Free Neptune Road Volume IV by Betsy Streeter

076 - First and Mulberry

     
    The display on the metal detector lights up and
begins beeping. The man in the tattered straw hat stops in his
tracks to look down at it.
     
    "Well, Missy, what you got for me there? You find me
some treasure?"
     
    He digs around with his foot, and exposes a bit of
wire. Tugging on it, he finds that the wire is attached to
something underground. He pulls until about three feet of wire come
free, then sets to work to unearth whatever is under there.
     
    "I'll thank you kindly to back off my salvage," a
voice says.
     
    Straw hat squints up into the amplified sunlight.
"Who's this?"
     
    "Never mind who I am," the voice says. It belongs to
a bony fellow with a very long nose. "This here is my land, and my
salvage. You clear off."
     
    "Who says it's your land?" Straw hat straightens up.
He's stocky. He feels like he could snap long nose in two if
necessary.
     
    "The sign, there," long nose says, and points.
     
    There's a street sign jutting out of the dirt a few
yards away. It's bent, probably from a storm or someone trying to
pull it free. One side of the sign reads, "FIRST" and the other
reads, "MULBERRY."
     
    "We are here at the intersection of First and
Mulberry," long nose declares, "and this side here, this is my
territory. From Mulberry over to Olive."
     
    "Really," straw hat says.
     
    "Yep," long nose says.
     
    "Well, then, you won't mind if I continue my scan on
over here," straw hat says, taking a long step to his right.
"Outside your supposed territory, there."
     
    "Fine," long nose says. "Just you keep over there.
That there's fair game."
     
    Straw hat turns and fires up his metal detector
again. "Never heard of anybody having a territory before. Suppose
he peed on it to mark the edges?" he mutters beneath his
breath.
     
    "What was that?" Long nose says.
     
    "Nothing," straw hat says, and moves off.
     
    As evening falls, the sunlight amplifiers cycle down
one by one across the sky, like fluorescent bulbs switching off on
the ceiling of an enormous gymnasium. Shadows lengthen, and the two
men work their way farther and farther apart until it is too dark
to work any more. They take their finds and head home.
     
    Sometime that night, something shears off the street
sign at ground level.

077 - The Tumbleweed

     
    The ball careens off the walls as it makes its way
down the hall at a high rate of speed. Sam waits.
     
    A moment later it returns, launched from a doorway in
the loading bay. Rebecca follows it in.
     
    Sam juggles it a few times and kicks it back to her.
"What do you think the Bird People wanted with your dad?"
     
    "Don't know," Rebecca says, trapping the ball and
passing it across the floor. "Whatever it was, I hope we
interrupted in time."
     
    "He said he was talking to Angelica - but how is that
possible?" Sam launches the ball into the air - right at the open
door in the floor.
     
    "Oh, no..."
     
    Before the ball can exit the Tumbleweed entirely, Dr.
Mangrove emerges and heads the ball back in. "I'll tell you how
that's possible," he says. "I could tell it was her. No idea how
she got into their lab, but there she was."
     
    "I know, dad," Rebecca says, "but that's just a
little... weird. We need to know more. I think we may have some
hacking to do."
     
    "Hack away," Dr. Mangrove says, climbing all the way
into the vessel. "You know I've always encouraged you in your
endeavors, my child." He smiles.
     
    Sam brings the ball down to his feet and boots it
into a doorway, the opening to a hall that leads all the way
forward to the bridge. It zigzags ahead, hitting walls and ceiling
panels, until it bounces out into space and in the direction of
where Feller sits. Without looking up, Feller puts up a foot and
brings the ball to rest under it with one touch.
     
    "Well this is interesting," Feller says. His eyes are
fixed on the display in front of him.
     
    "What?" May asks. She's on his right, still fixing
the Tumbleweed's navigation code. The Bird People