My Lengthy Absence

Funny how quickly time can slip by when you don't commit to a blog schedule...
I didn't make any posts after having my cat put down, because I knew I would miss him lying on the arm of the recliner as I typed. It's been nearly six months now, and we've actually had to say goodbye to another kitty, MacGyver, in that time. Now we're down to the four little ladies, and they're definitely more manageable than six cats were.

Rest in peace, Little Guy

Losing MacGyver was a shock. Jack had cancer, and we knew we would eventually have to say goodbye. But MacGyver was literally here one day and gone the next. He bugged me for a taste of my lunch on a Saturday, and Sunday he wouldn't eat anything. I called in sick to take him to the vet that Monday, and there was nothing they could do for him. It still bothers me that I didn't notice anything wrong with him in time to help him, but the four we have left are all healthy.

Additionally, in the time since my last post, I completed the rough draft for Holiday at Home, the third book in The POG Series, following the adventures of Marine veteran John Smith. While I do the editing on that one, I have started writing the fourth book in the series, The Deseret Diversion. In the fourth installment, John Smith is about to travel from his home in Flagstaff, Arizona, to Moab, Utah for the Easter Jeep Safari, when his administrator Alicia Englestone asks for his help. A friend of hers from her time in the Air Force has been lured into a polygamist sect, and the sect has relocated to a compound built into a bend in the river in the middle of nowhere. Alicia needs John's help to get her out. The task is further complicated by John's friends, Jason and Stephanie, coming out from North Carolina for the Safari, so a plan is worked out to include them.

In between writing, editing, and busting my knuckles at my day job, I have taken a renewed interest in metal fabrication. I posted an ad on Craigslist offering my services, and a customer contacted me about building a winch bumper for his truck, which is the same make and model as my own. It has taken some long nights in the garage, but I have a bumper ready for his truck. He also wants a rear bumper, which is still in the design phase right now.

Now I Kinda Want One For Myself

On a whim, I uploaded my Sci-Fi manuscript The Ondellus Determination to Kindle Direct Publishing. There was a time when I wanted to be a Sci-Fi author, but I lost the zeal for the project about two-thirds of the way through. I still think the finished story is worth the effort, but I will be sticking to regular fiction in the future unless the book's performance really exceeds my expectations. It was conceived as the first in a three-part series, but it will have to sell a lot of copies for me to write the rest of the series. I will try to market the book however I can, and I plan to sell hand-made tie-in merchandise. There is a tavern game in the book called Sinna Ki, played with throwing knives and numbered tiles, that I would like to see people actually play. I think it would suit a grown man more than Quidditch does.

A Sinna Ki match between Lokewa, the protagonist, and his brother, Treselo:

“Tell me, brother, do you share in the genetic trait of Sinna Ki domination?” Treselo asked as he strapped Tabrod onto a reading cushion in the middle of the lounge.

“In the presence of full gravity, I can hold my own,” I said. “Not so much in its absence.”

“Gravity or not, if we were to play, I believe the odds would favor you,” he said, mixing the numbered tiles with his left hand. They were kept in a black canister on the patrol base, as the lack of actual gravity would allow them to drift away if they were kept in a pile as with the terrestrial rules. “I have not played since we embarked on our journey.”

That nagging feeling that something was amiss returned to me, but I dismissed it, reasoning that he was just thrilled to have someone new to talk to. 

“Are you certain your muscles have rejuvenated sufficiently for the demands of this game?” I asked him.

“I am certain that I am more rejuvenated than my comrade Tabrod is at this point,” he said. “As for the demands of the game, how better to find out than by playing the game? Best two out of three?”

There was no talking him out of it, I could see. I reluctantly accepted his challenge, and we took our places on either side of the pedestal and drew our tiles. I looked at mine, careful not to let him see. 

I had drawn two fours and a one. I had no choice but to give him one of the fours. I held it out in my hand, value-side down. Treselo placed one of his tiles in my hand and removed the one I was holding.

We each looked at the tiles we had received. I could not believe my luck. He had given me a five. All I had to do was hit zeros with the knife throws. 

Treselo frowned and held up his tiles. He had a three and a one, in addition to the four I had given him. He needed to hit two ones or a two and a zero. I showed mine, holding back a grin.

“It appears that you do not need the favor of the odds, young Lokewa,” he said magnanimously. 

“By the rules, you have the first throw,” I said, retrieving the two twin scabbards from beneath the pedestal and handing him one.

He pulled a knife from the scabbard, examined its edge, then took careful aim and threw it. It flew straight, sticking firmly in one of the zero spots. I drew my first knife, reminding myself to be aware of the flatter trajectory in the lack of gravity. I aimed and threw, hitting the same zero spot. Treselo aimed and threw his second knife, just missing the two spot and sticking in a one. 

“Nine,” he said, looking disappointed. “Of course, there is still the possibility of you missing your throw and going over.”

“According to General Tarsk of Soxus, when your only chance of winning depends upon your opponent committing an error, you have already lost,” I said, throwing my knife. 

It stuck in the other zero spot. I had won the first round.

“Mind your pride, brother,” Treselo said. “We still have two rounds to play. I will retrieve the knives.” 

He set off for the wall, noticeably struggling to stand in the simulated gravity of the outer circumference as he plucked the knife blades from the target surface. I placed the tiles back inside the canister and spun it around my hand to randomize the contents. From the corner of my eye, I saw Chief Tombusk enter the lounge. She smiled at me as she strapped onto the cushion beside Tabrod, who was still barely coherent. Treselo returned with the knives and handed two of them to me.

I allowed him to draw his tiles first, then pulled out three for myself. I looked at mine and saw that I had two twos and a three. I selected the three tile to exchange. Treselo held out his hand with a tile in it, which I took as I placed mine in his palm. This time, he had given me a one. I needed five points to win. Aside from the three I had given him, Treselo had also drawn a four and a two, for a total of nine. 

“You throw first, Lokewa,” he said.

I made no effort to disguise my intentions. I aimed and threw for the five spot, just missing it and hitting the three adjacent to it. Treselo chuckled to himself and threw his first knife, hitting the zero on the left side of the board. I took a breath to steady myself, then took very careful aim and threw, sticking the point of my knife blade in a two spot. Treselo threw his remaining knife, hitting the same two spot, for a score of eleven.

“It would appear that you understated your proficiency to give me an overabundance of confidence, young brother,” he said, as he began to make his way back to the board to remove the knives.

--end excerpt--

I'm not usually one to make New Year's Resolutions, but I will resolve to be more consistent with my blog posts; at least once every two weeks. If anyone catches me slipping, please feel free to call me on it. 

Wishing everyone the best in the coming year.

Saying Goodbye to My Little Buddy

My cat Jack crossed the Rainbow Bridge today. He was diagnosed last year with Fibrosarcoma, and he fought it longer than I expected him to. I knew i would eventually have to have him put down, but I didn't know where to draw the line. I figured that when he stopped showing interest in food or ear scratches, that was how I wold know. Unfortunately, he never did either one. The past few weeks were the hardest, seeing what the cancer had taken from him. When he finally got too weak to jump onto the bed, I knew it was time.

I got Jack ten years ago, when he was three and a half months old. I had just returned from Iraq and gotten married to my ex-wife, and we both loved animals. With both of us working full-time, it wouldn't have been fair to get a dog, but a kitten fit right into our lifestyle. When we separated, I kept Jack and she kept our other cat, a calico named Roxy. I soon adopted another friend for Jack, a tortoiseshell named Diane. 

 

Jack got passed around quite a bit, due to my military career, but he was always my buddy again as soon as I got home from wherever I had been. He spent time with my dad, with friends of mine, and with my wife before we got married, but he was always right there when I got back. Diane took her time coming around, but Jack was loyally and faithfully my kitty.

Regardless of how many cat beds there were in the house, Jack's favorite nap spot was always my clothes. No matter whether they were clean or dirty, he loved curling up on my laundry. If I didn't have any laundry out, he would settle for electronic devices.

Jack always gave way more love and affection than he took. Any time I was upset, he would just sit in my lap and purr, and everything would be better. I'm gonna miss his devotion and company. Even though there are five other cats in the house, there will be a Jack-shaped void for some time to come.

Jack was a gentle cat. Although he always had a hiss or a growl ready for the vet, he loved kittens. The real tragedy of having to say goodbye to him is that there are three cats in the house who have known him their whole lives. My heart breaks for them, because I know they'll be looking for him over the next few days.

Godspeed, little buddy. 

First Chapters: "The Ondellus Determination" (Sci-Fi)

The Ondellus Determination

By Tim Williams

Chapter 1

   Calling it “home” would have been a misappropriation of the term. It was simply where I slept when I was out of orbit. As I stepped inside, the message display panel illuminated to alert me to a video message from my mother. I was in no particular mood to deal with her at that moment, so I touched the blinking 'IGNORE' icon and the panel reverted to showing a mirror image of the front room.

    I examined my face in the mirror image. My age was beginning to show in the lines on my forehead and around my eyes. I pulled off my identification amulet and ran my thumb over the inscription: Lokewa, Son of Krexel The Pathfinder. My father's contribution to our people had earned his name a place in our history. I could only hope to do the same someday.

    Hitting the release buttons on my boot retention straps, I stepped out of them and crossed the room, setting into my reading chair. I picked up the tablet from the end table and found where I had left off previously.

    My right arm was throbbing, and I pulled back the sleeve of my uniform to examine the swollen, irritated spot where the proton bolt had hit me during the training exercise. The medics had told me that the irritation would fade throughout the evening, and my arm would be good as new by the following morning. I counted myself lucky to have been conscious to learn from the experience. Had it been a headshot, I likely wouldn't even have woken up yet.

    Realism was the most important aspect of our training. The proton bolts we fired in training exercises were calibrated to inflict massive temporary discomfort, without actually causing any damage. In my youth, I had spent several unconscious nights in the training center infirmary due to training injuries.

    The training center was located just offworld, between the upper atmosphere and Kiola, the nearest of our six natural satellites. Every training exercise was a nine-day ordeal. I had the following day to catch up with any issues that may have arisen in my absence, then I was due back at my unit the day after.

    I was a Commander in the Orbital Defense Force, which kept our territory clear of any unwelcome visitors. Our planet, Meron Prime, had become a hotbed of illegal activity since our ancestors developed faster-than-light travel countless generations ago. Other galactic travellers had picked up the trail our magnetic plasma engines left and traced them back to us. We had colonized all of our satellites long ago, and the outlying colonies began to come under attack from pirates; merchants trying to expand their profit margins by stealing from us along their trade routes.

    Not all galactic travellers were hostile, and it was my job to be able to recognize the ones we welcomed. Our entire culture had benefitted greatly from the commerce our allies have brought, so closing our space territory was not an option.

    We patrolled the spaces between the orbits of the satellites. Seniority on the force determined the orbit to which we were assigned, with the rookies getting the first orbit, between Kiola and Biso. The next orbit beyond that was considered to be shared by Janen and Tohem, which circled Meron Prime perpendicular to each other, although Tohem was slightly further out. I was assigned to the Third Orbit, between Janen-Tohem and Envola. Past Envola orbited our smallest satellite, Yuchek.

    I was training for the possibility of an assignment upgrade and promotion to the Envola-Yuchek Fourth Orbit, which would only leave me one step from the deep-space assignment. Every Orbital Defense Force member wanted the deep-space orbit, because it was the first line of defense against the pirates.

    Because Yuchek orbited the furthest from Meron Prime, it was the colony of choice for the citizens who valued their privacy, mostly because they were the wealthiest. Due to its mass, the force of gravity on Yuchek was less than one-tenth of the gravity on Meron Prime, making it an attractive option also for older Meronians who had trouble getting around. The other satellites averaged somewhere around half of the gravity of the planet itself.

    I had chosen not to permanently relocate to a colony. I maintained my residence on Meron Prime, in the hub city of Khur. A hub city was any city that had an Orbital Velocity Spire, which was a tower that used linear accelerators to propel a craft out of the atmosphere. There were eighteen hub cities on the planet. Each hub city appointed a representative to the Ruling Council. The six largest cities without a Spire each appointed a representative to serve as an alternate on the Ruling Council, should a member become incapacitated. The Chancellor served as the tiebreaker when necessary.

    I had team members who lived in one of the Biso colonies, and they claimed to enjoy it. I always felt more at ease in the full-scale gravity of the main planet. Those who were assigned to the Deep Space patrol were required to live on Meron Prime, as the Orbital Velocity Spire could be set to reach the outer orbit faster than conventional travel from any of the other satellites.

    I turned my attention to the tablet and resumed reading. It was a combat manual written by Tarsk of Soxus, founder of The Meron Prime Orbital Defense Force. Tarsk of Soxus was a famous General in the Terrestrial Army and hero of the Battle for Janen, which was fought when I was very young to liberate the colonies from the self-imposed rule of Parsag the Mercenary King from the Banu System. Parsag's mercenaries had dug in for a long fight, but General Tarsk commandeered a mining tunnel digger and excavated the ground beneath their main position. He sent a single fusion bomb down the tunnel and detonated it, blowing pieces of the mercenary emplacement into space. There were unconfirmed reports of mercenary bodies landing on Envola, which was aligned with Janen at the moment of detonation. After the battle, General Tarsk proposed the establishment of the Orbital Defense Force to prevent any future aggressors from gaining a foothold in our system. Throughout the manual, General Tarsk advocated for using brute force to deal with hired thugs, to provide them with the chance to die by the same sword by which they claimed to live.

First Chapters: "Holiday at Home"

Holiday at Home

A POG Novel

by Tim Williams

Chapter 1

The Arizona sun was high in the afternoon sky, glinting off of every smooth surface in sight. From my seat on the balcony of the second floor sports bar, I had a good view of the courtyard below. By all appearances, it was supposed to look like I was watching a football game. Unfortunately, my Cardinals weren't playing until the Sunday Night game, for the second week in a row. I watched the other games that were on, but they were all looking pretty one-sided. The final NASCAR race of the season was on, but I never had the attention span for watching a whole race.

As my waitress left after bringing me another soda, I scanned the courtyard again. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see. Not yet, anyway. I pulled out my phone and took another look at the image sent to me by my employer, Reflex Engineering, Incorporated.

The contact I was looking for was a man named Edgar Winters. Sixty-three years old, he was tall, but on the portly side. What hair remained on his scalp was gray and unkempt, usually gathered into a half-assed ponytail. For my purposes, though, his hair was irrelevant. My instructions specified that he would be wearing a beige suit with a red Hawaiian shirt and a tan fedora.

As the Chargers celebrated a touchdown, I caught my first glimpse of Winters entering the courtyard. He was carrying a briefcase in his right hand, which was the signal that he believed he was being followed. Either that, or he hadn't paid attention to the instructions he had been given, and carried the briefcase in whichever hand he damn well pleased.

I hit ‘SEND’ on the phone number I had pulled up on speed dial when I arrived at the bar. Alicia Englestone, my administrator, answered on the first ring. I barely had time to get my Bluetooth headset in my ear.

“What's your status?” she asked.

“Visual contact only,” I said. “He's signaling a tail.”

“Are you certain?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

“The briefcase is in his right hand,” I said. “You went over the signals with him, right?”

“Not my first mission, John,” she said.

“Not mine, either,” I reminded her.

It was actually more like my fourth or fifth, depending on whether my “audition” in North Carolina counted. Following that, I had eliminated a drug lab in Northern Ohio, under the alias of Jerrod Maloney, which was my first actual undercover mission for Reflex Engineering, Incorporated. In the weeks since then, I had been chosen to escort a senator's wife from D.C. to Houston, as she insisted on driving. I also carried a computer hard drive from Santa Fe to Portland, Oregon, under the assumed identity of a used car salesman.

There were no fake names this time, just an old man who tried to blackmail his way into a more comfortable retirement, and me. I was only chosen because I lived in Flagstaff, reasonably close to Phoenix. I was there to collect the leverage he was using to try to extort his old employer, and return it as a disinterested third party. His supposed “tail” threw a wildcard into the process.

Proximal Technology, the company Winters was trying to cheat, had given Reflex Engineering the weekend to try to resolve the situation peacefully. If we were unable to deliver, however, they assured us that they had an effective solution to insider espionage and extortion.

As per the plan, Winters crossed the courtyard and sat down on a bench, directly beneath the balcony where I sat. Either he had drank too much coffee that morning, or he really was convinced that there was someone after him. I watched him sit there, fidgeting with the combination locks on the briefcase and checking his watch.

“Call Proximal,” I said to Alicia. “Make sure they haven't changed their minds.”

“Already on it,” she said. “Wait one.”

I kept an eye on Winters, trying to find the tail he was concerned about. Nobody had followed him into the courtyard, but doing so would have been a good indication of an amateur. As confined of an area as the courtyard was, a simple circle path around it would expose a tail.

“Proximal says they're clear,” Alicia said. “They're honoring the deal until midnight.”

“I don't see anyone following him,” I said, scanning the area again. “But, it might not necessarily be Proximal. Do they have any competitors who would be interested in what he's carrying?”

“I'll have to work on that,” she said. “Let me call you back.”

The call clicked out, and I looked down at Winters again. He seemed to be growing agitated, judging by his body language. He probably thought this would be a simple hand-off process. As long as I couldn't see anyone following him, I didn't see the harm in bringing him upstairs to where I was. I just had to figure out how to do it.

The floor beneath the sports bar was a menswear store, which I figured would be good enough for what I had in mind. I looked up the phone number for the store and dialed it. A cheerful-sounding man answered it on the second ring.

“DeGrazio’s Fine Clothing, this is Matthew, how can I help you?” the man said.

“Yeah, hey, I'm looking for a guy named Edgar Winters,” I said, trying to sound distracted.

“I'm sorry, sir, I don't recognize that name,” Matthew said. “I think you have the wrong number.”

“No, no, hear me out,” I said. “He told me he was gonna be over that way, in case I needed anything from him, and now I do. Can you just look around the store for me, and maybe right outside?”

“I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that, sir,” he said. “This phone isn't for public use.”

“Matthew, you'll be doing me such a big favor, I can't even describe it,” I said.

“OK, look,” he said. “Tell me what he looks like, and I'll take a quick look around for him.”

“Alright, thank you, Matthew,” I said, looking at Winters. “Just picture Santa Claus without the beard.”

“In a beige suit that's older than I am?” he said. “I think it's your lucky day.”

“That's gotta be him,” I said, watching a very frail-looking younger guy walk out to the bench and hand the phone to Winters, gesturing complete confusion.

Matthew looked like he went out of his way to look sickly. He was wearing a cardigan over a button-down shirt, when I was doing my best not to sweat through my T-shirt. He had his dark hair shellacked against his skull, except for the upswept bangs at the front. My truck's exhaust pipe was larger than his legs looked in the skinny jeans he was wearing.

“H-Hello?” Winters said, cautiously.

“Where's the tail?” I asked, scanning the windows of the buildings ringing the courtyard.

“The, the tail?” he stammered.

“You walked into the courtyard, holding the briefcase in your right hand,” I said. “That's the signal for someone following you.”

“Oh, right, right,” he said. “I couldn't be certain, but a guy got into a minivan behind my taxi at the hotel, and I think he got out behind me here.”

“Description,” I said. “I need to know what he looks like.”

“Well, this guy, he had a shaved head,” he said. “Not bald, you know, but just buzz-cut all over.”

“What about his clothes?” I asked. “What was he wearing?”

“Um, just regular clothes, I think,” he said. “Nothing fancy; slacks and a polo shirt, real plain jacket.”

“Light colors, or dark?” I asked.

“Dark, I think,” he said.

“Was he carrying anything? Briefcase, backpack, duffel bag?” I asked, taking another look around.

A guy across the courtyard was a possible match. Buzz-cut hair, sunglasses, dark clothes, standing completely alone in a coffee shop. He clutched a messenger bag in his left hand, and he was wearing leather driving gloves. He looked exactly like my employer had taught me not to look. He looked like a hitman in the movies.

“I think he had one of those, my son calls it a, a man purse?” he said, almost as if he was ashamed for not knowing the specific name for it.

“Never mind,” I said. “I see him. I need to confirm that it's you that he's after. Most likely is, but I need to be certain.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Winters asked.

“You are,” I said. “You're gonna get up, and walk toward the gift shop straight in front of you, then stop short and turn left and go until you get close to the bathrooms, then turn left again and go into the clothing store where you got this phone from. Understand?”

“What good is that gonna do?” he asked, skeptically.

“Two-fold,” I said. “It'll tell me if he's really watching you, and it'll tell him that he's been made.”

“You're not supposed to do anything to endanger me,” he said. “This sounds pretty dangerous, to me.”

“You endangered yourself when you tried to blackmail Proximal,” I said. “I'm just telling you to go for a walk. And for your own good, don't act like you know you're being watched.”

“OK,” he said. “What do I do with this phone?”

“Give it back to that stick figure that handed it to you,” I said, hanging up.

Keeping my phone up to my ear in case Buzz-cut was watching me, I walked over to the other side of the bar and pretended to bullshit with another guy. In reality, I was asking to borrow the ketchup from his table.

Through the mirror above the bar, I could see Winters stand up and hand the phone back to Matthew. He stretched his arms, then picked up the briefcase in his left hand and started walking. Buzz-cut subtly shifted his position to keep Winters in his line of sight. It wasn't until Winters made his first abrupt left turn that he could tell something was up. After Winters turned left at the bathrooms and headed into the clothing store, Buzz-cut dropped his coffee in the trash can and started walking briskly toward the clothing store. Then I saw him reach inside his jacket, toward his armpit.

Shit.

I threw a ten-dollar bill onto the bar, next to the cash register and headed for the stairs. Coming out of the staircase, I rounded the corner into DeGrazio’s just in time to see Matthew duck behind the counter as Buzz-cut pulled his pistol out of its holster. He held it close to his chest, muzzle pointed up, looking for Edgar Winters among the rows of shelves. I saw Winters first, cowering in the back corner. Taking off at a full sprint, I tackled Buzz-cut into a necktie rack. The dowels splintered as his upper body– and mine, with it– crashed through the rack.

I was the first one to try to get up, pushing off of his torso and driving my knee into his kidney. After grabbing the pistol out of his hand and smashing him in the back of the head with it, I picked up the closest necktie and bound his hands behind his back with it. Checking the safety on the pistol, I stuck it in the back of my waistband and rolled him over. The broken wood had done a number on his face, and his nose appeared to be beside its assigned location.

“Alright, asshole, you know where this is going,” I said, grabbing both sides of his collar. “Just go ahead and tell me who sent you.”

“Kiss my ass,” he said, trying to spit blood at me, but neglecting to account for gravity. He winced as it landed back in his eye.

I picked up a length of broken dowel and shifted my position to where I could hold it against his crotch.

“Done being a tough guy yet?” I asked, applying a little bit of pressure.

The cops were most likely on their way. I was running out of time.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, you're serious!” he said, panicking.

“Do you really deal with that many guys in this life who are just fucking around?” I asked, doubling the pressure on the dowel.

“Ascendant!” he said. “Ascendant Scientific Research. In Rialto. Winters had contacted them to sell the project he stole from Proximal Technology, in the event that they wouldn't pay up. They contracted me to obtain it for a quarter of what he wanted to sell it for.”

“I hope you got paid up front,” I said, dropping the dowel as I heard the police approaching. “And for your sake, I hope you're the best muscle they could hire. I'm sure they don't appreciate incompetence.”

I stood up and stepped back as the cops entered the store. They weren't exactly gentle as they searched me, but I didn't expect them to be. The back of my right hand had been cut by the broken wood in the scuffle, but that was the worst I had suffered.

“Is this your gun?” the officer performing the search asked.

“It's his,” I said, nodding toward Buzz-cut. “I disarmed him while he was trying to kill the fat guy.”

Winters stood by the cash register, next to Matthew, who was clutching Winters’ beige blazer around his shoulders. The police asked each of them a few questions, then released them. Winters left the store and returned to the bench outside. After relaying information back and forth over their radios, the police finally let me go.

“Thank you,” Winters said, standing up as I left the store.

“Don't thank me,” I said. “Just give me what that asshole was ready to kill you over.”

“Of course,” he said, reaching inside his floral-print shirt and pulling out what appeared to be a shoelace tied around his neck with a small toy car tied onto it.

He handed me the whole thing. The toy car was a thumb drive, which I pulled off of the shoelace and put in my pocket.

“Ordinarily, I would try to think of some words of wisdom to tell you,” I said. “Shit, even a good pun would work right now, but I'm trying to wrap this shit up and get home in time for the Cardinals to whoop Cincinnati’s ass. So, how about, you just quit trying to break the damn law, OK?”

Without waiting for a response, I headed for the parking lot to get into my truck. As soon as I was in the parking lot, my phone rang, showing Alicia's number.

“Yeah,” I said.

“So, we came up empty,” she said. “No paper trail points to anyone who might have a use for the information he stole.”

“Ascendant,” I said. “Ascendant Scientific Research. They sent the hitman. He's in custody; I have the thumb drive. Just tell me where to take it. Kickoff’s in two hours.”

“Did Winters tell you that?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “The hitman did. You'd be surprised what a man will tell you when you have a wooden stake an inch from his genetic future.”

“I'll keep that in mind, in case I ever need any information out of you,” she said. “You're meeting the guy from Proximal at the In N’ Out in Deer Valley. Order three Double Doubles, Protein-Style, to-go, under the name ‘Galahad.’ Their guy will be waiting.”

“You just love to fuck with me, don't you?” I said. “Do you know how much three Double Doubles cost?”

“You'll get reimbursed,” she said, sighing.

“Protein-Style,” I scoffed, getting in my truck and starting the engine. “What kind of hippie bullshit is that, anyway?”

First Chapters: "The Erie Incident"

The Erie Incident

A POG Novel

By Tim Williams

Chapter 1

         The morning clouds had mostly cleared as we swung our rucksacks onto our backs from the bed of my truck, parked on the edge of the Greasy Spoon trail. I had come down to Sedona with Nicola, a friend of mine who was a geology professor at Northern Arizona University. We were celebrating her thirty-fifth birthday, which had come the previous week. The goal was to get ourselves as far away from other people as possible, and thus far we had done a good job of it. Nicola wanted to study rock formations that had seen as little human contact as possible. I, on the other hand, was just along for the ride.

It was a few minutes before eleven in the morning, and the temperature was starting to climb. The forecast was for sunny skies and a high around ninety. I didn't mind the heat in Arizona, because it was dry. The air felt light, and the breeze was cool against my face. I had recently spent a couple of weeks in Eastern North Carolina, where the humidity made the air feel like I was breathing through a wet towel.

"How many miles can I get out of you today, love?" Nicola asked as she buckled her waist strap.  I had to remind myself that she calls everyone she knows 'love.'

"How many can you handle?" I asked.

"Well, aren’t you precious, then?" she mused, taking the last sip of water from the bottle in her hand and tossing it into the bed of the truck. "Don't be having a cardiac episode on me, pretty boy."

Talking trash was in her nature. I had met Nicola a month and a half earlier, standing behind her in line at the bank. We hit it off, but there was no time for a relationship. We were both drifters. She would take off for a couple weeks at a time and come back with pictures and stories from her travels. I did plenty of my own traveling, when the mood hit me.

She had been born in England and raised in New Zealand. Her mother was from Bangladesh and her father was Irish. They were fairly affluent people, but she had insisted on paying for her own school and travel. Nicola had the dark hair and skin from her mother's side of the family; her Irish blood mainly showed through her temper, other than her crystal blue eyes.

Aside from the college, she volunteered at an animal rescue organization, as well as taking the occasional modeling gig. It was rare that she had a full day with no prior commitments, so I was prepared to squeeze as much into the day as I could.

We hiked up a scrubby hillside to the top of a ridge, where we could see the evidence of past geologic activity, according to Nicola. She was taking pictures and videos, giving me an impromptu lecture on tectonics and erosion, how to tell whether it was wind or water that shaped a particular rock formation, and so on.

I understood most of what she was saying, but I wasn't one to geek out on that sort of thing. History and mechanical engineering were more my style. I liked to solve problems, rather than simply answer questions. I was mostly enjoying her company and trying to take advantage of the day.

Probably the biggest point of friction between us was that she had made academics her life, and I had never attended even a day of school beyond getting my high school diploma. I had been to a couple of trade schools and taken certification courses, but my G.I. Bill sat unused, mostly because I didn't feel like dealing with the government to use it. I thought the importance society put on a college degree undermined the usefulness of having one. Too many people were going into serious debt to get a degree that didn't make them any more valuable to an employer than they were before.

Other than the academic disagreement, we got along great. We had both spent time in Japan, although she was in Tokyo and I was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. I was nineteen when I went, and she was almost thirty. We both listened to classic rock and a little bit of country, although her little bit of country was different from mine. We had similar taste in vehicles. I drove a decade-old four-wheel drive Nissan, and she had an even older Toyota Land Cruiser. I'd driven it a few times, and it was a beast. My truck had a slight edge in fuel economy, though, so we had driven it to Sedona.

I paused at the top of a rise to let her catch up with me. Sweat was beading on her forehead and she was rubbing a cramp in her side as she reached the top of the rise.

"How many miles can I get out of you today, love?" I asked her with a crooked grin.

"Oh, fuck off, John," she said. "I'm fine. I've just spent too much of the summer break drinking wine and streaming chick flicks. And how the hell are you wearing blue jeans and doing this?"

I took a drink from my water bottle. I could tell that I was already beginning to get dehydrated, but I had brought enough water for the day. I just needed to get better about actually drinking it.

"My jeans are protecting my legs from the scratches you're collecting," I said, pointing to the red scratch marks she had above her boots. "Besides, wearing my boots with shorts would make me look like one of those emo kids in your classes with the long bangs and the eyeliner."

"Well, I suppose I'll be seeing them again soon enough," she said, grabbing my water bottle and taking a drink. “Fall semester is right around the corner, after all.”

"You did bring your own water, didn't you?" I asked.

"Of course I did," she said, handing it back to me. "I've gone hiking before. But it was just easier to steal yours than to dig for mine. Now, come along, pokey."

She set off along the top of the rise a little way before she turned and headed northwest. I followed a few steps behind her, wondering how it was that no man had put a ring on her finger yet. It occurred to me that maybe she just didn't want to be tied down like that, any more than I did.

We came over the top of another rise and looked down into the valley below us. I could just barely see Greasy Spoon Tank in the distance. We could have taken the truck a lot closer, but Nicola said it was more about the journey than the destination. The tanks in the desert were reservoirs dug by ranchers over a hundred years ago to collect drinking water for their cattle. Why that would ever be a point of interest was beyond me.

As we descended into the valley, I was looking ahead, trying to find the best line to get us there. I didn't realize Nicola had stopped until I nearly ran into her. She was frozen in place, staring straight ahead. I matched her posture to see what had caught her eye.

About twenty yards in front of us, I could see a large, tan, furry body with paws the size of my hands. It was a mountain lion, stretched out in the sun. I knew they were around, but I had never been that close to one. I had heard plenty of stories about how lethal these big cats could be, but I was awestruck by just how beautiful this one was. She was stretched out on her back, with her front legs drawn up, occasionally pawing at the air. I couldn't help but think she looked just like a giant housecat. She suddenly sensed our presence and snapped over into a crouching position. When she saw us, her ears flattened out to the sides of her head as she crouched down and snarled at us.

"Oh, fuck," Nicola said, barely above a whisper.

On the wilderness survival shows on TV, they say to open your coat and yell a lot to appear as big and threatening as possible to scare a mountain lion away. The problem with that was, it was assuming I had a coat. In late July in the Arizona desert, I did not.

"Oh, hi, kee-cat," I said, as non threateningly as possible. "You're fine, go back to sleep, we're not gonna bother you."

"'Kee-cat?'" Nicola said. "John, that's a fucking cougar!"

"You got a lot of room to talk," I said, trying to lighten the mood. "Thirty-five year-old single lady."

"Oh, eat my box," she said. "Just tell me how we're going to get out of this."

I had never heard her say anything so openly vulgar before. She was usually better at passive aggressive backhanded compliments.

The big cat snarled and hissed, moving forward ever so slightly.

"Get behind me," I told Nicola, putting my right arm in front of her.

She stepped left, moving directly behind me. The mountain lion continued to snarl, moving the remains of what appeared to have once been a javelina behind her and swiping the air with her paw.

"Open the middle pouch on my pack and get my gun out," I said.

I felt her tugging at the buckle and I stuck my left hand back for her to hand me the gun. I had brought my .45 caliber Model 1911 handgun along in case we encountered a rattlesnake or a pissed-off javelina. It would provide plenty of stopping power.

"Now get out of here," I said, once I felt the familiar weight of the gun in my hand. "And watch your damn step. Retrace our path back to the truck and wait for me. If I'm not there twenty minutes after you get there, go find help."

"You're not going to kill her, are you?" she asked me.

"Not unless she makes me," I said, not taking my eyes off of the mountain lion. "I'm gonna hold her attention until you're safe, then I'm gonna back away slowly. Now hurry up and go."

I listened as Nicola's footsteps faded away. The big cat paced back and forth in front of one particular area, which I finally realized was a den. She was protecting cubs. I suddenly liked my odds a little less.

I shifted the gun to my right hand, cocked the hammer, and glanced around for a big rock to lean against. My pack was starting to feel heavy. I found a suitable rock about six feet to my right and slowly moved over in front of it. The mountain lion watched my every move, snarling and grunting, pacing in front of her den.

I leaned back against the rock and bent forward at the waist to center the weight of my pack over my feet.

"Are you a good kee-mom?" I asked in a singsong voice, similar to what my friend Jason used when he was talking to his two cats. "You love your babies?"

She stopped snarling and her grunting became less pronounced. She kept pacing, but her circles grew wider and she would lift her nose and sniff as she passed the point closest to me.

After a few passes, she put her ears back upright, although she would lay them back to occasionally hiss at me again.

"Oh, good kee-cat," I would say every time she got closer. "Good kee-cat."

She got bold, sauntering right up to me and sniffing my legs from my boots to my knees. She turned around and walked back over to the den, then came back toward me. Rearing up on her hind legs and using her tail for balance, she sniffed the air three feet from my face. I was doing everything I could to control my adrenaline. She lost her balance and caught herself by putting her paw out and bracing against my leg. Her claws stuck in the denim of my jeans, pulling loops of thread out as she pulled her paw back. I tried not to tremble as she continued to sniff me over. I mimicked the sniffing action, trying to convey that I was as curious about her as she was about me. Her face was so close to mine that I could see her pupils dilate as she shifted her gaze around.

With a final huff, she pushed off from my leg and returned to the entrance to her den and sat down, still watching me. I started slowly making my way to the trail and out of the clearing. With each step I took, my breathing began to return to normal.

I had taken a gunshot wound to the back of my shoulder two months earlier, and I hadn't been as scared for my life as I had been just then. As I walked further away from the mountain lion's den, a euphoric feeling came over me, like I was glad to be alive. I picked up my pace and caught up with Nicola still half a mile away from the truck. She was muttering something to herself as she walked.

"Hey," I said. "Wait up."

"Oh, hi, psychopath," she said. "Do you feel better now, big bad lion tamer?"

"I saved your life," I said. "She was protecting cubs. We're lucky to be alive."

"I could have just dropped my pack and ran," she said. "She would have killed you. So, in fact, I saved you."

She poked me in the chest with her finger.

I thought about it, and she had a good point. I tried not to smile, in case she really was upset with me, but it was no use. I cracked up and she punched me on the left arm.

"What is the matter with you, John?" she asked. "Doesn't your life matter to you? You voluntarily stayed back there, in the face of a horrible death, to make sure I got out? What makes my life worth any more than yours?"

"Would you rather I had flipped a fucking coin?" I asked. "I had a gun, and way less exposed flesh than you. It wasn't because you're a woman, or that I don't care whether I live or die. I made a decision."

"Well, you don't have to be such a knight in shining fucking armor," she said, giving up and putting her arms around my waist and resting her head on my chest.

Her pack was in the way of me putting my arms around her shoulders, so not knowing what else to do, I rested my hands on her head and neck. She took a deep breath and blew it out.

"OK, well, it's a little warm out for all of this, then," she said as she pushed away from me. "What do you suppose happened to that cactus over there?"

I looked in the direction she was pointing. A prickly pear cactus was green and lively on one side, while the other side was almost black and mostly lying on the ground. We walked over to it. There were no signs of the ground being disturbed around it. After a closer look, I found what looked like a scorch mark on the green side.

"Lightning strike, from the look of it," I said, pointing out the scorched spot.

"Tragic, yet beautiful," Nicola said. "Will you take my picture next to it? I want it for my portfolio."

"I'm not really a good photographer," I said, dropping my pack. "But I can give it a shot."

"For fucksake, John, you find your target in the viewfinder and push the damn button," she said, wriggling out of her pack and digging her camera out.

She handed me the camera and guided me into a position she said provided the proper light and depth. I went along with whatever she told me. She walked back over by the cactus and stretched her arms out above her head.

"Now, whenever I hold a pose, you take a picture, got it?" she said.

"OK," I said, pushing the shutter button.

She moved around the cactus, striking different poses. Most of them looked like they were either ballet or yoga poses, but that was based on my knowledge of both subjects, which was nearly nonexistent.

She pulled her hair out of the bun it had been in and let it fall. I never knew it was so long, nearly waist-length. She proceeded to repeat most of the poses with her hair down. Like she had instructed me, I clicked another photo each time she stopped moving.

She turned her back to me and pulled her shirt off, followed by her bra. She turned to me and posed twice, then divided her hair into each hand and pulled it down the center of her chest. I didn't realize I was staring so hard.

"Take the damn picture, John," she said. "I don't want some random arsehole to come by and see me out here topless."

"Shit, a month ago I was a random arsehole," I said, clicking away.

She picked up her cast-off clothing and walked toward me. I didn't know if I should still be taking pictures or not, but I snapped a few off just to be safe. She got directly in front of me and took the camera out of my hand. Holding the camera in one hand and her shirt and bra in the other, she threw her arms around my neck and looked up at me.

"Well, now, you're a very particular arsehole," she said, pulling my face down to her level and kissing my lips. "As in, mine."

She dropped her clothes and camera to the sand at our feet. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her as she ran her fingers through my hair, then down my back, then around to my belt buckle.

"Wait," I said, taking hold of her by the shoulders. "Really? Here? Now?"

"What would you prefer?" she asked, giving me a doe-eyed look as she trailed her fingers up and down my chest and arms.

"Make me work for it," I said, touching her face. "Give me a chance to earn this, to deserve you."

"Honestly, John, you just saved me from a fucking puma," she said. "The bloke I lost my virginity to paid for dinner and let me wear his jacket, when it wasn't even cold outside."

She picked up her shirt and pulled it back on, then picked up her bra and handed it to me.

"Hold onto this until you feel like you've 'earned this,' like you 'deserve me,'" she said, swinging her pack back onto her shoulders and walking away, toward the truck.

I picked up my pack and followed her, unlocking the truck as she dumped her pack over the tailgate. She got inside as I was placing my pack beside hers. After I climbed behind the wheel and put my seatbelt on, I started the engine to get the air conditioner going. She finally looked back at me.

"What?" she asked, sounding irritated.

"Listen to me," I said. "I don't know if your personal success came so easily to you that you take it for granted or what, but you're an amazing woman. Hearing you talk about the places you've been, or, hell, even the passion you put into your geology lectures, I feel way out of my league when I'm with you. Like everything I've ever done in my life has only afforded me the opportunity to be around you. When you strip off and throw yourself at me, I don't feel like I've done anything to deserve that yet. I feel like I'm taking advantage of you. You should never let anyone, especially me, take advantage of you."

"You need to take me down off of this pedestal, John," she said, her eyes getting misty. "I'm scared of heights. If you really knew me, you wouldn't hold me in such high regard. Do you know I was a stripper in Australia for a year? I'm not proud of my past. I can do good things now, but we all have skeletons in our closets."

"I know," I said, looking straight ahead. "I had to kill a guy two months ago in North Carolina. I put the barrel of my shotgun a foot away from his face and pulled the trigger."

"Oh, my God," she said, reaching out and taking my hand in both of hers. "Why?"

"His boss had kidnapped my best friend's girlfriend," I said. "He was guarding the door, him and another guy. Jason shot them both from about two hundred yards out. The other guy was dead before I got there, but this guy was still breathing and trying to get his gun out."

"What about the boss?" she asked me.

"Took two fingers off of his right hand with a shotgun blast through a steel-reinforced door," I said. "But I let him live, on the condition that he took the bodies with him when the helicopter came to pick him up."

"And this never made the news?" she said, skeptically.

"Not a word of it," I said. "Everything was covered up. Jason had called 9-1-1 and the cops never showed up."

"Well, I don't know what universe you live in where you think you can tell me how you and your friend took on the mob, two-on-three, and beat them, and it will dampen my desire to shag your brains out," she said, pulling my hand into her lap.

I smiled and handed her bra back to her.

"You're gonna want this," I said. "It's a fairly rough ride."

"I'll show you a rough ride," she said.