Chapter 5

This was a very quiet night. We blocked one attempted rape by a bunch of teenaged boys who had too much beer and time on their hands. The consensus was that Komodo had frightened them enough to keep that particular gang from bothering girls for a while.

The next day, Babs and I went around to see her father. I called in Genie, and he put up a shield that would protect us from prying eyes while we convinced Capt. O'Rourke that we were real, and we were serious. He asked to be permitted to tell his wife so that she would not be worried about her daughter, but we felt that too many people were beginning to know about us. Capt. O'Rourke agreed to hold off while he watched developments. Once he realized that we were not taking advantage of his daughter, Capt. O'Rourke became a solid supporter of our team.

That night, we had another big drug bust, much bigger than our first experience with Hector Gonzalez. We picked up on this through our police scanner. Basilisk was able to decipher the various police code words, so we quickly knew that a small warehouse was being used as a transshipment point. A large truckload of cocaine was coming to the warehouse and would be split into five smaller lots and sent to regional warehouses.

Cops and DEA agents were everywhere, and it looked like we weren't needed. We had just started to back off when a truck came blasting passed us, with three cop cruisers in pursuit. I was driving, so I pulled over to see what would develop. As should have been expected, the truck driver was a master at evasive driving. He managed to lose two of the cruisers to traffic accidents, but the third one was still on his tail.

Genie was our eye in the sky and kept a close watch on the escaping truck while I drove on a parallel course just over the speed limit. I figured that nobody was going to get a speeding ticket tonight as long as the drug excitement was going on. Actually, I would have driven faster, but there was enough traffic to make it hazardous to push too hard. We wouldn't be hurt if we had a crash, but I couldn't say the same for any civilians around.

Then I had an idea. "Genie, swap Basilisk and me so that she can drive. She is probably better at this, anyway." When that was done, we started gaining on the escaping truck. Dammit, I was going to have to break some male chauvinist habits pretty damn soon! "Genie, I want to try using a motorcycle to chase the truck. I am good with a motorcycle, so I should be able to catch him. Get me a run-of-the-mill street bike on the outside, but souped up in every way possible on the inside. Let's go for motocross suspension, just in case. I'll need a radio for two-way communication and a small size GPS. How quickly can that be ready?"

The next thing I knew, I was sedately riding down the street behind our SUV on as nondescript a motorcycle as you could imagine. Genie had changed my costume to look like the usual wannabe biker outfit, so I shouldn't attract much attention. "Thanks, Genie, this is perfect. Do you know, yet, a good place for me to intercept the truck?"

"You are moving into an area with a lot of canals, so there will be many bridges. Some of them will be arched to clear the boats, and the truck will have to slow down when he gets there. On the other hand, your suspension should handle those bridges with no problem. They will be marked on your GPS display, so you won't be caught by surprise.

"Take a left at six blocks. I'll hack into the traffic lights so that you will always have green lights. Go four blocks after you turn left, then turn right. You should be able to see the truck in your rear view mirror. You should have about a one-block lead on him. After that, it's up to you. Good luck!"

"I'll need several dozen calthrops to puncture his tires."

"You'll have them when you need them. In fact, let me drop them so that only his tires will be punctured. Just tell me when to do it."

"A great idea. I'll let you know when."

We were about half a block from one of the arched bridges when I said, "OK, Genie, do your thing!"

I found out later that Genie had "improved" the design of the calthrop to put a large blade on each spike so that the tire was not just punctured—it was shredded. The driver was masterful! He managed to bring the truck to a stop without flipping it, though it did swerve around to block the road. The cop who was chasing had already started slowing down because of the bridge he was coming to, so he was able to stop with the nose of his car only inches from the disabled truck.

"Chameleon! The truck driver has a gun!"

I swerved around in a hook slide and aimed my motorcycle at the crook. He was just about to shoot me when the cop showed up coming around the end of the truck. This was just enough of a distraction to make him hold up pulling the trigger. I didn't aim squarely at the crook, because the impact at this speed would have killed him, and I hoped to get some information from him. I sideswiped him forcefully enough to send him flying tail over teakettle and losing the gun in the process.

The cop came running up and slapped cuffs on the driver before calling for an ambulance. I stayed around long enough to make sure that the cop had everything under control, then I asked Genie to transport all of us home. I also asked him to dump our figurines, four now, on the front seat of the truck. I let the cop see me in my Chameleon outfit just before I disappeared. I wanted to be sure he knew who had helped him. I had no particular reason, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I later heard that the cop was still standing there in shock when the EMTs showed up. They had to help the cop as well as the crook.

Back home, I called everybody together to reprise the adventure. There were several points I wanted to make. The first one was that Basilisk was now our designated driver. She was obviously the best choice for the job, and she agreed to stick with it.

The second point was that Genie should equip each one of us with a GPS tracker that would pinpoint our exact location at all times. For safety's sake, I wanted them to operate at all times and to report each person's position to the SUV and to the office at home.

The last point I had was to ask Genie if he could come up with a non-lethal missile weapon that we could use like a gun. He asked if I would settle for a ray gun, and I agreed. Right away, there appeared on the kitchen table a gun that looked somewhat like the phaser from the early Star Trek TV shows. Basically, it was a device that was shaped somewhat like an automatic pistol, but in the size range of the guns designed in .22 and .25 caliber for a lady's purse. It was made of a black plastic but had a shiny metal ring around where one would expect the muzzle to be.

It didn't look like much, but Genie guaranteed that it would stop in his tracks any human as large as Komodo looked to be. He invited us into the backyard to test it out. Genie erected one of his special privacy fences so that no one would be able to see what we were doing. Genie insisted that the ray gun was harmless, but would stop anything short of an elephant at a range of 30 yards. Actually, its range was more than that, but it would be difficult to manage any accuracy beyond that distance.

He transported in a live steer from a slaughter house and told me to shoot it. It was certainly big enough to prove the point, so I aimed at it like they did in the cowboy movies. Shit, I missed! I tried two more times with no better luck. The girls were laughing at me, so I handed the gun to Babs and asked her to try her luck.

She took aim at the beast, using both hands to steady the ray gun. A white beam shot from the muzzle and hit the beast in the side, dead center. The animal got a startled look on its face and simply fell over onto its side. OK, I admit that I needed to learn to shoot, but so did Mom. Also, I admitted that the ray gun was exactly what I had been looking for.

Zingo! Genie produced three pistols, each one sized to be a prefect fit in the owner's hand. The prototype had been too small for my hand, and changing to a proper sized grip significantly improved my aim. Nevertheless, I was still going to need some marksmanship practice. Mom was even worse than me at shooting, but Babs was the perfect instructor. We decided to shut down for the night, but to start practicing in earnest the next morning.