by F P Adriani
There was a loooong sigh on the other end. “Your car—your car’s been there for hours.”
“So did you come by here….” No, that couldn’t be right, unless he’d cut out of work again. …Now I thought back to another time, to when Tan had spied on me….
“I put a tracker on your car,” he finally admitted on another long sigh. “I bought a few locators from Paulie the other day; he dropped them off this morning while you were asleep.”
“Goddammit,” I fumed. “Why don’t you tell me these things?”
“Because. You would have argued with me, like you’re trying to do now! I’ve got another one—you can wear it on your person—”
“Yeah, whatever—we’ll talk about this more later. Right now I need you to bring some FOOD. I’ve got nothing here and I’m starving. I’m sure Roberto is too. Bring chips and dips and….” My eyes fell on the bit of silver wrapper inside the baggie; I remembered my scanner. I spoke faster now: “Just bring the chips and dips and whatever else you can grab—and get here. Love ya and see ya later!” I hung up the phone, rushed to the bathroom for the rubber gloves again, then grabbed my Osier out of my case.
I pulled the third threat and the wrapper from the baggie, and from this scan I got back smudges mostly, but two prints on the outside envelope were probable matches with the first two outside envelopes—Vervais probably. There were other unknown partial prints on the silver wrapper, but the package had been shipped in space, and I didn’t know who the fuck the prints belonged to and probably never would.
Basically, I had goddamn nothing, as usual.
*
I had disinfected my hands and my scanner and was putting it back in my case when Roberto came back out. “Boss, all I’ve found so far is that the Jericho place mines and pumps gases—hydro—hydrocarbons or something? For vehicles here, the railways—and even some of the gun cartridges. You think that means anything?”
I was sighing. “No. What’s abnormal about mining on Diamond? That’s business as usual. Maybe you should try a fake phone call to there.”
“But it might be too late on that side of Diamond.”
“So do it in the morning,” I said, and I was about to change the subject when I saw the small black security panel beside my desk say that the front door was being opened—by Nell’s key and code.
I saw her face flash by on the panel’s small video-screen; then an instant later I saw her face in person as she bounded into the main office. Her body was wrapped in a dark-purple, flared-leg pantsuit, and she’d curled her brown hair into silky waves. She was the vision of a very elegant figure as she strolled over to my desk.
“You look really nice, Nell,” I said.
She grinned at me with happy bright teeth. “Derek’s bringing Annie in. Hey, Roberto.” She looked him over now, her face shifting into a pensive frown.
I turned to him then too—and realized her eyes were on Roberto’s midsection, above his crotch, where the black fabric of his pants was bunched up into the waistband.
Nell said slowly now, “Are those my….”
“Don’t ask,” I said, my eyes engaging in a quick roll toward the ceiling before landing on Roberto again. “So, Roberto, did you know Tan put a locator on my car?”
Roberto’s big face flushed and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his—Nell’s—pants. “Yeah, he got one from Paulie…. Boss, certain things you don’t want to see reason on!”
“Reason, as in: what a group of men think is reason?”
“Sometimes men aren’t idiots!” he said in a really earnest voice.
I laughed.
“And Tan got one for himself—for you to use. Shit, maybe we should all get them.”
Now Nell said, “I agree with Roberto—it’s something to consider in future. What can the locator hurt? Besides, if you have one for Tan too, then you’re both equal!”
“So you’re a colluder with the men now,” I said to Nell, but I winked my right eye as I spoke.
She laughed and just then Derek walked in; he held a baby carrier with Annie nestled inside.
Smiling at him, I stood up and walked over to the white carrier as he lowered it onto the small red couch near my desk. I stared down at the baby, and then my right hand touched her soft hair, her warm cheek; her little mouth flashed even littler spit-bubbles at me. I laughed lightly and smiled at Derek again, whose blond hair was slicked back away from his big blue eyes, which were on his daughter now. Annie sort of had his eyes in shape, but, so far, hers were a gray-brown, flecked with yellow, and, to me, they always seemed bright like the Diamond Sun.
I touched her hand and held onto it, feeling my first moment of comfort all day….
Someone’s stomach growled—very loudly. We all laughed. Then Derek and Nell and I looked at Roberto, at his slightly mortified face, which now said, “Haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”
“Tan’s bringing food,” I said, and I wound up being so right on that.
He showed up about forty minutes later, with Mike right behind him. But Tan must have gone to the fanciest local supermarket on his way to MSA because his car held boxes containing a mini-feast, complete with little strawberry tarts for dessert.
There was a small table in the kitchen, but it wasn’t big enough for all of us to sit at. So we laid the spread of food on that table; then we sat on the various chairs and couches in the main office.
We ate, we talked, we laughed, and little Annie made excited noises—even she could sense all the warm feelings in the room that night.
At one point Tan pulled me and my housecoat to him, and for an instant I felt like such a frump.
But then what the hell did it matter? There were more important things in life than whether you were wearing a bright orange housecoat with ugly big green flowers and a frayed hemline to a party. I certainly wished that was my biggest problem.
*
By the time Tan and I reached home later that night, I was exhausted. I showered again and put on my nicest pajamas: a satiny mauve pant-set. Then I sat down on the living-room couch and told Tan that we needed to talk.
Sighing and bare-chested in only pajama pants as usual, he sat back beside me. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is…I’ve got to go back to Earth.”
He didn’t respond. He stared at me; then, slowly, he began shaking his head.
“I think you know what I mean,” I said in a meaningful voice.
And he apparently did know what I meant. His head-shaking eventually turned into a loud, long-suffering bout of sighing.
“Go ahead,” I said, “get it over with. Let out your complaint, tell me I’m crazy, etcetera. Aren’t you going to?”
“No. I’m just going to silently sit here so you know I know you know.”
“Er…what?”
He laughed a little, but it was a mirthless curt sound. “I should have seen this coming.”
“How? Even I didn’t.”
“What happened today to bring this on?”
I filled him in on some things, including what had transpired at Leaf Bank.
And he wasn’t happy to hear any of it. More long-suffering sighing. “Why did it have to turn out this way?”
“I’m sorry, Tan. Next time someone wants to kill me, I’ll be sure to tell him to do it from Diamond only.”
“You don’t know where the hell the person is—it could be a woman too!”
“I know. But I have a feeling it isn’t. At least you’ll finally get to see Earth. I want you with me.”
His face seemed to soften, his anger. And then he finally nodded. “So, when will you contact them?”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
*
The next day I went into Sapphire Lake again to one of the more secure Communications buildings. Like many regular Communications sites, this secure one was unfortunately a public one. But it was the best I had access to because I had no job or anything with a security clearance, and I’d been unable to
afford the extra expense of having something so elaborate built into my office.
Usually in a public Communications room, a patron still could make a very private communication—if she worked the equipment herself, which I did that day.
I sat alone in the sound-proof space, shifting the too-tight waistband of my pants to a more comfortable position. Beneath there I was also wearing the body-locator Tan had bought for me. The locator was a metallic-looking button, a small smooth stud I could stick either beneath my clothing or on my skin or in my case—pretty much anywhere, it was so small. But I’d attached it to myself earlier partly because I wanted to get used to having it close by….
My fingers punched my payment information into the room’s control panel, which information was from an account I’d set up last year under another name—one of my old identities that I’d never actually used on a job. It was a miscellaneous Miscellaneous identity created for an eventuality just like this one.
My call was routed through a bunch of space flumes and space stations before the signal finally hit where I wanted on Earth.
Then I waited. And waited and waited.
I should have brought something to read. I could have opened my case to get something to entertain myself, but that would have been stupid of me to do in this space….
I finally heard some static coming over the line. I’d put the communication on audio-only, and in a moment I got an audio-only response from the standard UPG receptionist with the standard clipped UPG-receptionist voice. “This is UPG Central. What’s the nature of your call?”
Now I said, “I want to speak to RG415.”
She must have been typing something because I’d heard the snap-click of keys. But now the snap-clicking stopped.
A lengthy pause. And then the clipped voice came back: “Excuse me? Which extension was that?”
“I didn’t say an extension. I said a codename. Stop with the bullshit. Just get me RG. It’s important. This is Thirteen.”
Another pause, no sound of keys—no sound, period. I suspected a hand or something was over the receiver on her end.
Now the voice again: “Please hold.” Now the total silence again.
My top lip began sweating, and I swore under my breath. I really hated having to do this. I didn’t know what the hell this would start now, but I also didn’t know what the hell had started toward me with the threat. I had no choice but to use old resources….
The voice came back: “RG will contact you at this same number within the half-hour.”
“But I don’t want to wait—”
“You’ll have to,” she said, and then she ended the call.
Again I waited and waited and waited, and he didn’t get back to me till close to an hour. By that point, more than my lip was sweating.
The call-coming-in warning bleep came with a visual-communication request. I accepted the visual from his end, but I wanted to make sure it was him before I turned on the visual feed from my end.
His face came on the screen. His hair was longer, darker, and he’d apparently lost some weight. But it was definitely him. He wasn’t in a UPG office though; he looked like he was sitting in a secure public booth like the one I was in. And that surprised me. It also made me feel suspicious. But then, really, what didn’t make me feel suspicious lately?
“Thirteen,” James finally said, “put on the visual. I want to talk face-to-face.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t. I don’t even want to talk to you, period,” I growled. But I did turn on the video-feed.
“Okay, all right,” he said once he finally saw me. “Now this is what’s known as a real surprise.”
“Don’t get all excited. You crowd won’t get me yet.”
His head sort of jerked back. “What makes you think I want to get you?”
“Because you crowd—”
“I’m not a ‘crowd’. You think you would have lasted this long if I hadn’t withheld some information about you to certain elements here?”
I hadn’t thought of that; it was my turn to be taken aback—at myself more than at him. What he’d said made some sense: since I’d last seen him, whenever I thought about the whole situation, I kind of felt surprised that the UPG hadn’t reared its ugly head at me even once. And that should have seemed very off to me, considering I knew the way they operated in general.
On the other hand, this I’ve-been-a-protector-of-yours could all be a trick of his—of theirs.
“Well,” I said now, “I was under the impression that I was persona non grata there, unless I was being grabbed by the neck by you all.” Hu had also given me that impression, based on something she’d heard and then said to me, about someone being dangerous to the UPG leaving there. She’d assumed that was me, and so had I.
“Let’s just say some people know of your…value,” James said now. “But they’re not going to be bothered doing anything about it.”
I got tired of discussing this topic because it wasn’t the main reason I called—unless they were actually behind the threat. But that possibility seemed extremely low in probability.
So now I said, “I think I’ve been made. From a job I did for you probably. I don’t know which. But someone’s after me.”
He sat forward in his chair, his face turning into a flat frown. “What makes you think that?”
“I’ve been getting threats.”
“And you expect me to do something about that, I take it?”
“Yeah: help me find out who.”
He sat back and sighed. “Well, that’s something I can’t do.”
At first I just glared at him. Then I said: “You think I wanted to contact you, put me on your radar again?”
He waved a careless hand at the air around him. “What makes you think you were ever off it? You know that’s not the way this works. Once you’re in, you’re effectively in for forever.”
I really didn’t need—or want—to be reminded of that, even though it was the truth. “You’re like the goddamn mafia,” I said.
“It is what it is.”
“And because it is what it is, how do I know this isn’t YOU sending me threats?”
Unless I was losing my mind, his face looked…offended by my statement. “Thirteen, you really think I’d try to have you killed? We had something together once.”
“Yeah, ten seconds of orgasming.”
He sounded angry now: “It was more than that.”
“Yeah, you’re right—it was fifteen seconds,” I said. “I just want to make sure you remember that if I go down for something, so do you. Especially you all. I’ve got insurance to make sure that happens.”
“Like I said, no one’s too worried about you. Don’t overstate your importance to this machine. I’ve been following your life. You certainly seem to have done well for yourself. So don’t act like your life’s been ruined—”
“You bastard!” I shouted at the screen. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re right: your machine’s much bigger than I am, but I used to be a cog in it. Now someone’s after me, and I need to find out who. If they’re after me, consider it that they’re after all of you too. Helping me is helping you. NOW will you see if you can find out anything?”
There was a long pause. He seemed to not want to speak. But then I knew him: sometimes he needed extra time to gather his thoughts. James just wasn’t the kind of person who spoke off-the-cuff.
But I was the kind of person who easily grew impatient.
Now I said to him: “You know what’s disappointing but not necessarily unexpected? Even after what I told you that day in the bar, you’re still there. You’re still working for them. You’re still doing their dirty work. You know first-hand that they don’t operate above-board.”
He sighed. “I’ve accepted that. It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it. A goddamn beast. Like I said, if I’m on the sights of whoever’s after me, so might you be.”
“Look—”
he sat forward in his seat again “—if you want my help, I’ve got to reinstate you.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“It’s the only way I can give you any information, and you know it.”
I ground my teeth together because…yeah, he was right. I kind of expected this turn of events, and I was pretty sure that Tan had also expected it when we talked the night before.
“Besides that,” James continued now, “it might go a long way to, well, smoothing things over, patching things up, so to speak. Make you look more cooperative and not like a thorn in the sides of some in my ‘crowd’.”
That was a good point, a point I hadn’t thought of.
“How long will reinstatement take?” I’d only ever been a part of the machine; I’d never quit and come back.
“I’ll need a day at least,” James said.
“Make it a day. Any longer’s no good because I don’t know when this person’ll strike.”
“All right. A day,” he said. “But, are you sure?”
“Do it. I’ll get back to you tomorrow at the same time,” I said, and then I cut off the line.
I sat there staring at the blank screen, my whole body shaking.
I couldn’t believe it: I had just become a part of my sworn-enemy’s inner circle once again. Could my life get any worse?
*
I sat there thinking for some time.
I had hoped the scumbag would be able to give me some info today, but now I was on my own till tomorrow. I did not want to wait that long.
I entered my payment information again and set up a communication to someone I didn’t want to set up a communication with—not for my sake, but for hers. Last I’d heard, she’d started focusing on a semi-normal life, and I assumed she was inactive now. And if she was inactive, she wouldn’t be happy to hear from me again.
However, she’d know it was me right away: she and James were the only people who knew of the false name I was using (yeah, even Tan didn’t know about it). And she’d told me years ago that she’d always have an ear open for me if I needed one….
I sent a text-only message to the hotel her parents owned: