* * * * *
I looked at the two majorettes. Then, I looked at the Sansei army officer standing between them.*
"Konichiwa. Captain Reggie Saito, I presume?"
"Forget it, Mr. Northfield," Alana replied: "He answers only to us. And, soon, so will you!"
"Please sit down and assume the yoga lotus position," added Emma (the blonde): "Then, very slowly and visibly, click the empty halves of those handcuffs around the diagonally opposite ankle."
"Why? So you can shrink me down like these two?"
I pointed down at Agents Erhart and Ebersol, who were still gazing upward in shock.
"This is the parking garage of the Federal Building," I continued: "And there is no doubt a small army of internal security personnel on their way here after catching your little act on television."
These girls merely grinned at each other.
"Nice try," said Alana: "But, we control those cameras the same way we control Captain Saito. So, we're definitely not going to be interrupted! Now, do as Emma said and..."
"BANZAIIIIIIII!"
The entire trio turned as one at that yell. As they did so, I dove to my left and somersaulted into a standing position near the right-hand rearview mirror of a Ford Taurus. I yanked that mirror free, then spun back around to see Captain Saito flat on his back, unconscious. While, at the same time, my would-be female captors were hunched over, trying to protect their heads from a massively ricocheting Superball!
"Alana!" screamed Emma, pointing at me.
The former, spotting me, did as I'd anticipated. She aimed her baton in my direction, and a white beam of light shot outward, straight at me. A beam of light I used the mirror to reflect...
...right back in Emma's direction.
Alana screamed her friend's name in shocked anger. Thereby distracting her attention from the tossing of a ninja "flash-bang." Which, in turn, left her vulnerable to a shuto strike, to the back of her neck, by a ninja-clad figure!
"Don't just stand there, like a buck in the headlights," the latter snapped. Let's get going!"
Whereupon, a custom-restored 1991 Jeep Wagoneer came barreling into view from an upper parking level. I ran towards it, even as my ninja-clad rescuer stooped to pick up one of the discarded batons in his right hand. While simultaneously throwing the unconscious captain over his left shoulder in a fireman's carry!
The two of them went into the back seat at the same time I claimed the shotgun seat. Our driver then gunned the Jeep towards the nearest exit. He and my rescuer doffing their ninja hoods as they did so.
It turned out to be my cousin and his African-American business partner.
"Sam? Cornell?? What the frig...?!"
"Actually," replied the latter: " 'Cornell Brown' isn't my real name. I got it from an Ivy League football score I heard on TV! My true name is Titus Armitage. 'Tight Ass' to my friends."
It took me at least twenty seconds to process this revelation.
"Would you mind telling me what the frig is going on? And why a bunch of baton twirlers is involved with the Russian Mob?"
He laughed--very bitterly--as he spared me a glance.
"The Russian Mob?! You seriously believe they're the ones behind this?"
I ticked off the facts on my left hands's fingers.
"Fact One: the flying saucer your old friends blew up at Cahuenga High--after it started shrinking all manner of people and things--was manufactured by Tanaka Toys. Fact Two: I don't know any Japanese business concern that _doesn't_ give a piece of the action to the Yakuza. Fact Three: I know of, at least, one Yakuza clan that does business with the Russian Mob in Vladivostok. Fact Four: the Russian Mob, as a whole, will do business with anyone (even terrorist groups)! And, Fact Five? They're the only 'private enterprise' outfit I know who could afford to turn a certain biochemical shrinking agent into a gas-powered laser weapon with an aerial delivery system!"
He smirked.
"Fact Six: despite your admittedly impressive brainstorming, you're only scratching at the tip of the iceberg. With an increasingly dull icepick!"
"Then, enlighten me. Now!!!"
He paused for a moment.
"What do you know about...Project: Silenus?"
"Only what Colonel Barker told me. That you were one of five astronaut-candidates. Each of whom got injected with some high-tech 'magic mushroom' juice."
Armitage nodded adding:
"I was recruited for my combat flight record in Nam, plus the flying time I accrued, jockeying spy planes for the Company. The rest consisted of a Gulf War ace named King; a stunt-flying Army Reservist named Fitzpatrick; a hurricane hunter named Stone; and some ex-RCAF bush pilot who now dive-bombs forest fires for Glacier National Park!"
I sat bolt upright at the mention of the name "Stone." But, Armitage ignored it as he kept on talking.
"When I washed out, I returned to my new civilian life, free and clear. Or, so I thought. You see, the cumulative effect of all those injections...made me telepathic. Oh, I can't read everyone's minds! Yet, my telepathy has still grown strong enough, over the years, that I was finally able to discover the real purpose behind Project: Silenus. We'd been told that the injections were intended to decrease our reaction time in certain 'unexpected aerospace situations.' That, however, was just a half-truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
"The one of us who responded most favorably to those injections, at that time, would then have had a computer chip surgically implanted in his brain! So he could psychically interface with the flight computer of a spacecraft!!"
"So, in hindsight, it was a mixed blessing for me that I only proved second best. Because, more recently, my telepathy has allowed me to tune in on an even bigger conspiracy. Those two young ladies who seemed to have Captain Saito on an invisible leash? Well, they've basically been possessed, themselves. By nanotech cyborgs...of extra-terrestrial origin!"
Sam later swore that I was so wide-eyed and open-mouthed, with astonishment, that I looked like a manga art model.
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
CHET NORTHFIELD'S POV
Chapter End Notes:
*Sansei: second-generation Japanese-Americans (usually Baby Boomers).