Another quick jerk of her head. Fiore understood.
Jaguar left them, and was almost to the tree line when she realized she was naked. That probably wouldn’t be a good thing, once she got on the road. She turned around and went to the pile of clothes that belonged to the women. Hanging above them was her ceremonial dress. She took it down from its branch, slipped into it, and made her way through the woods to her car.
In her car, she caught sight of her face in the rearview mirror. High color in her cheeks and a few sticks in her hair were the only signs of what she’d been doing. She shook her head out and drove.
She was getting out of her car and entering the Supervisor’s building when she realized that she still wasn’t wearing shoes. Nothing to be done about that now. Besides, her dress almost covered it.
She took the elevator up to Alex’s floor, made her way to his office with only one pair of raised eyebrows to greet her. She opened the door to his office and closed it behind her.
“You called me?” she asked Rachel, who sat at Alex’s desk, staring at his computer.
Rachel lifted her head from the screen, ran her gaze up and down Jaguar. “Where’s your shoes?” she asked.
“A bear ate them,” she replied. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. What’s wrong, Rachel?”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “I’m flustered, I guess. And I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got a problem.”
“Where’s Alex?” she asked.
“He’s not in,” she said.
“What do you mean he’s not in? He’s always in.”
“Today must not be always,” Rachel said grimly, and she stood up, walked around the desk to where Jaguar stood.
“Well, where is he?” Jaguar asked, hand on her hip, foot tapping lightly. The equivalent of a twitching tail, Rachel thought.
“I don’t know,” she said patiently. “That’s the problem. Or one of them, anyway.”
“Don’t know?”
Rachel sighed, walked over to the door, secured the lock. Then she turned back to Jaguar. “That’s why I called. Alex is missing.”
“Missing? What do you mean missing?”
“Will you stop repeating everything I say. Missing. M-I-S-S-”
“Since when?” Jaguar cut in, beginning to believe her.
“He went to see Brendan Farley yesterday afternoon, and he didn’t come back. He had four appointments, and he didn’t cancel. Stan Wokowski was all over me because he was supposed to be at a training orientation. Then Miriam Whitehall calls, furious and wanting to know why didn’t he keep their teleconference appointment.” Rachel wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like that woman very much.”
Jaguar rolled this information around the back of her mind. “Neither does he,” she commented. “It makes her irritable. Did you call Nance? See if he got there?”
“I can’t. She’s dead.”
Jaguar stopped herself from repeating the word. Dead. Nance. Dead.
“Shit,” she said. “How?”
“Looks like suicide.”
“Farley?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I got the report on Nance this morning, from Paul Dinardo’s office. He didn’t say anything about Farley. I don’t know what Alex would want me to do. And there’s something else –“
Jaguar held up a hand. “One thing at a time. Alex first. Maybe he found Nance and called in to Paul.”
“You want to call him and find out? Like, hi Paul. We’ve got this missing prisoner, and Alex is also missing so we were wondering if he’d stopped by to let you know about it, or has he really disappeared altogether?”
“Okay,” Jaguar said. “Just – give me a minute. I’ll see what I can do.”
“That’s why I called you,” Rachel said.
Jaguar took a stroll to the window and stared out of it. Pressed a hand against the glass, and listened.
She didn’t need to know where he was to find him. She knew his signals, was well-acquainted with his spirit. If he wasn’t blocking or hiding, he’d hear her. She brought the image of his face into her mind, felt herself relax into warmth and light, as in the presence of a dearly loved friend.
Alex. Where are you?
A moment of silence passed, and she let it. Rachel was far away, outside this space where she would find him, also silent. Letting time pass.
Then, the motion of opening. A shift in molecular barriers, subtle as the smell of rain about to fall.
Jaguar?
Relief flooded her. He sounded - surprised. As if there was no reason for her to contact him.
That’s right. What’s up, Alex?
I’m near the shuttle station. En route. I’ve got Farley.
Want me to call it in?
I took care of it.
Took care of it? Maybe he did call Paul, then.
Where are you headed?
I’m not sure. It’s complex. I’ll explain when I -
Then, a searing across her forehead. The empathic contact cut, quickly and painfully. She pulled her hand from the window and pressed it to her temple.
“Hecate,” she muttered. “I thought he had better technique than that.”
She shuddered, and turned back to Rachel, who held herself very tense and still, arms straight at her side, eyes wide. Jaguar laughed.
“It’s okay,” she said, and watched the muscles of Rachel’s shoulder and back ripple into relaxation. “He’s got the prisoner, and apparently he’s called it in.”
Rachel muttered some words in Hebrew, pressed her hands together in an attitude of rather Christian prayer, and then shook her head. “Are we supposed to do anything?”
Jaguar shrugged. “He sounded like he had it all under control, whatever that means around here.”
“Well, where is he?”
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“Is he on the Planetoid?”
She ruffled her hair, let her hand rest at the back of her neck and thought. She couldn’t tell. “Maybe?” she suggested.
“Maybe?”
“Maybe not?”
“Jaguar,” Rachel said.
“Rachel,” she replied, then pointed to Alex’s computer. “You can run this thing, can’t you?”
Rachel suppressed laughter. “That’s what I’ve been doing. And that’s the other thing. I sent some material to Alex this morning, and I wanted to make sure he got it, because it’s been deleted from my files.”
Jaguar frowned. “How?”
“Exactly. It’s not easy. Someone with high security clearance could do it. They’d also have to know how to get into my files, which takes some doing.”
“Is it here?”
Rachel moved back behind the desk, worked the computer for a moment. “Looks like it.”
“What’s it on?”
“Some stuff on the places where Farley worked. I found out Assured covers the Planetoid. They’re mostly an environmental insurance company, gets big bucks to cover places for environmental disasters. Like, in case we get hit by a passing asteroid, or the atmosphere blows. That sort of thing.”
“How cheering.” She moved behind Rachel and read the screen over her shoulder. “Cheering, but not necessarily meaningful, since they covered most big concerns. And the Planetoid’s used them from the start. Nothing on La Femme? They sell crap to rich women, right?”
“High-priced crap,” Rachel said. “They’re one of the big three. Huge profits this quarter. And by the way, Alex found out that Farley was supervisor for your prisoner. Karena?”
“Oh, really? Now that’s good to know.” It pointed her in the direction she wanted to go next. “Can you get anything else for me on Barone? I want something that connects him to the Planetoid, if it exists.”
“Tricky,” Rachel said. “He’s not coded in our files.” She turned her attention to the screen and Jaguar waited. In short order the computer began to make small sounds.
“What’s it doing?” Jaguar asked suspiciously.
“It’s thinking,” Rachel replied.
Jaguar frowned. “Shouldn’t you do something?”
“Let it think, Jaguar. I’ve posed it a problem and it’s solving it.”
Rachel watched for a while, then turned to Jaguar. “Nothing right off the top. I could try a few more moves.”
“Let’s try something easier first. I have to get back to the women soon. How about stockholders for any of Global’s companies?”
Rachel went at it, but when information appeared it was unhelpful because most were listed under DBAs or company names rather than individuals. “Nothing,” Rachel said. “Companies hide under other companies and people hide in them. It’s tough to get through that. They want to keep the tax man away.”
“See if you can get behind the curtain and find out who the actual humans are. Also go through the Planetoid departments, one at a time. See if any of the people in them connect with these centers, or Assured, or La Femme.”
Rachel groaned. “Do you know how many departments that is? How many people?”
“A lot?” she asked.
“A lot,” she sighed. “Maybe I can set the string, and let it run. Or maybe there’s an easy way to pare down the list. I’ll do what I can, but I won’t have anything until later tonight at the earliest. Is that okay?”
“Fine,” Jaguar said. “I can’t stay, anyway. I’ll call in later. In the meantime, give me Farley’s file. I’ll take hard copy.”
Rachel moved her hands over the keyboard, and the computer made its noises. When it was done, she slapped a hand against the desk and swore.
“Rachel,” Jaguar said, shocked.
She swiveled the chair and presented an equally shocked face to Jaguar. “It’s gone.”
“What?”
“Gone. G-O-”
“I heard you. I just don’t understand you.”
“The file. Fatal exception.”
Jaguar stared at the screen. Words scrolled across it, a sentence that read Fatal exception. Security Code #5.
“What’s that mean?”
“Either it’s burned – unlikely – or someone changed the protocol to make it unreadable. Same as my files.”
Jaguar took a step back and ran a hand through her hair. Swimming with the big boy sharks. Somebody who could do that sort of thing.
“Can you track it?” she asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Whoever bothered to do this isn’t handing out business cards.”
“Okay,” she said. “At least this gives us a place to start looking for people. Get a list of who could do that, and run their affiliation with Farley or Barone or La Femme. Or my prisoners. Or their family. Or moon mining. Or whatever else you can think of.”
“Right away,” Rachel said, and turned her attention to her work.
Chapter 8
Home Planet, Global Concerns Executive Offices
“Put him through,” Larry said, and waited while the broad face and head of blonde hair appeared, smiling at him on screen. Pasquale, he called himself, or sometimes the Golden Retriever. He never used his last name, and Larry could never find out what it was. He was an arrogant, eccentric, and sometimes very helpful man. Though Larry’s trust in him was limited, he was glad to talk to him now.
He’d called back fairly quickly, too, which might or might not be a good sign. Probably it meant he already knew more than Larry wanted him to, but that would be par for the course with Pasquale.
He’d appeared in Larry’s office when Miriam first started messing with Brendan, and at the time he suggested Larry might need his services.
“What services?” Larry asked.
“Tracking and delivery,” Pasquale had said.
“Delivery?”
“Of information. People. Things. You need some of each. Especially information.”
“How do you know that?”
Pasquale’s broad shoulders moved up and down. “That’s my job,” he said. “You want references, talk to your friend Joe Derry. I did some work for him.”
The reference checked. In fact, Joe told Larry he was a lucky man. Pasquale picked his clientele very carefully, and couldn’t be had for love or money unless he chose you.
Larry tested him first, hiring him to investigate the specifics of a stock trade he had his eye on, but couldn’t get enough information on to make a final decision about. The next day Pasquale called and told him to stay away. The man running the trade was about to be arrested for fraud.
“Ridiculous,” Larry said, “I had him checked through every legal circuit I know. He may be a loser, but if he was a fraud, I’d know it.”
“Then buy,” was all Pasquale had said before he hung up.
Larry didn’t buy, and the man was arrested two days later. At that point he wanted to get Pasquale back, but had no idea how to contact him. It didn’t matter. Pasquale showed up at his Penthouse. Larry hired him to be available as needed until the moon mining issue was solved.
“How will I find you if I need you?” Larry had asked.
Pasquale chuckled. “If you need me, I’ll find you.”
And he always did. Like today, when Larry had been thinking he wanted a talk with Pasquale, and he called. Larry had almost come to expect it.
“Things are heating up,” Larry said to him now. “Miriam’s going to the Planetoid.”
“Yeah,” Pasquale said. “I know. You want me on her there?”
Larry thought a minute. “Just keep tabs and let me know what she’s up to. I want to anticipate and prevent any possible hazards on this assignment.”
“You want me to track Dzarny?” Pasquale asked.
Larry subdued a moment of irritation. He hadn’t mentioned Dzarny. He hated it when Pasquale showed off that way. “Not yet, but it may become necessary. I’ll let you know.”
“Maybe,” Pasquale said, “I’ll let you know first. What about the Addams woman?”
Larry sighed. “Anything you can get would be appreciated,” he said.
“So long as you show your appreciation with dollars and cents,” Pasquale said, and hung up.
When he was gone, Larry found that he felt lighter, less anxious. Irritating as he was, Pasquale was even more reassuring than a gun in his pocket.
Planetoid Three, Zone 12, Toronto Replica City
When Jaguar returned to the site she found Karena already gathering rocks and Fiore collecting wood with Terez. They were making progress, climbing back into relationship with each other and the world. Terez had no hesitation about reaching over to touch Fiore on the cheek, smiling at her shyly, and Fiore returned the smile. She let them set up for the sweat they’d do later that evening, then gave them lunch. They ate more slowly, tasting their food now.
“Take a rest,” she said when they were done. “Work on your tans.”
At this, Karena actually giggled, and Fiore and Terez turned to each other. Fiore, breaking away from Terez’s gaze, looked to Jaguar. “Can we walk?” she whispered.
It was the first words she’d spoken. Another very good sign. “Not too far,” Jaguar said. “Be back by dusk.”
Slowly, they rose and wandered in different directions, Terez following Fiore into the woods, Karena raising her face to the sun and heading due south toward a small clearing. Jaguar knew this kind of time was a necessary part of their healing, and she was glad because she had her own thinking to do in the meantime.
The women returned as they’d been instructed, just at dusk, and Jaguar lit the fire for the sweat. When she chanted the blessing song, Terez joined in, barely audible, but vocal nonetheless.
Inside the lodge, Jaguar made light empathic contact with all three, and felt the shift in their energy, as if a listing ship began to pull itself right. In Karena, along with this shift, she felt the dark rumblings of a creature long denied voice, and she knew she’d have to take her next. They could start in the morning, and Jaguar had an idea of the best way to work with her.
As they honored the West, Jaguar opened hersel
f into a howl that would release any toxins she might have absorbed. Quickly, she felt Alex’s thoughts moving inside her.
Jaguar. You sweat well.
She paused and adjusted to his presence, which seemed very near, as if he ran a hand down her naked spine.
Where are you? she asked.
On the move with Brendan.
Are you okay?
A pause in thought. Then, his voice, with an odd, far-away feel to it.
I can see everything, Jaguar. Everything.
She felt the brush of a hand against her face as he exited. It was so present she brought her own hand up to her cheek. That was odd, she thought. But she couldn’t attend to it right now. She had three women staring at her in the dark. She returned her focus to them.
When the four directions had been honored, she led the women to a clearing in the wood and had them raise their arms to the rounding face of the moon.
Nissa, Nissa, she sang the Seneca words with them. Nissa, Nissa, Gaiwayo.
Our grandmother. All is well.
All is well.
Chapter 9
Alex had little specific memory of what happened between night and morning. He remembered the feeling of being on top of the world, a knowledge of how great his own power to save was, and he remembered Brendan watching him, smiling, agreeing with whatever it was he said. He didn’t realize they’d slept on the beach of Lake Ontario until he woke with his face in the sand, Brendan staring down at him, holding out a small white stone.
“You dropped this,” Brendan said. “You shouldn’t lose it.”
Alex stared at it. That stone. It had something to do with losing himself. Artemis material. It had to be. He scrambled back to his feet and took a few steps back, drew into himself and re-arranged his own energy. Then he shrugged at Brendan. “You hang onto it,” he said. “I might lose it again.”
Brendan nodded solemnly, pocketed the stone and stood up. “Are you okay? It can hurt, just at first.”
Alex frowned. “What can hurt?”
“Contact. With the Mother. She’s so strong.”
“Oh. I’m – fine. Did we sleep here?”
A Lunatic Fear Page 8