3rd World Products, Inc.
Book VI
Copyright©2004 by Ed Howdershelt
ISBN 1-932693-22-X
Caution: Some Erotic Content
Note: I'm not going to re-introduce everybody.
Read my other 3WP-Books before starting Book VI.
Chapter Two
I hung my coffee mug's handle in a pants pocket and leaned forward a bit after a few cars had passed. The board responded fairly smartly and accelerated to full speed in a few seconds.
But -- dammit -- I could only do forty. A couple of cars quickly approached from behind. One stayed behind me and the other pulled alongside. Drivers and passengers stared hard at the guy surfing on Northcliffe Boulevard until I told the board to elevate to ten feet.
That didn't stop their staring, but at least I wouldn't be at street level if they bashed into each other.
"Sue, I need to be able to do at least the posted speed limit on any given road. This thing'll be a traffic hazard otherwise."
Without even looking away from the cars below, she replied in a conversational tone, "Forty, Ed."
Turning sharply and crossing the median, I headed back to the house, stepped off the pad in the front yard, and studied it for a few moments. It was just a levitating field device guided by body motions. Not all that complicated, right?
"Board off," I said, wondering what would happen to the core device. The field pad shrank around the metal slab, then the slab disappeared. Hm. That likely meant that it had joined my overhead briefcase in order to be immediately accessible.
As I reached upward to verify my guess, Sue said, "Yes, that's where it went. I take it you're less than pleased with it?"
Shrugging, I said, "I'll probably find a use for it. I have a suggestion for the public models if you're interested."
In a terse tone, Sue said, "Do tell."
"Keep the front and rear lights, but back 'em down to fifteen miles an hour so people won't be too tempted to use them on the streets. Make people think of them about the same way as bicycles and mopeds."
She didn't seem too pleased with my suggestion.
"Thank you for your considered opinion on the matter, Ed."
"I don't mean that as an insult, Sue. It's how I'd do things, that's all."
"I see," she said tightly. "Is there anything else?"
"Nope. That was it."
Sue said tersely, "Fine. Later, Ed," and vanished.
Ah, hell. But so it goes sometimes. I field-platformed myself up to three thousand feet, said, "glider on", and drifted toward Maggie Lake, a few square acres of water located about half a mile south of my house.
Landing on the northern shore where a vacant lot fronted the lake, I sipped my coffee and watched minnows scatter and hide as I considered Sue's gift.
Reaching above my head, I felt around until I found the board's core and brought it down to look it over. It looked like a featureless slice of metal about four inches wide, a foot long, and half an inch thick. It wasn't very heavy; maybe half a pound at most. Hollow? No way to tell.
Not for the first time, it occurred to me to wonder how a flitter achieved forward motion. It operated by applying fields in various directions. But what the hell did it push against at 40,000 feet in order to move itself forward?
A panfish about five inches long darted out from under some weeds and nailed a tiny minnow, then swam leisurely back to its hideout. Watching it move led me to consider using a sort of field-generated 'tail' to propel the board.
I cast a large, flat field and tried to wave it back and forth without using my hands. Ha. Forget that idea. The field weighed nothing, but moving it against air resistance required a supreme effort and there'd be side winds to consider.
A helicopter passed overhead on its way toward the county's little airport. Even before I spotted it, the sound of its blades and engine identified it to me as an Aerospatiale, not a Huey.
Studying the machine as it pounded across the sky, it occurred to me that choppers functioned by tilting the disc formed by their rotating blades.
Tilt the leading edge of the disc down and the chopper would be drawn forward. Tilt it any other direction and the chopper would head that direction. Add power to climb and vice versa.
If I couldn't figure out how flitters shoved themselves around the sky, I could at least work on developing a flying platform that worked like the fan-driven 'flying saucers' built in the fifties. They'd operated essentially the same way as a chopper, the main difference being that the propulsion disc had been underfoot rather than overhead.
Keying my comm implant, I called my flitter.
"Flitter," I said, "Can you make modifications to my PFM implant's programming?"
"No, Ed," answered the flitter computer, "In all matters relating to your implants, I may only function as a substitute device should either or both somehow be damaged."
Huh. That was something I hadn't known. Interesting. Maybe good enough for the moment, too.
"Can you also act as a substitute at my command? Say, for purposes of practice or developing new uses?"
"Yes, Ed."
Kewl. I gave some thought to how to present my ideas to the flitter for execution. Design, speeds, altitudes, and... Oh, hell. I was about to try to tell a field-generating, field-using supercomputer how to make and use a field device. It might be better just to say, 'This is what I want' and stand clear.
"Flitter, I want to be able to call up a field platform that will respond to body motion by changing direction and speed. I suppose it would have to be generally similar to the one Sue offered me this morning."
"That programming is not available to me, Ed."
"I didn't think it would be, flitter, but I have a platform core you can study and you have access to records of the event. Examine the board she designed and extrapolate one generally like it, but don't include a speed limit. Instead, add appropriate protective capabilities. Will you be able to adapt my briefcase field to position itself at my back?"
"Yes, Ed."
Sipping coffee and watching a good-sized bass wander into the panfish's hideout area, I let Sue's core return to park by my briefcase and said, "Thank you, flitter. Show me whatever you come up with whenever you think it's ready."
The panfish spotted the bass behind him and started to dart away, but the bass powered forward like a green and black torpedo. Minnows scattered frantically, some even jumping out of the water and onto the shore.
The bass's mouth opened and closed in a flash and the panfish was gone. Ignoring the panicked minnows, the bass cruised away into the weeds. I sent field tendrils to flip half a dozen or so flopping, gasping minnows back into the water.
No matter how often you see such things, the speed with which one animal can attack and devour another can be rather surprising. The panfish had lasted maybe half a second after he'd spotted the bass and started to run.
As I flipped the last couple of minnows into the water, I saw the results of the flitter's labors descend from somewhere above and stop near me. The flitter's version looked about the same as Sue's, but I noted it was slightly larger.
I reached to touch the board and rapped a knuckle on it as I wondered why Sue hadn't already made an appearance, if only to argue against what I was doing.
"Thanks, flitter. It looks good. What happens if I fall off?"
"You can't fall off, Ed. The board will remain beneath you at all times until you elect to dismount. Should you be severely injured or unconscious, the board will encapsulate you and deliver you to medical assistance."
"Excellent, flitter. Can you think of any reason Sue's board wouldn't have been able to provide those capabilities?"
"No, Ed."
"Can you think of any reason Sue wouldn't have wanted the board she made for me to have those capabilities?"
"No, Ed."
After sipping the last of my coffee, I said, "Thanks, flitter."
Hooking the mug's handle on my jeans pocket, I stepped onto the flitter's board. It behaved essentially the same way as Sue's board; shifting my weight in any given direction caused the board to move that direction.
"Flitter, I'll say 'board on' or 'board off'. Default mode will be translucent grey for now, and I'd like to be able to use the same colors as the glider. Will any of this strain your resources?"
"No, Ed."
Shifting my weight to point the board at the water, I said, "Good. Thanks again, flitter."
More? On to Chapter 3!
or
Get the rest of the book!
Purchase page:
LIT - Rocket/REB
PDB/Palm - PDF - KML
(Must be 18)
|
|
|
|
