Artifact Part 35: The Tire Incident

We left Josh wondering if Dawn had been zapped to an alternate universe.

                After an embarrassing situation concerning out-of-this-world equipment his car might have, new friends Tom and Joan put Josh up for the night. Thinking about the report of a strange unexplained anomaly, Josh wondered if Dawn had been zapped to an alternate universe.

           

            Josh slept straight through to a pleasant sunny morning awakened by soft clinks and bumps in the kitchen. Within moments, he smelled an enticing breakfast wafting his way. He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and peered over the couch back to see both Joan and Tom gliding silently around the kitchen as if on ice. On his next pass by the doorway, Tom slammed on his brakes while looking Josh’s way.

            “Morning John. Sleep well out here?”

            “Very soundly, thanks,” Josh grinned. “As advertised.”

            “Good. Tommy called a few minutes back and said he was on his way. Said he’d catch a bite before taking you to the city, if you didn’t mind.”

            “No, no,” Josh said, rolling off the couch. “Like I mentioned last night, I’m not on any kind of schedule anymore so there’s no hurry.” Though in reality, he still had an underlying eagerness to get back on the road.

After using the facilities and washing his face, Josh pulled up the sheets and blankets from the couch and folded them as neatly as he could. Joan peeked around the corner.

“Oh, don’t bother with those, Josh, just leave them in a heap; I’ll take care of them later. Breakfast is just about ready. Are you ready to eat?”

“I can’t help being hungry smelling that good food,” Josh said.

“Well then, come and get it!” Tom announced loudly out of sight.

Josh didn’t want to appear to be overly eager and starving or anything like that so he took his time getting to the kitchen. Joan announced that seeing he was more like family now, they were going informal with a food line. She pointed out the plates and cups, and so Josh served himself taking plenty but trying not to overdo it. They had just sat down when they heard Tommy pull up. He breezed in, helped himself, and sat down as well. 

            “So, Tommy, I thought Sheri might come along on this errand,” Tom said.

            “Ah no. She thought she’d be in the way or may be the odd girl out because we are,” he made air quotes, “doing manly stuff.”

            “I hope she didn’t decide that on my account,” Josh offered. “You know, last night�"”

            “Oh no, ‘course not,” Tommy gestured with his fork while chewing a mouthful. “She had school stuff to do anyway.”

            They chatted on about mundane things like the tire change, the storm the night before, and Tom’s plans to market all the extra garden produce they picked before the storm. After another half cup of coffee all around, Tommy stood up.

            “Well, ready to head on out, John?”

`           “You bet!” Josh said, standing up rather quickly. He paused. “I should give you a hand with the dishes,” he offered.

            “No you don’t,” Joan said, holding him back with palms up. “You need to get your tire and fix your car. You’ve got more important places to go and pressing things to do.”

            “You’re right about that. Thanks for the great breakfast. It’ll keep me going for quite some time�"it was delicious.”

            “Well, you’re very welcome. We’ll see you later,” she said. “Tommy! Watch your driving! Don’t get all immersed in car talk.”

            “Awwww, Ma! I hear ‘ya,” Tommy said. “See ya’ later.”

            Josh said his goodbyes thinking that he’d like to hit the road as soon as he had the tire on the car but thought that would be rude. As they got in the truck, he took note that his tire was still riding in the back along with the jack and tools.

They hit the road.

            Along the way, they chatted about various things boiled down to mostly car talk, but Josh realized he was getting antsy, downright anxious about getting his own wheels back on the road. His thoughts returned to the unexplained, no covered up, anomaly event that could have been Dawn tinkering with his cargo. He had heard the myths about what might happen if a person handled what resided in his cigar box. That of course hinged upon if what that was in the cigar box matched the item of the myths! If they, the stories, had any truth to them whatsoever, who knows what might have happened to Dawn and Josh’s cargo?

A couple cool mil lost besides wherever poor little Dawn ended up alive or otherwise. Josh had a slight tremor in his chest for the bodacious little vagabond. He touched the corner of his eye.   

            “You all right?” Tommy asked breaking Josh’s introspection.

            “Ah, oh yeah I’m okay just thinking about knowing your welcoming family so well and leaving you all behind.” Introspectively, Josh wondered if the loss of the couple mil or the loss of Dawn affected him more.

            Tommy shrugged while steering with both hands. “Well, it doesn’t need to be a permanent thing does it? You could stop by after you’re done with your business on the west coast, eh?” He paused. “So whereabouts you going out there? Ah, not being nosy with specifics but generally: Nevada? Arizona?”

            “You know that narrow strip of California that remains up north after the rest of it sunk into the ocean during the war?” Josh indicated the shape with a thumb and forefinger in a mid-air V. Tommy nodded without looking at Josh. “Well, up there. The guy’s father had a bunch of real estate up there and when it became beach front�"instant billionaire!”  

            “Oh, yeah I heard about that happening. Here we are!” Tommy announced.

            Josh sat there dumbfounded a few moments before speaking while he gazed at the enormous warehouse that covered at least three city blocks. “But this is the Everything Iz Us warehouse. I spoke to an actual tire shop.”

            “You sure did, but as the name says everything comes from EIU, so shops spring up nearby to do installations, applications, and specialty reselling. Cottage businesses so to speak. The tire shop is behind the warehouse somewhere.”

            Josh felt cheesed off. “Cripes, if I had known that, we could have gotten this done yesterday.”

 Josh put it together that if he had his tire yesterday he would’ve had a better chance in tracking down the anomaly’s location, possibly locating Dawn, and maybe, bottom line, steal back his cargo before it�" He took a deep breath and convinced himself not to dwell on what can’t be helped at this late hour�"day.

            “Well,” Tommy said. “Possibly true. It probably takes longer to process the order than just walking across the street, paying, picking the tire up, and then carrying it back.”

            “Yeah. I s’pose.”  

            They pulled in the small, tidy tire shop that looked, from the high end cars around, like it had a high-dollar customer base. Well, his tires weren’t made for a low-speed E-car that can only hit 60KPH downhill with the wind on its tail, so he supposed he sort of fit right in with the other clientele. His car was worth more, at least to him, than any old flashy Lamborghini or tacky classic Ferrari. They pulled in. Josh leapt out and dragged the meaty but flat tire out of the back. He dropped it on the pavement with a flaccid plop and rolled it toward the shop with Tommy tagging along. A well-dressed manager with ‘Don’ embroidered on his shirt met them. He eyed the flat tire with visible disappointment

.           “Can I help you gentlemen?”

            “I called yesterday to replace this tire,” Josh said, tipping the tire over to show the gash in the sidewall. “Whoever I spoke with said they would have the tire on hand and could mount it right up for me this morning.”

            Don eyed the tire. “Well obviously, YOU drove somewhere you weren’t supposed to.” Don said, looking down his nose at Josh. He pulled out a D-Jotter and fingered it. “Well, I don’t know who promised they’d ‘mount it right up’ for you, but we’re pretty busy this AM.”

            Josh and Tommy glanced over at the group of installers who were eating, smoking, or playing grabass with those eating or smoking.

            “Now look here,” Josh said, with a thumb toward the installers. “They don’t look very busy, and I’m in a hurry.” He pulled out a thick fold of cash. Tommy’s eyes grew at the sight. Josh waved the wad at the men horsing around. “It’s not all that big a’ job, so see if you can convince someone to get this tire mounted and we’ll be out of your hair.” Josh then noticed Don didn’t have much hair.  

            Don looked around as he stuck his palm out. Josh pulled out a medium-sized bill and wallpapered Don’s hand. “More if you make this happen�"now.” Josh rolled the tire toward Don, but he stepped away, so the tire rolled the couple feet and flopped over. Obviously, Don wasn’t about to get his hands dirty.        

            “YO Jose! Get your butt over here and switch out this tire.”

            One of the men stopped and looked at Don. “Ahh Don, we’re on break!” Jose walked closer just the same.

            “You guys are always on break,” Don said. “The tire for this guy is in the rack; get it done, and then take a longer break.”

            “All right boss man,” Jose said, making a cheeky face at Don. He tipped up and rolled the tire toward the shop. Josh and Tommy waited outside as Don disappeared.

            Within minutes Jose rolled the replaced wheel and tire out towards them.

            “Hey thanks, Jose,” said Josh. He handed Jose three bills that the man couldn’t believe ended up in his possession. Don suddenly had reappeared to watch the bills go from Jose’s palm and straight to his pocket. Don licked his lips.

            “Thanks mister,” Jose said. “I aired ‘er up to 35 for ya’.”

            “That oughta’ do it, thanks!”

            “Here you go, Don,” Josh said, counting out the exact price of the tire and labor. “Have a nice day!” He started rolling the now bouncy tire away.

            “HEY!” Don yelled. “What’a ‘bout me?”

            “Consider yourself taken care of,” Josh said, over his shoulder. “I’m all out of cash.”

            “Well, that was certainly interesting,” Tommy said with a smirk.

            “Yeah, another shining example of the downfall of civilization.”

            Tommy let out a chuckle. “But really John, I had no idea,” he said pointing to the spanking new shiny black tire that exuded a strong rubber smell, “those are seriously expensive tires.”

            “Sure are. That was one expense I sure wasn’t counting on. Couldn’t have floated the price of two of these suckers.”

They loaded up the tire and headed back out through the heavy traffic surrounding the EIU warehouse.

 ***

            Josh and Tommy headed straight to Josh’s hypercar that was still covered in its IR absorbing camo netting under the grove of oak trees. After a false try of jacking the car up that failed because of the soft dirt, they got it up off the jack stand that had sunk at least three inches. Using his knees to pick up and maneuver the tire into place, Josh got the wheel holes lined up with the hardened-steel lug bolts and slipped it on. Tommy grabbed the wrench to spin the nuts up tight.

            “What’s the torque on these, John?”

            “One-twenty,” Josh answered letting the car partially down.

            Tommy torqued down the nuts, as Josh pulled the muddy jack and stowed it in Tommy’s truck bed. Josh stood there a second realizing his adrenaline was up with his heart pounding. He took a deep breath and convinced himself to mellow out and pay his regards to his recent friends.

            “Heading right out?” Tommy asked.

            After taking another deep breath and a renewed focus, Josh started peeling off the camo cover. “Naaaaa, no rush. I thought I’d cruise up to your folks’ house and say goodbye properly and all.”

            “Okay, I’ll meet you up there,” Tommy said, mounting his truck.

            “It’ll be just a couple minutes,” Josh said, pulling the cover out from around the front air dam. He pulled it out completely and rolled it into a ball. He stowed it in the bag for that purpose in the trunk. He sat behind the wheel and hit the power switch. The gauges sprang to life, the heads up display flashed to the windshield, and the fuel pump buzzed for a couple seconds. He hit the starter/ignition. The engine fired off seemingly before it turned over.

            Initially it emitted a deep rumble that reverberated off the surrounding trees, but the SHUSH sound suppression system silenced it to a muted throbbing. Gently, he bounced out of the depressions the tires had made over the course of a day and headed up the trail to the house. Tommy had left the gate open. Josh drove up the two-track and saw the three friends and Harv the dog waiting for him. Tommy and Harv trotted over to Josh as he got out.

            “That system is amazingly effective in cutting the noise.” Tommy noted pointing to the car.

            “Yeaah, my lawnmower is noisier that that!” Tom said.

            Joan followed closely behind and eyed the car from front to back. “I never went down there to look at your car, John. Somehow, I thought it was going to be more, I don’t know, bigger, sleeker, in some way, futuristic. To me it just looks like an older car painted dull black with maybe a couple wings and fins on it.”

            “Well Joan,” Josh answered. “Your description reassures me a little ‘cuz I wanted to remain somewhat�"inconspicuous.”

            Tommy stood back and studied it. “You know Mom, you’re right about that. If I didn’t know what I know about it and John had it in quiet mode, I wouldn’t give it a second glance myself.”

            Tom with Joan looking over his shoulder studied the interior. “There are sure not many comfort features in there. Appears to be all business-like. Yeah, I can envision this being a race car other than all the electronic stuff added on.”

Tommy grinned widely, “So, how did you acquire the car? We never got the whole story.”

Josh grinned back. “Wellll, in a nutshell, I was in the right place at the right time with the right connections with the right people who owed me.” He shrugged. “Bottomline, I saved it from the crusher. The rest of the story was time, effort, and money to put it on the road. Speaking of time�"”

“You need to go,” Tommy said. He held out his hand and Josh gripped it. “It’s been nice to meet you and your road-going technological beast. I have one request: Would you to give us a nice rev without the sound suppression?” 

“Will do,” Josh said, taking Tom’s grip.

After he released, Joan gave him a hug. “Take care out on those roads. There’s a lot of do-no-gooders out there.”

 Josh bent down and rubbed Harv’s head.

“I know all about them,” Josh said. “Well, this is it. Thanks for everything, and I promise to stop in on the way back. Tommy, give my best to Sheri.”

Josh strode around, got in, and fired off the car. The others peered down from the other side. Josh smiled and put his fingers in his ears. Joan grabbed Harv and moved back toward the house. Josh flicked off the SHUSH System and the exhaust rumbled its powerful note. He blipped the throttle that rattled windows and throbbed in his chest. Tom and Tommy both put their hands over their ears but wore big smiles.

Josh clicked the paddle shifter and released the clutch nice and gentle. He turned back to the trail with one arm waving out the window. He flicked the Shush back on so he could hear himself think.

I have to find out where that anomaly occurred, he thought. If it was the artifact and I show up on the scene, I may be heading into a rats’ nest of trouble.