Part of it, I was sure, was due to Shelley's personal charisma. She's like her old man, Commander Windham, in that way. You couldn't talk to either one of them for more than five minutes without developing an immense liking and respect for them. And I guess that part of it, too, was that you can find nice, caring people pretty much everywhere you go, even in what to my mind amounted to an illegal prison camp.
Regardless, the doctor declared that he would file yet another complaint over the conditions of her imprisonment. When the wheelchair arrived, she was helped into it as carefully as if Bill or I had been doing it. I even saw one of the guards slip what looked like a stick of chewing gum into the pocket of her orange jumpsuit, out of sight of the security cam. That made me smile. I couldn't help noticing, though, that their concern did not prevent them from shackling her firmly in place like a common criminal before they wheeled her out.
Back at HQ, Bill quickly deactivated and made a beeline for the office. I followed in his wake. "Wizzit," he said grimly, "I think it's time to start putting together that final list of names for Shelley."
"Agreed, but it will have to be approved by the ranking Prime on duty."
Bill whirled and pinned his gaze expectantly on me. See, when Wizzit brought him back in, it was with the understanding that he would be merely an advisor, outside our normal chain of command; he would give no orders, nor would he be obliged to follow any. That was to ensure there would be little awkwardness about whether he or Mike was in charge.
He and I had clashed over that very point once, in fact, and I had won out because I was the ranking Prime on the scene. Now, I think he was half-expecting me to countermand whatever he had in mind. I raised my hands in a show of capitulation. "Hey, I don't know anything about this final list you're talking about, but if it means getting back at the bastard who just beat up Shelley, then I'm all for it. I'm not the ranking Prime, though; Nicolai is. And Toby after him. The last time I saw Nicolai, he was --"
"He and Padma are engaged in some rather intense research at present," Wizzit interrupted. "I would hesitate to break in on them. And I didn't mean that we couldn't begin work on the list. We will simply have to obtain Prime Red's approval before passing the list on to Shelley."
"Intense research"? Was that what Wizzit decided to call it? I tried not to smirk. Although, come to think of it, he covered for us pretty well when Padma and I had had our twenty minutes of passion. Eh, maybe he's a bit more discreet than I sometimes give him credit for.
Regardless, I followed Bill to the office and we set to work compiling the next list, and let me tell you, it was a doozy! I'll refrain from the standard fiction-writer's trick and simply tell you what it was now, rather than wait for a dramatic moment. We were pulling together a list, from the personnel files Wizzit had retrieved and other sources, of Emile Zwicky's closest associates. His wife, kids, siblings, parents, golf partners, drinking buddies -- anybody who was close to him at all. Then we pared down the list to the top ten plus Zwicky himself. After all, there were eleven of us on the team now: seven Primes, three Primes Emeriti, and one Junior Prime, although I don't think we had ever all been in the same place at the same time before.
These were the names we were going to give to Shelley, along with addresses and phone numbers. I didn't know how she was going to memorize it all, but Bill assured me that she had a system and that this would be well within her abilities. The idea was to let Zwicky know that we knew who he was and that he would be held accountable for whatever happened to Shelley. I couldn't think of a better, more direct way to send him a message short of beating him up in person, and we weren't prepared to be quite that threatening just yet.
Attack Doll 4: Primes Emeriti Page 17