//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 // Story: Luna vs. a Tiny Italian Car // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// September 2, 2015 Florida may be a skinny state, but it is long. It’s like, as Homer Simpson once described it, America’s wang. Switching back and forth with Maria, we watched the sun set and then rise again on the drive from Atlanta to southern Florida. But then, we kept going. Luna pointed us to the Overseas Highway, to the Keys. At least there was plenty to keep us entertained on the way. North Florida has billboards by the bushel. Most of them concerned either orange juice, anti-abortion, pro-creationism, or the Ron Jon Surf Shop. Fortunately, Luna didn’t ask about any of them so we didn’t have to discuss politics, religion, or the sometimes subtle differences between the two. Or orange juice. I would have been in danger of going off on a tangent about the Tropicana Train. At least I didn’t know anything about surfing. We did stop at one of the many orange juice-themed convenience stores/trinket shops along the way. Partly for a pit stop, and also partly to use a pay phone. I was having an idea, and needed to make a few phone calls. Once we located Tirek, it would have been nice to have some backup. In addition to the National Guard, there were numerous military bases in Florida. SOCOM was located in Tampa, plus a few Air Force and Navy jet bases. The trouble was, I didn’t know anyone in any state’s National Guard, the only SOF-type people I knew were based on internet claims only, and the single person I knew in the Air Force worked on C-130’s in Arkansas. So I called a Navy pilot. “Sorry, man,” he told me. “There’s no fighters at Key West right now, and to hop from Pensacola down to south Florida and actually have some on-station time, we’d need tankers. I can’t get that kind of help from the Air Force because the only airman I know works on C-130’s in Arkansas.” “Marines?” I asked. “Beaufort, South Carolina. Even further.” Well, that was a bust. I might have tried going through the State Department to get the President’s attention so the orders to the military could come back down, but I didn’t know anyone in the State Department, either. Guess it would have to be local law enforcement. At least their phone number was easy to remember. I stepped away from the pay phone. I found Luna looking at the sunglasses. “I am unused to so much sun,” she commented. “Especially in this place.” Florida was easily the hottest part of our trip so far. The heat would have been bad enough, but the humidity was the killer. At least the car’s air conditioning could usually keep up with it. It had been struggling lately with the addition of Luna to cool. The sunglasses weren’t designed with ponies in mind, but the largest pair of mirrored aviators seemed to come close to fitting Luna. We bought them along with three cups of orange juice. Then, it was back to barreling south. In Miami, Luna pointed us southwest. There was only one road available to us. The Overseas Highway is beautiful in that there’s no navigation to be done. The locals don’t talk about addresses, they simply refer to which milepost they're near. It must be wonderfully simple to live in a one-dimensional space. But as it got later in the day, the sun sank lower and we drove west right into it. Luna had definitely made the right decision to get sunglasses. At milepost fifty, she announced, “This is not Tirek.” That seemed to take the wind out of our sails. We slowed down. “Was he here?” asked Maria. “If not, who could have set up the fake spell?” “I suspect we will find answers ahead,” Luna replied. “Well, that, and I wouldn’t drive all the way out here and just turn around fifty miles from Key West,” I said. It was nearly dusk by the time we rolled into the southernmost city in the United States. I was kind of expecting the t-shirt shops and bars, but not the drag shows and pharmacies. Somewhat amusingly, there was a place called the Pegasus Hotel. Luna led us to the spell. Remembering Detroit, we expected, at minimum, mimes guarding the area, but it was a pleasant surprise to merely find some squiggles painted on a sidewalk. Luna studied them for a few minutes, then shrugged. “What concerns me most about this is why he led us so far down here.” “Clearly some kind of distraction,” I said. “But why? And where is he now?” “He didn’t have goons standing ready,” Maria pointed out. “Maybe he just wanted us to go far away from him.” I sighed. “So we’ve got a whole lot of driving ahead of us just to get back to where we started. Great. But, since we’re here…pie?” Yes pie. We found a place. The woman behind the counter had an eastern European accent, and didn’t look like she knew the first thing about pie, but dutifully served us three pieces of Key Lime delicious. As we were sitting there eating pie, two men wearing leather walked in. One of them pointed a gun at the woman behind the counter. The other pointed a gun at my face. “Where’s the meth?” I said, “What?!” That seemed to displease them. I was kind of wishing we’d gone ahead and asked for backup, from anyone. When a toolbox dropped out the back of a C-130 into a crowded city started to look like a viable option, you knew things had gone bad. Luna bucked the first one hard enough his feet left the floor. He landed in a pile against the ice cream cooler, winded. She kicked the other one clear over the counter. “Er, sorry about this,” I said as we scooted for the door. “I hope this isn’t something you’re used to.” The confectioner shrugged. “I am from Russia.” We ran for the car and got it headed east into the growing darkness. I was already mentally putting together what questions I was going to ask the next time I got my hands on a phone.