Read Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule for Free Online Page A

"No, I’ve swallowed a bomb! You’ll never grow up, spaceship kid. You’ll always be just somebody’s comical sidekick— Tom Swift’s! Time has you prisoner... frozen time. Time’s meat locker." Click. "I’m just joking, Bud. You were always so sweet and caring. Your eyes... I still see your gray eyes. Black lashes."
    "Still have ’em. Both. See you in twenty, Rose Reb." Bud anticipated a reply, and clicked off the cell to forestall it. This is what I did to her , his conscience asserted. Shut up , he replied.
    He drove to the spot and parked nearby. Climbing out of his convertible, he paused to glance back. "I really need that old bumper sticker," he muttered.
I’D RATHER BE FLYING
    " So much ‘rather’," he said. He wanted to be free. He wanted to own his days— had to. Why did life ladle out this indigestible gruel ?—though gruel wasn’t quite the word.
    The plaza was not wide, but was fairly lengthy, narrowing to a sidewalk at either end that meandered among trees and shops. It was new and concrete-flat, with concrete slabs for benches, and planters with sides that swept up in smooth curves like the waves of a nervous sea. One side gave a view of the Falls, brightly lit in defiance of the twilight of day. The other side of the plaza was fronted with silent shops, closed for the evening. As Bud stood looking about, tall lamps came on, making disks on the concrete.
    It was public, all right, but the public was absent. An elderly couple crossed the plaza at a shuffling gait and disappeared down the further sidewalk. A young boy clattered through in a dash. Music played somewhere, tinnily; it took Bud a moment to find the hidden speakers. He was alone with the breeze.
    He shuffled his feet uncertainly. Should he sit down? But it might be better to meet Reb on his feet...
    A noise came out of the distance and grew—the rasp of skate wheels. A skater on a board popped out of the sidewalk behind Bud and glided across the plaza to the far end. He did a little jump-stunt, then whirled and proceeded on his way down the sidewalk. The sound diminished—paused—and rose again.
    The skater erupted back into view—a lean tight-muscled guy in his mid-twenties, thin scraggling goatee, woven skater cap with cobwebby hair dangling down. Bud had heard such people described as drunges . He spun past Bud on the left, calling out, "Got th’ time, bud?"
    "Mm, about seven forty-five."
    "Grac’, man." The skater looped back, passing on the right. He popped up on a bench slab, took the length of it, and dropped back down, control perfect. He swerved back toward Bud and braked-up, stopping. He gave Bud a toothy grin.
    "Sweet work," said Bud distractedly. This is the public, I guess, he thought.
    The skateboarder gave a nod and resumed, hopping the end of a bench, with a smooth drop-down. Then he slowed to a modest cruising speed. "Cat gotcher tongue?"
    "Huh?"
    "Just sayin’—not even a little impressed, man? That I know your name?"
    "You do? You recognize—"
    "Said it, didn’t I? Dude, I called you Bud ! Right?"
    "Oh," said the youth. "Sorry. I thought it was just, you know, like—"
    The drunge did another stunt, using the upsweep of a planter as his launch pad. He casually skate-sauntered past Bud, passing near, saying: "Seven forty-five. Guess that’s when she told you to meet her, hunh, bo?"
    Bud’s muscles clenched top to bottom. "Who are you?"
    "Just sayin’, bo." The drunge zipped away effortlessly, then sped back. He stopped completely and faced Bud from a distance of a few feet. "Know who I am? Who might I be? Guess it, buddy boy!"
    The San Franciscan stared. "Where’s Reb?"
    "Wasn’t the question. Stuck? I’m Gar Baxx."
    "Do I need to know you—‘ bo ’?"
    The boarder’s yellow grin, with gaps, broadened. "Need to or not, you’re gonna." He commenced skating around Bud in elliptical orbits, slow and easy and unnervingly close. "Pretty Rose Reb. Needs a friend. I’m gonna marry her—yeah, I’m the one.