Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I felt a smile chase away my earlier irritation. I love new toys.

He reached behind his seat and brought out a silver case with black combination-lock latches. Just the kind of thing inside of which you'd expect to find a top-secret weapon or two. Grinning in response to my excitement, he unlocked the case and set it on my lap. 'You open it.'

I raised the lid. Inside, cushioned by a casing of black foam, sat three smaller cases, also gleaming silver. I nearly jumped up and down in my seat, but confined myself to a short round of applause.

'You don't even know what they are yet!'

'Look at this,' I demanded, bringing his attention to the case with a Vanna White inspired flip of the hand. 'Stuff that starts out looking like this always ends up awesome. Didn't you ever see I Spy?'

'Come on,' he said, his long, pale face twitching with anticipation, 'open them up.'

'If you insist.' The first case snapped open to reveal a necklace made with shells, beads and an arrow-shaped item that looked an awful lot like a shark's tooth. I pulled the necklace out of the case and looked closer. Finally I said, 'Okay. I give. Why is this not any other souvenir store rip-off?'

'I'll show you,' Bergman said, the brown eyes behind his glasses gleaming with techno-passion. He took his keys out of the ignition and traded them for the necklace. He stuck the shark's tooth into the keyhole and wiggled it a little. Then he turned it sharply and the van started. To his delight, all I could say was, 'Whoa. That's cool.'

He turned the engine off and handed the necklace back to me.

The shark's tooth was now in the shape of a key, but even as I held it in my palm it reformed itself to its original shape. 'What's your secret?' I asked, although I knew he wouldn't tell me, not even if his feet were bleeding and his hair was on fire.

'Caffeine,' he replied, and we both smiled. I put the necklace on and he said, 'Oh, yeah, the line everything's threaded on is super strong. It's been tested to 600 pounds.'

I fingered the beads and the stretchy cord they hung on with wonder. 'Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Jaguar and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry.'

'Not many women can say that, you know.'

'There's no doubt I'm blessed among them. What else have we got?' I opened the second case. It held a couple of hearing aids like the one I'd just used and two round items that looked like mints. 'Listening devices?' I guessed.

'And sending,' Bergman agreed. 'The round piece is made to stick to the roof of your mouth. The receiver goes in your ear. The second set is for Vayl. When you're both equipped you can talk to each other without the bother of radios and headsets. The only downside is the sound is a little distorted.'

'Yeah?'

Bergman grimaced. 'It's like somebody pumped up the bass. I'm working on cleaning that up.'

'What's the upside?'

He pointed to two items I hadn't noticed because they were nearly the same color as the box's lining. 'Careful,' he warned, as I picked them up. They looked like the fake tattoos retailers sell to little kids who haven't yet heard of hepatitis. One resembled a line of barbed wire. The other was a long, serpentine dragon. 'These adhere to your skin and are indistinguishable from tattoos once they're on. They're transmitters,' Bergman explained. 'They should allow you to hear each other from a distance of about two miles.'

'No kidding? That far?' Bergman bobbed his head, looking like a rooster who's just discovered the henhouse.

I opened the last box. It contained a simple gold watch with an expandable band. I turned it inside out and upside down, but it looked completely normal. So I put it on.

'Snap the band,' suggested Bergman.

I did and my hand immediately began to tingle. The face of the watch turned blue, though I still had no problem reading the time. It turned white again and the tingling stopped. 'What's up with this?'

'I'm still researching all the possible applications, but at the moment I can tell you the watch absorbs the energy your body movement creates and kicks it back out as an electronic shield. When it's fully charged you can walk through a metal detector carrying a bazooka and no bells will go off. It also masks the sounds your natural movements cause.'

'So, you're saying all I need to do is snap this band and I'm in stealth mode?'

'As long as the face of the watch is blue. As you can see it didn't stay blue long because it hasn't had much time to absorb your energy. It also has a limited storage capacity.'

'How long?'

'Five minutes at the most.'

'Not bad when 30 seconds is all you need.'

'So you like it?'

This was the side of Bergman I'd never figured out. The guy could make a lead door do back flips, but he still needed his pats.

'Are you kidding me? This is the finest stuff you've ever given me to work with. You've really outdone yourself this time.' Minus the weight of that worry, he sat a little straighter. 'Have you got a place to stay?' I asked.

'Yeah.' He didn't tell me where, which came as no surprise.

'Great. But look, before you go back there, I have a couple of requests.'

'I'm at your service.'