Part 9 (2/2)
”Here you are, little savage.” Oilcan handed her a dormitory fork, unknowingly echoing Windwolf. ”Try the stuff with the corn, if there's any left.”
”I don't think I have room for more.” Still, Tinker turned to scan the picnic table for the ”stuff with the corn.” ”What about you? I couldn't get through to you.”
Oilcan looked embarra.s.sed. ”I busted my headset on Shutdown. I had taken it off after it started to rain and put it on the seat next to me.”
”We sat on it?” she guessed.
”No!” He laughed. ”That would have been too simple. It fell out onto the ground at the yard sometime, and it got run over. I found it pressed into the mud, but in a thousand little pieces.”
”Oh, c.r.a.p, Oilcan, do you know how hard it is to get those things in Pittsburgh?”
”I know. I know. I knew you would be p.i.s.sed, so I tracked down another one. You'll need to integrate it into my system for me.”
”What? Where'd you find it?”
He glanced to the women still hovering on the edge of their conversation and dropped into Elvish. ”It was probably stolen merchandise. Someone was selling headsets out of the trunk of their car down in the Strip District. The box was beat up, like it had been dropkicked. I do not even know if the thing will work, but I only paid ten dollars for it.”
Tinker pondered the possibility that the headset was part of Maynard's mystery s.h.i.+pment, wondering whether she was obliged to tell the EIA or not.
One of the harem women took advantage of Tinker's silence and pointed out that Tinker's burger needed to be flipped. Having recaptured Oilcan's attention, the women laughed with him as he flipped the burger and pressed it down onto the blackened grill, the dripping grease making flame leap up. Tinker ate and thought.
The Veterans Bridge crossed over the top of the Strip District; a box dropped over the edge of the bridge would land on a rooftop or street. Depending on the packing, the box and contents could survive fairly intact. Oilcan had seen all of the men dressed as EIA guards, so he would have recognized any of them; thus the person who'd sold Oilcan the headset most likely found the box. Telling Maynard would probably result in having the headsets seized and the unlucky finder questioned and possibly jailed.
The important piece of information was that the smugglers had brought a box of headsets to Elfhome. Headsets themselves were useless without some kind of service plan, but once you had air connection they could tie together anything from a home/work/user tri-base to a multiuser network like the police ran to link together their officers.
Tinker heard her name spoken and looked up.
Oilcan had lost one of his harem girls and was finally introducing her to the remaining woman. ”I told you about my cousin, the mad scientist.”
”I am not a mad scientist.”
”Yes, you are. You like to make big machines that make lots of noise, move real fast, or reduce other objects down to little pieces.”
”You're only saying that because you know I can't hit you at the moment.” Tinker considered throwing food instead, and then decided it was a waste of good food.
Oilcan grinned smugly at her as if he had guessed that she would decide against throwing food.
Recognition of Tinker's matching nut-brown coloring and slight frame dawned in the woman's eyes. She put a hand over her mouth to catch a laugh. ”Oh, I'm sorry, I was expecting someone-”
”Older,” Tinker guessed.
”Male.” The woman winced. ”I, of all people, should know better.” She gave an honest smile. Not only was her left ring finger unadorned, there wasn't even a slight band of pale skin-honestly single then. ”Hi, I'm Ryan MacDonald. Glad to meet you.”
”Glad to meet you.” Tinker bobbed a slight bow over her full plate. ”Sorry for b.u.t.ting in earlier, but life has been a little insane for the last few days.”
”Speaking of which,” Oilcan said, ”we really left the yard wide open. I bolted two metal plates over the workshop doorway, locked up, and padlocked the gate as we went out, but we took took the whole security system with us. Someone broke in during Shutdown.” the whole security system with us. Someone broke in during Shutdown.”
”Oh, s.h.i.+t.” Tinker tried not to think of everything scattered haphazardly through the offices. At least her most expensive equipment was in her workshop trailer. ”Were we robbed?”
”No. Whoever it was broke all the way in, and then walked back out without taking anything. They might have been looking for Windwolf.” Was that supposed to make her feel better? ”I went over to Roach's and picked up Bruno and Pete to keep an eye on the place until you get the security system back online.”
Bruno and Pete were two elfhounds, on par in size with the Foo dog wargs, bred for intelligence, courage, and loyalty.
”Oh, that's horrible,” Ryan said. ”They said that Pittsburgh was safe.”
The cousins looked at her and after a moment of silence said in unison, ”If you don't count the man-eating animals, yes.”
Ryan looked startled. ”Are there a lot of those?”
”The elves patrol the woods around here.” Oilcan waved his spatula at the Earth scrub trees slowly being overrun by elfin forest. ”But you shouldn't go into the woods without a weapon.”
Tinker ate a mouthful of the Jell-O salad before adding, ”And if you hear an animal moving around outside, don't leave the building you're in, even during the day. Call nine-one-one, and they'll send someone to make sure it isn't a dangerous animal.”
”Don't leave doors ajar,” Oilcan said. ”Always shut them firmly.”
Tinker considered which of the other common safety practices Ryan should know as she polished off the Jell-O salad. ”Stay out of the swampy areas unless you have a xen.o.biologist with you who can spot the black willows and the other flesh-eating plants.”
”Oh!” Oilcan waved his spatula at Ryan. ”And the rivers aren't safe for swimming. The water is clean enough, but some big river sharks come up the Ohio.”
”River sharks? Flesh-eating plants? You two are teasing me, right?”
”No,” the cousins both said.
”There's a list of safety procedures that they usually hand out,” Tinker said. ”If you didn't get one, it's posted on the dorm's bulletin board. You really should read it; this isn't Earth.”
Ryan glanced about the picnic grove with the red-checkered tablecloths on the picnic tables, the teams of scientists playing volleyball, and a portable stereo playing neon rock music. ”Actually, things don't seem any different.”
”Give it time.” Oilcan cut Tinker's hamburger, peered at the center, and lifted it off the grill. ”Here you go. Medium cooked.”
”Are there buns?”
”Picky, picky, picky.” Oilcan went off in search of a bun for her.
Ryan watched him go with a look that made Tinker view her cousin with a new eye. One had to admit he had mighty fine a.s.sets.
”Can I ask you,” Ryan said hesitantly, her eyes still following Oilcan, ”if your cousin has a girlfriend?”
”Look, you seem nice, but you're not staying. It might seem fun to you, to go to Elfhome and date a cute local, but it's not fair to Oilcan. Thirty days is just long enough to break his heart.”
Ryan turned to consider her. ”You've given this speech before.”
”Every thirty days.”
”Sorry,” Ryan said. ”They said that the elves don't socialize much with humans; I suppose it would seem like the same thing to them-here today and gone tomorrow.”
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