Once on the bike, I followed the railroad tracks to the nearest street, and then headed south, toward home. Using Teague’s TEV, I wanted to timecast my house to see who’d planted the listening devices. I had a hunch the perp picked Boise based on my morning conversation with Vicki. If I could catch his trail, I’d know who my adversary was. I was both disappointed and relieved Teague hadn’t played a part in this, but with him no longer a suspect I had no clue who could have set me up.
I pressed my earlobe and said, “Block all calls.” I hated to miss it if Vicki or Sata tried to contact me, but if they were being monitored, it was too easy for the authorities to triangulate my position once a call connected. Headphone silence was safest.
Once I left the corn farm and entered an industrial stretch of Illinois, lighting became poorer. I knew the cops would be covering the main highways, so I’d have to deal with less-traveled routes, and remain as inconspicuous as possible.
I pulled over and took out my all-vision contact lens from the case on my belt. Though my Tesla account had been closed, the AVCL had a full battery charge that would last for hours. I put the lens in my eye, then closed my lid and tapped it three times to activate the night vision. Closing my left eye, the world was bathed in a soft, green glow. I killed my headlight and motored through backyards, alleys, and side streets. It took me two hours to travel the forty miles to home, and I doubled back a few times to confuse Teague, who I’m sure would be on my trail again once they reattached his nerve endings.
I parked in an alley a block from my house, then did a quick reconnaissance. Two cops were circling the perimeter. I tapped my eyelid once, going to infrared, and saw four more cops inside. Two on the first floor, two on the second. Then I checked my neighbor’s house. The only one home was that dick Chomsky. Sitting in front of his projector, probably watching animal pr0n.
I hefted the TEV to my back using the shoulder strap. Then I put some fresh gecko tape on my hands and knees, snuck around the opposite side of Chomsky’s house, and scaled the wall.
It was difficult, especially since my right arm had been growing considerably weaker since leaving the cornfield. When I reached his green roof I took some amphetamines and some aspirin to improve the blood flow, and spent a minute trying to catch my breath. Then I looked around for Chomsky’s atomizer.
Like most folks, Chomsky grew a lot of hemp. And like most folks, Chomsky often got stoned off his own supply. Smoking weed died out around the same time as smoking tobacco, due to various health risks. Some used a home pilling machine to make their own hash tablets. But the easier, and less expensive, way to get high was with an atomizer. Weed went in one end. Pure THC came out the other. It could be inhaled in a health-conscious, noncarcinogenic way.
I’d seen Chomsky puffing on his atomizer many times. You might have thought it would mellow him out, but you’d be wrong. Even wasted, Chomsky was still a dick.
I found his atomizer next to his lawn chair. It was roughly the size of a miniature dachshund, and in fact was painted to look like one. You put the pot in the dog’s mouth, then sucked on his ass.
Boy, was this guy a dick.
I also found a plastic garbage bag filled with marijuana buds. I sniffed one. White rhino strain. Good shit. I put the atomizer in the bag and slung it over my shoulder. Then I stared over at my roof.
I was tired. Beyond tired. There was no way I could make the jump between our houses. Especially with a Santa Claus sack full of weed. But I wasn’t sure I had the energy to scale my wall, either. I could picture myself halfway up, just hanging there, exhausted, and the cops walking up and seeing me. It would be an inglorious end to my supposed crime wave.
So I settled for jumping, once again. I tapped my eyelid, checking the cops’ position. They’d just reached the front of the house, which gave me about twenty seconds. Then I shoved the top of the bag into my belt, set my jaw, and sprinted for the edge of the roof.
I jumped.
I soared through the air.
And once again, I realized I was going to come up short. Really short.
I didn’t even make the edge of my roof. I missed it by about a foot, slapping into the side of my building, sticking there by my hands and knees as the gecko tape performed as advertised.
Then I felt the garbage bag begin to slip. I peeled a hand off the wall and stretched down to grab it. The act jostled the TEV on my back, and the strap came off. It fell on top of the garbage bag, the strap catching on its circumference.
I lifted it up, my fingers digging into the thin plastic, stretching it, and then breaking through. The bag began to tear, and I was in real danger of losing it, and the TEV. The buds would survive the fall. The TEV likely wouldn’t.