"The Flying Fool"
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dochermes"The Flying Fool"
8/1/2018
I.
Sheng Mo-Yuan emerged from his beloved silver-grey Ferrari 458 Italia as Wilfred Crosby lumbered up to meet him.
"Nice little car, yes indeed," said the remarkably obese man, moving around it for a survey. "Yes. But I have to say you are not taking as good care of the girl as you might. Look at that scratch on the fender. Oh dear, what IS that debris on the passenger seat, not the remains of a pizza slice wrapped in a napkin? I'm legitimately stricken."
Smiling, Sheng straightened his tie and tugged his dark brown suit jacket down. Still a young man barely past thirty, Sheng stood only five feet five but was so obviously fit and athletic that he made an imposing figure. Most people took his for Chinese, Northern Chinese most likely, but his beaked nose and sharp cheekbones belied that. In fact, Sheng was the only inhabitant of the adjacent realm Chujir currently in the real world.
"It's a work vehicle, not a collectible, I have to admit," he said. "So. Mr Crosby, you told me that one of your antique cars was mysteriously stolen? A Bentley?"
"This way, please. Yes, normally I keep my collection in the storage building but I like to, well, air them out one by one on nice days." Crosby took Sheng's arm and walked him across the vast paved parking area of his estate. The nearby Adirondacks rose up around them in full autumn blazes of red and gold. The mansion itself was a four-story palace of redwood and marble, with a walkway around the top floor and a deck extending out from it with a large telescope mounted for viewing the scenery. Sheng took it all in with reaction. He had had quite a wealthy clients.
Glancing back at the head-high stone wall around the estate and the metal gates that had swung open to admit him, Sheng shook his head. "It's difficult to see how anyone could have stolen one of your cars without being seen. There's only the one gate, I assume?"
"Yes," replied Crosby, already short of breath as they reached the gleaming vintage vehicle that stood by itself. "And the security cameras show nothing. It's baffling. The police have been of no help. Then someone mentioned your Argent Agency. The Fist For Hire service. You have something of a reputation."
"Thank you," Sheng said.
"Today, I'm letting my 1957 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost breathe. Last previous owner did some restoration that I didn't care for. There she is."
"You mean, there she goes!" yelled Sheng as he burst into a full sprint and leaped up to barely grasp the undercarriage of the car which was somehow rising straight up into the air. As he got a grip, Sheng shifted the gralic focus in his body for enhanced strength. His hands locked around the rear bar beneath the car so solidly that another man with pliers could not have unbent them. He could hang underneath by his hands for an hour without difficulty as long as his strength was augmented. He had in fact done so more than once.
It was only then that the situation fully sank in. What was drawing the car up into the air? As far as he could tell, nothing. It was surreal. Sheng looked down and saw miles of forested wilderness gliding by hundreds of feet below him.
He searched his mind for anyone in the Midnight War who could be doing this, but there had only been one warlock who commanded magnetism, Esteban Diego, and he had been dead for more than a decade. Some of the Taurians had limited control over electromagnetism, enough to short out motors or draw small objects toward them, but he had never heard of one with powers this strong.
Well, Sheng thought wryly, at least I'm making progress on this case. He let his body dangle, legs swinging in the wind as the Rolls Royce flew over the forest. He had acted without thinking and now all he could do was to hang on and see what happened next. His Argent ability enabled him to channel gralic force into his body to produce extra strength or speed or durability... but he could only create one effect at a time. He could if necessary become resilient enough that handgun bullets ricocheted off him and baseball bats broke over his head without causing him distressed. But he was not literally invulnerable. If he fell from this height, he was sure it would be fatal. The flexible Trom-devised armor he wore under his clothes was good but it wasn't miraculous. Even between the armor and his resilience, he couldn't expect to survive a fall like that.
Fifteen minutes crawled by. Sheng was considering if he should climb back further on Rolls and try to get up on the rear of the car, maybe up on the roof. But then he saw they were approaching a winding two-lane road and starting to descend. There was nothing but trees and bushes on either side of that road for miles. Yes, the car was definitely landing. He still could not hear anything but the rush of air past him.
When Crosby had called him the day before about the disappearance of the first car, Sheng had entertained the idea of some cargo helicopter hauling the vehicle up on cables. But those craft made a horrendous racket and neither Crosby nor his servants had heard anything. It was still a complete mystery to him what was going on. Now the Rolls Royce was descending slower and slower. Not wanting to be crushed under the car when it touched down, Sheng released his grip at thirty feet and dropped into a thick cluster of bushes by the side of the road. He had shifted his gralic force to increased durability. The impact was only a dull thud as he sank through the foliage and got his footing.
Cautiously, he stuck his head out from the side of the bushes, down near the ground. The Silver Ghost was parked on the road, as solid and mundane as if it had not just flown miles through the air in defiance of all laws of both physics and common sense. Hopping down lightly from its roof was a thin man in a sky-blue jumpsuit.
II.
Sheng did not recognize the man at all. The snug cotton jumpsuit had a leather belt with several deep pouches hanging from it. Black leather gloves and a black crash helmet with a clear visor completed the unusual outfit. As Sheng watched, the man unfastened a metal disc six inches across from the top of the Rolls and stowed it in one of the pouches. The man turned to look up and down the road, revealing that he had an identical disc strapped between his shoulder blades. Getting a better look, Sheng saw the man had cuffs from wrist to elbow that had control panels on them with dials and buttons.
Now Sheng understood. Those were Trom gravity shields. He had worked with Megan Salenger for more than a decade and had seen her fly using one of those devices. But as far as he knew, only the Trom were permitted to use the gravity shields. It was technology they thought Humans were not ready to deal with yet. Could this be a Trom? Why would one of those emotionless super-geniuses be stealing antique cars...?!
A white panel truck bearing the logo WILLIAMS ROOFING AND LUMBER came around a curve in the road and pulled over, then backed up to be near the Rolls-Royce. Men in dark work clothes emerged from the rear doors and started putting down a sturdy ramp to meet the road. From the front passenger side, a middle aged man in an expensive tailored suit climbed down, talking on a cell phone. Sheng could not quite hear what the man said but the next exchange between the man and the car thief was louder.
"Check your Barbados account," the businessman type called over. "The boss approved it."
The man in the flight suit had his own phone out and was examining its screen. "Deposit verified and locked. Excellent."
"My employer is pleased with your work. He would like to suggest obtaining a yacht for him, something about thirty feet long and suited for, shall we say, unobtrusive cruising."
The thief laughed out loud. "It happens I was researching a few of those already. Off Long Island. I'll have a list of possibilities in a day or so."
"Very good." The man in the business suit raised a hand but did not extend it for a shake. "We will be expecting to hear from you, sir."
"You're dealing with the Flying Fool," gloated the thief. "Satisfaction guaranteed or no fee accepted."
At this point, the two workers had finished making final adjustments on the ramp and one of them opened the driver's door on the Rolls. At this point, Sheng decided it was time to intervene. He had allowed his gralic charge to fade since maintaining it demanded a certain amount of concentration. Now he shifted back to durability. His bones grew dense as rock, his skin as impervious as flexible steel. He stood up into view and strode quickly onto the road.
"Who is that? What is this, Fool? You bringing some outsider into the deal?"
"I never saw him before," the flying man scoffed. "He's sure not dressed for hiking the mountain trails."
Holding up his leather billfold so they could see his IDs, Sheng announced in his most professional tone, "Everyone stay calm. I am a licensed Private Investigator retained to find this vehicle. This is Grand Theft Auto, as I'm sure..."
His words were cut off by a sharp burst of automatic gunfire from the van. A third man that he had not seen raised an AR-15 and unloaded its full magazine. Twelve slugs drummed across Sheng's chest almost simultaneously. The bullets could not do much more than bruise him in his resilient phase but he was taken off-balance and tumbled back off the road, rolling down the slope deeper into the woods.
"Get that Rolls outta here!" yelled the Flying Fool. As the men started the vehicle up the ramp, the man in the business suit hurried back to get in the passenger seat. The Fool called over, "I'll see who he was before I leave the area. I bet Crosby hired him."
"How did he follow you here?"
"Damned if I know. Search that car for some sort of beacon device before you go too far. Maybe he was tracking a radio signal or something." With that, the man lifted smoothly up off the ground and swooped down the incline after Sheng.
III.
Although he had remained unconscious, Sheng was dazed by the pounding of slugs he had taken, and rolling down a steep hill decorated with rocks and branches hadn't helped. He got up on his hands and knees, head down, forcing himself to take deep breaths. Then something slapped him high up on the back. He glanced up to see the Flying Fool standing nearby.
"Oh, I recognize you now," said the thief. "Yeah, Sheng Mo-Yuan. Sometimes they call you Argent. You used to belong that Kenneth Dred Instititute."
"Foundation. Kenneth Dred Foundation. So you're on the outskirts of the Midnight War?" Sheng managed to get up into a kneeling position. His chest and abdomen ached but his healing factor was kicking in and soon he would recover. The front of his suit jacket and shirt had been shredded by the bullets. Beneath the tatters, a dark grey material gleamed like wet silk.
"Oh, one of those bullet-proof suits you guys wear, huh? Jeez, you're lucky you didn't take a cap in the head, buddy."
Sheng was feeling almost back to normal. He studied the man but saw no signs of a firearm or even a knife. "Wouldn't that make things simpler for you and your friends?"
"Whoa, whoa," the Fool replied with a raised palm for emphasis. "I'm a thief but not a killer. I try to avoid any violence. The worst I ever did was punch a guard in front of a credit union. I'm genuinely glad you weren't killed."
"I'd like to believe you. But you still committed a few felonies that I know of. Those cars were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The man in the blue flightsuit stepped back a few feet, evidently thinking Sheng was getting ready to attack. "Well, that fat crook has gotten so rich through lawsuits for polluters that he can afford to collect and restore dozens of those cars. He never even drives them anywhere, they're just a tax dodge."
"I don't have much sympathy for Wilfred Crosby, that's for sure. He's shady as hell. But no matter what I think of him, those cars are his lawful property and you stole them. Not to mention, you seem to be using Trom technology and I'm sure they didn't willingly lease it to you. More theft?"
Now, the Flying Fool shrugged his shoulders and held up his right arm to rest the fingers of his other hand on the control pad. "There's a story there. My father worked for John Grim. You remember him. Advanced tech decades ahead of what even the military is hoarding. Turns out that Grim somehow was learning Trom secrets. After Dad passed away, i found all his notes and schematics for these gravity shields. Not that I know how they work, but they DO work."
"Oh brother," Sheng said as he got up on one knee. Seeing that the Flying Fool wasn't about to make any threatening moves, he felt bolder. "All I can say is that I wouldn't want the Trom mad at me. They're not what you would call forgiving."
"Hah hah, they have to catch me first. Same as you do." The Flying Fool tapped on his control pad. Sheng felt the ground fall away from beneath him in a disorienting way. He rose twenty feet up in the air and hung there with nothing visible holding him up.
"Hey! No fair," Sheng said. "Let me down."
"Now, listen to me," the Fool said. "I'm not going to harm you. You can dangle there for a while. When I'm safely out of sight, I'll send a signal to lower you back then and then the gravity shield will self-destruct. They're kind of fragile, to be honest."
Sheng sighed heavily. "I appreciate the way you avoid violence. I really do. But I still have to take you in." With a single motion, he yanked the front of his jacket open, popping the two buttons that had been closed, and shrugged out of it to drop to the ground. The instant his feet touched the grass, Sheng vaulted forward and smashed a right cross that caught glancingly on the Fool's cheek and spun him around. The two grappled, with the flying man wriggling to get away. Sheng's follow-up elbow strike was intend to connect to the chest and drive the breath out of the thief but the Flying Fool's struggle had turned him around so that the strike crashed into the gravity shield on his back instead.
White sparks and black smoke escaped from the damaged disc. The Flying Fool shot upward, end over end in a wild spinning gyration. "No! No, what did you do?"
"Turn it off!" Sheng yelled up at him.
"Don't you think I'm try--" But the Fool's voice faded as he rocketed into the air, his velocity increasing as he lifted up out of sight.
Sheng felt a twinge of unexpected dismay. He had not intended any of that to happen. His plan had been to capture the thief, track down whoever was buying the stolen cars and then hand the gravity shields over to Megan so she could return them to her people. But there wasn't anything he could do about it now. He couldn't see any trace of the man. Hopefully, the Fool wouldn't just shoot up into the stratosphere or make a fatal crash landing somewhere in the wilderness. But then, why should he care about a professional thief?
His jacket plopped down to the ground and he went to retrieve it. The gravity shield was blackened and smelled of burned rubber. It seemed to affixed to his jacket with some sort of gooey adhesive and he couldn't get it off. Drat, he thought, tailoring this suit had not been cheap. He tugged it back on, wrinkling his nose at the burn odor. With an effort, Sheng made himself snap back to the situation at hand.
Taking out his Link, he decided what he had to do next. First, call the police and tell them about the van with the stolen Rolls in it. Sheng had automatically memorized the plate number. Then report to Crosby and advise the man to not mention the cars being pulled up magically into the air. Explaining the Midnight War to outsiders was always a disaster. Then, and this deflated him even further, he would have to use GPS to find out where on Earth he was. Hopefully there was a town reasonably close to save him from an all-day trek on foot.
Back up on the road, Sheng turned around and scrutinized the sky. Nothing. He was surprised at himself for feeling sad that a bad guy might have died, and he hoped the Flying Fool had managed to get back down safely. It was the first time he could recall feeling any sympathy for a perp. Maybe he was getting soft.
12/8/2020
8/1/2018
I.
Sheng Mo-Yuan emerged from his beloved silver-grey Ferrari 458 Italia as Wilfred Crosby lumbered up to meet him.
"Nice little car, yes indeed," said the remarkably obese man, moving around it for a survey. "Yes. But I have to say you are not taking as good care of the girl as you might. Look at that scratch on the fender. Oh dear, what IS that debris on the passenger seat, not the remains of a pizza slice wrapped in a napkin? I'm legitimately stricken."
Smiling, Sheng straightened his tie and tugged his dark brown suit jacket down. Still a young man barely past thirty, Sheng stood only five feet five but was so obviously fit and athletic that he made an imposing figure. Most people took his for Chinese, Northern Chinese most likely, but his beaked nose and sharp cheekbones belied that. In fact, Sheng was the only inhabitant of the adjacent realm Chujir currently in the real world.
"It's a work vehicle, not a collectible, I have to admit," he said. "So. Mr Crosby, you told me that one of your antique cars was mysteriously stolen? A Bentley?"
"This way, please. Yes, normally I keep my collection in the storage building but I like to, well, air them out one by one on nice days." Crosby took Sheng's arm and walked him across the vast paved parking area of his estate. The nearby Adirondacks rose up around them in full autumn blazes of red and gold. The mansion itself was a four-story palace of redwood and marble, with a walkway around the top floor and a deck extending out from it with a large telescope mounted for viewing the scenery. Sheng took it all in with reaction. He had had quite a wealthy clients.
Glancing back at the head-high stone wall around the estate and the metal gates that had swung open to admit him, Sheng shook his head. "It's difficult to see how anyone could have stolen one of your cars without being seen. There's only the one gate, I assume?"
"Yes," replied Crosby, already short of breath as they reached the gleaming vintage vehicle that stood by itself. "And the security cameras show nothing. It's baffling. The police have been of no help. Then someone mentioned your Argent Agency. The Fist For Hire service. You have something of a reputation."
"Thank you," Sheng said.
"Today, I'm letting my 1957 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost breathe. Last previous owner did some restoration that I didn't care for. There she is."
"You mean, there she goes!" yelled Sheng as he burst into a full sprint and leaped up to barely grasp the undercarriage of the car which was somehow rising straight up into the air. As he got a grip, Sheng shifted the gralic focus in his body for enhanced strength. His hands locked around the rear bar beneath the car so solidly that another man with pliers could not have unbent them. He could hang underneath by his hands for an hour without difficulty as long as his strength was augmented. He had in fact done so more than once.
It was only then that the situation fully sank in. What was drawing the car up into the air? As far as he could tell, nothing. It was surreal. Sheng looked down and saw miles of forested wilderness gliding by hundreds of feet below him.
He searched his mind for anyone in the Midnight War who could be doing this, but there had only been one warlock who commanded magnetism, Esteban Diego, and he had been dead for more than a decade. Some of the Taurians had limited control over electromagnetism, enough to short out motors or draw small objects toward them, but he had never heard of one with powers this strong.
Well, Sheng thought wryly, at least I'm making progress on this case. He let his body dangle, legs swinging in the wind as the Rolls Royce flew over the forest. He had acted without thinking and now all he could do was to hang on and see what happened next. His Argent ability enabled him to channel gralic force into his body to produce extra strength or speed or durability... but he could only create one effect at a time. He could if necessary become resilient enough that handgun bullets ricocheted off him and baseball bats broke over his head without causing him distressed. But he was not literally invulnerable. If he fell from this height, he was sure it would be fatal. The flexible Trom-devised armor he wore under his clothes was good but it wasn't miraculous. Even between the armor and his resilience, he couldn't expect to survive a fall like that.
Fifteen minutes crawled by. Sheng was considering if he should climb back further on Rolls and try to get up on the rear of the car, maybe up on the roof. But then he saw they were approaching a winding two-lane road and starting to descend. There was nothing but trees and bushes on either side of that road for miles. Yes, the car was definitely landing. He still could not hear anything but the rush of air past him.
When Crosby had called him the day before about the disappearance of the first car, Sheng had entertained the idea of some cargo helicopter hauling the vehicle up on cables. But those craft made a horrendous racket and neither Crosby nor his servants had heard anything. It was still a complete mystery to him what was going on. Now the Rolls Royce was descending slower and slower. Not wanting to be crushed under the car when it touched down, Sheng released his grip at thirty feet and dropped into a thick cluster of bushes by the side of the road. He had shifted his gralic force to increased durability. The impact was only a dull thud as he sank through the foliage and got his footing.
Cautiously, he stuck his head out from the side of the bushes, down near the ground. The Silver Ghost was parked on the road, as solid and mundane as if it had not just flown miles through the air in defiance of all laws of both physics and common sense. Hopping down lightly from its roof was a thin man in a sky-blue jumpsuit.
II.
Sheng did not recognize the man at all. The snug cotton jumpsuit had a leather belt with several deep pouches hanging from it. Black leather gloves and a black crash helmet with a clear visor completed the unusual outfit. As Sheng watched, the man unfastened a metal disc six inches across from the top of the Rolls and stowed it in one of the pouches. The man turned to look up and down the road, revealing that he had an identical disc strapped between his shoulder blades. Getting a better look, Sheng saw the man had cuffs from wrist to elbow that had control panels on them with dials and buttons.
Now Sheng understood. Those were Trom gravity shields. He had worked with Megan Salenger for more than a decade and had seen her fly using one of those devices. But as far as he knew, only the Trom were permitted to use the gravity shields. It was technology they thought Humans were not ready to deal with yet. Could this be a Trom? Why would one of those emotionless super-geniuses be stealing antique cars...?!
A white panel truck bearing the logo WILLIAMS ROOFING AND LUMBER came around a curve in the road and pulled over, then backed up to be near the Rolls-Royce. Men in dark work clothes emerged from the rear doors and started putting down a sturdy ramp to meet the road. From the front passenger side, a middle aged man in an expensive tailored suit climbed down, talking on a cell phone. Sheng could not quite hear what the man said but the next exchange between the man and the car thief was louder.
"Check your Barbados account," the businessman type called over. "The boss approved it."
The man in the flight suit had his own phone out and was examining its screen. "Deposit verified and locked. Excellent."
"My employer is pleased with your work. He would like to suggest obtaining a yacht for him, something about thirty feet long and suited for, shall we say, unobtrusive cruising."
The thief laughed out loud. "It happens I was researching a few of those already. Off Long Island. I'll have a list of possibilities in a day or so."
"Very good." The man in the business suit raised a hand but did not extend it for a shake. "We will be expecting to hear from you, sir."
"You're dealing with the Flying Fool," gloated the thief. "Satisfaction guaranteed or no fee accepted."
At this point, the two workers had finished making final adjustments on the ramp and one of them opened the driver's door on the Rolls. At this point, Sheng decided it was time to intervene. He had allowed his gralic charge to fade since maintaining it demanded a certain amount of concentration. Now he shifted back to durability. His bones grew dense as rock, his skin as impervious as flexible steel. He stood up into view and strode quickly onto the road.
"Who is that? What is this, Fool? You bringing some outsider into the deal?"
"I never saw him before," the flying man scoffed. "He's sure not dressed for hiking the mountain trails."
Holding up his leather billfold so they could see his IDs, Sheng announced in his most professional tone, "Everyone stay calm. I am a licensed Private Investigator retained to find this vehicle. This is Grand Theft Auto, as I'm sure..."
His words were cut off by a sharp burst of automatic gunfire from the van. A third man that he had not seen raised an AR-15 and unloaded its full magazine. Twelve slugs drummed across Sheng's chest almost simultaneously. The bullets could not do much more than bruise him in his resilient phase but he was taken off-balance and tumbled back off the road, rolling down the slope deeper into the woods.
"Get that Rolls outta here!" yelled the Flying Fool. As the men started the vehicle up the ramp, the man in the business suit hurried back to get in the passenger seat. The Fool called over, "I'll see who he was before I leave the area. I bet Crosby hired him."
"How did he follow you here?"
"Damned if I know. Search that car for some sort of beacon device before you go too far. Maybe he was tracking a radio signal or something." With that, the man lifted smoothly up off the ground and swooped down the incline after Sheng.
III.
Although he had remained unconscious, Sheng was dazed by the pounding of slugs he had taken, and rolling down a steep hill decorated with rocks and branches hadn't helped. He got up on his hands and knees, head down, forcing himself to take deep breaths. Then something slapped him high up on the back. He glanced up to see the Flying Fool standing nearby.
"Oh, I recognize you now," said the thief. "Yeah, Sheng Mo-Yuan. Sometimes they call you Argent. You used to belong that Kenneth Dred Instititute."
"Foundation. Kenneth Dred Foundation. So you're on the outskirts of the Midnight War?" Sheng managed to get up into a kneeling position. His chest and abdomen ached but his healing factor was kicking in and soon he would recover. The front of his suit jacket and shirt had been shredded by the bullets. Beneath the tatters, a dark grey material gleamed like wet silk.
"Oh, one of those bullet-proof suits you guys wear, huh? Jeez, you're lucky you didn't take a cap in the head, buddy."
Sheng was feeling almost back to normal. He studied the man but saw no signs of a firearm or even a knife. "Wouldn't that make things simpler for you and your friends?"
"Whoa, whoa," the Fool replied with a raised palm for emphasis. "I'm a thief but not a killer. I try to avoid any violence. The worst I ever did was punch a guard in front of a credit union. I'm genuinely glad you weren't killed."
"I'd like to believe you. But you still committed a few felonies that I know of. Those cars were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The man in the blue flightsuit stepped back a few feet, evidently thinking Sheng was getting ready to attack. "Well, that fat crook has gotten so rich through lawsuits for polluters that he can afford to collect and restore dozens of those cars. He never even drives them anywhere, they're just a tax dodge."
"I don't have much sympathy for Wilfred Crosby, that's for sure. He's shady as hell. But no matter what I think of him, those cars are his lawful property and you stole them. Not to mention, you seem to be using Trom technology and I'm sure they didn't willingly lease it to you. More theft?"
Now, the Flying Fool shrugged his shoulders and held up his right arm to rest the fingers of his other hand on the control pad. "There's a story there. My father worked for John Grim. You remember him. Advanced tech decades ahead of what even the military is hoarding. Turns out that Grim somehow was learning Trom secrets. After Dad passed away, i found all his notes and schematics for these gravity shields. Not that I know how they work, but they DO work."
"Oh brother," Sheng said as he got up on one knee. Seeing that the Flying Fool wasn't about to make any threatening moves, he felt bolder. "All I can say is that I wouldn't want the Trom mad at me. They're not what you would call forgiving."
"Hah hah, they have to catch me first. Same as you do." The Flying Fool tapped on his control pad. Sheng felt the ground fall away from beneath him in a disorienting way. He rose twenty feet up in the air and hung there with nothing visible holding him up.
"Hey! No fair," Sheng said. "Let me down."
"Now, listen to me," the Fool said. "I'm not going to harm you. You can dangle there for a while. When I'm safely out of sight, I'll send a signal to lower you back then and then the gravity shield will self-destruct. They're kind of fragile, to be honest."
Sheng sighed heavily. "I appreciate the way you avoid violence. I really do. But I still have to take you in." With a single motion, he yanked the front of his jacket open, popping the two buttons that had been closed, and shrugged out of it to drop to the ground. The instant his feet touched the grass, Sheng vaulted forward and smashed a right cross that caught glancingly on the Fool's cheek and spun him around. The two grappled, with the flying man wriggling to get away. Sheng's follow-up elbow strike was intend to connect to the chest and drive the breath out of the thief but the Flying Fool's struggle had turned him around so that the strike crashed into the gravity shield on his back instead.
White sparks and black smoke escaped from the damaged disc. The Flying Fool shot upward, end over end in a wild spinning gyration. "No! No, what did you do?"
"Turn it off!" Sheng yelled up at him.
"Don't you think I'm try--" But the Fool's voice faded as he rocketed into the air, his velocity increasing as he lifted up out of sight.
Sheng felt a twinge of unexpected dismay. He had not intended any of that to happen. His plan had been to capture the thief, track down whoever was buying the stolen cars and then hand the gravity shields over to Megan so she could return them to her people. But there wasn't anything he could do about it now. He couldn't see any trace of the man. Hopefully, the Fool wouldn't just shoot up into the stratosphere or make a fatal crash landing somewhere in the wilderness. But then, why should he care about a professional thief?
His jacket plopped down to the ground and he went to retrieve it. The gravity shield was blackened and smelled of burned rubber. It seemed to affixed to his jacket with some sort of gooey adhesive and he couldn't get it off. Drat, he thought, tailoring this suit had not been cheap. He tugged it back on, wrinkling his nose at the burn odor. With an effort, Sheng made himself snap back to the situation at hand.
Taking out his Link, he decided what he had to do next. First, call the police and tell them about the van with the stolen Rolls in it. Sheng had automatically memorized the plate number. Then report to Crosby and advise the man to not mention the cars being pulled up magically into the air. Explaining the Midnight War to outsiders was always a disaster. Then, and this deflated him even further, he would have to use GPS to find out where on Earth he was. Hopefully there was a town reasonably close to save him from an all-day trek on foot.
Back up on the road, Sheng turned around and scrutinized the sky. Nothing. He was surprised at himself for feeling sad that a bad guy might have died, and he hoped the Flying Fool had managed to get back down safely. It was the first time he could recall feeling any sympathy for a perp. Maybe he was getting soft.
12/8/2020
