Truck Drivin’ Hero Page 9

  After he got back in the truck, he turned to Francheska. “Let’s start over. I’m Bill Reynolds.” He held out his hand.

  “I know. I saw you in the briefing, when you got your clock cleaned by Victoria,” she said.

  Hero thought back to then. He didn’t remember seeing her, but there were several scientists in the room, and he couldn’t remember them all. “Francheska was your name, you said?” Hero asked. She nodded. “That’s too long. Do you go by Frannie?”

  She frowned for a moment. “I suppose… or you could call me Dr. Smith.”

  “Nah, I ain’t calling you that. Dr. Frannie Smith. Frannie Smith… Apple. Sounds like Granny Smith Apple. Should I call you Granny?” he asked.

  She crossed her arms and pouted. “Now I know you’re just messing with me.”

  “Nah,” Hero said, ignoring her. “Granny ain’t quite right for you. Apple, on the other hand…”

  “'Apple'? Why 'Apple'?”

  “Well, you’re red all over, especially when you blush. And I’d definitely like to take a bite out of you,” Hero said. He deliberately did a once-over of her, letting her see that he was doing it.

  Frannie Smith Apple got even more mad. “If this is how it’s going to be the entire way, maybe I should switch with Victoria. She seems to know how to keep you in line.”

  Hero laughed. “Yeah, she sure does.” He picked up his CB radio. “Sunshine, I just picked up a seat cover. Her handle is Apple.”

  Sunshine’s voice came back. “10-4. Welcome aboard, Apple.”

  “What’s your 10-36?” Hero asked, using the CB code for asking the time.

  “I got 0718.”

  “10-4. Just want to remind you that we’ll be movin’ out at 0800. I’ll be ready to follow.”

  “10-4, good buddy,” came the response. Hero put the handset down and picked up the book he had been reading last night. He hoped Tim didn’t mind that he stole a few of his books for the road.

  “So you just pick the handle 'Apple' for me and I don’t get any say in it?” Apple asked, sounding frustrated.

  “Nobody gets to pick their nickname, Apple. Mine is Hero. Your friend Tim Hutchinson picked mine for me back in Kandahar, and no matter how much I try, I can’t shake it.”

  There was an awkward silence. “So what should I do for the next forty-five minutes?”

  Hero shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you were planning to do for the next three days. Did you bring a book?” Apple shook her head. “Go grab a book. I promise we’ll still be here when you get back.”

  Apple jumped out. For a moment, Hero felt like being a jerk and leaving early, but that would probably just get him in trouble. Besides, for being an egghead, she was still really hot. A few minutes later, Apple was back, carrying a tote bag full of hardcover books. She pulled one out whose title said something about hydrostatic pressure, and turned to a bookmarked chapter.

  “Of course,” Hero said.

  “Of course what?” Apple asked.

  “Of course you start reading a textbook instead of reading something for fun.”

  “This is fun,” she said.

  Hero rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have anything by Danielle Steel? Or if science fiction is your thing, Eric Vall?”

  She turned away. “I don’t have time to read genre fiction.” The disdain in her voice was clear.

  “We’re not going to have a lot to talk about, are we?” Hero asked. Apple just shrugged, as if she didn’t really care. Hero turned back to his book. At 0755, he turned his engine on and got ready to go. At 0800 sharp, the Mustang began slowly pulling out of the Teaneck Armory’s parking lot, and Hero followed.

  In minutes, they were on I-80 heading west. “You’re aware of the plan, right?” Hero asked his passenger.

  She barely looked up from her book. “Sure. Get the fusion generator to Colorado,” Apple said.

  Hero chuckled. “That’s not a plan, that’s a goal. Apple, do you know anything else about the operation, or were you just planning on sleeping through the whole mission?”

  Apple opened her mouth, then closed it quickly. She fumbled with her book, closing it on a bookmark. “It was kind of last minute…”

  “You all sat through a dozen briefings. I remember my time in the military. You were made aware of the operational details. You just…”

  Apple shrugged. “I wasn’t listening.”

  “Okay, then. I appreciate your honesty. The trip from here to Boulder is about twenty-eight hours if we follow the speed limit, which we’re not going to do. Your boss says we run the risk of triggering those ground sensors if we travel during the nighttime, or even the hours close to sunrise and sunset, so we’ll be moving between eight o’clock AM and seven o’clock PM. That's local time, by the way.”

  “Okay. So eleven hours a day times three days, that’s thirty-three hours. And we'll lose two time zones, so that puts it at thirty-one hours. Plenty of time to make a twenty-eight hour trip,” she said.

  “Plenty of time, yeah, if we don’t run into any trouble. And don’t forget lunch breaks, pee breaks, and fueling breaks. Even putting the pedal to the metal, I expect us to make it in the nick of time,” he said. “It's going to be close.”

  “I know the Greys will be out of the picture, but what about local police?”

  “Your people seem to think they got them all taken care of. I just call them on this HAM radio and hope the message gets through in time,” Hero said.

  Apple turned back to her book. “Sounds like it’s not as dangerous as you made it sound, then.”

  Hero grimaced. “Let’s hope not.”

  The next hour was uneventful, but they were coming up on Fairfield, where that Grey checkpoint had been a few days ago. Hero was surprised to feel the uneasy sensation of adrenaline spike up in the pit of his stomach. It had been a while since he'd felt the rush of a mission.

  “Apple, you’d never believe the Grey that was working the checkpoint coming up the other day. He was dressed up like a cowboy, tried to fake the accent, even called himself Sheriff.”

  “You're right. I don’t believe you,” Apple said.

  “No foolin’! He even had a fake mustache on his face. Speedy can back me up here.” Hero looked in his rear-view mirror at the still-rising sun. It didn’t look any hotter or brighter than normal, but he had been told that he probably wouldn’t notice anything. “I half wish this solar storm wasn’t happening, so you could see him for yourself.”

  “If that solar storm wasn’t happening, that goofy alien would send us to a re-education camp,” Apple said.

  “You’re a real ray of sunshine, you know that?” Hero said. Apple said nothing.

  As they approached the Fairfield checkpoint, Hero was surprised to see it was still open. “They must have gotten a human to operate it. We should be sent right through without stopping,” Hero said. Sure enough, the Mustang was sent toward the through-lane. However, Hero was surprised again when he was sent toward the checkpoint. “Sunshine, I’m stuck at Checkpoint Charlie here. Be ready for anything.”

  He pulled up further, getting into the queue of cars getting checked. Before long, he could see who was manning the checkpoint.

  “Speedy, you ain’t gonna believe this, but it’s that sheriff from the other day,” he said into the radio. The Grey was standing there, taking documents and handing them to his robotic partner. He kept looking up at the sun, and he looked significantly less chatty today. His robot looked like it was fine, though. Hero wondered if they had hardened it against the sun’s radiation.

  “Do you think he’ll pose a problem?” Speedy radioed back.

  “It means I can’t use that fancy fake ID that your boss gave me. I gave him my real ID the last time we came through here, and this mission will be over if he notices me using two different IDs.”

  “Keep me updated, and be careful, Hero.”

  “10-4.”

  When Hero pulled up to the checkpoint, the Grey said, “License, registration,
and proof of employment.” He didn’t say Howdy this time, didn’t say please, and didn’t even look up at him. It looked like it pained him to look toward the sun, even through his aviator sunglasses.

  “Howdy!” Hero said.

  The Grey did look up for a moment. “Bill?” he asked.

  “Sheriff Zorflox! Good to see ya!” Hero said, turning his southern accent all the way up again.

  The Grey looked relieved. “Bill. It is good to see you again as well. I assumed that I would see you yesterday, but did not. Still, I showed up to work today hoping that I would see you.”

  Hero grimaced. Apparently, his congeniality had been too effective, and what might have been an empty checkpoint was now manned because of him. “Well, hell, I’m glad to see you, too.”

  There was an awkward silence, then the Sheriff said, “Your documents?”

  “Oh, of course,” Hero said, and he handed them over. The Sheriff sent them right over to the robot that had JR on the side of it. “Hot day today, ain’t it?”

  The Sheriff shrugged, a human gesture that the alien had clearly been working on. “The temperature is within normal parameters, but the sun is bright today.”

  “Well, just make sure you slather on the SPF 100. Don’t want to get a sunburn,” Hero said.

  “No, Bill. I do not want the sun to burn me. I will find some of this SPF 100.”

  Hero swore to himself. He didn’t even know if the stuff would work on alien physiology, but he didn’t need to keep giving him ideas. Next to him, Apple poked her head up higher, trying to get a better look at the alien.

  “Is there somebody else in there with you?” the Sheriff asked.

  Apple ducked her head back down, but the damage was already done. “Yeah, this here’s my pardner. I told you that her car broke down and that I was bringin' it back to Iowa for repairs.” He could hear the JR robot clicking, as if something was going wrong.

  “I see,” said Sheriff Zorflox. “Did you say 'her' car? I thought your 'pardner' was male.”

  Hero laughed. “Did I say that? Man, I must’ve been one tired sumbitch when I came through here the other day.”

  The Sheriff paused. “I see. She will have to submit her documents as well.”

  Hero turned to Apple. She was shaking her head frantically. Was she really sent without a fake set of identification? Hero thought with shock. There was no way. He turned back to the Sheriff out the window. “She said she left it in the car in the back. It’s gonna be tough to get it out with all the damage.”

  Zorflox looked up at him. “We need to check her identification, Bill,” he insisted.

  “Come on, Sheriff. From one cowboy to another, can we let her slide, just this once? Her fair skin is so sensitive to the sun. You must know what that’s like,” Hero said. JR’s clicking was getting even louder.

  The alien nodded. “I do know what it’s like. My own skin is reacting poorly to the sun’s radiation.” He looked over at the robot, then back at Hero. “I will let her through without identification. Pardner.”

  Hero beamed. “You’re alright, pardner. I’ll call Naaman’s and tell them to ship you an extra large container of barbecue.”

  If an alien could smile with their tiny mouths, Zorflox would have. “I would like that, pardner. Thank you.”

  JR stopped clicking. “The communications line to HQ is down. However, Bill Reynolds' documents match those that I checked two days prior. Nothing criminal showed up at that time.”

  Hero clapped his hands. “Alright, thanks a lot. I’ll see you some other time, Sheriff.”

  “I also hope to see you again. Perhaps I will make it to Iowa some time,” the alien said.

  “Look me up if you do!” Hero said, though he hoped he never saw this ridiculous Grey again.

  “One moment,” the robot said. His voice was metallic and crisp. “There are aspects of Mr. Reynolds’ story that are contradictory. For instance, he says that he was here to pick up a car, yet his trailer is licensed to a FoodMart grocery store.”

  “Aw, this old thing? It was the only trailer I could get on such short notice,” Hero explained.

  The alien turned to the robot and chirped something in Grey language that Hero couldn’t understand, then followed in English with, “It was the only trailer he could get on such short notice.”

  “Additionally, he claims to be here to pick up a car that broke down. However, even if it’s a heavy car, the scale indicates that his mass is two thousand kilograms over what his loaded mass should be,” the robot said.

  “Hell, am I overweight? I picked up a bunch of spare parts while I was here, but I can offload some of those at the next weigh station,” Hero said.

  The Grey and the robot chirped back and forth. Finally, the Sheriff turned back to Hero. “I apologize, but I’m going to need to check your trailer.”

  “And here I thought we were a couple of good ol’ country boys just havin’ a chat about the weather,” Hero said. He leaned over and began to key the mic in Morse code. S-O-S.

  “It’s my job, pardner,” the alien said, in a tone that approached apologetic.

  “You’re workin’ too hard, pardner! Take a break and sit in the shade! Get out of that bright sun!”

  “Mr. Reynolds, please open your trailer,” Sheriff Zorflox said. All pretense of being “pardners” was gone.

  Hero looked at Apple. He didn’t know what to tell her. “Be ready for anything,” he whispered. For a moment, he considered grabbing his sawed-off shotgun from the pocket under his seat, but he figured that he’d have a better chance if he hopped in the back and grabbed an AR-15 before they could see what he was doing. The alien would be dead in moments, and hopefully the robot was vulnerable enough to bullets.

  Hero opened the door to his cab and hopped out. He immediately put his hand in front of his eyes, blocking the sun, even though it looked completely normal to him. “I think you’re right, pardner. That sun is brighter than usual. Reminds me a little of the Mojave Desert.”

  “The Mojave Desert, in California. You have been there?” Zorflox asked.

  That’s it, keep him talking, Hero thought. “Oh, yeah. Used to be that I went all over America, and the Mojave is the hottest place of them all. I think it’s the hottest place on Earth, even though some people say it’s in Africa or the Middle East.”

  “Even hotter than Texas,” Sheriff Zorflox said.

  “Definitely, you’re right. Now, Texas is just right. It’s hotter than here, but not by much. And, I mean, the Mojave is a dry heat, but Texas has got that moisture in the air, especially around the Gulf. I tell you, there’s nothing like sitting in the shade, a cold beer in your hand and feeling the humidity all over your body. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Beer is an alcoholic beverage. A poison. It does not sound pleasant to consume it.”

  Uh oh. “Well, a cold glass of water, then. Nothing feels better when you’ve been sweating at work all day.”

  “I do not sweat,” he said.

  I’m really making a mess of this, Hero thought. “Well then this day has gotta be twice as hot for you! I got a bottle of water just for you if you want it, right up in my cab.”

  Zorflox looked like he might take him up on it for a moment, which left Hero wondering what he’d do if he actually got the alien up there. Maybe make him deactivate the robot at gunpoint. Maybe feed him some barbecue and a beer and see what it did to him. Then, the robot behind him chirped in their alien language, and Zorflox repeated, “Please open your trailer, Mr. Reynolds.”

  “Of course, of course,” Hero said with a shrug. He began to make his way toward the back of his truck. They had been heading westbound, so the sun was directly behind the truck, so it was easy to pretend that the sun was disorienting him a little bit. He kept his hand up near his face and walked in a slow, curvy path, as if just a little bit drunk. Sheriff Zorflox just kept his head down the entire time, as if it was just as painful as Hero was pretending it to be. JR was on wheels and just went
in a slow, straight line behind Hero.

  As they reached the back of the truck trailer, Hero heard the squeal of tires. He looked behind him and saw that red Mustang, top down, barreling toward them. About thirty feet from them, the car’s back end whipped around, showing them the profile of the car. A sexy blonde in a tan tank top and baseball cap stood up, showing two middle fingers.

  “Hey, Grey. Fuck you!” she yelled as loud as she could. Somehow she screamed even louder than she had moaned last night. Then, the car peeled out again, pulling out of the checkpoint and back onto the highway.

  Zorflox looked at Hero, then at the back of the truck, then at the escaping car. He looked like he couldn’t decide what to do.

  “Aw, hell,” Hero started. “Who do they think they are, disrespecting the law like that?”

  “Yes, they were quite brazen,” the Sheriff said. “JR, please call it in to Headquarters.”

  “I am still experiencing communications difficulties,” JR said.

  “No Texas Sheriff would let them get away with that,” Hero said. The Grey still seemed torn on what to do. “I’ll wait here. You get on after them.” Zorflox nodded, then started toward his car, a futuristic-looking electric car that Hero knew wouldn’t even be running in a couple hours. The robot, JR, beeped something at him. The alien turned back to look at Hero, again debating what he should do. “Go on, get! That girl’s one bubble off plumb! Someone’s got to stop her!”

  JR chirped at Zorflox again, and this time Zorflox chirped back. “Remain here until I return,” Zorflox said to Hero, and then got in his car. JR got in a special compartment in the trunk, and away they went.

  Hero went over and picked up his documents, which were lying in the checkpoint’s window where Zorflox had put them down. Then, he jumped back in the cab of his truck and got the hell out of there.

  “Apple, do you know how to work that HAM radio?” Hero asked as soon as they pulled out of the checkpoint.

  “Isn’t that what we have been using?” she asked.

  “No, that’s the CB radio.” He reached up to another radio mounted on the roof of the truck’s cab. “The HAM radio up here is for talking with the base and allies.” He keyed the mic. “Mad Max, this is Hero, you got your ears on?”