(no subject)

11.

Sirvalance Inc. first came about when James Vane sold his family’s flower business for pennies on the dollar in order to buy a controlling interest in Spyz, a failing surveillance company. He had known that
spying, not just industrial, but person to person, was going to become huge as our paranoia and voyeurism reached new levels.

He had always made man’s negative traits pay off. At grade school he ran book on the playground fights.

In college he had built an empire on selling cheating, and then on blackmailing his clients later. He had Captains of Industry and members of Congress who always answered his phone. Not happily, but they did not put him off.

He had parlayed the spying company into a vast group of other areas that all served him. He had his hands in the internet, cable television, satellites and more. He also developed spy materials that the government stood in line to buy, just so other governments wouldn’t have them.

He couldn’t invent anything himself, but he could use anything to gather power.

When his people brought him the two satellite photos of the boy and his dog flying there hadn’t been a moment of hesitation. He didn’t know how he would use this, but he knew he would. He started the search right away.

It was obvious to the analyzers that the boy was only being pulled by the dog, so the dog was the one with the power.

But the boy would be easier to find.

Every kid had his picture taken. Sometimes the young ones were getting fingerprinted to, to help prevent child abductions.

This time, it would work just the opposite.

His media people linked into all the available pictures. From Photostores, to Yearbook & Class photo collections in the area over the flight.

It was less than six hours before they had Mickey McCauley’s name and address.

One of their operatives did some discreet inquiries and found Chance.

Now, they just had to wait for the two of them to get together.

They waited in the van for the kid to go get the dog.

They were not disappointed.

They were surprised that the dog didn’t fly. But the crash of the car made him even more interesting.

When agents Fox and Doctrow tried to lift the dog, it was first impossible. A moment later it was the same weight as any other dog its size.

Could it alter its own density?

How intelligent was this animal?

They gassed it and left with their prize.

Looking out the back windshield Fox saw the face of the horrified little boy.

If the agent had been given to such emotion, he would have felt sorry for the kid.

But in his line of work that would be counterproductive.

He wondered how long it would be before they began to dissect the dog?

He took a power bar out of his vest and began to muse as he chewed.

Then he wondered why he always ate something that offered him no flavor. Like life.

He looked back and saw the distraught figure growing smaller while still standing alone in the middle of the street.

The sirens approached the van and passed.

And nobody was saved.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

12.

Mickey didn’t know what to do. He was responsible for Chance. Besides he had come to love that dog.

Who would take him?

The police were no help, mostly because he couldn’t tell them enough about what happened.

If he had thought to get a plate number, that would have helped.

In a TV show he would have gotten the license number, but somehow here in real life he didn’t do it.

Was that van really following him?

Were they following him to find Chance?

His lips tightened.

Did someone see the dog fly?

If they did, this was all his fault.

He had to ask for help, but who would listen.

His first thought was David, and then he realized that if he told his brother that the house was on fire he’d have to look to check it out.

He wasn’t sure he blamed him either.

The doorbell rang, and a couple of seconds later David came though his bedroom door.

“Squirt, some man is here to see . . .” he started, but was interrupted when a man in a black suit pushed him into the room before him.

The man with the dark glasses and the expressionless face took his older sibling around the shoulders and pointed a large gun at the boy’s temple.

“Get dressed.” He said in a voice that sounded more reptilian than human.

He gulped and then replied, “Sure.”

“Don’t get any ideas if you want your brother here to get an hour older,” the cold man hissed.

“Who the Hell are you?” David insisted.

“Shut up.” Was the reply that could have frozen lava.

Mickey pulled on a shirt and moved around his bed, and then the worst thing he could imagine happened.

His mother came into his bedroom.

The man in black’s hand moved a fast a lightning. The click was a blur and the roar of the gun was deafening in the tiny room.

It’s amazing how time slows down at a moment like this, as if there were many moments like this.

Without a moment of thought Mickey sent invulnerability to his mother, and as the bullet bounced off, David got super strength.

What had been a struggle with a stronger foe before became the boy tossing the man across the room.

Three pairs of eyes focused on Mickey.

His mother looked like an elephant had just relieved itself on the dinner table.

David looked like he got it.

The man on the floor rose with pure rage.

Mickey extended his hand, and the man flew.

Unfortunately for him the roof interrupted his flight.

He fell like a sack of chicken gizzards onto a concrete floor.

There was a moment of silence.

“Is he . . .?” Mom asked, as David sought to find if the man’s neck had been snapped with its collision with the ceiling.

“He’s alive,” he informed everyone.

“Tie him up,” Mickey ordered, and David didn’t question.

David was a champion knot master, and the chair was completely inescapable.

David was looking around the room while they waited for the stranger to recover.

Mom had left the room to lie down. Something she did when she was baffled or scared. Mickey thought she was probably both.

David held his hand out to Mickey.

A totally flattened disk of lead was there.

“The bullet?” Mickey asked.

“Did it bounce off of Mom?” David said.

“I told you a bee stung me.”

The man in the chair began to stir.

Now, what were they going to do?

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens