Free Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar by Victor Appleton II

SwiftStorm in a clearing among the trees about fifty yards from the small rough-hewn house that was the only sign of human habitation in the area.
    As they climbed down to the ground, Bud said: "Let’s just hope this guy― "
    A shot cracked out, splintering a bough on a nearby tree!
    "—isn’t the type to take a shot at unannounced drop-ins!" he finished wryly.
     
CHAPTER 9
HERMIT INVENTOR
    THE TWO youths stood with hands in the air as the echoes of the shot died away. A crunch of leaves underfoot turned their attention to a man making his way toward them with a determined stride and a rifle.
    The man was quite a concoction of humanity. He appeared to be about forty years old, with dirty blond hair straggling down to his narrow shoulders from a bald spot at the top of his head. His pointed chin bore a blond goatee of nearly equal length, making it more a facial ponytail than a goatee. He was dressed in old worn jeans and a stained and dingy blue-striped T-shirt.
    Two pale, bloodshot eyes blazed in the direction of Tom and Bud.
    "Dr. Freegler? I’m Tom Swift," said the young inventor, cautiously lowering his hands.
    "Yeah?" The man looked Tom up and down. "Guess you are at that."
    "Mighty hostile way to greet a fellow scientist!" snorted Bud.
    "You’re on my land. Didn’t invite you here. Besides, I wasn’t aiming at you boys—saw a squirrel in the tree."
    Tom glanced around. "Looks like you missed it."
    "I’m a lousy shot. Now let’s get everything out on the table, hmm? You here from him? "
    "Him?" repeated Tom. Then he made a guess. "Do you mean Milt Isosceles?"
    "Shoulda known," responded Freegler with a sour nod. "Figured he’d track me down."
    "I’m not representing anyone but myself," said Tom coolly. "By the way, this is my friend Bud Barclay."
    "I know. In news photos he’s the one always standing next to― "
    " Now that we all know each other," interjected Bud forcefully, "do you suppose we could sit down and talk?"
    The man shrugged. "Now why would I want to talk to either of you? I happen to like my privacy, boys—I cherish it. Whatever you want to talk about, I’m pretty sure it’s something I’ve left behind, out there in the world. Now you just climb back on that cycloplane of yours and forget me."
    Tom responded with brusque anger at the man’s hostility. "The fact is, Dr. Freegler, it seems Mr. Isosceles has been trying to get in touch with me—or plans to do so. If he’s some sort of threat to you, it might be in your interest to find out why I’m here."
    "I take it you’re used to having things your own way." Yet Freegler seemed impressed by Tom’s reasoning. "Okay. Come with me."
    He led Tom and Bud across a dilapidated wooden porch into his home, a shack-like structure of warped unpainted planks and boarded-up windows. But stepping through the doorway, they stopped in amazement. The interior—disorderly though it was—had the general appearance of a modern research laboratory!
    "I live off the grid, boys, to keep our paranoid, busybody world at arm’s-length," Freegler explained. "But the work continues."
    He motioned the Shoptonians into chairs, and pulled up a lab stool to face them. "What sort of work are you engaged in, sir?" Tom asked, hoping he would not seem to be prying. "Are you still engaged in work on neutron decomposition under relativistic time dilation?" Bud’s eyes widened humorously at his chum’s ten-dollar words.
    Rosso Freegler made a gesture of contempt. "That’s not important. My old life is not important. I won’t let the devil and his minions drag me back into it."
    "I take it you mean Mr. Isosceles."
    "I’ve identified him, Tom. He’s the Consuming Fire."
    Tom wondered if he had heard right. "Excuse me?"
    "Look around you!" commanded the researcher, indicating the mounds of notes thrust here and there all over the room. "Like Isaac Newton, I have entered upon a quest for the transcendent. Even when I worked at Imperative Motorskill, I had begun my