Rhubarb (25 page)

“Spare me the dramatics,” said Jeffrey. “Come on, let’s get
some coffee or something.”

Martin wished he’d taken a decoy staple gun out of the back
of the truck. Even if Jeffrey realized it wasn’t the real ray gun, Martin bet
that a three-quarter-inch staple to the neck might do some damage. “I need to
check in first,” said Martin.

Jeffrey scanned the lobby with a raised eyebrow. “You’re
checking in here?”

“Shut up,” said Martin, heading to the front desk.

“They don’t even serve breakfast,” Jeffrey called after him.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Wells?” asked the desk clerk.

“Oh, just peachy,” Martin replied.

“Shall we take my car?” asked Jeffrey, when Martin returned
with his key.

“How about I follow you?” said Martin.

A few minutes later, Jeffrey parked diagonally in front of a
tavern under a banner that said, “Welcome Bikers.”

“I thought you said coffee,” said Martin.

Jeffrey tossed his suit jacket across onto his passenger
seat. “They’ll have coffee,” he said and shut his door.

If Lynyrd Skynyrd wasn’t playing on the stereo, Martin knew
he wouldn’t have to wait long. The few patrons, surely regulars all, looked
their direction before returning to their conversations. For some reason, a
women’s tennis match was playing on the TV behind the aged bar. The bartender didn’t
blink when Jeffrey ordered and soon enough provided two steaming mugs of black
coffee.

Martin followed Jeffrey to a table.

“You came all the way back to Earth just to talk to me?”
asked Martin.

“I did,” said Jeffrey. He kicked his legs out straight and
leaned back in his chair. “You know, I wanted so much to ask you about Cheryl’s
pie before. How she made it, what it tasted like, all that. But I couldn’t.
Then Stewart spilled the beans, and you and I kind of got off on the wrong
foot.”

“What could possibly be the right foot?”

“I’ve watched her make dozens of pies in the last few
weeks—she’s quite the baker—but I don’t see anywhere in the process where she’s
leaving anything out. There’s no hesitation at any point. No little quaver
where you can see her thinking, ‘Skip that ingredient,’ or ‘Don’t mix it this
way.’ I’m beginning to think that she really doesn’t have the secret.”

“That’s what we’ve been telling you,” said Martin.

“But yet she baked you a pie. And I’m thinking that for a
special occasion, for the right person, she might have baked it the right way.”

“You think I was watching what she was putting in the dough?
All I was thinking about was getting into her pants,” said Martin.

“Oh, knock it off. I know you well enough to know that
that’s the first time in your life you’ve even thought the phrase ‘getting into
her pants.’”

“So what? Even if I did notice something unusual, what makes
you think I would tell you now?”

“I could abduct you, and we can find out.”

“Go ahead,” said Martin.

“Don’t have authorization,” said Jeffrey.

“That shouldn’t stop a go-getter like you,” said Martin.
“You don’t want to upset CEO ChipmunkFart.”

Jeffrey laughed, took a belt of coffee, and then pointed at
Martin. “They didn’t send me here because I was the last egg hatched. And my
intuition tells me that you know something.”

“Jeffrey, I’ve known you for just as long,” said Martin.
“This isn’t some kind of friend-to-friend chat. You’re panicked.”

Jeffrey chuckled again. “Now I know that you know
something.”

“Think what you want,” said Martin.

“What can I offer you to change your mind?”

“I don’t have anything to tell you. Even if I did, I
wouldn’t do it.”

“What if I told you that I could have the operational plan
altered?”

“Altered?” asked Martin.

“Changed. Edited. Rewritten. Revamped.”

“How?”

“With the recipe in hand, I’d be able to make
recommendations to my CEO.”

“Recommendations aren’t a guarantee,” said Martin.

“We could negotiate with your leaders for part of the
planet. Build domes on Mars for the rest.”

“Wow. Sounds like a sweet deal. Where do I sign?” said
Martin. “How can you be doing this? Don’t you have any guilt at all? Can’t you
see that we deserve the right to exist unmolested on our own planet?”

“I’m not a monster,” said Jeffrey. “But I’ve staked my whole
career on this.”

“Your career?”

“Driving your truck of screws around, you might not
understand what it means…”

“Oh, we’re going to go there? My job is stupid, Candy Man?
Or does the candy company even exist?”

“At first, no, but now we sell candy in forty-eight states.
Plus Canada, and we would be expanding into Mexico, but…”

“So you’re willing to sacrifice your candy concern if you
get the pie?”

“Chump change. So what if we sell a few million bucks of
tooth rot to humans every year? Do you know how much that pie recipe is worth?
Trillions of customers buying several a year, or even every month, all at the
equivalent of a couple bucks apiece. You do the math. Even if demand flattens
or slopes off in a couple of years, it’s still a fortune.”

“Well, when you put it that way, by all means, murder all of
us then,” said Martin. “I’m so sorry that we’re even in your way.”

“You know, she thinks you’re part of it,” said Jeffrey.

“What?”

“She thinks you’re one of us. She thinks you sold her out.”

“She’ll know the truth someday,” said Martin.

“Maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you don’t tell me what I want to know right now, I’m
going back up there to start the next stage of interrogation. And if she
doesn’t tell me what I need to know, your breakfast princess is going to be eating
Jell-O in a padded room for the rest of her life.”

Martin lunged. The table tipped, spilling the coffees.
Jeffrey tumbled back, mouth open. A mug smashed. Martin fell on Jeffrey, hands
around his throat.

Jeffrey swatted at Martin and pushed up under his chin.
Martin let go with one hand to slap at Jeffrey’s face, but a hand, the
bartender’s, caught his wrist. The bartender shouted, but Martin heard nothing
but the blood rush in his ears. He twisted his arm free and punched Jeffrey
under the eye. Jeffrey bucked him off into a pool of coffee spiked with the
shattered mug and struggled to his feet.

Martin followed, shoving the bartender aside, and tackled
Jeffrey. “He’s going to kill us all,” Martin shouted to anyone who cared to
hear.

Jeffrey kicked at him and gained the door on his hands and
knees. He pulled himself to his feet on the crash bar.

“He’s crazy,” yelled Jeffrey. “Call the cops.”

Martin was out the door a half-second after Jeffrey, and
punched at the back of his head. Jeffrey stumbled and then turned, setting up
in some kind of martial-arts stance. He laughed, backing to the Lincoln Town
Car.

The bartender and the Lewistown tavern regulars spilled out
onto the sidewalk.

Martin started forward, but Jeffrey touched something on his
left wrist. And Martin collapsed into the gutter.

~ * * * ~

Martin awoke in a heap in Jeffrey’s empty parking space. He
lurched up, his legs and arms on pins and needles, his clothes stained brown
with cold coffee. He brushed bits of gravel from his palms and the side of his
face. The bartender and the other patrons were heaped in undignified piles on
the sidewalk. One had cut his head. Martin stumbled to the Screwmobile,
scrabbling in his pockets for his keys. He backed out as one of the patrons got
to his knees.

Martin guessed Jeffrey had had only a few minutes’ head
start. The mostly-empty Screwmobile roared easily up into the
please-step-out-of-the-car-sir range of the speedometer. Jeffrey had to have
come this way. Highway 15 made practically a beeline to Brixton, and the
portal.

“Pasco, Washington, you’re Beyond Insomnia.”

“Evening, Lee. My name is Clark. I’ve been awake a long
time, but I ain’t heard nothing like this. Gives me chills. But I have a
question for your guest.”

“Thomas Worthington, yes. Go ahead.”

“Yeah, Thomas, you said you fell asleep every time, and then
woke up a few minutes later. What was that like? And did you dream?”

“I’ll first let you know that I am not narcoleptic, and I
have no history of sleep disorders. I didn’t dream. And it wasn’t scary. The
first time, it caught me by surprise. The second and third times, when I heard
the insects go quiet, I immediately lay down wherever I happened to be. And
then I’d be out. Like falling asleep at night. I don’t know if it’s a
protective effect of this phenomenon, something to keep witnesses from seeing
things, or if it’s a natural effect of the technology. It surprised me that it
didn’t disrupt the recordings. Perhaps whoever set it up didn’t care about
technology, only eyewitnesses.”

“Do you think these trucks are actually alien?”

“I can’t answer that question. I’m only a journalist and
videographer. For all I know, the phenomenon might be teleportation technology
that the government has kept secret. Maybe it’s how they haul nuclear missile
parts around that area. The truck that emerged, and the car, were clearly
recognizable as human objects, not alien.”

“Thank you, Clark from Pasco. Thomas, were you aware of the
history of sightings and visitations around Brixton before this?”

“I hadn’t heard of Brixton, but your producer filled me in
on the area’s history.”

Taillights appeared in the distance, but it turned out to be
a pickup truck. Martin passed it as if it were going backward—hopefully too
fast for the driver to read the number on the “How’s My Driving?” bumper
sticker.

What would he even do if he caught Jeffrey? Run him off the
road? Get in another ridiculous slap fight? Martin had the alien parts. With a
few minutes of work, he could follow Jeffrey right through the portal. Jeffrey
would never expect it. But then the rest of the plan would be right out the
window. Besides, Jeffrey might not even be going through the portal. Could he
send a signal up to the facility to start this next phase on Cheryl? Surely he
had some device to do that? Probably his stupid iPad. The damned things did
everything else.

Stewart.

Martin wrestled his phone out of his pants pocket, swerving.
He kept the car half across the yellow line as he dialed so he wouldn’t veer
into a ditch.

“Hey, Martin. Where you been? What’s this black car Lee
keeps talking about?” Stewart asked.

“Listen to me. Jeffrey’s heading your way east on 15 from
Lewistown right now. I’m a few minutes behind him. We need to stop him. He’s
going back up there to move Cheryl into the next interrogation phase thing.”

“How do I stop him?” asked Stewart.

“You’ve got a car and your FastNCo. Model 25-C staple gun.
You figure it out,” said Martin. “He’s driving a black Town Car.”

“How’d you meet up with him?” asked Stewart.

“He found me. Tried to make a deal. I didn’t tell him
anything, but he suspects I have the secret.”

“That’s not good,” said Stewart.

“Not for me,” said Martin.

“But maybe we can use that somehow.”

“How?” asked Martin. “He’s holding all the cards. What can I
threaten him with? Put the staple gun to my own temple and tell him to bring
back Cheryl or it’s back to the drawing board?”

“When do you think he’ll get here?” asked Stewart.

“Any time. I left Lewistown about an hour ago and haven’t
caught him. He put me to sleep somehow, but I don’t think I was out more than a
few minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll do what I can,” said Stewart.

“Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You’re Beyond Insomnia. Hello,
you’re on the air.”

“Oh, am I on?”

“You are. What’s your name and question for Thomas
Worthington?”

“I’m MaryAnn. I’m wondering how close Thomas got. It looks
like the cameras are a hundred yards away or so. Did he get closer personally?”

“I drove through the spot more than a dozen times during the
day and night and can report nothing unusual. I walked through the area during
the day. I even climbed on the walls, but they were pretty crumbly, and I
didn’t want to fall into traffic. There are real plants growing out of cracks
in the rock. If there’s some kind of object or mechanism there, it’s buried or
well camouflaged. I walked around the site, too, but found no signs of
excavation, construction, no odd manholes or structures, nothing to indicate
that anyone had ever built anything but a road there.”

“Can I ask another question?”

“Sure, go ahead, MaryAnn.”

“Is Thomas single? He sounds real nice, and he’s so
handsome, too. I can’t imagine a woman letting him run off to Montana all
alone.”

“Fair enough. So, Thomas, what’s the verdict? Are you on the
market?”

“Not to disappoint, but I have a longtime girlfriend.
Stacey. Hi, Babe. She’s wonderful, and very supportive of my career, which she
knows can take me to strange places at strange times.”

“Sounds like he’s taken, MaryAnn.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, Lee. And I know you’re never going to
leave Mrs. Danvers.”

“I’m in it for good with the amazing Mrs. D, but I’ll take
this moment to remind you that premium wakernation.com members get full access
to the Insomniacs Forum, including the Not Sleeping Single pages. I get email
every day from people who’ve made connections with fellow Wakers there. Good
luck, MaryAnn. Let’s go to Queens, New York…”

~ * * * ~

Martin slowed to pass through Brixton. Twenty-five miles per
hour felt like standing still. The town slept unaware. Even the deputies had
abandoned their vigil by the market. Martin sped up.

There were no cars filling up at the Herbert’s Corner gas
pumps and only a couple of trucks in the back lot. Stewart’s Skylark wasn’t
parked by the propane tank. Martin flicked on his blinker, started to turn
south at the junction, but then stomped on the brakes.