Zing, the Queen of Quick: Too Hot to Handle

Introduction

I’ll admit, I swiped this idea from Larry Niven. But it seems obvious once I read it. And Zing carries it off perfectly!

Rio, Lahk the Rivah

Lee (Zing) Han planned to take US 30 West to Ames, Iowa, then catch US 69 South to Kansas City, where she’d pick up US 40 West. US 40 would take her all the way to Salt Lake City, where she’d find US 50 South, then switch over to US 91 South, and finally to Las Vegas. Her maps said it was around eighteen-hundred miles; she figured it would probably take close to fifty hours of driving. She wasn’t in any hurry, and she didn’t have to worry about money; in fact, she expected to arrive with significantly more cash than when she started, leaving a string of unsolved thefts across the country. She would make this a nice, leisurely vacation drive, taking detours as her fancy dictated.

One might think that using slow time, Lee (Zing) should be able to safely drive much faster than the speed limit, and so she did when she started off on the trip. When she got behind the wheel, she concentrated and sped up her reflexes until the car going at sixty miles per hour felt like twenty to her, and then started weaving though traffic. Five minutes later, she was sitting in the median, white-faced and shaking. Speeding up her reflexes didn’t do anything for the other drivers, and her car didn’t react any faster, just because she did.

She’d changed lanes to pass a slower driver on the left, but he’d already seen the empty space to his left, and she was in that empty space before he realized it was no longer empty, so he just kept coming. She tried speeding up even more to avoid him, but the Commander didn’t shift to slow time just because she did, and it didn’t accelerate fast enough to get out of his way. She wasn’t going to be able to get ahead of him!

Instead, she’d had to shoot out into the center median. She’d then slammed on the brakes, and the car had started to spin, tearing up the dirt and grass, and all the super-speed tricks she could think of behind the wheel weren’t doing her a bit of good. She prepared to vibrate out of the car to safety if it started to roll, but mercifully it spun to a halt after only about two rotations. It was facing the wrong way, about halfway across the median. It was a few minutes before she was ready to roll again, and she drove at the speed of traffic the rest of the night.

Just before midnight, she was pulling into the Lincoln Highway Auto Camp south of Des Moines. She had to pound on the door of the office to wake up the crotchety old man who was the desk clerk. The $1.25 rate convinced her it wouldn’t be worth the effort to empty the camp’s register later, even if she was annoyed at the old man’s manner. But the cabin was clean, and the bed was reasonably comfortable. Check out time was 10:30 AM, so she slept in, had breakfast, then ran downtown, vibrated into the vault of the Wells Fargo Bank, and picked up a couple of days’ worth of travel money in five- and ten-dollar bills before she checked out.

She really enjoyed the drive. She stopped to see the Pacific Union Railroad Museum in Ames, as she’d always loved railroads. The museum offered a three-day, two-night ride in a train drawn by a steam locomotive, so she got a ticket for a luxury compartment in a lovingly rebuilt Pullman coach. It was the next thing to heaven — porters waiting on her hand and foot, exquisite meals in the elegantly furnished dining car, the lovely scenery along the Des Moines river, and the surprisingly comfortable bed in her private stateroom. She hadn’t slept so well since she’d come to this world. She was starting to get a taste for the luxury her newfound riches could buy.

Before she hit the road, she made an undocumented withdrawal from the Bank of the West in Ames, as the railroad excursion had been expensive. As she was getting on US 69 South, she spotted a hitchhiker — a man who looked like he was in his mid-twenties, with stubble on his face and his hair mussed, who was carrying a valise the size of a bowling bag. He was also carrying a sign that said Dallas or Bust, and he looked drawn and tired. ‘Probably been on the road for a couple of days,’ she mused sympathetically. ‘I could use some company.’ So she slowed to a stop and rolled down the passenger-side window.

“I can take you to Kansas City, if you’re interested,” she offered.

“That’d be right nice of you, ma’am.” His voice sounded tired, and he had a drawl.

“Hop in.” He did, and they were off again.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ah’m Rio, lahk the rivah,” he replied. She waited a second, but no last name was forthcoming.

“Well, I’m Debbie, like Reynolds,” she offered, amused. She wasn’t going to give anything away, either. “Nice to meet you, Rio.”

“Nevah seen a car lahk this ‘un,” he continued. “What’s it called?”

“Fifty-four Studebaker Commander. I just got it, but I really like it, too.”

“Ah guess y’all just gonna need ta buy anotha one, thahn,” he said.

“What?” She looked over and saw a gun in his hand, pointed at her, and for just an instant, she was close to panic — but she quickly realized that she really had nothing to fear. In fact, her spin out yesterday and the panic it had inspired in her suggested that she HE was the one who should be worried. This should make the drive a lot more fun, and she was going to take great glee in showing him that he’d made a mistake. She concentrated on slowing time for an instant, and when the car felt like it was barely moving, she reached over and switched the gun’s safety to the safe position, then slowed her reactions back to about fifteen percent faster than normal.

“You don’t waste much time, do you, ‘Rio’?” she asked calmly. “Do this a lot?”

This wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting, and it made him nervous. Still, he was the one with the weapon. “Shut up! Pull over ta the breakdown lane and stop the car! Don’t gimme no trouble, and ya won’t get hurt!” She noted that his drawl had vanished. Instead, she stepped on the gas, hard.

“I’m not foolin’, witch! Pull over now, or I’ll shoot.”

She jerked the wheel hard right, then left again, and he smashed into the passenger side door.

“I’m not foolin’ either, Rio River! Are you certain you really want to shoot me? We’re doing almost ninety. Would you live through a wreck?”

Now he was sweating. “You can’t keep going this fast forever. I’ll kill you when you slow down.”

She smiled sweetly. “I’ll bet we pass a state trooper before I run out of gas, and when I don’t slow down for him, he’ll call for some other cars to join the chase. I won’t stop until there are five or six cars right on our tail.”

She swerved left again, into the median to pass a slower car, who blared the horn at them as they passed. The left tires went off the pavement with a jerk, and for a few seconds she fought with the wheel, then she yanked it back to the right, and they bounced and flew across both lanes and onto the breakdown lane on the other side before she straightened out again. Lee was prepared to vibrate out of the car instantly if she was sure she’d lost control. Rio was starting to look green in the face, and scared to death.

“Or just maybe,” she continued calmly, “I’ll wreck the car, and we’ll both get killed before then.” She did some slight zigzags with the car, and it rocked precariously in response. “This is a lot of fun!” she exulted gleefully. “It’s why I bought a sports car in the first place.”

She looked at him and reached her right hand out. “Give me the gun,” she commanded. The car drifted to the right, and they were approaching an overpass.

“Watch the road, damn you!” he screamed. She jerked her eyes forward, yanked the wheel left, and got them back to the center of their lane, then right, and again the car rocked. Rio sagged in his seat, but she only laughed. She knew that she, at least, had never been in any danger, though she would have hated losing the car, and maybe the money.

She laughed. “Sorry, dude, I’m not very good at doin’ two things at once. Why don’t you give me the gun now, while the road is pretty much empty? When we catch up with traffic again, I might be pretty busy.”

Rio was too scared to talk. Silently, he reversed the gun and carefully handed it to her. She took it and glanced at it, then laughed again. “You were gonna shoot me with the safety on? You are a real foul-up, you know that?” She flipped off the safety and pointed the pistol at him. “Take off your clothes.” (She probably didn’t say ‘foul up’ – but this IS a comic book!)

“You a pervert or something? You must be nuts!” he said. She pulled the trigger, and a bullet flew by his head out the still-open window. He started squirming, and in a minute he was down to his underwear.

“Everything!” she commanded. When he didn’t respond immediately, she fired again. He was finished undressing in seconds. “Now, everything out the window. Your bag, too!” she ordered, waving the gun again. This time he obeyed immediately.

About ten miles farther on, she slowed to the breakdown lane, stopped the car, and ordered him out. By now, he was desperate, and he lunged toward her — or, to her enhanced reflexes, he started a slow movement in her direction. She gently tapped him in the forehead with the barrel of the pistol and then repeated her command. “Out, buster!” He dejectedly climbed out, trying to cover himself with his hands. She reached over, pulled the door closed, and roared away.

“Have a wonderful day!” He could hear her laughing voice drift back to him from the car as he dived into the ditch.

A couple miles farther on, she came to a service station and stopped for a fill-up. As she was paying the attendant, she told him the story and handed him the now-unloaded pistol, from which she’d carefully wiped any fingerprints. “Can you call the highway patrol? I left him back by marker 25, and he probably hasn’t gone far.”

She really enjoyed the rest of her leisurely drive to Kansas City.