“C’mon, we’ve got to go back to the high school.”
“What are you talking about?” said Dalam Malayu groggily. “It’s after midnight.”
“I can’t find my spitfire anywhere,” said Hoskins, who by habit was already climbing into her Domain Fleet-issued starship uniform, ignoring the civilian earthling clothes they had worn during the day. “I must have left it in shop class.”
“A spitfire? What the hell are you doing with a spitfire? That’s a Class-A security firearm.”
“I was issued it before we left the D.F.S. Bogdanove,” said Hoskins. “Just in case we run into those fugitives. C’mon, Dallas, get dressed. We’ve got to find it.”
“You took it to your shop class?” said Dallas, now up and reaching for her uniform as well. “Why would you take a spitfire to arts camp?”
“I told you, the captain wanted at least one of us on shore leave to be armed in case of trouble. The last I saw it was in shop class ….”
“You actually used the spitfire in shop class!” said Dallas, strapping on her utility belt. “What possible utility would a spitfire have in a classroom?”
“Those tools they work with down here are quite primitive,” said Hoskins, whose tall, lean body and flat torso made barely a ripple in her tunic. She quickly brushed her frayed hair into a sleek, slicked-back regulation pompadour. “I was using it for some fine detailing on the cuckoo clocks I have the kids making.”
“Good Lord, fine detailing? You were showing off. A spitfire can blast a hole in the hull of a starship, and you’re using it to carve maple. Are you sure it’s not here?” Dallas cast her eyes over the motel room.
“I’ve been through this place thoroughly. I thought I’d tucked it back in my belt and brought it with me, but I must have set it down in the shop and forgot it. C’mon, let’s go.”
Hoskins and Dallas hiked the mile along Six Mile Road back to Robert Louis Stevenson Senior High School on the sidewalks along the roadway. They crossed the parking lot to the side doors nearest the machine shop.
“These people have barely invented the microwave oven,” noted Dallas along the way. “Hatori says she likes cooking with gas, although she’d prefer an open flame. Me, I find the brick kiln quaint; it’s primitive and slow, but it gets the job done …”
“We can debate traditional handcrafts versus modern technology some other time,” Hoskins scolded. “Now, I just want my laser pistol back before it accidentally burns down a whole square mile of lovely Avondale.”
“Looks like a couple cars parked in the back by the boiler room,” noted Dallas. “Probably janitors on the overnight cleaning crew. Maybe they can let us in.”
“No need to arouse suspicion,” said Hoskins. “I’ll just tap a few numbers on my utility belt …” The side door unlocked.
Hoskins did the same with the shop class door, and the pair entered. Dallas switched on the lights. Tables, stools, bandsaws, belt sanders, racks with timber of every sort came into view. Over by the desk, a portable radio, left plugged in, murmured a barely audible broadcast.
“Human beings still made things with their hands,” she said. “Amazing.”
“Even mass production in this time period involved a lot of craftsmanship and troubleshooting,” said Hoskins. “It’s been fascinating. My father collected tools almost as primitive as these as a hobby, and could actually use them.”
The Domain Fleet officers searched the entire room, looking over pegboards of hammers, saws, and wrenches and checking through cabinets of power tools. “I don’t see a spitfire anywhere. What am I looking for, exactly?”
“Haven’t you ever seen a spitfire?” asked Hoskins. “Not even back in the academy?”
“Why would I? I’m not a weapons specialist. I crunch numbers. And if I had one it certainly wouldn’t come in hand for the mural we’re painting down the hall.”
“I forget; you’re the artistic one. It’s a small, handheld device, like a pistol.”
“A pistol that can disintegrate a person’s head,” Dallas said wryly. “I don’t see it anywhere.”
Hoskins heard the sound of keys outside the door.
“Someone’s coming,” Hoskins whispered. “Hit the lights.”
Both officers instinctively touched buttons on their utility belts.
The two Avondale cops entered a darkened room. Turning on their flashlights, they scanned the shop. “Where are the lights?” asked one of them.
They turned on the lights and found the room empty.
“I could have sworn I heard voices,” said the second officer.
“Just this radio,” said his partner. He picked up the device and turned it up. “The Motor City Saberteeth. Must be playing out on the west coast.” He switched it off.
“False alarm,” said the other cop.
They turned off the lights and left the room, locking the door behind them.
Hoskins and Dallas reappeared. Gazing out the window to the parking lot, they watched the squad car turn onto Six Mile Road and drive off into the night.
Dallas, fingering her belt, turned the lights on again. “That was close.”
“I just remembered,” said Hoskins, who also reappeared. “I used the spitfire but I didn’t want to put it back in my shin holster; I was going to tuck it into the drawer of the desk for safe keeping, but I got distracted.” After rifling through the teacher’s desk, Hoskins said, “Yep, that’s what I was afraid of.”
“What?” asked Dallas.
“Everyone was working on their projects,” said Hoskins. “I pulled the spitfire out and used it on one of the kid’s pieces. Then I noticed it was attracting too much attention from the other students …”
“I can imagine,” said Dallas. “They’ve probably never seen a ray-gun, except in their hokey science fiction movies.”
“… I set it on top of the desk, and went to open a drawer. Then another student came up to me with a question about their project.”
“Well, there’s nothing on top of the desk now,” noted Dallas. “Could it have fallen into the wastebasket?”
Hoskins checked the metal wastebasket next to the desk. It was empty except for a fresh, new, black plastic trash bag.
“It’s been emptied, along with the big, grey rolling trashcan in the corner. They were both filled with scraps of wood and other debris earlier today. The janitors must have come and cleaned this room.”
“Where do they take they trash in this building?” asked Dallas. “I really don’t feel like dumpster diving in the dead of night.”
Mort was eating a Bates hamburger and listening to the radio broadcast of Motor City Saberteeth on the radio as his fellow custodian, Wally, wheeled the grey trash bin into the boiler room at the far rear of Robert Louis Stevenson Senior High School.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” asked Wally. “They don’t need both of us on night shift; it’s summer, for Christ’s sakes. “Your wife kick you out again?”
“Shh, I’m listening to the Saberteeth game. It’s for first place in the Federal Mush Ball League.”
“It’s pretty late for a game. What, are they on the west coast? Who’re they playing?”
“The Berkeley Blossoms,” said Mort. “They’re tied for first place in the northern division.”
“Don’t ask if I need a hand,” said Wally. “It’s just a bin full of splintery plywood scraps.”
“Leave it for tomorrow,” said Mort.
“Why? I got the incinerator going …”
Wally opened the door of the incinerator. Rather that throw the entire bag in, which would have been too heavy, he put on some work gloves and began tossing the wood and debris in piece by piece.
When the bag has mostly empty, he pulled it out of the grey bin.
Wally could feel something unexpectedly heavy weighing down the bottom of the bag.
“Somebody must have dropped a power tool or monkey wrench or something into it by mistake again,” he said to himself. He felt the bottom of the bag. “A drill, I’ll bet.”
He reached into the bag with his gloved and hand a pulled out the spitfire.
“What in blazes is this?” He blew sawdust off the black, shiny pistol and brushed it off with his glove. “Hey, Mort, have you ever seen one of these?”
Mort wiped his mouth with a napkin. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Wally, walking over to desk where Mort was sitting. “Looks like a glue gun or something.”
Wally handed the spitfire to Mort, who wiped it off with some paper towels. “That’s not a glue gun, and it’s not a drill.”
“Is it a handgun?”
“Naw. I got rifles for hunting deer up north in the fall; I’m not a pistol man. But it certainly isn’t a firearm; look, there’s no place to put bullets.”
Wally took off his work gloves. Mort handed the spitfire back to him.
“There’s some kind of trigger lock,” said Wally.
“Well, Jesus Christ, don’t point it at me!”
Wally turned a knob; he thoughtlessly pointed the weapon across the room, at the incinerator.
Next: Roberts
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Archival Images:
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| Drasin and Cody Revell wielding a variety of spitfire in Border Worlds (Dover Publications Inc., 2017). |
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