe it was.

  “Everybody on?” he asked. “All strapped in?” He laughed when I started frantically searching for a seatbelt. “Just kidding—it’s got an inertial dampener, of course. Okay, hold on to something. I’m about to start her up.”

  He played with the flattened Rubik’s cube—any second I was expecting a Hasbro version of that guy from Hellraiser to pop out—and I heard that humming bell tone we’d heard before. And the bridge-cluster-thingy began to glow. And to raise itself up off the ground. We were hovering a few inches above the roadway, and I started to believe this could actually do the trick. Ned said it could get us there, and fast—maybe in a few minutes or hours or however long this ride took we’d be at the matrix finally, and then I could realign it and get back to my old life, such as it was, before it shriveled up and blew away.

  I should know better by now.

  “Here we go!” Ned shouted. He jabbed the key into the front of the bridge-cluster-thingy and it . . . extended. It was like a glowing walkway suddenly burst forth from its front edge, shooting off ahead of us into infinity. Then there was a small click, and a pop, and the rest of the bridge-cluster-thingy took off after it, hurtling along like we were the back end of a rubber band that’d just been stretched way too far and let go.

  Or like we were the rock in a giant cosmic slingshot.

  I wanted that Sting Ray back. Badly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Did we take a left at Albuquerque again?

  “Ow.”

  That was about all I had to say for that.