Chapter 2. The first day of class.

I’m not going to say that Badiah Sinclair wasn’t a big improvement over the Gang of Earth. I mean, at least he was one of us.

And all that propaganda that came up from Earth calling on us to overthrow Sinclair and restore their boys to power? Did they think we’re nuts? Sure, he turned out to be a tyrant, too, but he was our tyrant, you know?

Ray Kaliber said it was all about the power and who had it. We just figured nobody needed to have it in the first place.

I mean, power to do what? run our lives? decide how we’d take care of our land and property? We figured the best way to handle the people’s business was for each of us to mind our own business.

What’s that? Oh, yeah, I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Sirius 4 was one of the first settlements established after the ImagDrive became practical. You know all about ImagDrives, right?

Oh.

OK. Here’s how it works. I cribbed this from another book about the events of this era, so it’s pretty reliable:

“It goes back to the old days when scientists were trying to develop a way to go faster than the speed of light, seeing as otherwise most of the universe was years and even centuries away.

“They tried for years without success until the historic day when someone in R&D at what is now ImagCorp threw up his or her hands and said. ‘This is nuts. I can’t imagine how we’re going to achieve faster than light speed.’ And the proverbial light bulb went off. Imagination was the key!

“They reasoned out the first tenet of imaginary physics: The power of the imagination is unlimited. Therefore, an engine powered by the imagination theoretically could travel at unlimited speeds. The trick was developing a computer with an imagination to power the engine, but once that was accomplished, the galaxy opened up."

So anyway, Sirius 4 was one of the first settlements established after the ImagDrive became practical. One of the more totalitarian Earth governments — that was most of them by then, so for our purposes here, it doesn’t really matter which one — was in charge.

The main purpose of these Earth governments was to keep the people who ran things rolling in comfort. So they went around collecting what were called taxes in exchange for services people could get cheaper if they did it themselves, but they made it illegal for people to do it for themselves. Yeah, I know it’s kind of hard to explain the concept because we haven’t lived that way for years now.

How did taxes work and why did people put up with it? Believe me, the less said, the better — I’d hate to give somebody ideas. Let’s just say that the higher the tax, the more likely somebody will lift up and say, “You know what? It’s my money. I’m going to keep it.” Kind of like the cookie incident.

But the government did stuff that was a little unpleasant or inconvenient for the average citizen, like wage war and collect the garbage, so people put up with it — as long as the government didn’t get overly pushy about it. Of course, sooner or later all governments get a little too pushy.
So our story picks up that day when things got one-step-over-the-line too much for us.

* * * * *

Ray Kaliber was never a guy to force his way of thinking on anybody, but it was a long time before he could put it all into words. Then he started studying the lives of Mohandes Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and that study brought him back to Henry David Thoreau, and stuff just kind of melted into place from there. Who’d really have thunk that the guy who hauled all of that nonviolent thought together and crystallized it into action would spring out of a world as harsh as Sirius 4? But there you have it.

One of the first things that opened the door in Ray’s mind was reading Thoreau’s account of when he was arrested — that would be July 23, 1846, a couple-three centuries ago now. Old Henry David had not paid his $1 poll tax in six years or so, and the gendarmes finally were sent to lock him up.

Imagine Ray Kaliber’s brain exploding when he first read those words Thoreau wrote: “... as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up ...

“I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar ...

“As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

“Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest ...”

Right then and there, back on Earth in the middle of the 19th century, the wheels were set in motion for what was going to happen 8.6 light years away on independent Sirius. First the wheels had to start turning in Ray Kaliber’s head, and it’s a good thing he loved to read.

You probably don’t need me bugging you with my opinion s all the time. I’m going to slip into omniscient narrator mode, starting here, and just tell you the story of what happened. Some of these conversations later on, I witnessed myself, but most of them are reconstructed from what I’ve learned talking with everybody involved and with Ray himself.

Now, some of this stuff is going to sound a little unbelievable, but that’s the funny thing about real life. Sometimes what really happened is better and crazier than anything you might have wanted to make up.

And here’s the first example of that: The day the ruling government went one step over the line also happened to be the day Ray Kaliber met the love of his life.

* * * * *

The day the government went one step over the line, Raymond Eric Kaliber was outside. The sky over Sirius 4 was a lot more pale and orange than it is now, because the oxygen-nitrogen generators were still only two or three decades into their work — despite what you see in those old movies, you don’t terraform a planet in 90 seconds — but the atmosphere always was more or less condusive to breathing. It just made more sense in those early years to live indoors; that’s why the encampment was mostly enclosed in those days.

As everyone knows nowadays, Dr. Ray Kaliber was a 27-year-old associate professor of political science at the University of Sirius 4. It was the first day of the fall semester and he wanted to show the students how free and casual he liked to run things, so he’d taken the gang outside and planned to teach the class on the beach across the bay from an oxy-nitro generation station.

He had the class list and, as was his habit, he was calling on the students at random rather than follow the list in alphabetical order. So the fourth or fifth pick was from near the end.

“Buffalo Springsteen?”

“Here.” You could tell by his reaction that he was a little surprised to see that the voice belonged to a woman. She had long, semi-curly auburn hair; I’d probably describe her as average cute, but he saw her in a different light. He’d claim years later that Buffalo Springsteen was the most beautiful woman ever to give him the privilege of sharing intimate time — but as for these first few moments when she was still just a student in his class, he would later say he immediately was arrested by her eyes, which kind of flashed brown with golden tinges of some sort. And as you’ve already heard, he didn’t have a problem with the idea of being arrested.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, she was 23. This was a class for seniors. We’re not exactly talking cradle robbery here.)

“Do you go by Buffy?” the prof inquired, innocently enough, and he could see by that flash in her eyes that it was the wrong question.

“No. I prefer Buffalo,” she said in a tone clearly intended to settle the issue once and for all. There may have been a titter or two among the other students. She didn’t seem to care.

“That’s an interesting name for an attractive woman, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Kaliber said.

“Thank you,” she replied uncomfortably. “Some people think my parents had a sense of humor, but I’m proud of the name just as it is.”

“Oh, come on, Buffy, lighten up,” said a male student nearby — near enough that it wasn’t particularly hard for her to reach out, grab him by the front of the shirt, and draw him so close that the only thing in his field of vision was that auburn-framed, average-cute face twisted into an extremely vicious snarl.

“I really can’t emphasize this strongly enough,” she hissed. “Don’t — call — me — Buffy. I prefer Buffalo!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ray Kaliber strode over to the two students and pulled on their shoulders to separate them gently. “OK, Ms. Springsteen, you’ve made your point. Let’s have a little more decorum.”

“Jeez, what a psycho,” said the young man, which caused her to lurch in his direction again. Fortunately for him, the professor’s hand was lingering on Buffalo Springsteen’s shoulder just in case, so she was unable to complete the thought.

“I think you’re a little more thin-skinned than you need to be,” Dr. Kaliber said as he resumed his place in the center of the class. “But I will call you Buffalo, when I’m not calling you Ms. Springsteen.”

The rest of that opening roll call is lost to history, being relatively routine. The boy who made fun of Buffalo’s name turned out to be named Carson McGillicudy, so I guess he knew something about lightening up over his parents’ naming decisions.

“Now we had a little incident here a minute ago, and before I get into the syllabus, I’m going to use it as what we educator types like to call a teaching moment,” Kaliber told the class. It was a great day to have class outside; a small breeze tousled his blondish-brownish hair a bit and his easy smile made him an instant favorite among the female members of the class. “Now Buffalo here had a differenc e of opinion with young Mr. McGillicudy, and she chose not to use diplomacy in resolving those differences.”

Here it came. Although he wasn’t yet what you’d call a public figure, the students at the University of Sirius 4, especially the politics majors, were well aware of Dr. Kaliber’s devotion to the concept of nonviolent civil disobedience. So it was kind of cool to get a taste of his whacked-out philosophy on the first day. (Hey, in those days most people thought it was whacked out, so he wouldn’t mind my saying so.)

“I’m going to throw out the proposition that Buffalo Springsteen accomplished nothing by going after poor Carson here physically,” Kaliber said. “No, actually, I’m going to say that she produced exactly the opposite of what she hoped to accomplish. What do you think, McGillicudy?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Kaliber,” Carson replied ruefully. “I don’t think I’m ever going to call her Buffy again.” The class laughed at that, and so did the prof.

“Yes, but here’s the funny thing about that — did she change your mind about whether ‘Buffy’ is an appropriate nickname for someone named Buffalo?”

“No, of course not.”

“You got it,” Kaliber said. “She didn’t change your beliefs — in fact, I believe you used the word ‘psycho.’” Even Buffalo smiled at that. “My point is that violence might force people to change their behavior, but it can’t change their minds. The most brutal regimes in the history of humanity have all faded to dust eventually, because you can’t brutalize an idea out of existence.”

“Hang on a second,” McGillicudy persisted. “A lot of those regimes got overthrown violently. I mean, how else do you get rid of violent oppression if not by violence?”

“Good question. That’s a big chunk of the syllabus, so we’ll get to that in a minute. For now, let me suggest that you recognize the names of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King faster than the names of Nathuram Godse or James Earl Ray. The men who fought for freedom without raising a hand in violence live on in our memories more than the men who killed them.”

“We remember Hitler and Stalin, too,” Buffalo Springsteen interjected.

“True.” Kaliber sighed. “I’m off on a tangent. My point is simply that you can force Carson not to call you by a nickname, but you can’t force him to change his mind. Changing minds is a more complicated process. That’s why so often you’ll find that a violent revolution only results in a new violent regime, sometimes more violent than the old one.”

As if on cue, about a hundred space ships buzzed over the beach just then, each of them emblazoned with the insignia of the government that was in charge of the encampment of Sirius 4.

The Imaginary Revolution: Chapter 1

Shhh ... Coming Oct. 15, and you will also be able to hear chapters on Uncle Warren's Attic, thanks to Warren Bluhm the podcaster. Let me know if you happen to find this — and let others know. Viral marketing, doncha know.

The Imaginary Revolution

TENETS OF IMAGINARY PHYSICS
1. The power of the imagination is unlimited.
2. Matter still can’t be created or destroyed.
3. What’s done is done.

Chapter 1. The matter of the cookies.

Let’s get one thing straight from the start: Despite everything that’s been written about him — and most of it is true — Raymond Eric Kaliber was not a saint. He probably would be the first one to tell you that. But what he managed to show about the need for bosses probably qualified him for sainthood in half the religions in the galaxy, and the other half are the religions for people who are clueless to begin with, if you don’t mind my saying so.

Who am I to say so? I’m somebody whose opinion matters — but don’t take my word for it. See, that’s just the beauty of what Ray had to show us. I only met him once during his lifetime, although I saw and heard him speak as much as anyone who was alive then, and I’ve done a lot of reading and studying, so what I’m going to tell you about in this book is my educated opinion. Still, you’re not going to get the complete picture of Raymond Kaliber from one darn book, so go educate yourself about the man and draw your own conclusions.

“I think I’m onto something,” Kaliber would tell anyone willing to listen, “but never take one guy’s word for anything. Check it out yourself.” The good news for Sirius 4 is enough people checked it out to make a difference in the long run.

It’s common knowledge that Ray Kaliber and Badiah Sinclair were childhood buds, so it’s a little strange that the cookie incident isn’t more widely known, but heck, it gives me something to start my book with, so I’m not complaining.

Raymond Eric Kaliber was not one of the first babies born on Sirius 4, so his childhood was fairly unremarkable. Other than the reading he started doing when he was a teenager, there’s not much to say about his youth. He wasn’t abused by his parents, didn’t get into massive trouble although he did the usual stuff that kids do — the same mistakes you and I made with the opposite sex and a few products and activities that young people are supposedly too young to handle. What I’m trying to say is that Ray Kaliber was no more or less a saint than any of us. I suppose he and Badi spent a little more time playing with ImagGames than many kids — like many future leaders, they were a bit nerdy. Nothing wrong with that, I say; all that reading and game-playing and such probably made them more ready to do the kinds of things they would be doing later on.

They were close to inseparable for a few years there, starting when they both were around 8 or 9 years old, and I think the cookie incident must have happened when they both were about 12. I’m thinking that because it wasn’t enough to break their friendship, so they must have had enough good times built up that one nasty thing wasn’t going to make them not-buddies. Still, it changed things pretty much forever, and in the long run that’s a good thing. Think of how much different history would be if Ray Kaliber ended up on Badi Sinclair’s side.

Hey, I’m getting way ahead of myself, aren’t I?

They were both around 12. Ray Kaliber was on his way home from the store with a container of cookies. You know those huge chocolate chip cookies bakeries make, the ones that are so sweet and just a little crunchy and the chocolate chips kind of explode in your mouth? Yes, those cookies. Ray had bought a sixpack of them and was walking home along one of the main corridors.

In those days the encampment at Sirius 4 was already pretty darn sprawling. In fact, even though outsiders still referred to it as “the encampment at Sirius 4,” it really was a medium- to larged-sized city, and in fact there were already more than one of them. This was less than 20 years before Sirius 4 declared its independence, and the Powers That Be were already thinking of themselves as more of a small country than a colony, even though of course it was all indoors. No one was forcing the issue either way, so it didn’t matter that much at the time. But anyway, Ray was walking down one of the main thoroughfares when his little buddy Badiah Sinclair caught up with him.

“Hey, are those cookies?” Badi asked after the usual kid pleasantries were exchanged. You know, “Hey, I finally figured out how to get past the ogre who guards the dragon nest, you have to offer him a blah blah blah,” that sort of thing.

“Yeah,” Ray said, prying open the plastic. “You want one?”

“Absolutely.” And then, after a few bites, “We need to share these with the guys.”

“Can’t, sorry, I told my sister I’d bring her a couple, and the others are for Mom and Dad.”

“Screw that, the guys need them more,” Badi said calmly enough.

“No, they don’t,” Ray replied firmly. “I bought these for my family.”

“Your family can have cookies anytime, the guys can’t,” Badi said. That much was true; their friends were less fortunate — although their parents had made the journey to Sirius 4, which wasn’t cheap in those days, so “less fortunate” is a relative term. “It would be a treat for them.”

“They’ll be a treat for my family, too,” young Raymond said. “And anyway, they’re my cookies. I bought them with my money. I decide who gets ‘em.”

Now, that was an odd thing to set Badiah Sinclair off into a rage, but that’s exactly what happened. “Just give them to me,” he said, giving his friend a good shove. When Ray didn’t hand over the cookies, instead looking at Badi with a mixture of hurt and surprise, young Mr. Sinclair made a fist and slugged his friend. Then he slugged him again, and again. The box of cookies landed on the floor, but Badi Sinclair kept slugging, quietly and efficiently.

Ray Kaliber didn’t slug back. He’d say later it just didn’t occur to him to meet violence with violence, even then. He did put his hands up to deflect the blows from the slightly taller boy.

“What are you doing, Badi?” he said in between flinches.

“Teaching you a lesson about being selfish,” Badi replied between blows.

When it ended, Raymond Kaliber was sitting awkwardly against the wall, breathing hard and coughing a little bit, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Badiah Sinclair, also breathing hard but standing, was reaching over to pick up the plastic box of cookies.

“I’m sorry, Ray,” he said with sincerity in his voice. “You should have just shared the cookies.”

“I was gonna,” Ray snapped back. “It wasn’t your decision who I shared with."

“Well, now it is,” Badi said, holding the box firmly in his hand as he walked away to bring a treat to their less fortunate little buddies.

Raymond Sinclair watched his friend’s back.

“You’re still wrong,” he called down the corridor.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Badi had a point. Right or wrong, he had the cookies now and was going to use them for “the greater good.” Ray hadn’t resisted, and that made Badiah feel sort of bad. The way their friends’ eyes glowed when they saw the cookies made the crummy feeling go away, though.

See what I mean? Everything about how Raymond Kaliber and Badiah Sinclair lived their grownup lives is pretty much encapsulated in that one incident. Life philosophies summed up in a fight between a couple of 12-year-old boys over a half-dozen cookies. You’d almost think I made it up, it’s so perfect, except Ray would tell that story himself from time to time. That’s why I’m surprised it’s not general knowledge, but like I said, that way it gave me a good place to start the book. Otherwise I’d be starting the story 15-20 years later and without a decent metaphor.

The I-Bomb arrives on the market

The Imaginary Bomb, a novel by B.W. Richardson, edited and published by Warren Bluhm, is now available at Lulu.com. You've heard Bluhm's breathless reading, and now you can hold my breathless prose in your very hands.

Buy the book for $11.98 or, if you have to have it now, download it for a mere $7.50. Go ahead. You know you want to.

(Posted Jan. 26, 2008)

Update, 3-17-08: I've marked down the cost of downloading The Imaginary Bomb to the same price as a hit single: a mere 99 cents. What the heck, you're contributing the paper and ink, after all.

If you'd like the fine folks at Lulu to do all the work, it's a tad more but less stress on your printer. Of course, with the download, you can read it on your screen, too — the electricity's on you. (-8

Richardson & Bluhm update: March

Sorry I've been a bit of a stranger in these parts; I've been working on the book project planned for April 15 release with Warren Bluhm's name on it, and the project has been altered a bit over the past few days.

Originally a collection of short stories named Wildflower Man, I told you last month it would feature two stories he wrote in the mid-1990s about a superhero named Myke Phoenix. Well, the ongoing archaeological dig in his attic revealed three more fully-realized stories, and the tone of these tales is so different from the other short stories that we've spun the book into two projects.

Thusly, we plan to release a 120-page tome called The Adventures of Myke Phoenix, which will feature four "full-length" adventures and a related mini-story, along with a shorter, and therefore more inexpensive, collection called Wildflower Man. Depending on a number of factors, they'll either come out around the same time or within a few weeks of each other.

Listen for more details in the long-awaited Uncle Warren's Attic #48, which ought to be finding its way into a podcatcher near you sometime later this week. And the Richardson/Bluhm projects scheduled for later in the year are still on course.

Of course, while you're waiting for all this, you can always purchase or download your own copy of my Imaginary Bomb, which is certainly the publishing sensation of 2008.

Richardson & Bluhm update

Listening to: Kingdom Comes, Sara Groves

As I told you last month, the plan is to release four books during 2008. The easy one, The Imaginary Bomb, is already available at Lulu.com, and why the bejeebers haven't you ordered your copy yet? You know you've wanted it ever since you finished listening to Uncle Warren's podcast of my inaugural interstellar romp. And thanks to those who've already purchased it to sweep The I-Bomb up to #34,223 at the Lulu marketplace!

The hard one has been the fourth one. Despite a promising start, all I had until a few days ago was a cast of characters — actually a small list of archetypes — and a general feeling that I wanted to write about freedom, revolution, nonviolence and the Zero Aggression Principle. This, my "Great Freedom Novel," is on the plan for release Oct. 15.

Then I realized something important about the early returns on The I-Bomb: Some of the people who really, really like it are bright young men (I know they're bright because they like the book) in that 8-15 age group. I started thinking about Robert Heinlein's so-called "juvenile" fiction — not that I compare myself to Heinlein, but it doesn't hurt to think about his audiences — and wondered what I would want to say to that "young adult reader" audience. Suddenly, as I wrote to a couple of these guys' moms, my brain exploded.

I didn't intend to return to the time of imaginary physics, but here I am. This is not going to be another story about Bob Whelan, Pete Wong and Baxter Hetznecker, but the novel is set in their universe, and it involves Sirius 4's declaration of independence, which plays a key role in The I-Bomb. The working title: The Imaginary Revolution. (A quick search turns up another book with the same name, but I'm guessing they would not be confused with each other. Still, I expect the writing process will suggest an alternative to me.)

A couple of quick notes about the other projects.

+++ Warren Bluhm's collection of short stories is still more or less on track. Working title: Wildflower Man, a collection of short stories. Maybe that'll be the final name, maybe not. Most of these are scribblings he created in the early to mid 1990s, with the major exception of a new short story he just started working on.

Another interesting highlight: Once upon a time he wanted to update and revive the concept of the dime novel, inventing kind of a hybrid between the old pulps and comic books — few or no pictures, but shorter stories. The farthest he got with this concept was a superhero named Myke Phoenix — he actually had two years' worth of stories plotted and several issues in various stages of completion. The book will include the two most fully realized Myke Phoenix stories: "Our Best Hope: The Origin of Myke Phoenix" and "The Strange Ultimatum of Quincy Quackenbos." Target release date: April 15. Gulp!

+++ Our dual-bylined book Refuse to Be Afraid is more or less on track for its target release date of July 15. The main news on this front is UW continues to threaten to record a new collection of his songs for public release, some of which you may have heard on his "Uncle Warren's Attic" podcast. One song you have not heard would be the title song of his collection, which for obvious reasons would also be released July 15: "Refuse to Be Afraid."

The plan today is to sit down and map out a way to get all of the above accomplished by the indicated target dates. One important thing I've learned about goals is that when you make the deadlines public, it generates a real incentive. So as I write this, I have no idea how we're going to get it all done, but I'm telling you now to further my goal to have at least five items on the Richardson & Bluhm homepage eight months from now. Thanks for listening!

The joy of writing

This will seem a bit odd, but then I hope you've come to expect that from me: I forgot how much fun it was to write the adventures of Bob Whelan, Pete Wong and their mysterious new friend Baxter Hetznecker, until old buddy Wally Conger wrote a nice review of The Imaginary Bomb:

What’s this science fiction novel — at just 24,000 words, it may be more of a novella — all about? Well, it’s a comedic romp posing as an intergalactic political thriller. It’s an apocalyptic space opera told with a grin and a wink. Which isn’t to say that The Imaginary Bomb doesn’t have its share of edge-of-your-seat moments.

All during the last couple of years, since I pulled this old manuscript out of the basement and polished it up for the podcast and book versions, and as I tinkered with the aborted sequel, The Imaginary Lover, it was work. Satisfying work, I must admit, but work. Maybe that's why the sequel barely got beyond some minor tweaking. It took Wally to remind me it was also fun.

I just may slip into my old skin as the relatively omniscient narrator and see if I can find my way back to that "Are we having fun yet?" attitude. Thanks for the reminder, Wally!

P.S. Thanks to everyone for making The I-Bomb #38,157 at the Lulu Marketplace! We have nowhere to go but up ...

Cross-posted to Montag

Relaxed license

I have revised the terms under which The Imaginary Lover is posted; it's now under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. What you'll find when you read the license is that, as CC summarizes it, "This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature."

I don't know if anyone's interested in tweaking or building upon the beast, but if you want, have at it. It'd be interesting to see where it goes.

Meanwhile, I have finally embarked on a journey that at this time has the unimaginative working title Imaginary Novel 3. I'll keep you posted.

The Imaginary Lover, by B.W. Richardson

Chapter 1. Circuses and bread.
Chapter 2. The good ship.
Chapter 3. The problem.
Chapter 4. The detective.
Chapter 5. Things that go bump on the head.
Chapter 6. The imaginary lover.
Chapter 7. Investigation and insinuation.
Chapter 8. Things get serious.
Chapter 9. The walls of Jericho.
Chapter 10 and beyond. Where it was going.

The Imaginary Lover

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following can be construed as good news and bad news. The good news is I have finally decided to unleash upon the world The Imaginary Lover, the incomplete sequel to The Imaginary Bomb. What is here will be posted over the next couple of weeks, a chapter a day.

The bad news is: I've decided not to finish it. I keep thinking about the sequel to the sequel. So I'm going to give you this, tell you where I expected the characters to be after they get out of this mess, and move on to the sequel to the sequel, henceforth known as TSTTS.

I thought about having my podcast buddy, "Uncle" Warren Bluhm, voice these nine chapters, but I'm going to reserve that favor for the unleashing of TSTTS later this spring.

Maybe someday I'll come back and finish this "unfinished symphony," but the plain fact is in six months I haven't been able to get Pete and Snooky out of bed. (You'll understand when you reach the end of Chapter 9). When you hear where the characters are in Chapter 1 of the next book, you may understand my dilemma.

I'm going to post these with descending dates, so Chapter 1 will always be on top. However, I'm also going to post a list of chapters near the top so you can follow along conveniently day by day.

This is presented under a Creative Commons license. I may at some point allow for folks to tinker with it; I'd like to see how this part of the story evolves - but for now it's an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives license. Thanks - and enjoy!

— B.W. Richardson

THE IMAGINARY LOVER

Tenets of Imaginary Physics
1. The power of the imagination is unlimited.
2. Matter still can’t be created or destroyed.
3. What’s done is done.

Chapter 1. Circuses and bread.

It seemed to take forever to get the binding loose, but Bob Whelan’s hands finally were free.

While the guard dozed, Whelan quietly undid the rope tying Pete Wong, his partner, to a chair. He gave Pete a meaningful glance, holding the rope in one hand and gesturing at the guard with another.

Bob snuck up on the guard and eased around behind the sleeping man. With an awkward lunge, he draped the rope over the man’s neck and pulled as hard as he could. Needless to say, the man woke up in a hurry and not in a very good mood. The good news was he dropped the rifle he was holding, which clattered across the floor. He began to thrash violently, but Whelan hung on with all of his might.

“Little help here, Pete?” he sputtered.

Pete Wong picked up the rifle and saw that Bob and the guard were grappling too close together to risk a shot, so he grabbed it with both hands and slammed the gunstock into the guard’s temple, several times, while Bob continued to pull hard with the rope. After a minute or two, the guard stopped moving.

And Bob Whelan woke up in a sweat.

Damn. A light from the outside of the complex cast a dim glow into the apartment. Damn, damn, damn.

“How long is this gonna go on?” Whelan muttered, craning his neck to see the bedside clock. 5:15. Great. Too late to go back to sleep, too early to get up. He got up anyway.

The dreams had started coming shortly after it had happened in real life. He had never had a dream that simply relived an incident from his waking hours, but then he had never killed a man before, either. It didn’t seem to matter that the man was instructed to kill him and his partner if they tried to get away, or that the man belonged to a group of mercenaries who had already killed a few people in their quest to obtain an imaginary bomb, or that when they failed in that quest they’d blown up the moon. No, it didn’t matter that he was a pretty bad guy. The act of killing him still haunted Bob Whelan in his dreams.

“Jeez, we’re just truck drivers,” said the captain of the cargo ship Betsy Ross as he prepared his wakeup cup of coffee. “How the hell did we get mixed up in that crap anyway?”

And then he remembered. Government agents hijacked his ship — called it commandeering for purposes of planetary security — and then pirates hijacked his ship to get what the government was transporting, which turned out to be the ignition disk for the imaginary bomb. And then the mercenaries hijacked his ship for their assault on the building where they were developing the bomb technology.

And then he remembered what he said after his ship was hijacked three times in a month.

“That does it,” he had said. “I’m gonna buy myself a gun.”

* * *

The runner at third base danced beckoningly, teasing the pitcher. George Hermann tried to tighten his grip on the bat; he stepped out of the box, grabbed some dirt and rubbed his sweaty palms together. Two out, bottom of the ninth; the Dodgers, down 3-2, were on the verge of losing the Series. The crowd was wild, but Hermann tried to screen out the din and concentrate on the pitcher, who scowled back at him under huge, bushy eyebrows.

“Come on, George,” he muttered to himself. “Just meet the ball. Meet the ball.” Every muscle in his body tensed as Bushy Eyebrows sprang into motion, and the small, spherical item Hermann hoped to meet sailed towards him at 94 miles per hour. He fought the urge to swing at the ball and regretted his decision instantly, when a burly man behind him screamed, “Steeeeeee-rike!”

The crowd was aghast with outrage. Hundreds of epithets were hurled regarding the burly man’s heritage, but after a few seconds the spectators settled back into a surly but enthusiastic din. Despite his effort to concentrate on meeting the ball, George began to hear snippets of encouragement aimed in his direction.

“Come on, George, this bum couldn’t pitch his way out of a paper bag.”

“That looks like a frickin’ caterpillar on his forehead!”

“Park one and let’s go home, Georgie!”

Hermann hated to be called Georgie; under the circumstances, he let it go.

The noise built to a fever pitch. He could feel a single bead of perspiration finding its way down from under the bill of his cap down his forehead. Bushy Eyebrows scowled, shook off a sign, and then nodded with a sly sneer. He brought his hands together, leaned back, kicked his leg high into the air, and hurled the ball as hard as he could right down the middle of the plate.

Swing, swing, swing! his senses shrieked. George Hermann jerked the bat in a swift, tight arc and met the ball.

With a soul-satisfying “TWAK!!!“ the white sphere sailed high over Bushy Eyebrows’ head; George was only dimly aware of the shortstop craning his neck to watch the flight. As he charged towards first base, he instinctively calculated the ball’s flight path as it reached apogee, and he knew it was headed over the wall. The crowd sensed it, too — what had begun as a hopeful roar turned into delirious exhilaration as the ball flew unerringly to the field’s outer reaches. The exhilaration evinced itself in a primal scream of joy as the small white object struck the steps in the aisle in left-center field, 12 rows out of the forlorn outfielder’s reach. A small mob of people chased the ball down, and a young man ended up holding it high over his head in triumph.

The Dodgers win! The Dodgers win! George Hermann felt a giddiness like none he’d ever encountered as he circled the bases. As he rounded third, he was escorted to home plate by a jumping, shouting throng of men in white pinstriped uniforms and hysterical young men and women who had leaped over the railing to rush the hero of the day.

When he crossed the plate, George was crushed by a sea of humanity. All of his senses were as alive as they ever had been — the press of his friends, colleagues and fans; the smell of popcorn and beer; the ear-bursting shouts of unbridled joy; the smiles so wide and the faces wet with tears; the tap on his shoulder — the tap, tap on his shoulder — the tap, tap, tapping on his shoulder?

“Mr. Hermann. Mr. Hermann? We’re going to shut it down now.” Suddenly the crowd, the smells, the sounds all shimmered and disappeared, quietly and without fanfare.

The echo of the cheers lingered just for an instant, then was gone. George Hermann was alone in a plain room with white walls, or as alone as a man can be with two other men in business suits standing next to him.

Hermann turned to greet them with pleasure and anger fighting for possession of his face. “That — was — GREAT!!!” the pleasure cried before surrendering possession to: “Why the hell did you turn it off? I gave strict instructions to leave me alone!!!”

“I know, sir, but you also gave strict instructions to interrupt whenever the word came down from PC-3.” The two young men ruined the effect of their crisp business suits by fidgeting like children in a long line to the restroom.

“What? What? What?” Hermann barked before he remembered what he wanted to know about the third planet in the Proximi Centauri system. “The bar! You’ve got an answer about the bar!”

“Yes, sir,” said the man who had tapped George on the shoulder. “But I’m afraid it’s still bad news. She absolutely, positively refuses to sell.”

The jagged scar under George Hermann’s mouth twitched. “You’re kidding me. How could a trailer-trash barmaid refuse that much money?”

It was a rhetorical question, but the messenger wasn’t bright enough to catch that. “She told our people to stick the money where the sun don’t shine — um, doesn’t shine — and had her bouncer escort them to the door. So you see, we have a little bit of a problem.”

“It’s no problem at all,” George Hermann said as he accepted a towel from the other, silent man. “Send one more, especially persuasive salesperson. And if that still doesn’t do the trick,” he added with a wink, “have her killed.”

* * *

Moments before, these several dozen people had entered a small room with white walls, plain except for the odd rows of colorful chairs, firmly welded to the floor but with a harness to strap them in. Now, these several dozen people were screaming.

Don’t worry, it was good screaming. The warm wind flew against their faces as the chairs, having sprouted wheels, rushed downward at 55 miles per hour. As they were pushed into a loop-the-loop, many of them thrust their hands skyward — well, when they were upside-down, the hands would be thrust groundward, but only for a second — and there were squeals of delight as the imaginary roller coaster spun into a second loop, and then a third.

Then there was another long, slow, agonizing climb, and some of the kids spoke excitedly among themselves: This is it, this is why this one’s the best, wait’ll you see this, can I get off now? At the top of the seemingly endless climb, there came a spectacular view of the San Antonio River winding its way to the Gulf of Mexico, but then the view was rudely yanked from their consciousness as they hurtled down a precipice as steep and as deep as any of them had ever seen — so steep that their tense bodies strained against the harnesses and their eyes bulged as they held their breaths, or screamed, depending on their preference. Later, they would be told that the MegaDemon reaches 100 miles per hour down this drop; for now there was just a flicker of doubt that “later” would ever come.

Then, the rails spun them back towards where they’d begun, and the tracks took a more reasonable angle parallel to the ground, and the adventure rolled to a close. The sights and sounds of the amusement park faded away, quietly and without fanfare, and they were back in that quiet little room in Seattle, only not so quiet anymore with everyone laughing and chattering with excitement.

In the front row was a very large man who probably would be considered fat except for the way his shoulders and biceps bulged out of the tanktop shirt. He sat there for a moment, a myriad of emotions playing over his immense, rubbery face. Finally, he sighed with a wide smile — only kind of smile his wide features allowed — and said loudly, “Aw, cool!!”

“You like the ImagCoaster, mister?” asked one of the little boys who had shared the front row with him.

“There ain’t nothing in the galaxy like a coaster,” the big man grinned, and then — with a wink — “an’ I seen the galaxy, too.”

“Yeah, right, I suppose you’re Baxter Hetznecker and you beat the moon terrorists,” said the other little boy with more than a slight hint of sarcasm.

“As a matter of fact ...” the grin turned into a humongous smile, but the big man just winked and turned without completing the sentence and strode away. Two astonished little boys watched him go. That night, their parents would scold them for making up wild stories. Everyone knows interplanetary heroes don’t ride ImagCoasters.

Next: Chapter 2. The good ship.

Chapter 2. The good ship.

The last time Bob Whelan had seen so many guns, he was viewing them from the muzzle end. It was a bit of a relief to observe them on wall displays and behind glass. Everyone said Harvey Schwartz Armaments was the place to get a gun. They had everything here from those little one-shooters that fit in coin purses all the way up to the most sophisticated laser rifles available to the everyday citizenry.

The man behind the desk — Bob assumed it was Harvey himself — looked like he’d be at home with a big ol’ stogie sticking out of the side of his mouth, but as we all know cigars are illegal now. He looked like the kind of guy who knew how to get a cigar on the black market, though. Maybe Bob would ask him about that someday.

“Can I help you, Mack?”

“Probably,” Whelan said. “I’ve had my cargo ship hijacked two or three times too often in the last month, and I’m looking for something to discourage people from doing that.”

“Ever own a gun before?”

“Nope. I figure that’s why the frickin’ ship gets hijacked so much.”

Cigar Man let a thoughtful silence linger over the proceedings and walked over to a display case filled with large handguns. He unlocked the back of the case, slid a door open and reached inside for one of the larger ones.

“This one’s pretty simple and real effective. You’ll find the simpler these things are, the more effective they are,” the shop owner said. “This baby could blow a hole right through the other guy’s hull if you had to.”

“No, thanks,” Whelan said. “With my luck I’d blow the hole in my own hull. I told you I’m new at this.”

“Treat it with care and respect and nothing stupid will ever happen — but point taken,” Harvey said, if it was Harvey, and he reached for something a little less formidable. It was smaller but still a bit menacing. “Here’s something that can keep the hijackers off your butt without damaging anybody’s hull. Best of both worlds.”

Bob held the pistol lightly in his hand, feeling the heft of it. Then he held it straight out and looked down the sight, like he’d seen in his friend Pete’s old movies. He felt safer already.

“Yeah, I think this one will do just fine. Wrap it up.”

“OK, sir, today’s Tuesday, fill out this form and you can take delivery Friday.”

Something churned in Bob Whelan’s gut. “Friday, I'll probably be four light years from here.”

“Then you shoulda come in Saturday,” the shop owner said patiently. “Three-day waiting period. You know that.”

“Every frickin’ time,” Whelan muttered. “All right, I’ll pick it up when we get back, then. Or is there a way to take possession sooner?”

“Well ... The firing permit doesn’t kick in until Friday anyway, so under those circumstances you can probably get an administrative judge to grant you a waiver. You know anyone in Special Forces? That helps.”

“Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact,” Bob said. “Wait a minute. What’s a firing permit?”

“Well, I just assumed you might want to fire the gun if you have to,” said the shop owner. “That’s a different permit than just owning it.”

“Who wants to own a gun but not use it?”

“You’d be surprised. Some folks just want the thing around so they can point it at anyone who gets out of line, so they buy just the owner’s permit. You know, a guy tries to hold up your store, changes his mind when he sees the gun — he don’t know you can’t fire it legally. Plus, the firing permit’s an extra hundred-fifty, so some folks just don’t bother about it.”

“A hundred-fifty! I’d like to meet the politician who came up with that idea. On second thought, no I wouldn’t,” Bob said. “So I can take the gun with me tomorrow but I can’t shoot it until Friday?”

“That’s how it works.”

“Every frickin’ time,” Whelan said. “I just know I’m gonna need the thing on Thursday.”

* * *

It was raining in Seattle. So what else is new? It had been raining even harder the last week. The weather babe on TV said dissolving the moon with an imaginary bomb had created all sorts of problems with pressure systems colliding and stuff.

Pete Wong had slept two hours later than normal again, but he wasn’t tired anymore — the past couple of days he had stayed in bed more because of the emotional fallout from chasing all over the galaxy looking for the imaginary bomb ignition disk that had been hijacked from his freighter, and then from being a little too close for comfort when interplanetary terrorists set it off on the moon.

That was enough adventure for one lifetime, his partner, Bob Whelan, said, and he was right — we’re just freighter pilots. If we wanted that kind of excitement, we would have joined the military a long time ago. I’m a spacer, not a cop. Still, Snooky wasn’t the kind of person who would ask for help unless she needed it a long time ago and was just now feeling desperate enough to ask for it. Pete Wong sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

The phone rang like an old-fashioned bell. He stared at it and let the bell jangle a couple more times. Pete Wong loved old movies and was convinced people were more cheerful on the phone in the old days because they were responding to a friendly, beckoning bell and not an electronic gerbil or a tinny recording of a bad pop song. He was thrilled to death when someone finally thought to make ring tones that rang like phones did in the old movies. After the third ring, he picked the phone up.

“Hello; Pete Wong.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m climbing the walls over here. I think vacation’s over.”

Pete chuckled. Relaxation didn’t come easy for the man who owned that gruff voice. “Mornin’ Bob. Do we have a shipment?”

“Yeah, I figured you’d climbing the walls by now, too, so I got us a shipment to Proximi Centauri 3,” said Bob Whelan. “I figured you weren’t going to let me talk you out of going right out there to see what Snooky’s problem is.”

“Funny you should mention that, I was just thinking about her,” Pete replied.

“I just bet you were,” Whelan leered. Bob wasn’t really a dirty old man, he just talked like one most of the time. “Well, if you want, we can get some business that’s heading for PC-3, but first I wanna know what you’re getting us into. I’ll call Bax and we’ll meet you at Betsy, what, around noon? It’s 10 now.”

“Twelve sounds good.”

“OK, see ya then,” Bob said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do in the meantime.”

“Thanks for the leeway,” Pete Wong said as he hung up the phone. The little chuckle ended in a frown. He was wondering what he was getting his friends into, too.

* * *

It’s hard to believe the people who made the Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Commando Cody serials got the future of spaceflight right, but there she was — the Betsy Ross, resting on the ground like some huge, elongated mushroom, smoke oozing lazily from behind the mushroom’s cap. The ImagDrive that powered the ship needed no fuel, of course, because it was simply a computer outfitted with an imagination; the smoke was exhaust from the power generator that created the ship’s heat and electricity. Sometimes Pete had to chuckle when he looked at Betsy; it was a bit like he’d entered a time warp and landed in 1930s Hollywood every time he showed up for work.

“Hiya, Pete!” He was surprised he hadn’t seen the source of that huge, enthusiastic greeting before he heard it. Baxter Hetznecker, a huge, enthusiastic bundle of energy, was the largest man he’d ever seen who could still move with anything resembling agility. How could this big galoot with the temperament of a St. Bernard puppy be a trained killer? At the end of the adventure of the imaginary bomb, Baxter had been revealed as the retired commander of training for Special Forces — retired because his passion for good food led him to exceed the force’s weight restrictions — and his skill with a laser rifle had saved their lives more than once. Still, no matter how often he told himself the truth, Pete Wong still thought of Baxter Hetznecker mainly as the ship’s cook and a good drinking buddy.

“How goes it, Baxter?” he said.

“Unbelievable! Did you know they have an ImagCoaster installed next to the Space Needle now? They got 50 different rides from all over the galaxy!” Pete laughed; he thought Baxter’s obsession with roller coasters had been part of his undercover persona, but now it appeared it was absolutely authentic.

“I’ll check it out next time we’re in town, Bax,” he said. “Bob here yet?”

“Oh yeah, he’s inside checking out the computer,” said the big man with the shapeless face. “You do anything neat this week, Pete?”

Wong shrugged. “Slept a lot and thought about Snooky.”

Baxter’s smile turned into concern. “Yeah, we gotta go rescue her from whatever it is you were starting to tell us about last week at the bar.”

“Bob didn’t let me get very far,” Pete said. “I don’t blame him, we were just done with one big deal and who needs to think about another one right then? But I guess I get to finish telling the story now.”

“First things first,” said Bob Whelan, rubbing his hands with an oily rag as he stepped out of the ship onto the boarding ramp. “Did she ever tell you her real name, or is that only for her very most special friends?”

Snooky was the toughest little package on PC-3 — Bob liked to say she had the narrowest hips in the galaxy — and Snooky’s was the first and best tavern in the encampment, but nobody they knew had a clue what name she was born with, and some believed she didn’t remember herself.

“I didn’t ask her, tell ya the truth,” Pete said. “‘Snooky’ is as good a name as she needs anyway, I guess.”

“So, hero, what are you getting us into this time?”

“What do you mean ‘this time,’ boss? You’re the one who nearly got us vaporized a half-dozen times last month.”

“Yeah, yeah, but you’re the one who’s talkin’ about life and death today. Spill it.”

The Chinese-American co-pilot sighed. “It has to do with some company that’s been buying up the property around the bar. She says they started talking to her a couple of weeks before we were out there. You know Snook —”

“Not as good as some people,” Whelan leered.

“Shut up. She’s not gonna sell and that’s that.”

“Well, good for her,” Baxter said. “It’s her property. It’s a nice bar.”

“Well, the problem is, these people have talked a little tough with her,” Pete replied. “She told me about some not-too-subtle threats and the like.”

“Great, they’re probably Mafia,” Bob rolled his eyes. “Ah, what the hell, we survived terrorists and the army shooting at us, we may as well take on organized crime next.”

“The Mafia don’t really exist,” Baxter said with a straight face. “They told me so themselves.” He was kidding. Wasn’t he?

Ignoring the implications of his big friend’s remark, Bob Whelan said, “Well, anyway, I got us 25 tons of ImagPro heading out to Proximi Centauri. Let’s get it on board, and then we’ll see what we can do for Snooky.”

Next: Chapter 3. The problem.

Chapter 3. The problem.

If it wasn’t for the experience of seeing two suns in the sky, there wouldn’t be much to recommend the encampment at Proximi Centauri 3. Even then, there weren’t that many windows or skylights to take advantage of the view. It was a puny little planet, with just 60 percent of the Earth’s gravity. The main encampment was more or less like several huge shopping malls linked together — enough to keep about 35,000 people comfortable.

It still was a pretty small town in those days, so tourists preferred the resorts of Barnard’s Star or the Sirius 4 cultural attractions. Of course, the Sirius 4 declaration of independence put a little bit of a question mark over its tourism industry, seeing as how nobody was sure whether the Powers That Be were going to let Sirius 4 just up and be free and all. But for the moment, we’re on Proximi Centauri 3, so we’ll leave that subject be — for the moment.

The Betsy Ross hovered over the launch pad for several seconds, and then Whelan touched her down and cut the ImagDrive. It was the next day and they were light years from Earth — people were still getting used to the idea of spaceships that rushed through space at twice the speed of imagination, even though that pretty nifty trick had been around long enough to colonize a few planets in nearby star systems. The trip to PC-3 had taken a little under 12 hours, kind of long by today’s standards, of course, but in those days it was almost miraculous time.

Pete Wong was quiet as he helped Whelan settle the ship into the dock. Whether his partner’s leering suggestions about Pete’s private moments with Snooky were accurate were, of course, none of our business. Still, there was no denying Pete’s mind was on the small, deceptively slight woman whose well-being brought them to this encampment.

“Bob,” Pete said as they keyed the final shutdown command into the computer, “do you think you and Baxter could handle things for a little while? I want to check out the tavern as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, sure, maybe Bax and I can get some work done while you go off and rub noses with Snooky,” the skipper replied. “The work can wait, old buddy. We don’t have to unload right away, and I’d just as soon guzzle a beer and get the latest on your lady’s little problem.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s specifically my lady,” Pete said with a grin, “but I guess I was hoping we could all get over there first.”

PC-3 may have been a pioneer outpost, but it wasn’t without the comforts of home — it did have a Wal-Mart and a small tourist industry. Alpha Centauri and its twin had, after all, been the closest and therefore the first destination outside of our own solar system, so it had quickly joined Plymouth Rock and Tranquillity Base as places to go for history-minded tourists. And now that Tranquillity Base and the rest of the moon had quietly dissolved into rings around the Earth, the PC-3 Science Park was the best off-Earth space frontier museum.

Still, as I said, Barnard’s Star had more luxurious and romantic resorts, and Sirius 4 grew a lot faster because that planet is more suited to the human animal. PC-3 had come down in people’s esteem from the bright new hope in the sky to just another nice place to live, not necessarily to visit. As such, walking its corridor was more like striding down the streets of a small, solid blue-collar town than a gleaming city of lights in outer space.

And perhaps the most blue-collar square footage in all of PC-3 were the confines of Snooky’s Tavern. Walk through its doors and you were back on Earth at your favorite corner bar, except for the point-six gravity. And after the long drive from Earth — well, OK, it was a short drive compared to what it would’ve been without the Imaginary Space Drive to zap them four light years, but it was a long drive compared to say, Milwaukee to Chicago — the doors to Snooky’s sounded extremely inviting.

“By golly, that looks like Jeff Hamilton,” Baxter Hetznecker said as they got close to Snooky’s but not quite shouting distance.

“Who does?”

“That guy there, who just came out of the bar,” Baxter said. “Ah, I can’t see him anymore. He musta turned the corner.”

“So who’s Jeff Hamilton, if we may be privy to such information?” Whelan asked.

“Old buddy of mine from Special Forces,” Hetznecker replied. “We used to run the kids through commando training together. I wonder what he’d be doing out here.”

The first thing they noticed when they entered Snooky’s Tavern was that several items of glass were broken, including the big old-fashioned mirror behind the bar. The second thing they noticed was that Snooky wasn’t immediately in evidence. The third thing they noticed was the groan behind the beautiful oak-finish bar.

Pete Wong rushed back to find Snooky lying in the remains of the mirror. Her lip was swollen and bleeding, and she had a lot of little cuts on her skinny but powerful arms from the glass. The famous bat tattoo on her bicep looked like it had taken a bite out of something and was dripping blood from its fangs.

“What happened, Snooky?” Pete asked, lifting her gently by the shoulders. She brushed bits of mirror from her apron.

“Some dumbass just beat me up and tossed me into the mirror, what does it look like?” said the toughest lady on PC-3. “He just went out the door.”

Baxter’s usually rubbery face set itself into a steely look of disbelief and sudden determination. He dashed out and raced around the corner, where he thought he’d seen his former colleague go.

“How much did the guy get away with?” Whelan asked over Pete’s shoulder.

“Nothin’ but my pride. I only got in a couple of licks with this,” she said, brandishing a small club. “Guy wasn’t after money, just me. He’s gotta be from Creative Leisure.”

“Is that the bunch that wants to buy your place?” Pete said.

“Yeah. He said if he has to come back, the next time he won’t stop at cuts and bruises.”

Baxter Hetznecker returned. “I lost him.” That was not a good sign. Only a master could elude the master tracker who used to be commander of training for Special Forces.

“They’re going beyond threats now, Snook,” Pete said. “You better call the police.”

She snorted. “I don’t need cops. He’s gonna need an army to make me give up this place.”

“If he’s who I think, you need all the help you can get,” said Baxter Hetznecker, his putty face suddenly set in stone. “This guy is an army all by himself.”

Next: Chapter 4. The detective.

Chapter 4. The detective.

Eddie Bohannon munched on an apple — well, technically, it was a small bit of ImagPro that had been reconstituted to look like an apple, but it did taste just as good as an authentic golden delicious — and seemed to focus her eyes somewhere about six light years beyond the office wall.

“Let me see if I get this straight,” she said, in her best beleaguered detective-sergeant matter-of-fact tone. “Guy comes in, knocks you around, says he’s coming back and won’t stop at bruises next time, and says he’s from Creative Leisure.”

Snooky shifted uncomfortably in the big easy chair. Pete Wong reached out to hold her hand, and she shook it off. “I guess he didn’t exactly come out and say he was from Creative Leisure.”

Detective Sgt. Eddie Bohannon leaned forward at her desk and locked her fingers together. “You’re just connecting your business dealings with the attack.”

“They want to buy my place,” the barkeep insisted. “The last guy they sent in before this said something like they’d hate to use 'more persuasive measures’ on me.”

“That could mean their lawyer would call your lawyer.”

“Or it could mean they’d toss me through my mirror!” Snooky snarled. “Don’t you think it’s all connected?”

“It don’t matter what I think,” said Eddie Bohannon. “It’s what the facts are.”

“Don’t you think you’ve been watching a little too much Dragnet, Sergeant?” Pete asked.

“What the hell’s Dragnet?”

“Never mind.” Pete sometimes forgot that most people don’t watch old movies and TV shows as much as he did. “Look, what’s the point of all this extra questioning? You have our statements. Why don’t you go looking for this Hamilton guy?”

Bohannon shrugged and leaned back in the chair, tapping her pencil lightly on the desk blotter. “Because, Mr. Wong, all I got is a possible ID on Hamilton and this lady’s speculation. And frankly, that’s nowhere near probable cause.”

It was Baxter Hetznecker’s turn to stir in his chair. “The last time I saw Jeff, he was running a Special Forces camp on a moon off BD-2,” he offered. “But don’t ya think it would be a pretty weird coincidence if I think I saw him comin’ out of Snooky’s and he really is on PC-3 now?”

“Yeah, that could link him to the assault,” said Detective Sgt. Eddie Bohannon, “but not to Creative Leisure. They’ve been doing a lot of business with folks around here, and we’ve never had any kind of complaint like this about 'em.”

“OK, then, pick up Hamilton for questioning. What the hell else do you need?” Bob Whelan said with his usual tact.

Bohannon looked at Whelan and sighed. This was not what she wanted to deal with; her shift was scheduled to end in 10 minutes and, frankly, it had not been a good day.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll give the shift commander your description of Hamilton and we’ll see if he turns up. You’re right — we can at least ask him if he’s beaten up any women lately.”

“I’ll do you one better than a description,” Baxter said, picking up a pen and paper. “Here’s his old Special Forces number. They oughtta have a photo of him on file.”

The bedraggled sergeant swore silently. It would take 20 minutes to process a photo and get it out on the street. “Well, sure, that’ll help,” she said evenly. “You sure this is the number?”

Baxter Hetznecker tapped the side of his ample head. “I don’t forget figgers. That’s his number, all right.”

Detective Sgt. Eddie “Don’t Call Me Edith” Bohannon took the slip of paper from the big man and tried to smile.

“Great,” she managed. “I’ll get our people working on this, and we’ll see what turns up. In the meantime, lady, this guy shows up at your bar again, you call us before he’s two steps inside the door. Got it?”

Snooky nodded, but Baxter asked, “What if he just takes the place out with a bazooka?”

Sgt. Eddie Bohannon stared at the big man, turned to his compatriots, and asked, “What is this guy on?”

“The guy’s good,” Baxter insisted. “If he wants to take someplace out, he’s gonna be thorough about it.”

“You know, if I hadn’t seen you on TV last month, I’d throw you in a cell as a nut bag, big guy,” Bohannon said. “If Hamilton — if this guy is Hamilton — if he wants to use a bazooka, you don’t have to worry about what we do next, because you’ll be dead and half the encampment, too. That’s in the old area that’s not built to be bomb-proof. An explosion would suck the air right out of here.”

“All the more reason to go after this guy,” Pete said. “An Imaginary grenade could make that place selectively dissolve, quietly and without fanfare.”

“I thought the I-bomb technology was destroyed with the moon,” Bohannon said.

“The bomb, maybe, these little Imag-Grenades, maybe not. We’ve seen those things work,” Pete said with a shiver. “It’s kind of spooky.”

“We’ll put Hamilton’s picture on the street and look him up,” Sgt. Bohannon said, and now it was getting extremely close to shift change. “Now you folks go home and relax, let us cops do our job, OK?”

“Yeah, but —”

“Let — us — do — our — jobs.” A significant pause. “OK??”

The civilians filed quietly out the door, and Eddie Bohannon sat deathly still for a moment, staring at the blank computer screen next to her desk. She reached for the pipe resting on top of the screen, pulled out her tobacco pouch and lit a bowl.

As wisps of aroma wafted over the room, Detective Sgt. Bohannon of the PC-3 Police Department sighed audibly. Something heavy had settled across her shoulders and set up camp.

Next: Chapter 5. Things that go bump on the head.

Chapter 5. Things that go bump on the head.

“Bob, look out!”

No one ever got used to the sight of Baxter Hetznecker moving like lightning. You could tell yourself all you wanted that he was the former commander of training for Special Forces, but you still were surprised whenever a man that big moved any way except ponderously.

In this case, Bob Whelan never was happier that looks are deceiving, as a wooden pallet groaned under the weight of several hundred kilograms of ImagPro, and then collapsed. The boxes would have landed on Whelan’s chest if Baxter had not somehow bounded across the room, hauled the captain of the Betsy Ross off the ground like a rag doll, and hurled himself and his friend out of harm’s way with a powerful thrust of his legs, all in an instant.

“Good thing PC-3 is point-six gravity,” Baxter Hetznecker said, and he seemed to want to say something else.

“Thanks, Bax,” Whelan replied. “That was pretty nuts. I thought we had this stuff packed pretty secure.”

“Me, too,” the large man’s forehead furrowed. “I know I’m still new at the freighter business, but I never seen one of these pallets break like that.”

“It happens,” Whelan said, shrugging nonchalantly to keep from shaking. It had suddenly occurred to him that his life had been saved. “It never happened to me, either, but that doesn’t make it unusual.” He wished he sounded more convincing. The incident was actually downright bizarre. “Hey, isn’t it about lunchtime anyway?”

In point-six gravity, it doesn’t take three guys as long to unload what would be 25 tons of ImagPro in one-point-oh. Still, it had been half the day and they were just more than half-done. Lunch sounded pretty good to everyone.

“On the other hand, the last thing I feel like handling right about now is ImagPro,” Whelan said, making a face as he ripped open a kilogram packet. “I never could stand the smell of this crap before we put it in the blender.” That said, he stuck the goo into an imaginary-powered processor and typed “Cheeseburger ... Fries” on the attached keyboard. Moments later, he opened the processor and took out a cheeseburger and fries. The power of the imagination is unlimited, right? Of course, even the finest ImagPro meal could be improved with a human touch. That’s how Baxter Hetznecker had gotten his job as cook.

The three men ate, usually, in anything but silence, but the late-morning accident and hours of work cast a bit of a pall over everything. For quite a while, the only sound was Baxter munching on several carrots. Well, actually it was ImagPro reconstituted as carrots, but — you probably had that figured out without me pointing it out, didn’t you? Sorry.

“Anyone mind if I call Snooky before we head back to work?” Pete Wong asked as he dropped his plate into the dishwasher. Nobody minded, but the dock supervisor poked his nose in before Pete could grab his own phone.

“Phone call for any of you guys,” he said.

As long as Pete was up, he followed the longshoreman to the office to take the call. The dock bustled with activity; there were a couple of other freighters in the other slips, poised like a fleet of Ming the Merciless’ fighters. Pete Wong smiled faintly; it was like walking through a 1930s Hollywood set, except that it was more than 100 years later.

He picked up the receiver half-expecting Snooky to be on the other end. The only funny thing was that Snook had his private phone number, but maybe she lost it. Who else besides that grumpy detective knew where to find them? “Hi there, it’s Pete,” he said into the phone cheerfully.

“Well, hi there — Pete,” said an unctuous voice, ever-so-slightly spitting the name. “How did work go this morning?”

Pete Wong pulled the receiver away from his ear, stared at it, brought it back. “Excuse me?”

“Unloading a freighter can be risky,” the voice hissed, “when you’re sticking your nose into someone else’s business. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I think you have the wrong number, buddy.”

“Pete Wong, right? Flying with Bob Whelan and Baxter Hetznecker? No, this is the right number.”

“Well, then, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a bright guy, Pete. You and your buddies did OK on the moon. But this is a little over your head. Maybe you should stay out of it, unless you like being squashed by a pile of ImagPro.” If this was 1930s Hollywood, the guy would have started to laugh villainously before hanging up the phone. But this was the Imaginary Age after all, and so the person with the unctuous voice punctuated the message with a simple “click.”

When he related the conversation back on board, Baxter Hetznecker said, “Now this is really gettin’ weird.”

Bob Whelan just stared at the wall for a few moments. Finally, he said, “Maybe you should go check on Snooky right away, Pete. Bax and I can finish up here, and then we’ll go talk to that sweet lady Eddie about this call.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, Robert,” Wong said. “I’ll talk to you gentlemen later. Meanwhile, be careful.”

It was a little more than a hop, skip and jump from the spacedocks to Snooky’s Tavern. The place was in one of the grubbier parts of the encampment, although since it was all less than 30 years old, that just means the area was just not quite as pristine as the rest of PC-3. The feel was still that of a maybe-not-quite-topflight shopping mall on the decline. Snooky had one of those old-fashioned signs that the beer companies used to provide for taverns with the beer’s logo in a big electric square and the word “Snooky’s” printed underneath. It was a nice touch.

It’s a nice place, run by a nice lady, Pete thought as he strolled into the establishment — well, he thought, maybe “nice” isn’t the right word for the lady, but still —

“Pete, watch out!”

He had time to notice Snooky was tied to a chair at the end of the bar. A rather rude and brutal thump on the head sent him efficiently into la-la land.

Next: Chapter 6. The imaginary lover.

Chapter 6. The imaginary lover.

Bob Whelan didn’t want to move another pallet of ImagPro for as long as he lived — or at least for the rest of the week. All it took was for one case to topple off the top of the pile and burst onto the floor. The stuff might taste like filet mignon given the right programming and a little juice of imaginary power, but in its raw form it look and smelled like canned dog food. Mopping a case of it off the floor was like picking up — well, it was a little gross.

“That stuff stinks, don’t it?” Baxter Hetznecker said as they took a breather after finishing the unloading.

“You have a gift for understatement when you want to,” Bob said. “You know, I’m thinking Snooky has a beer with my name on it waiting, and we should catch up with Pete and see what’s going on.”

But then a small electric truck pulled up to the dock. It was emblazoned with the UNICEF logo.

“Perfect,” said the driver, as armed guards emerged from the passenger seat and the back of the truck. “Sir, we need to commandeer this ship for a short hop.”

“Short hop, my muscular buttocks,” Whelan said somewhat cheerfully, wishing Pete were there to appreciate his old-movie reference. “We were just heading out for a brew.”

“This will just take an hour,” the driver said, withdrawing the official papers that confiscated the Betsy Ross and her crew for a quick trip. Actually, there was a blank where the name of the ship would be filled in. Out there in the sticks, government-owned cargo ships were scarce, and so it wasn’t completely unusual for private ships to be, um, recruited for such tasks. “We just have a small truckload of supplies to get over to a post on the other side of the planet. You won’t even have to break atmosphere. Sign here and here.”

“What if he really wants that beer?” Baxter asked.

“That’s what we’re here for, buddy,” said one of the armed guards.

“Great, I’m gonna have to shoot it out to keep control of my ship,” Whelan said.

“Maybe, but not today,” the guard said. “The database says your firing permit doesn’t take effect until Friday.”

“So maybe if you make me mad enough I’ll violate the permit,” the captain snapped back.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” said the guard.

“Bob,” Baxter said, “guns nowadays have a chip in ’em and they won’t fire until there’s a valid firing permit on file.”

“You are having wild sex with my brain against my will,” Whelan said. “The damn gun’s not going to work until Friday?”

“Friday, 12:01 a.m.”

“Jeez, I guess there’s a lot about guns I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry, Bob, I’ll teach ya everything I know,” Baxter said. “But we may as well get started, the sooner we leave the sooner we get back to help Pete and Snooky.”

Bob grabbed the pen a little more brusquely than he had to. “Every frickin’ time,” he muttered. “They do this to me every frickin’ time. The last time you guys pulled this on me, I didn’t get home for two weeks and the moon exploded.”

The guard broke into a smile. “Hey! That's right. This is the Betsy Ross. You must be Bob Whelan — and you’re Hetznecker? Can I have you guys’ autographs?”

“Copy it off that sheet,” Whelan growled. “Come on, Bax, let’s load up. That brew will have to wait an extra hour.” And, as an afterthought: “I liked it a whole lot better when we weren’t famous.”

* * *

Meanwhile ...

She was soft and warm, and her tumbling hair tickled the side of Pete Wong’s cheek. She was dressed in something satiny, which made her feel that much more inviting as her softness squished amiably against his bare chest. As Pete started to wake up slowly, he instinctively wrapped his arms a little tighter around her, and he felt very glad to be a man.

Then he remembered the circumstances under which he’d fallen asleep. He finished waking up in a big hurry and sat bolt upright.

“Hey!” the extremely attractive woman said sleepily, protesting the sudden withdrawal of his arms.

They were in a king-sized bed in an elaborately furnished room. There was a huge chest of drawers, a vanity with an enormous round mirror, a crackling fireplace, and a couple of easy chairs that looked like they could swallow an adult whole. There was a wall-sized television, too, but it appeared this room was designed for other activities than watching TV.

“What the hell is coming off here?” Pete said loudly.

“Well, the only thing left is these,” she reached playfully, and Pete discovered he was wearing nothing but his briefs. He pushed her hand away and leaped out of bed. That was when he noticed there were no doors to be seen.

“Very Kubrickesque,” he couldn’t resist saying. “Where am I? What have you done with Snooky? What’s going on here?” he said, feeling along the walls for anything resembling an opening. She came up behind him and started to knead his shoulders. He straightened up, and she curled her hands under his arms and placed her palms on his chest, squishing herself against his back.

“Don’t you think we’ll have time to talk about that a little later?” she purred. “I’ve been waiting so long for you to wake up.”

Pete turned to face her, and she put her hands behind his neck, rubbing gently. He had to admit it felt pretty good. Heck, it felt darn great. Her eyes were wide — a moist, beckoning green, reflecting the sparks from the fire. She pulled him against her and kissed his neck, lightly, several times. My goodness, she smelled wonderful, too — a rare and delightful perfume Pete had smelled only once before. He had melted in that woman’s arms, too, so long ago. The green-eyed lady began to sink down from his neck, licking the middle of his bare collar bone, sliding her hand to one side of his chest, while kissing her way down the other. She paused at his nipple, danced her tongue around it, and sucked sweetly.

Then she dissolved, quietly and without fanfare. So did the room.

Pete was wearing his work clothes again. The walls shimmered and re-formed as a plain old office. A primly dressed young woman sat at the desk. Her hair was tied back and she was wearing glasses, but he recognized the moist, green eyes. They were more businesslike than beckoning now.

“Impressive, Mmmmm?” she purred. The voice was still beckoning, at least.

It took Pete a moment to re-orient his senses and look around. At least this place had a door.

“Was that some kind of ImagCorp technology?”

“Well, yes and no,” the young woman said. “It’s very similar to what ImagCorp can do, but it has our own special modifications.” She held her hand out. “Welcome to Creative Leisure, Mr. Wong.” He shook her hand for lack of something better to do.

“So,” he said, somewhat less than politely or patiently, “what the hell is coming off here?”

She laughed, a musical laugh that almost made him wish she was still in satin in the doorless room. “You’ve just been treated to a taste of what you’ve been fighting, that’s all. Sit. Did you like it?”

“You mean except for being conked on the head?” he asked, easing warily into the chair. “What is it exactly you just 'treated’ me to?”

“This is a prototype of one of the rooms in our new Pleasure Dome arcade,” she said, all business again. “You and a friend or a spouse may make it a luxury hotel room, as you’ve just experienced, or any number of romantic settings. Or, if you’re alone, we can conjure up company for you, as you’ve just seen — ImagCorp hasn’t come close to such realism in developing imaginary companions. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

She paused, as if expecting him to say something. So he said, “Go on.”

“Well.” She took a breath. “Our initial plans call for a 75-room arcade, adjacent to a convention and conference center and a 225-room hotel. It will turn PC-3 from a fading encampment into the tourism hub it deserves to be.”

“Yeah — so?”

She looked a little piqued. “Yeah, so,” she replied with a slightly frustrated laugh, “Creative Leisure was formed with the purpose of transforming PC-3 into a wonderland.”

“But with no room for Snooky’s Tavern.”

“Snooky can relocate anywhere she wants with the stipend we’re offering,” she said. “Pete, you’ve seen what our technology can do. Every other business owner on the property has enthusiastically agreed to accept our price. Don’t you think this kind of facility is a little more important to PC-3’s future than that old bar?”

He considered the thought for a moment, then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Important enough to beat up Snooky, break her mirror, tie her up and kidnap me?”

She smiled pertly. “Creative Leisure wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said in the same seductive tone she — or her image — had used on him before. Then she was all business again. “We asked a contractor to bring you here for this demonstration. Mr. Wong — Pete — we need the property where Snooky’s Tavern is located. It would be easiest if you could persuade Snooky to accept our generous terms.”

“And how about if she still says no?”

The saleslady and would-be lover flashed a broad, tempting smile. “We need the property that Snooky’s is on, Pete,” she said sweetly. “It will be ours, one way or another.”

With that, she dissolved, quietly and without fanfare. This was getting ridiculous.

When the walls stopped shimmering, he was in an empty room with white walls and a door in the corner. It was just a plain old ImagRoom after all — although the bedroom illusion on top of the sales office illusion, with the womanly illusion thrown in, was a pretty sophisticated trick.

Pete Wong was alone, and he found the door was unlocked. It opened onto a corridor in the PC-3 shopping zone. There was nothing unusual about the stores on either side of the door.

He finally felt oriented again, and now he remembered the circumstances under which he had last seen Snooky. With his heart sinking, he decided to investigate the mysterious ImagRoom later.

Recognizing where he was, he began to walk swiftly back in the direction of Snooky’s Tavern. He moved from a swift walk to a full-fledged run when he heard the rumble of an explosion ahead of him.

Next: Chapter 7. Investigation and insinuation.

Chapter 7. Investigation and insinuation.

When he arrived, Pete saw that the front window of Snooky’s Tavern was gone, and smoke from a just-extinguished fire hovered heavily across the corridor. With some relief, he saw Snooky standing over the smoldering ruins, holding a fire extinguisher and putting down little flares as they reappeared in the rubble.

“Snook!” he called, and her eyes lit up when they met his.

“Oh, Pete!” Snooky may have been the toughest woman on PC-3, but that didn’t stop her from throwing her arms around her friend, melting in his arms and planting a distinctly more-than-friends kiss on his perfectly willing lips. “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she said, settling into his chest when they came up for air.

“What happened? You were tied up the last time I saw you,” Pete said.

“They slapped me around and cut me free just before all hell broke loose,” Snooky said. “I didn’t know where they were taking you, but they didn’t make it sound good.”

“I’m all right,” he replied. “Hey! Where the heck are Bob and Baxter? They were supposed to meet me here.”

“Yeah, well, we were a little delayed,” came Bob Whelan’s voice from behind him. “Today’s Thursday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you later. What the hell did you do to Snooky’s place?”

“It was the jerk who beat me up the other day,” Snooky said. “Guess he couldn’t get enough of me.”

“Guess he must’ve decided on the bazooka,” said Baxter Hetznecker. “I’m sorry we weren’t here to stop him.”

“Stop who?” Pete said.

“Jeff Hamilton,” Baxter said. “No doubt about it now. This is his style — he managed to mess up the front of Snooky’s bar without blowing the outer wall or hurting anyone.”

“— without hurting anyone much,” Snooky corrected, displaying the rope burns on her wrists. “I guess Baxter’s right, though, they could’ve easily blown me away with the storefront if they wanted ta. Hey, where’d they take you, anyway, Pete?”

“They wanted to pull a little divide and conquer routine, I think,” Pete said, and he explained about the imaginary lover and the imaginary sales lady in the ImagRoom. “The best place to start is to head back there and see what we can turn up.”

“No, the best place to start is to tell the police what the hell is going on around here.” As she took her first look at the crime scene, Detective Sgt. Eddie Bohannon did not appear to be at all pleased about the damage to the PC-3 encampment.

“Maybe you can tell us why Hamilton’s still running around shooting at people,” Whelan said.

“Because he hasn’t been home.”

“You know where he’s hiding out?” Baxter asked.

The detective looked at him as if she were hoping he’d say that. “Yeah, we used state-of-the-art police techniques to find him,” she said broadly. “He’s in the phone book. Bet you didn’t think of that one, big boy.”

Baxter Hetznecker looked like he’d been hit in the side of the head with a 2-by-4. Sometimes that flexible face was very easy to read. As if the figurative plank of wood wasn’t enough, he smacked the base of his palm into his forehead. “The phone book!” he wailed. “This is embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry, man of steel,” Eddie Bohannon said out of the side of her mouth as she fumbled with her pipe, “it’s not really the first place most people look for terrorists. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hit man in the phone book. They’re not in the yellow pages most of the time. Makes you think maybe Hamilton’s not a hit man, don’t it?”

“Well, sure,” Baxter said, and you could almost see the light bulb burning over his head. “He’s gonna wanna look like an upstanding-type citizen. I did that a couple times when I was undercover, too — used my real name so I don’t get anybody suspicious.”

“Buddy, your real name is suspicious,” the detective said as smoke from settling debris mingled with the tobacco aroma. “Now, you were talking about leaving to go — where, exactly?”

“None of your damn business,” Bob Whelan interjected. “You haven’t been taking us seriously or you would’ve tracked down this Hamilton creep by now. So we’ll just handle this on our own. You just go put your feet back up and chew on your frickin’ pipe.”

Now, Pete, Baxter and Snooky had already decided that Detective-Sgt. Eddie Don’t-Call-Me-Edith Bohannon was no one to mess with, but Bob Whelan, captain of the good ship Betsy Ross, was not always one to pick up on such subtleties. Therefore only Bob seemed surprised when Bohannon drew herself up to her full height, which was just about eye-to-eye with the freighter captain, and leaned menacingly toward him, the waft of aromatic smoke gagging him just enough to make him uncomfortable.

“I read about you in the papers, little man,” she said roughly. “You were hijacked by the people who stole the imaginary bomb program, you told Special Forces they went one way, and then took off after them in the other direction. It’s probably your damn fault the moon got blown away. The only reason you’re not in the slammer for obstructing an officer of Special Forces is because you turned around and cooperated later on. Well, look, cute stuff, if you don’t want to end up in my slammer, you’re gonna tell me everything you know about why the front end of this bar’s been blown away, and you’re gonna tell me all of it before you take one more step or breathe one more breath!”

“You little ditz, I ain’t telling you nothing,” Whelan shouted, waving the pipe smoke out of his face. “You haven’t done a damn thing to help so far, and we don’t need your help anyway.” He probably had some other unpleasant things to tell her, but just then Eddie Bohannon nodded at two burly officers standing nearby, and they grappled Bob Whelan off to a nearby squad vehicle. They tossed him in the back seat, slammed the door, and stood next to the vehicle as Eddie Bohannon turned to the remaining threesome.

“I’m thinking Captain Whelan needs a night in the hoosegow to collect his thoughts,” she said coolly. “Would the rest of you care to cooperate with our investigation?”

“We’re on the same side, lady,” Snooky said, and somewhat indignantly, as if “lady” wasn’t the first word she thought of using. “You didn’t have to pull that stunt.”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” the detective replied. “It’s my job to keep this encampment in one piece; last I looked, it’s your job to keep the citizens lubricated, not do my job. I need your help, and I don’t need you gallivanting off on a vigilante mission. That idiot,” she said, thumbing a thumb toward the squad, “is just itching to get in my way. Now, Mr. Wong, I think I heard you telling your friends something about an Imaginary machine.”

“What’s going to happen to Bob?” Pete asked first.

Detective-Sgt., Eddie Bohannon laughed and pushed back her fedora. (Well, I didn’t mention the hat before because you should have known she was the type of detective who wears a fedora. I can’t do all the work for you, can I? Anyway, she laughed and pushed back her fedora.) “Nothing’s gonna happen to him,” she smiled — and somewhat fetchingly, I might add. “He just ticked me off and I needed to put him in his place, is all. If you want, I’ll let him out and he can come with us to see this machine. You remember where it was?”

Pete relaxed at that. “Sure, I can lead you right to it,” he said, and he went into the story of the imaginary lover and the imaginary saleslady and how he was allowed to leave and that was that. Eddie agreed that heading over there was the place to start, while the crime lab folks picked through the debris at Snooky’s. First they’d spring Bob Whelan from the back of the car.

As the detective walked over to relieve the burly officers, Baxter pulled Pete aside. “I think she likes him,” the big man grinned slyly, “and I think he likes her.”

“What in the bejeebers are you talking about, Baxter?”

“Bob and Eddie,” Hetznecker said impatiently. “They wouldn’t get so riled at each other if there wasn’t, you know, a spark there or somethin’.”

Pete Wong regarded his huge friend incredulously. “Bax, you’ve got one hell of an imagination.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Baxter replied with a knowing grin. “You heard her. She called him 'cute stuff,’ didn’t she?”

Pete had no answer for that except a shake of the head and a silly grin, which was just as well because they’d caught up with the others.

Next: Chapter 8. Things get serious.