Yggdrasil Highway Saga
Chapter 64: An Act of Stupidity is Absolved
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Texas Ranger Technician thought that he was about to go out of his mind. The second phone call the old man received was interminable...it went on for HOURS. They just kept yakking. It seems the old man had a granddaughter and the granddaughter had a friend who had a baby girl named bunny. Bunny called the old man and was …..just babbling. The old man appeared to be playing along. The old man was gooing and gaahing at the baby who was doing the same thing back to him. For HOURS!!! He must have the patience of Job. The Technician fought to stay awake.
I grinned. It wasn’t hard at all, at all, to send two separate feeds. While I was talking to the old man the surveillance tech was enduring a completely different conversation.
And so it continued...on into the night, for the entirety of the night and into the morning. The old man drank and drank and drank. He drank enough to have killed any ten men, any twenty. He never got drunk.
The next morning around eleven there came another phone call. The old man was STILL talking to his cat on the phone.
“Huh...another call coming in.. You want to hold or call me back?” said the old man...taking a drink.
“I’ll let you go,” said the cat.” I’ll let you take care of business, contact you later”.
Unbeknownst to the old man he’d been talking into a dead line for hours and hours. The cat had sync’d the two battle computers and from that point on the conversation had been ‘mind-to-mind’ and impossible to detect with the current technology of the monkie-boys. The phone had been a good prop though. The cat had also thought that the poor Ranger Surveillance Tech needed some mercy. The pooor, poor boy.
“Fine by me” said Sam ”All my previous cats would hardly ever stay awake more than two hours...if that.”
He hung up the one line and answered the other. It was Enrico.
“Hiya Boss” said the old man. “What’s up?”
“I’m getting rich” said the owner of the trucking company “thanks to you”.
“You’re already rich.” said the old man...looking at the vodka he was holding. Suddenly alcohol didn’t have much appeal. Coffee would be nice.
He asked Enrico “Hang on for a second...I need some coffee”
Without waiting for Enrico to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ he put his ‘boss’ on hold and ordered coffee from the Hospital Cafeteria. Oddly enough his order wasn’t questioned...room service would deliver it immediately.
“So...what’s the deal” said the old trucker, picking back up his boss’s line again.
“The deal is that you’re too smart to be a damn driver. How did you know to activate those lawyer avatars? How’d you find them? Never mind. You were a victim of malignant stupidity. The driver of that freight hauling company screwed up and the cops REALLY screwed up. Your lawyers, OUR lawyers , have proof, video evidence that YOUR truck sent to us almost as it was happening, not to mention the video feed from hundreds of blog/cam/copters. The cops and the other trucking company are very, very nervous. They have an idea what we can do to them in court...especially the cops. They hijacked you after all. They used force....machine gun no less.” Said Enrico over the phone.
The old man sat there...wishing the coffee would hurry up and get there. Very carefully he said....”They tried to hijack me, and they shot me?”
“Yes...and we have it all recorded, hundreds of videos, maybe thousands. No way can they deny this. We’ve got them by the short and curlies....they want to settle out of court, really, really bad. Bad enough that they’re willing to pony up some very serious money. VERY serious. I think it’s a good idea. We, that is the lawyers, need your approval to seal the deal. No need for you to go to court or anything considering your injuries. We just need you to swear and affirm that this is IT. That the settlement covers all claims, now and forevermore regarding this incident.” He said.
“That’s it?” said the old man.
“That’s it” said Enrico.
“How much” asked the old man
“A BUNCH..” said Enrico stating a fabulous figure. “All we had to do was run a few computerized projections of how much damage there would have been had one of those trucks ‘jumped the rail and landed on a building , or a school, or into CowBoy stadium........we’ve very carefully NOT said anything about the machine gun...but they know we could. They’re terrified that we might. One of their guys died somehow and they definitely do NOT want that released either, so they’ve upped the ante....really, REALLY high.”
“Ooookay...” said the old man. “Deal”.
“Great idea” said Enrico ”I’ll have a notary public come by later to take your statement. One other thing...when you get released from the hospital you might want to stop by a trailer shop there in Dallas, I have one in mind, and swap those old trailers you’re pulling for some new ones. The settlement will do me the most good by being invested in new equipment. You’re the driver so you get to pick them out. Considering everything I think you should use your best judgment when selecting them. Your BEST judgment. Perhaps you have some mods made that you might want? Armaments in particular. We’re not called “Badlands Trucking” for nothing and I see that intensifying. Dust runners get shot at. I see us running closer to the slaver cities. Maybe REAL close. You know how they tend to raid trucks. Don’t be cheap.”
“There’s not much to a dust trailer” said the old man.
“As I said, use your imagination, improve on the armaments. Upgrade your tractor also if you want, a lot of this money, in fact most of it, is specifically yours, going into your own account. You’ll do fine”...said Enrico
About that time someone knocked on the Old Man’s hospital door. It was the coffee service. The Old Man hung up the phone and answered the door.
Ahhh...nothing beats coffee.
Dallas Senior Medical Examiner: “So ...to sum it up. The subject under discussion is NOT human. Not only is it not human it bears no genetic nor molecular resemblance to any known form of life. It is, however, a member of a technologically advanced culture..”
The governor was chairing the conference: “Thank you sir. Where did it come from, what was it doing there, I think are significant questions. Anyone have any answers.”
The Dallas Chief of Police stated ”Sir...I think it was infiltrating my organization”
Governor : “That seems reasonable. What exactly do we know about the subject..?”
Dallas Chief of Police: “ Not much. It appears that when the helmet cam of specialist O’Neil transmitted the picture of the cat attacking the driver of the BadLands truck the subject got very agitated and then fired the Helicopter’s machine gun at the truck. Why it did that and what it’s specific intentions were are unknown”.
“After the copter got back to base we went over it with a fine tooth comb. Several irregularities were discovered. For one thing we found several of these” He held up an object.
“This is impossible....yet we found several of them on the floor as if they had fallen out of the machine gun” he continued.
The item he held in his hand was a piece of metal formed by two bullets...which had hit nose to nose.
“In all my years of dealing with guns, firefights and warfare I’ve NEVER heard of two bullets , in flight, striking each other, head on. Yet we found twenty or more in the helicopter. Forensics say that is what took out the machine gun...an in-barrel explosion, as if the bullet has met an obstruction in the barrel.”
“What the evidence is telling us is that after the first few unexpected rounds impacted the badlands truck no more exited the helicopter. The helicopter machine gun continued to fire but it’s bullets were shot out of the air in front of it’s barrel...closer and closer to the barrel until one was impacted INSIDE the barrel..thus destroying the machine gun.” he said
“That is, of course, impossible. Bullets can’t be shot out of the air. But that is what the evidence suggests.” he continued.
“Immediately after the gun was destroyed several bullets stitched the gunner, crotch to cranium. The Browning Automatic Rifle throws a big, fast bullet. The 30.06. The target was more than dead..it was obliterated...we had to pick up parts with a spoon and a squeegee. That’s how we noticed that it wasn’t human. Humans aren’t built the way it was constructed”
The Governor said....”I don’t suppose anything has been done about the truck?”
“No Sir” said the Dallas Police Chief and the Dallas Mayor immediately...talking over each other.
The Police Chief deferred to the Mayor. “We don’t need ANY more attention focused on this incident. We’re keeping hands off. Other than video audio surveillance from a distance and of the old man in the special luxury room at the hospital we’re not doing a thing”
They all knew what could happen, what recently HAD happened to government officials of any stripe that got too overbearing. Especially in Texas. A cool breeze seemed to blow thru the room and they all shivered a little. No one liked to think of the thousands of politicians, police and government officials, both State and Federal who had swung by their necks from almost any elevated object. Trees, Tall signs, street lights and bridges had seen overbearing, officious, obstinate corrupt officials struggling for one last breath.
That breath never came. The populace had gone a little bit insane during the years of the MeltDown. No one wanted to risk triggering that again. Individual freedom was sacrosanct.
The Governor smiled...”You’re doing that also are you? At least we’ll have plenty of pictures”
I smiled to myself. Teach granny to suck eggs will they? They didn’t know from concealed surveillance. they wanted plenty of pictures? I’d make sure of it.
Chapters
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