3rd World Products, Inc.
Book I
Copyright©2003 by Ed Howdershelt
ISBN 1-932693-00-9
Caution: Some Erotic Content
Chapter One
The ship arrived one Tuesday afternoon while I was on my way to see if I could fix Harriet Fisher's computer one more time. I was parked in construction traffic on northbound US-19, trying to find a last few drops in my coffee mug, when a spot of bright light flashed across the eastern sky. It came to an abrupt halt apparently directly overhead, then seemed to grow somewhat larger.
My first thought was that something had exploded up there. I looked away quickly, dropping my empty cup and covering my eyes. After a few moments I cautiously uncovered and looked for enough maneuvering room to get my car off the road. Once I'd managed to pull over onto the grass I looked up again. The bright spot was still growing, but it didn't seem all that much larger than before.
Others began noticing the bright spot, too, probably because I was standing outside my car and looking up at it. When the flagman started waving cars through the intersection, the line ahead of me moved. The line behind me didn't.
The bright spot was now low enough that the object causing it was becoming visible around it. It was a glistening sphere that reflected sunlight at you like a spot-mirror, and it was huge. Looking at it was like trying to see into the car in front of you in traffic when the sun was glaring off their rear window. All you got were spots in your eyes and a headache.
Since I already had a small headache, I decided that the sphere would either be there later or it wouldn't. We'd be invaded or not, visited or not, contacted or not.
Whatever happened, staring slack-jawed at the UFO would serve no purpose. I got back in my car and took advantage of the stalled traffic around me by driving up to the flagman and beeping the horn. He glanced at me. I indicated I wanted to proceed, and he barely looked around before waving me through.
I started to turn on my car radio, then decided not to bother. They wouldn't know any more than anyone else at this point.
Harriet excitedly let me in and I went to work on her computer while she peered out a window through her ex-husband's binoculars and prattled endlessly about the thing in the sky.
There wasn't much left of her original computer to fix, really. I'd already replaced almost everything but the motherboard in the cranky antique, but Harriet was one of those 'drive it until the wheels fall off' people. Until it died or she did, she'd be calling me periodically to make it go again.
Half an hour later the computer was working again and I was thirty bucks richer with nothing else on my day's agenda, so I drove home and dug out my own binoculars for another look at the thing in the sky. The binoculars were no help. Even through tinted lenses it still appeared to be a featureless silver ball.
I put the binoculars on the melodeon, got a beer, and turned on the TV for the first time in days. The news was full of pictures no better than my view with the binoculars and much speculation by people who should have known better than to say anything at all. I left the TV on in case somebody might say something intelligent and got on the Internet with my computer.
When I found nothing on the net better than what was on the TV about the ship, I went to work on my WiccaWorks.com pages, tweaking and tightening the new HTML and pictures on them for speed and best display.
Some weather guy on TV said that radar had placed the ship about eighty miles from shore and a mile above the gulf. He even gave the latitude and longitude, then cutesy news crew banter took over and I tuned out.
The phone rang and I almost ignored it, but having just completed work on Harriet's box, I thought it might be her with a question, so I answered it.
It was Sharon, my business partner in WiccaWorks, and she was excited as hell about the ship. She and her husband, Allen, were going to drive out to the beach to have a closer look at it later. Did I want to go along?
I told her to have a good time and cautioned her not to expect being a few miles closer to improve the view much.
Don't get me wrong, people. I knew it was a momentous occasion for the world. It just wasn't a particularly momentous occasion for me. It ranked with news that the President might be coming to town. Great. Wunnerful. Do let me know if he or she wants to drop by for coffee.
Other reports of UFO's traditionally had them dancing around the sky and eventually disappearing as quickly and mysteriously as they'd arrived. According to a TV reporter, this UFO had apparently whizzed around the skies of the world and then parked motionless in the sky just off the Gulf coast of Florida.
For once, at least, nobody official tried to deny the existence of UFO's. There the damned thing was, looking as if you could almost reach out and touch it, an act which nobody seemed dull-witted enough to attempt.
Much of my first hours home were spent answering phone calls from relatives and others who quickly realized that Spring Hill was on the part of the Florida coast nearest to the ship. I could tell them nothing that they couldn't get from the news media and quickly tired of answering the phone.
If you just take a phone off the hook it makes obnoxious noises for a while and will do so every time you use the phone, hang up, then take it off the hook again. I cut an old phone cable, twisted the red and green wires together to cause a busy signal, and plugged it into a two-hole adapter. Between my outgoing calls there would be telephonic silence.
Over the next few days the military declared the area around the ship to be a restricted zone and did fly-bys and parked a number of good-sized ships in the area.
Nothing they or anyone else did appeared to evoke any sort of response from the ship, but they had an effect on the local economy, which started booming because of off-duty military personnel and day-trippers coming to see the ship.
Some people panicked and left the area as if that would somehow save them from the probable capabilities of a ship that could travel between the stars. This being an area well-stocked with retirees, it wasn't surprising that a few extra heart attacks were recorded before the weekend.
A number of people threw UFO parties on the beach for the rest of the week. Most of the parties were of a tone similar to hurricane parties, rife with the undertone of impending doom as people used booze, drugs, and an undercurrent of simple fear to excuse their excesses.
Give people a few days to get used to something and they'll start trying to find the humor of a situation. All the usual tourist jokes were dusted off and entrepreneurs began hawking "alien" tee-shirts and bumper stickers.
By then the beaches were packed with gawkers, UFO enthusiasts, and religious nuts who were waiting to either die, to be saved, or to be picked up by the aliens.
At a number of points along the beaches you could buy a thirty-second look at the ship through someone's telescope. Prices varied tremendously, but even the twenty-dollar waiting lines were long.
Everybody had theories about why the ship had arrived. Some thought a benign and helpful race of aliens intended to dispense information that would save us from ourselves and others thought that when the ship's doors opened the world would come to an end for us.
When Dave Cooke called me around seven Friday night to bitch about the pool tournament at Crabbit's Pub having been canceled, I told him I'd drop in anyway for a couple of games.
At the bar, Dave asked me what I thought, then interrupted and proceeded to tell me what he thought, which is typical behavior for Dave. He figured it was a colony ship and that we were like the Indians when the Mayflower arrived.
He summed it all up with "... All of which means goodbye to us. We'll either be annihilated or assimilated if we don't become part of their menu."
The bartender, Susie, said she thought that the aliens were here to invite us to join them in space exploration. Dave just stared at her as if she was nuts. She told him he was always too negative and asked what I thought.
"Yeah. Sure. He's too negative," I said. I handed her my empty bottle and she deftly swapped it for a full one.
After a sip, I said, "And maybe you're too positive, Susie. Why would these aliens have any reason to do or be what any of us might expect or want? Why would they want or need our help to explore?"
I took another sip of beer and said, "Figure that before they made it into space they had to become the top of their food chain, and all that, just as we have. A non-competitive species wouldn't be flitting around in space at all or hanging over our Gulf of Mexico in a big silver ball."
Susie cocked a hip and said, "Which means what..? It sounds as if you think Dave's right."
"Could be. These may be alien Pizarros and we may be the Incas. Or it could be that they want to establish a way-station or a base in this chunk of space. Or it could be they're just explorers, like our archaeologists and anthropologists, and they've come here to study us. Hell, they may only want to see if we have anything worth trading. It doesn't really matter."
Both of them stared at me incredulously.
Susie exclaimed, "Say what? Why the hell doesn't it matter?"
I asked, "Well? What's the point in guessing? They'll be whatever they are and we'll find out soon enough. What could we do against that thing that wouldn't be just as dangerous for us? Nukes? Do we want fallout drifting over Central Florida? All we can do is wait and see what they want with us."
Neither of them said anything for a time, then Susie went to refill a customer's mug. I watched her walk away.
Hot pants to encourage tips. Legs worth the exposure. Trim and tight and everything right. Except maybe the makeup. Susie always used a bit too much eye makeup. Sometimes she looked like a raccoon.
A guy, apparently in his late twenties, was sitting on the other side of the bar, watching us and presumably listening to us as well. He confirmed this by getting up and making his way around the bar to our area.
He pulled up a stool on our side and said, "If you want to know what the public thinks, spend some time in a bar, right? Hi, I'm Gary."
He didn't extend a hand to shake, instead holding his beer in his right hand.
"I'm Dave," said Dave, watching him move in and sit down before either of us invited him to join us. "Make yourself at home, I guess."
"I'm Ed," I said. "Don't mind him, he growls at all strangers. How long have you been guarding that beer? It doesn't look very cold."
"A while. Probably an hour or so. I'm not much of a drinker, but I needed some time out of the... uhm, office."
Gary had an unusual slight accent. I couldn't place it at all, and I've heard most of them. He was about my height, six-two, and close to two hundred pounds. Medium brown hair, gray eyes. Department-store sneakers, blue jeans, and one of those ubiquitous "alien" tee-shirts the hucksters were selling. No tan, but not pale, either. Tourist? Office worker?
Dave was curious, too.
"So, where you from, Gary?" he asked, "You a tourist? You haven't been getting much sun lately."
Gary looked hesitant to comment, but managed, "I haven't been getting out much for a while."
Dave made a face and said, "Oh, hell, of course. My cousin looked like you every time he got back. Submarine duty. Half the U.S. Navy is parked a few miles offshore. You're probably stationed on one of those ships out there, aren't you?"
Gary gave a wry grin and nodded. "One of those ships. I can't really talk about what's going on out there, though."
Dave said, "Yeah, I know how it is. That's the military. If they don't know anything, they won't tell you. If they do know anything they won't tell you. Been there. Done that."
Gary seemed to relax visibly.
He asked me, "Did you mean all that? About it not mattering why the space ship is here? You don't seem very concerned."
"What's the point in being overly concerned? They'll be whatever they are."
"And if they aren't friendly? What then?"
"Play it by ear. I don't have to assume the worst, Gary. There are enough people already doing that. Others will assume the best. I won't do that, either. I won't assume at all. I'll just watch and wait."
Dave asked Gary, "What do you think about all this?"
Gary sat back a bit, then said, "I'd like to think they're friendly."
Dave laughed and said, "Well, they haven't done anything except hang around; speaking of which, I need to get going. Nancy wants me to take her to the beach tonight. One of her friends is having an all-night party."
He yelled a goodnight to Susie and headed for the door.
As Dave was walking out, I asked Gary if he had any quarters. He looked at me blankly for a moment. I pointed at the pool tables and told Susie I wanted two bucks' worth of quarters. Gary added a couple of bucks to mine and when we had the change we took our beers to one of the tables near the pool tables.
We were alone in the poolroom. I fed the table and racked the balls, then went to pick out a cue stick. Gary took a moment to put his beer on a coaster, then ambled over as I rolled a few sticks on the table. He seemed to be watching my actions intently while trying not to show it. I asked if he'd ever played pool before.
"No, I haven't," said Gary. "I've never had an opportunity to learn the game."
I handed him one of the straighter sticks I'd found and said, "I guess ships would tend to move too much for pool."
Gary looked at me oddly but only nodded in response.
I broke the rack and made three stripes before I got a bad bounce. When I stepped away from the table Gary stepped up to it and began aiming at one of the striped balls.
"Hold it, Gary. Those are mine. Yours don't have stripes."
He actually looked apologetic.
"Sorry," he said, then he then began lining up to shoot the eight into a very close side pocket.
"Hold it again, Gary. The eight ball goes in last, after we've sunk all the other balls."
He looked up at me and said again, "Sorry." Straightening up, he asked, "Is there anything else I should know?"
I laughed. "Yeah, but they're just minor details, like not hitting my ball first when you shoot at one of yours. For now, just shoot anything that isn't a stripe or an eight. Get the feel of using the stick."
He nodded and aimed at the four ball. I noticed that he held the stick precisely as I had, letting the stick slide on his thumbnail instead of wrapping a finger over the top. He poked the cue ball and seemed vastly surprised when the four didn't go in the corner. I told him why he'd missed.
"Control is in the back of the stick, Gary. Don't let it waffle back and forth or up and down when you shoot. Watch."
The cue ball was only a foot from the rail, so this time I shot one-handed, simply laying the stick on the table and nudging the cue ball to knock the twelve in the side. The cue ball stopped rolling near the rail again, so I used a one-handed shot again on the nine.
Gary asked, "Why did you begin the game using both hands?"
"I didn't, really. I used one hand on the break, but in my next three shots the cue ball was too far from the rail or too close to other balls, so I had to use my left hand as a guide."
There was a lot of table between the balls on my next shot. I shot too hard when I tried to put backspin on the cue ball to keep it from following the ten into the pocket. My ten ball rattled inside the pocket and climbed back out and the cue ball stopped less than a foot from the table-end rail.
Gary laid his stick on the table and eyeballed a corner shot for the six ball, then poked the cue ball. His six ball rolled two feet or so and dropped neatly into the corner. He smiled and walked around the table for his next shot, again aiming one-handed. It went in.
"You're right, Ed. It's much easier this way."
"Some people would argue that opinion. You'll still want to become familiar with using both hands," I said. "Some shots really require it and some people don't react well to strangers who do things in non-standard ways. They'll think they're being hustled."
Gary missed his next shot when one ball barely touched another and skewed a bit off-course. He looked up and shrugged.
"Hustled?" he asked.
"Why doesn't it surprise me that you don't know what a hustler is? That's what they call someone much better at a game who shows up to play, especially if they're playing for drinks or money. People can get ugly about that."
Gary looked mildly confused. "Why should someone's skill at a game cause others to become upset?"
"You really don't get out much, do you? Trust me on this. They can and do become upset if they think the stranger is too much better than the other players. Never let them push you into playing for money until they've seen you play. A drink, maybe, but not money. At least they can't say later that they weren't told."
I finished that game and we started another game as we talked. Gary seemed to know a little about damned near everything, but only that very little about any specific topic, and it usually sounded as if he were reciting memorized facts.
When I tried expanding the conversation a bit concerning upcoming elections, he seemed to know the names and parties, but appeared to have no opinions. He said that his time aboard ship had made it hard to keep up with things.
His shooting skill improved greatly rather quickly, but I still managed to win three of the five more games we played. Toward the end of the third game he didn't miss any more easy shots and damned few of the harder ones. I said nothing about the unusual speed at which he learned to shoot pool.
When I used a jump shot to loft the cue ball over one of his stripes in one game, Gary mimicked the shot sometime later without hesitation. He missed, but only by a very narrow margin. I didn't say anything about that, either.
Susie brought me another beer after our third game. She eyed Gary as she put the beer on our table, then glanced at me as she passed. I gave her a blank look and she kept going on her way back to the bar.
After a quick glance around to see if anyone needed a refill, she leaned on the bar to watch us play. Either she'd also noticed Gary's quickness of learning or she just thought he was worth looking at.
Gary might have been a lot of things and Dave's guess about Gary being Navy might have been true, but something about him didn't ring quite right with me. He reminded me of some of the spooks I'd worked with in Europe. They'd spoken the languages, worn the Euro clothes from the local stores instead of the stuff from the American PX/BX, and they'd generally been trained well enough to fake it if contacts with the locals remained very brief and superficial.
In other times and places I'd learned to rely on my instincts. If something seems wrong about a trail, take time to figure out what. Leaves turned the wrong way or upside down, for instance, meant that someone or something has passed that way recently and damaged or moved some of the foliage, perhaps to try to conceal an ambush. You get to where oddities register and affect your judgment and behavior before you're consciously aware of them.
Spring Hill and the area within about fifty miles of it in any direction held no military or other government interests worthy of note. MacDill AFB had closed, so there was nothing left to guard from spies. The idea of Gary being an off-duty government agent of some sort didn't ring quite right, either.
I took a sip of my beer and said, "Gary, there may actually be one man in some branch of the U.S. military who honestly hasn't played pool, but I'd bet you aren't him. Either you lied about never having played before or you have a true talent for the game. Nobody shoots at a semi-pro level after only five games."
"Oh," he said, "I wouldn't call my shooting anything even close to semi-pro..."
"I would," I interrupted him. "I'm semi-pro and your shooting could probably surpass mine within a few more games at this rate. If you want a second opinion, the lady who keeps score on tournament nights is right over there."
I pointed to Susie, who gave me a small wave and a smile.
"Yup. Sure do," she said. "You're too good to be true. You know what that means, don't you?"
Gary looked slightly apprehensive. "Uh, no, I'm afraid I don't..."
Susie gave him a big, bright smile and said, "It means you're fulla shit! You're too good at it. You guys ready for two more?"
Gary looked slightly worried.
"I'll take a new one," I said. "Gary's still working his first one."
As Susie nodded and turned away, I turned to Gary and said, "Well, there you have it. A more-or-less impartial second opinion."
"Is she upset with me?"
"I'm not, so she isn't, either. She doesn't care how good you are at pool. She just likes to make sure there's no trouble in the bar over stuff like this."
Gary nodded thoughtfully as he looked in Susie's direction.
We put up our sticks and moved back to the bar to save Susie a trip. Gary seemed thoughtful as he stared at his bottle and ticked the label loose at one corner. Susie's reappearance with my new beer actually seemed to go unnoticed by Gary until she cleared her throat and looked at the bottle he was mangling. He seemed slightly startled to see her and quickly set the bottle down.
Susie said, "You're gonna give yourself a headache, thinkin' that hard."
She grinned at him and he grinned back, but he said nothing, so Susie left. She glanced back at him once as she rang up the sale, but he was again contemplating matters as he gazed at his beer bottle. Susie looked at me and shrugged, then went back to tidying up behind the bar.
I swiveled the stool so I could rest both elbows on the bar and matched Gary's contemplative position, then said in a low tone, "Susie thinks you're a little odd."
"What? Why?"
"Well, for one thing, you didn't eyeball her coming or going. She once told me a man'd have to be hardcore-gay to not watch her walk by."
Gary looked at Susie, then over at me. "She really said that?"
"Yup. She knows how good she looks in those little tip-getting outfits."
Gary looked back at her again and said, "She's right, of course." He then turned back to me and asked, "Are you saying you think I'm gay?"
"I wouldn't care if you are, Gary. After all, you weren't looking at me, either. You were just staring hard at that bottle. I just figured you had a lot on your mind."
Gary put the bottle down and asked, "If you don't care, why did you mention it at all?"
I put my beer down, too. "To see how you'd handle it."
Gary sighed. "Look, I'm not interested in fighting..."
I interrupted him. "Neither am I. I do want to ask you something, though, and it could seem a little strange."
Gary's eyes narrowed a bit. "What do you want to ask me?"
I told him to put a hand on the bar, then I put a finger on the top of his wrist. He looked at my finger dubiously, but sat still.
I waited until his eyes shifted back to mine and quietly asked, "Gary, are you in the U.S. Navy?"
He said nothing for a moment, then asked, "Do you expect me to believe that you can tell if someone's lying by touching them?"
I nodded slightly and said, "Sure do. You didn't answer the question, Gary. Are you in the Navy?"
"You were right," he said. "This is pretty strange. What if I say 'no' and you choose not to believe me?"
"Then I don't believe you, that's all. Same if you say 'yes' and I don't believe you. Same if I do believe you. I'm just curious, that's all."
"And if I just pull my hand away without answering your question?"
I grinned at him. "Then you get to buy the next round for chickening out."
Gary wasn't grinning. He looked at my finger on his wrist, then back at my face. "That's it? Nothing else?"
"That's it. Nothing else. I'm just curious, Gary, and you still haven't answered my question."
Gary looked at me a moment longer and said, "Yes. I'm in the Navy."
I'd taken the stool on the left because I'd wanted the lights from the bar behind him. His eyes never shifted or left mine, but his pupils contracted noticeably as he spoke, then returned to their former size.
I silently removed my finger from his wrist and picked up my beer to take a sip. He watched me closely, but just as silently, as he rubbed his wrist.
After some moments of that silence he asked, "Well? What now?"
I didn't look at him as I said, "Now I finish my beer and leave."
Gary looked confused, then irritated. "Leave? Why? What's the matter? You didn't seem in a hurry to leave a few minutes ago."
"That was before you finally answered my question, Gary."
I drained the last of the beer and rapped the bottle on the bar to get Susie's attention. I waved goodbye and she waved back, then I turned to go.
I headed for the door, watching his reflection in the glass just in case. He made no move to stop me, but his right hand covered his left wrist. He seemed to be squeezing his wristwatch as I opened the door. A nervous habit?
I was halfway to my car when a dark green Chevy sedan pulled in and tucked itself into a nearby parking slot. I kept an eye on the driver's door as I walked. The door opened and first one leg, then the other, appeared. They were pretty good legs, from what I could see of them. Then the rest of the woman emerged, then emerged some more. She must have been six feet tall.
I stopped to take a longer look at her as she took a look around the parking lot. She saw me and leaned back into the car for a moment, then straightened again. When she saw I was still looking at her, she slung the purse she'd retrieved on her shoulder in a businesslike manner and shut the car door, then began walking toward the front door of the bar in what was almost a march step.
She was wearing a matching dark-emerald-green skirt and jacket that went well with her lighter-green blouse and fit her very well, indeed. Not too tight, not too loose, just well tailored to her form. Her height was natural, not the result of high heels. Her light blonde hair was about collar-length in a pageboy sort of cut.
As she neared me, her eyes seemed to travel the length of me in an appraising fashion before she stopped near me and asked, "Did you just come out of there?"
She spoke softly in a rich contralto voice and had a faint, unplaceable accent much like Gary's.
"Sure did. There's nothing else open on the whole block to come out of. Excuse me for staring, ma'am. I haven't seen a woman quite like you in the flesh for a long time. You can take that as a heartfelt compliment."
She looked at the bar door and back at me. Her small smile seemed forced.
"Thank you. Do you happen to know if there's a man named Gary in there?"
Why wasn't I at all surprised that she knew Gary?
I stepped back a pace as I said, "Maybe he's sitting at the bar, but I've been in the poolroom for the last hour or so. It's been nice seeing you, miLady, and I truly mean that." I started onward toward my car.
"Wait, please," said the blonde. I was about six feet away from her when I turned to see her gripping her wristwatch as Gary had.
Why didn't that surprise me, either?
"Sorry, ma'am. Gotta go." I turned away to continue walking to my car, but the blonde's hand locked around my left wrist in a split second. The bar's door opened and Gary walked out and headed our way.
I tried a couple of quick moves to break her grip that didn't work, then tried pressing a knuckle into a spot that should have caused her hand to go numb, but her fingers remained locked around my wrist and her face remained impassive.
I doubted that I could get free without breaking her arm or punching her out, and I wasn't quite ready to resort to such measures.
"Please don't do that again," she said. "It was very painful. We only want to talk with you."
Gary strode up to us and said something to her quickly that made absolutely no sense to me. The blonde looked at her hand on my wrist as if having second thoughts about being in contact with me.
Heh. Guess he bought the "Finger of Truth" trick at the bar.
Gary turned to me. "We need to talk, Ed. We won't hurt you. This is my friend Ellen. Will you please not try to run away?"
I noted that he'd said 'try to run'. For some reason it didn't seem likely to me that I'd get far. I looked at the blonde's hand on my wrist and shrugged.
"Will this gorgeous blonde continue to hold my hand if I stay?"
In an absolutely serious tone, she said, "I will if that is required."
I shook my head slightly in disbelief and said, "Jesus, ol' buddy, please send this woman a sense of humor... Sorry, Ellen. Just kidding. One suggestion, though; let's take this discussion back inside the bar where we won't be feeding mosquitoes. We can take a table in the back of the poolroom."
...And Susie can call the cops if necessary...
Ellen looked at Gary. He nodded. As we turned to return to the bar, I lifted my left wrist and tapped the back of her hand. She glanced again at Gary, who nodded, before she released my arm.
I rubbed my wrist and looked into her dispassionate gaze for a moment. Her eyes held mine until Gary cleared his throat to get us moving again. I'd seen nothing more in her eyes than a quiet, calm intelligence.
While I felt they might have been prepared to do something to prevent my escape, they seemed to have no qualms about going back into the bar with me.
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