No Small Bills Page 8

  Now if they could figure out a way to make the boredom disappear too, they’d be golden.

  “Let the accused step forth,” A voice suddenly echoed out from behind the curtains. It was deep and gravelly and commanding, exactly what you’d expect from a powerful judge. Mary, Ned, Tall, and I all looked at each other.

  “Accused of what?” I asked. Yes, I’m that guy who always speaks up when I have a question, even when it’s clear they don’t really want questions. I try not to talk during movies, though. And I always sit in back. After the first time I got pelted by an entire room full of JuJuBees and MilkDuds and Good&Plenties, I learned. Those suckers hurt!

  “Those cited in Traffic Violation E37945FQRT177913-X,” the voice replied. I glanced down at my citation but still couldn’t read it. I guess Mary and Ned could, though, because they both nodded and gestured Tall and I to step forward with them.

  “State your names for the record,” the voice stated. We were standing in a rough line now, I noticed, with Ned at one end and Tall at the other, and Ned replied first so we just went down the row:

  “Ned.”

  “MR3971XJKA.”

  “DuckBob Spinowitz.”

  “Roger Henry David Thomas.”

  “You have been charged with activating the emergency brake on Galactic Train 3479E5R3, without permission or authorization, and as a result endangering both the train itself and the passengers and cargo contained therein. How do you plead?”

  “Uh,” I looked at the others. I was wracking my brain trying to think of excuses or extenuating circumstances, but I didn’t think “we thought it was the phone!” would do the trick and there was no way this guy was going to buy the old “my dog made me do it!”

  Mary and Ned shook their heads anyway. “Guilty, your honor,” both of them replied.

  “Guilty,” Tall echoed.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I added.

  “Very well,” There was a pause. “You have been found guilty by this court. For your crimes you will face the following punishment: you will surrender the color mauve.”

  “What?” The problem with not having external ears anymore is that you can’t clean them out when you’re sure you’ve misheard something. “We have to what?”

  Mary laid a hand on my arm. “It’s a fair sentence,” she whispered to me.

  “Could be a lot worse,” Ned agreed from her other side. “I knew a guy once, ran a red at Galactic Sector Twelve and jackknifed a fleet of Cotidiar battle cruisers. They took aqua AND tangy from him—they tried taking B-Flat too but he appealed that as cruel and unusual.”

  “They’re taking the color mauve from us?” I repeated. “As in, we can’t see it anymore?” Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen it, really, but I still objected on general principle.

  “Exactly.”

  “Prepare for punishment to be carried out,” the voice boomed, and Mary and Ned hurried back to their places in line before the curtains. “Three, two, one—sentence completed.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “No flashing lights, no sharp pointy things, no nothing? Not even a moment of nausea? Just ‘click’ and it’s gone?”

  The voice was silent.

  “Come on,” Mary said, taking my arm again. “We need to get back to the train.”

  Oh right, the train. I let her guide me back a few paces, till the curtains had disappeared around a corner I hadn’t realized was there—maybe it was mauve or something—and then stopped.

  “Requesting exit from ultraspace,” she called out once we were all grouped around her.

  “Request granted,” a new voice responded. My vision turned green again, and then we were back on the train. Only the lights were back on, and the heat. And the cords and circuit boards and whatnot were more or less where they’d been when we’d first broken in, which meant it was a controlled mess rather than a completely unhinged one.

  The little cotton-candy guy was still there, and he nodded as we reappeared. “Right,” he said. “Passenger complement complete—prepare to resume travel.” There was a soft whoosh and I could feel a thrum through my feet. The train must have started moving again.

  “We’ll let you off at the next stop,” it told us then. “Sorry, but we can’t have troublemakers onboard any longer than necessary.”

  “We understand,” Mary assured it. “Thank you.”

  The door to the second car slid open and it pointed. “If you’ll wait in the passenger section,” it requested politely.

  “What about the dinos?” I asked it. “Are they still waiting to kill us?”

  “The DAE agents have been ejected,” it replied. “They had gained entry unlawfully, and we don’t tolerate freeloaders.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks.” I didn’t need the panicked looks on my companions’ faces to remember we had hitched as well. “We’ll wait in the next car.” I edged out, and only breathed again when the door closed again behind us.

  “Whew!” I glanced around. There was something like a bench nearby, so I went and sat on it. When it squeaked and started cursing me I apologized and found a different one, though this time I asked first. “So we’re getting off at the next stop. How bad is that?”

  “It’s perfect, actually,” Ned answered, grinning. “Next stop is Galactic Core Central. It’s the closest stop to the quantum fluctuation matrix.”

  Mary nodded. “We will need to find other transportation to cover the remaining distance,” she reminded us, “but that should pose little problem.”

  I didn’t bother pointing out that she’d thought catching the train wouldn’t be a problem either. I hoped I didn’t ever need the color mauve for anything—I couldn’t imagine why I would, but lately my imagination had been forced to admit that it was woefully inadequate, and now it was petitioning to be given a bit more exercise and a whole host of multivitamins. I was letting it have its head for now, with a warning not to overdo it. What would I do if my imagination up and had a heart attack? It was something I didn’t want to think about. Instead I turned to the nearest other passenger, which looked a lot like a giant weasel in a pair of sweat socks and a tasseled cap, and struck up a lively conversation about the differences between American baseball and something it called “snout-sack.”

  They were remarkably similar, it turned out. The biggest difference seemed to be in our insistence that all players wore uniforms.

  The rest of the trip passed really, really slowly. I was afraid more than once we’d slipped back into ultraspace and no one had told me. But I didn’t see any paisley anywhere.

  Chapter Eleven

  Christmas at the galactic core

  “Okay, so tell me again why it’s snowing?”

  Ned sighed. “We’ve been through this already.”

  “I know, I know. But explain it again.”

  “It isn’t snowing.”

  “Right. Not snowing.” I held up my hands, letting the big, fluffy flakes cling to them before shaking them off to join the drifts piling up all around us. “So all this—”

  “Doesn’t exist, no.”

  “Right. But it looks like snow because—”

  “Because this environment is filled with tiny supercharged particles of information. Like a billion little microscopic packets, whizzing all around at supersonic speeds. And your brain—”

  “Can’t process that,” Tall added. He sounded both smug and annoyed at the same time, but this time I don’t think the second half was aimed at me. “So instead your brain converts the image, the setting, into something you can handle. In this case—”

  “Snow. So really, it’s only snowing in my head.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  I scooped up some snow, packed it tight, and hurled it at Tall. It hit him full in the face, hard enough to stagger him backward. “So did I just hit you with a whole bunch of information?”

  Tall growled. “No, you idiot, you just smacked me in the face with a snowball!”

  “But how, if it’s all in my head?” I st
ared at him, then laughed. “Or is your brain not able to handle it all either?” I knew from the glare he gave me that I was right. “That’s it, isn’t it? The two of us, the monkey boys—or, in my case, duck-monkey—can’t handle it here. Not without a pretty snowscape to protect our fragile little minds.” I laughed again. “You’re right in here with me.”

  “Maybe I am,” Tall snarled. “So maybe if I cram enough of these particles down your throat you’ll finally grow a brain!” He started stalking toward me, gathering snow in his ham-sized hands as he drew closer.

  “Enough,” Mary warned. “The illusion is a harmless one and allows you to pass through this region without mental damage. Utilize it rather than fighting it or being distressed about it!”

  Which was easy for her to say. She didn’t perceive the galactic core as looking almost exactly like the wilds of North Dakota. I swear, if even one alien walked up to me and said “Oh, you betcha” or “You don’t say?” I was out of here, matrix or no matrix.

  But that got me thinking—rare, I know. Mary wasn’t seeing the snow. I was sure of it.

  “You can see what this place is really like, can’t you?” I asked her as Tall and I fell into step behind her and Ned again. She nodded. “Is that because the Grays modified you?”

  “Yes. They altered my mind, my senses, so that I could register and utilize a higher consciousness.” She didn’t sound all that happy about it, and I had a feeling right now she’d trade it all for a single illusory snowball.

  “So what does it look like?”

  She glanced around and smiled. “It is . . . indescribable.”

  “But is it beautiful?”

  Her smile widened. “Yes. Oh, yes.” She turned that smile on me, warming me so much the snow melted right off me, and I knew she’d gotten over the sadness of a moment before. Hey, I’m not just a jerk—I’m a jerk with a soft spot.

  Kind of like one of those cheap chocolates with the too-gooey, too-sweet center.

  I think I need to find a better personal analogy.

  “Where’re we going?”

  “We need to find localized transport,” Mary reminded me. “The bus placed us in the correct region but there is still a short distance remaining between us and the matrix.”

  “Define ‘short distance.’”

  She considered for a second. “Three hundred and twelve-point-seven-three-one light years.”

  “A half-step and a skip, gotcha.” I shook my head and set off a minor flurry. “So we just hail a space cab and we’re outta here?”

  “It is not that simple.”

  I sighed. “No, of course not. Why start now? So what’s the problem this time? Too much traffic? Or it’s all going express and we need the local?”

  To my surprise, that got a nod out of her, and a quick smile. “Exactly!”

  “Wait, what?” Tall looked surprised too. Ned, who was trailing us now, just looked amused. “I got it right?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Mary agreed. “Ships in this region tend to operate by way of galactic convection, the flow of particles emanating from the core and moving outward. This is a cheap, quick, easy means of power. We, however, are attempting to make our way farther in. The particles there are too tightly packed for most vehicles to process correctly. They would overload their engines. Only ships specifically intended for travel to and from the core have powerful enough engines and strong enough particle filters to bring us to our destination. Most ships would be unable to accommodate us.”

  “Everybody here has puny little engines and we need something big enough to cut through all the crap?”

  “Correct.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. What about the ships that come out of the core? They’ve got big engines, but once they get this far out doesn’t that mean they aren’t getting enough fuel anymore? How do they get back home afterward? I mean, they can make their way out to the store, but they’ve got to return with their groceries, don’t they?” I had a crazy image of hordes of spacemen wandering the galaxy with bags of groceries and little signs around their necks that read “Help me, I can never go home again!” and “Galactic convection took my house!”

  “Most core-equipped ships stay within a certain proximity to the core,” Mary admitted. “There are only a few that travel back and forth, and once they have passed beyond a certain distance they must utilize a supplemental fuel source to yield enough power for them to return. Either that or they rely upon the scoops to ferry them back to their starting points.”

  “The scoops?” That sounded ominous.

  “Yes, the galactic scoops. Great massive ships that scoop up the raw particles and compress them, converting them to fuel for others farther from core, where the flow is too diffuse for direct utilization.”

  “They’re huge,” Ned supplied. “Gotta be, since they’re scooping up every particle in sight. They’re big enough that they’ve got both core-standard and general galactic engines and can switch back and forth—that way they work fine in either place.”

  “Right. So we hitch a ride ourselves. Cool. And where do we find one of these scoops?”

  We’d been walking this whole time—well, Mary and Ned had been walking, Tall and I had been slipping and sliding because of all the snow and ice we thought was underfoot—but now Mary stopped. And pointed.

  “There.”

  The rest of us stared. Even Ned said, “There? Really? You’re sure?”

  Which is funny because as far as I know he could see this place for what it really was. Not what I, and probably Tall, were seeing:

  A truck stop.

  Yeah, a truck stop. Exactly like you see in movies all the time, with the huge diesel gas pumps and the big dirty lot and the eighteen-wheelers and dump trucks and garbage trucks and tow trucks all parked at random angles all over the place—and the greasy-spoon diner right smack in the middle of it all.

  “Is that—?” Tall breathed.

  “It certainly looks like it,” I whispered back.

  “Do you think they—?”

  “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

  “Hey, where do you two think you’re going?” Ned demanded as Tall and I began making an awkward, shambling beeline toward the diner.

  “You sort out the ride!” I shouted back over my shoulder. “We’re gonna have breakfast!”

  Because I wasn’t entirely sure how long we’d been on this crazy trip so far—it was hard to tell, what with the ultraspace court appearance and the faster-than-light travel and, oh yeah, passing out from lack of oxygen!—but it had definitely been way too long since I’d had anything to eat. And greasy-spoon diners were always loud, smelly, crowded, dirty, sticky, cramped—and served the most amazing really-bad-for-you-but-you-just-don’t-care food.

  “Waffles!” Tall was drooling beside me.

  “Flapjacks!” I replied. It’s not easy to drool with a duckbill but I managed. I’ve had practice.

  “BACON!!!” we sang together.

  “Bacon?” Suddenly Ned was next to us—he plowed right through the snowdrifts as if they weren’t there, which for him I guess they weren’t. “Where?”

  We pointed in unison. “There!!!”

  “There?”

  “Yes, there!”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “You think they’ll have bacon?”

  “Of course!” I wanted to smack him upside the head but my hands were so cold I was afraid a finger might splinter off if I tried. “What kind of greasy spoon would it be if it didn’t serve bacon?”

  “And sausage,” Tall added.

  “And Canadian bacon.”

  “And toast.”

  “And COFFEE!!!”

  Ned was still studying us like we were weird lab rats that had suddenly gotten up and started dancing the Watusi. “You think that’s a greasy spoon?”

  “Yes, yes I do,” I replied. “And I don’t care if it isn’t really. That’s what I see, and it’s what my brain is processi
ng. Which means whatever food they do serve there, my brain will convert it to greasy-spoon diner fare. Right?”

  He considered that for a moment, then nodded. “I think so!” And he fell in beside us.

  I squinted at him. “But you don’t see it as a greasy spoon, do you?”

  Ned shook his head.

  “So won’t the food they serve you seem like whatever it really is, then?”

  “Maybe.” He grinned. “Or maybe, if you watch me eat and you think it’s greasy-spoon bacon, my mind will be forced to concede that it could in fact be bacon. There’re two of you and only one of me, after all—I’m willing to let my consciousness be outnumbered and overpowered for the sake of a tasty breakfast.”

  “Spoken like a proper blue-collar worker,” I agreed, slapping him on the back—but carefully. “Let’s go!”

  And the three of us sloshed our way through the rest of the snow and around the various rigs, finally pushing the door open and stepping into the diner itself. I was careful to clean my feet on the welcome mat first, though—I didn’t want to go tracking metaphorical snow all over everything.

  Chapter Twelve

  Order up!

  “What’ll it be, boys?”

  We were crowded into one of those tiny little booths you always find at diners—it was either that or shoulder our way in at the counter, and there were all manner of large, smelly, surly truckers covering that stretch of Formica. The waitress was short, heavy, moon-faced, bleached-blonde, and as cheery as one could be working in a place like this. Her nametag, though, read “Delaxicon Ultra 359.”

  “I’ll have the full breakfast,” I told her, slapping my menu down on the stained table in front of me. “Eggs over easy, pancakes, toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns, orange juice, and a tanker’s worth of coffee. Black, with sugar.” I eyed her nametag again. “Thanks, uh, Delaxicon Ult—”

  “Oh, you can call me Delia,” she cut me off. “Everybody does. What about you, hon?” This was directed at Tall, who looked like he was in love. Maybe he was, too—you never knew with feds. Or maybe he was just as excited as I was about the prospect of a real breakfast.