Leslie and I discussed what to do next as we stood over the toeless fusor guy. Argued actually. One look told me he was one of the guys who drugged me in Ottawa. I can only assume his partner, who was now spread thinly around the forest providing food for crows, was the other. In the end our cooler sides emerged and we decided to call Scientific Investigations’ emergency hotline. I wasn’t with them anymore, but I still had their number, and this was their baby.
They said they’d send out a medi-evac helicopter along with an investigator to pickup the toeless one in the woods and secure the scene. More investigators would arrive a little later by train. There was going to be hell to pay when they got here and I was already overdrawn.
After calling the cavalry, Leslie and I went back to toeless guy, stopped the bleeding at his knee, made him comfortable with blankets and pillows from our supplies, even emptied out a cooler to put what was left of his toes on ice, although the fusor beam had probably cauterized them to uselessness along with his now stump of a foot. We left him there for the medical guys to deal with. If he was stupid enough to try and slither away, that was his problem.
We went back to the shed to wait inside for the helicopter. Frank and Mary sat by the fire pit and were helping themselves to the whisky. Thankfully Leslie had brought a few bottles and we drank from our own after we pulled up some chairs and made ourselves comfortable.
I was feeling a wave of philosophy and melancholy come over me. “We need to get out of all this find-the-fusors-and-save-the-world stuff.”
“You’re right, but even if I stop, there’s always the chance that they’ll keep trying to get something out of me,” answered Leslie after she had sipped from her glass. “I’ll never be completely free.”
“But we need to try. Look at our friends out there.” I pointed my glass towards Mary and Frank sitting by the fire. “We nearly got them killed just because they know us and want to help what we’re doing. If our luck had been just a little different tonight, our problems might be a lot worse than the hang-overs we’re going to have tomorrow.” I drained my glass and poured another.
Leslie was staring out the shed’s sturdy, open double doors, taking sips from her glass. She seemed silent inside, but at the same time she seemed preoccupied with some sort of thinking-out-loud dialogue, “They think I can help them or be forced to help them. I think I might have reached the end of what I can do.” I think the ‘they’ she was referring to was whoever was so determined to have fusor technology they didn’t care what steps might have to be taken. “I can’t do any more.”
Leslie finished her glass and held it out for me to pour a refill.
I did and again nodded toward Mary and Frank, “He’s got a business and she runs a big lab. Both are doing good, important stuff. Look at us, we’re outsiders running around trying to save the world from evil fusor-doers, but we’re limited in what we can do. Maybe there isn’t anything more we can do. Maybe we didn’t even do what we thought we did.” I was exhausted.
Leslie looked back at me and asked in an far away tone, “What should we do next?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe use some other method?”
“Maybe.”
I could hear a low frequency thump, thump, thump. Approaching helicopter blades cusinarting the night sky.
I topped up my glass and rose from my chair. “Let’s go and get this over with.”
I set the bottle on the floor.
The helicopter was almost right above the InterTrak clearing.
Leslie rose too and clinked her glass with mine, “Let’s.”
THE END
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