Hunter stepped to one side and studied the car. It was very basic. A metal body. Four wheels coated in rubber. Two seats in the front, a smaller single seat in the back.
"It looks like every other car I've ever seen," Hunter replied truthfully.
This was not the answer Reggie was expecting. Moose and Weed threw away their beer cans, ready now to fight. Reggie's face was as red as the finish on his car.
But at that moment, one of the girls — the one with the vodka bottle — laughed out loud. "Like any other car! Man, that's rich!"
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Reggie spun around and violently slapped her across the face.
Whack!
Hunter's eyes nearly fell out of his head. He couldn't believe what he'd just seen. Reggie had actually hit the girl. Hunter was shocked. Never, ever, from the time he'd woken up on Fools 6 to his travels throughout the Galaxy had he seen a man strike a woman. In his world, such an act was beyond comprehension.
But then, just as quickly, the shock subsided, and anger flooded in. Reggie needed two friends to back him up but had no problem hitting a girl? That was not right. Low-profile or not, Hunter decided Reggie needed an education on something.
He reached over, grabbed Reggie by the collar of his football jacket, and spun him around, all in one fluid motion. Reggie tried to say something, but Hunter had his collar twisted so tight under his throat, Reggie could no longer speak. His face was becoming a darker shade of crimson with every moment.
Hunter yanked him even closer, so that Reggie's inflamed ear was now up against Hunter's lips.
"Now, Reggie, it's time for me to show you my car." Hunter told him.
He dropped Reggie to the putting green, then took the Twenty 'n Six box out of his pocket. He pushed the button; there was a small puff of green mist and a flash. And suddenly, his flying machine was there.
Moose threw up. All over the front of his football jacket, his pants, and his new sneakers. Weed was paralyzed with fear. The girls were, too.
Hunter retrieved Reggie from the seat of his pants and dragged him up the access ladder to the cockpit. "Here's my car, Reggie. See it? See it?"
Reggie tried to mumble something but found it impossible.
"Suddenly not much to say, Reggie?" Hunter taunted him.
Reggie was legless. All he could do was point at the suddenly materialized aircraft and babble.
"I think it's time you and I went for a little ride, Reggie."
With that, Hunter dropped him into the rear of the cockpit, then climbed in himself.
Hunter closed the canopy, lifted the wheels, then set his velocity handle on less than 1 percent of his basically unlimited power. The flying machine disappeared in a flash… and was back a thousandth of a second later. In that time, however, Hunter had completed a dozen high-speed circuits of the tiny planet, pole to pole, much of the flight made inverted.
To those still standing on the golf green, it seemed as if the aircraft had been gone for just the blink of an eye, no more. But Reggie's condition testified that it had not been a pleasant interlude. His face was plastered against the side of the bubble canopy, held in place there by his own gurgling saliva. Hunter popped the bubble top, reached in back and lifted Reggie up by his jacket collar, and dropped him to the ground below.
Then Hunter looked down at Reggie's two buddies, Moose and Weed.
"Who's next?" he asked them.
At that moment, the others started to react to what had just happened. And finally their feet began communicating again with their brain. The fight-or-flight impulse took over, and Moose and Weed lit out as if an entire enemy football team was chasing them. Somehow, Reggie got to his feet. But he vomited heavily, then tripped and fell into his own vomit. He got up again and staggered away. The girls took off as well — or at least two of them did.
One did not.
It was Ashley.
Hunter looked down at her; he couldn't tell if she was in a state of shock or not. But even with her jaw dropped open and her hair a bit out of place, she looked beautiful.
"I think… I'm still asleep," she began to mumble. "I think I'm still at home in bed, and it is this morning, and I'm dreaming all this."
"I know that feeling," Hunter told her.
She took two steps toward the flying machine. "What… what is this thing?"
Hunter started to say something, then stopped, then started again, then stopped again. How do you explain something that he didn't completely understand himself?
"I can't tell you," he finally replied. "But I can show you… "
Ashley's eyes lit up. "Show me? How?"
Hunter lowered the access ladder.
"Want to go for a ride?" he asked.
Mayfield Police Officer Charles Eaton was working on his second cup of coffee of the night when the call came in.
There was a disturbance above the municipal golf course.
Or so his dispatcher was trying to tell him.
"Repeat, base?"
"Report of a disturbance above the town links," came the reply. "Could be a fire in the trees, over near the thirteenth fairway."
Eaton carefully poured his coffee back into his thermos and started his patrol car. He knew the thirteenth hole very well. A par-five, 575-yard killer with big woods off to the left. He'd spent a lot of time looking for his stray shots among those pines. But how could the trees catch on fire?
Eaton's present position was closer to the north side of the links. The whole golf course was part of his patrol area this night; the place routinely saw some extracurricular activity after any Mayfield football game, win or lose. Usually, a blast from the siren scattered any kids drinking out on the course. But fire meant vandalism. That meant Eaton would have to walk in and check it out.
He put his car in gear and rolled about two hundred feet to the ninth tee turnoff. He could park the car here, and walk in.
"Base… sixteen here… nineteen thirty-three hours. You'd better call the firehouse, tell them to get someone out here. I'm going forty-two from the car."
Eaton gathered his portable radio, his nightstick, and his flashlight and stepped out of the car.
His radio crackled again. This time Betty, the night shift dispatcher, had a bit of panic in her voice.
"Sixteen, we now have a report of something on fire and… flying over the links."
Flying? Eaton thought.
He was about to ask Betty for a repeat when he saw it. Right above the trees. A machine of some kind. Red, white, and blue. And yes, it was flying. And yes, it seemed to be aflame, with a low roar emanating from its midsection.
He dropped the light, the radio, and his nightstick, all at once. He went to his knees and tried to pick them up. But his hands were shaking too much.
"Base? Base? Are you there?"
He looked down to see he was talking into his flashlight.
When he looked up again, the machine was right over his head.
It hovered there, just for a moment. The thing had wings, two big ones, two little ones. Its nose was sharp, pointed. It was now making a very strange growling noise. And it was surrounded by a greenish glow.
Officer Eaton blinked again, and the machine was gone.
Soaring…
Off the ground, the golf course rushing beneath. Over more trees, over the last three holes, over the pond, over the high school, over the middle of town itself.
No feeling. Not really. They were standing still, and everything else below them was moving. The ground, moving, beneath.
Faster now. Very fast. Off in the distance, the lights of a big city. Chicago? Could that be?