by John Ringo
"Cally, I don't want to fight," he interrupted. "I know you're a grown woman, and I love you. Just . . . think about it, okay?"
"Okay, fine." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Actually, I'm taking a vacation for a week. I've got our next mission brief, can't share, but we'll have more than enough time to put it together after my trip. In fact, you take care of rounding everybody up and meet me at the wind farm at eight a.m. on the twenty-third. I love you. I'll be in touch, okay?"
"Vacation? About time. Where to?"
"I haven't decided. I'll decide each day as I go," she reasoned. "If I had to plan it, it wouldn't be a vacation. Are you clear on meeting me?"
"Yeah, yeah, eight and twenty-three. You're really not going to tell me where you're going, are you?" He sounded a bit put out.
"Nope. Love you, Granpa. Bye."
She hung up the phone and grinned at the receiver for a minute before picking her bags up off the sidewalk and taking them to the car. Her mouth tightened for a minute. Okay, so it's a working vacation. I can't believe they've been protecting the son of a bitch. Hell, yes I can. Fucking pragmatists. Okay, so I'm no dewy-eyed idealist, myself, but there have to be standards.
She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cracking the public records of Sinda Makepeace—DMV, credit, frequent shopper cards, the property-management files for her apartment complex, internet postings. Jay and Tommy would do a more thorough job next week, but since she couldn't brief them in yet, she might as well get a head start on the easy stuff now.
A couple of hours with the buckley running pattern analyses and she had a tentative character profile to start building the role.
"So, do you think you could manage to do a full backup on me before we go off on this mission? No reason for both of us to die, is there?"
"Shut up, buckley."
"Right."
Next came the prelims for her vacation mission. The target was not much of a player, so it should be an easy job, but Cally was habitually thorough in prepping for a mission. It was the main reason she was still alive.
Having memorized Petane's facial features years ago, when she was young and eager and fully expected to be handed the mission, it was a simple matter of self-hypnosis to bring the details back to the surface. He could have been changed, but if he had been it was likely that Robertson would have said so. If Robertson's telling me the truth and not playing his own game, that is.
A three-D facial modeling application let her put the face into a form the system could use. From there it was a simple hack to download the bank camera records for Chicago ATMs and set another little utility sifting through the images for matches. Normally, she would have left a bank hack to Jay, but she hadn't been in this business for thirty-plus years without learning a few tricks outside her own specialty. Sure, she got a load of false positives first run-through, but she was able to identify one true hit in the first dozen and fed it back to the facial app, modified it and ran it through again. That eliminated half the hits. Going through those for a few more true positives and refining the app again got her down to a couple of hundred true positives, from which she weeded a handful of false positives and doubtfuls by hand. Loading those into a database and running a third app, telling the buckley to assume a standard Monday through Friday daytime schedule localized his work to a probable area of a few blocks and his home to one of two possible areas. One was probably the home of a girlfriend. A quick look at a map made the probable work location the Fleet Strike Tower. Well, Robertson was telling the truth about that much, anyway. The scumbag sure doesn't look dead to me. That's fixable. I'd love to crack his accounts for a full profile, but there's way too much risk of leaving tracks. I would really prefer for my bosses to get used to the idea of Petane being dead before I fess up to the hit. If I ever do. Hrms. Isn't that interesting. He was never taken off the Targets of Opportunity list—just automatically flagged inactive when he was entered as dead. She took a risk and hacked the Illinois tag database to get the make, model, and tag number of his car, and downloaded the analysis results and raw hits onto a cube, setting it not to erase after the first reading. It was a calculated risk, but in a pinch her own stomach acid would destroy the cube as effectively as the more usual glass of vinegar.
"Congratulations! You've come up with a fabulously inventive new way to get us killed. Have you even considered the possibility that this might be a really bad idea?"
"Shut up, buckley."
"Right."
* * *
Under a cornfield in Indiana, Wednesday, May 15
Indowy quarters were about a fourth the size of quarters for a normal human. It wasn't that they were agoraphobic, exactly. It was just that they felt much more secure in groups. Still, Aelool had made the sacrifice of having a room by himself because of the necessity of occasionally entertaining humans. Even in Chicago Base, most of the Indowy would rather not deal with carnivores unless the meeting was necessary, except for the few human children apprentices in Sohon whose families had been carefully selected even among the Bane Sidhe for adaptability. The human children were vegetarians. It wasn't exactly their fault that they had been born in a species that hadn't abandoned its carnivorous roots yet.
His solitary quarters also seemed more comfortable for human visitors, who tended to be okay in duos or small groups, but had an unfortunate tendency to react badly to crowds. The few scholars who had studied their history, despite a natural distaste for the violent subject matter, were about evenly divided, after observing human behavior in crowds of their own species throughout history, about whether humans were pathological loners or closet xenophobes. He tended to lean towards the former hypothesis, and acted on it. It had worked well for him so far. Honestly, so long as you kept them out of crowds, many humans were basically okay people.
At the moment, he was preparing for his most frequent visitor, Nathan O'Reilly, who had been entrusted with the care of the main base of Bane Sidhe operations on Earth. Although most information gathering and other operations were best handled through a cell system, once you got above a certain level of complexity, a certain bureaucracy was inevitable. O'Reilly's particular philosophical discipline required that he not marry and bear offspring, so he had no clan to speak of, but his learning and position equated to a sort of senior elder. Aelool respected him. They had a mutual passion for logic games, and Father O'Reilly had been teaching him chess. It would take at least a century to master. Perhaps then he could return the favor and teach his friend aethal.
Proper hospitality towards human visitors required the ritual preparation of a bean broth highly prized among their species. He had learned the art from the best expert he could find. A perfectly clean pot and apparatus, a tiny pinch of salt, run the beans, which could be purchased dried and preroasted, through a coarse grinding machine, bottled spring water, add the components to the right parts of the machine, and it prepared the soup perfectly every time. He did not understand how water could have a season, but when he ordered it from Supply, they always knew what he meant, so he chose not to argue.
Aelool had learned that some chess sets were more abstract than others. The one he had chosen had pieces of wood, carved in intricate detail. He liked the horse. He had met them a couple of times. They weren't quite sophonts, but he would like to have one in his quarters-group some day, if they could be bred small enough.
When everything was ready for his guest, he sat quietly for a few minutes, working on the design for his latest project. When the light shifted slightly yellow-ward, announcing the scholar's arrival, he put the project away quietly and keyed the intercom.
"It's open," he said.
"Aelool, how are you this afternoon?"
"I'm fine," he offered the ritual greeting. "May I get you some coffee?"
"Yes, please. Black."
The Indowy placed a cup of coffee and a glass of water, with an olive, on the tray. Actually, the coffee was not black. It was a dark brown. And adding fat and nu
trient-fortified mammalian sweat did not make it white, but more of a light brown. He had noticed humans tended to exaggerate such things.
They began their chess game. He had white—which was, in this case, actually white—so he opened the game. Currently, he was learning the variations on the knight's gambit. As they played, O'Reilly updated him on the current state of Earth operations.
"Worth won't be easy for them to replace. Most of the combat vets around are used to killing Posleen, not fellow humans. Sure, they still have the professionals he recruited and trained, but the Darhel have always tended to rely on data mining and hacking for intelligence more than actual sophont operatives or agents. Their training systems are weak, and any loss hurts."
"I am more concerned about the leak. We need concealment. The plan is very long term, and premature exposure could defeat it."
"Team Isaac has an impressive success rate."
"They had better."
Chapter Four
Charleston, Wednesday, May 15
It was a few minutes before six and the edges of the scattered clouds were a brilliant pink when Cally got off the city bus at the Columbia gate of the Wall. She had her backpack, one rolling suitcase, and had teamed an old pair of cutoff shorts with a T-shirt, complete with garish beach sunset, and a bright yellow Folly Beach visor. She wore an expression of slightly desperate hopefulness as she scanned the vehicles lining up for the morning convoy. She started towards a rather battered white van, but one scowl from the female driving it had her looking for another. Towards the end of the line she spotted a VW van that must have been damn near eighty years old. The tie-dyed patterns painted on the panels showed different degrees of fading, but had also clearly been carefully touched up over the years. The skull with roses coming out of the top was absolutely perfect, as was the lovingly painted legend that she knew even before she got far enough past the other vehicles to see all the words.
Before approaching, she took care of the buckley, turning voice access and response off and running the emulation all the way down to two, tucking it back into her purse. Wouldn't do to have him saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
The driver had long, blond hair and a full mustache and well-combed beard. He was built like a small bear. As she approached, she could detect a faint whiff of oak leaves and patchouli over the salt and fish from the tanks in back. The music from his cube player reached a good way from the open window and his fingers were tapping to the beat on the sill. " . . . gotta tip they're gonna kick the door in again. I'd like to get some sleep before I travel . . ."
"Hey, bitchin' shirt. You surf?" He noticed her as she dragged the suitcase up.
"I've caught a coupla waves here and there. But I usually head out to L.A. for that. For the waves here, I didn't even bring my own board. Didn't have the cash or the time to go out that far this trip."
"Bummer," he sympathized. "Too much of everything's about money, man. But you gotta make a living, so what can you do. You ridin' out on the bus?"
"Well, actually, I was kinda hoping I could find somebody I could hitch a ride with. I spent a little too much and I could afford the ticket, I just, you know, would have to go real light on meals till I got back to campus."
"Oh man, that sucks, say no more." He leaned over and unlocked the passenger side door. "By the way, I'm Reefer. Reefer Jones."
"Marilyn Grant. Thanks, dude." She lugged her suitcase around the front of the car, stowed it behind the passenger seat, tucked her pack in the floorboard under her feet, and got in, carefully not wrinkling her nose at the salty, fishy smell.
"Oh, we've gotta figure out some way to square you with the paperwork," he grimaced apologetically. "Sorry, but my boss can be a pain in the ass about hitchhikers. Hey, I don't suppose you can shoot, can you?"
Cally fumbled in her purse and handed him a very sincere range certification from a local Charleston range, dated a few days ago, rating Marilyn Grant an expert, non-resident.
"I went on a lark. Hadn't shot in years, but my mom made me learn, you know?" she said.
"Yeah, mine too. I think the war like affected that whole generation. But it was okay, I mean, if I ever meet a steel Postie pop-up target, I'll know how to kill it." He laughed and scribbled something on the clipboard. "Okay, I put you down as a freelance guard. The boss'll be cool with that. Lived in Urbs his whole life, came to Charleston for the money, man, old fart is scared to death of Posties." He shrugged, easing the van up in the line that was finally beginning to move. "I've been drivin' this route for five years and there's never been a Postie get close that those guys," he gestured to the machine-gun turret mounted on the top of an eighteen wheeler, "didn't saw in half before it even got close to us."
"Does that happen often?" Her eyes were round.
"Nah." He offered her a stick of gum, popping one in his own mouth. "About every other run. It's a pain in the ass because then the whole convoy has to stop while they take the head for the bounty." He made a gagging gesture. "Well, we usually don't actually stop. They just lose their place in line and we slow down a bit." He gestured to the trucks again. "Every one of those guys has a boma blade tucked away up there, so it doesn't really take any time at all."
They had pulled up to the gate while he was talking, and he handed the guard her range card and his own, showing the guard the Colt .45 by his seat and the second one in the glove box. "The boss won't mind you because the extra shooter drops our convoy fee." He shrugged and took their cards back from the guard, handing her hers and tucking his own back in his wallet.
It took another fifteen minutes for the guards to clear the other vehicles and the group to begin the drive back to real civilization.
"Next stop, Columbia." He cranked the volume on the stereo slightly, glancing at her curiously. "So where are you headed, anyway?"
"Cincy."
"Oh. Well, you can, like, ride the whole way then. That's cool." He looked uncomfortable for a minute. "I'll just have to pretend you got out in Knoxville, when the convoy zone ends."
"Will I get you in trouble?"
He thought a minute and shook his head. "Nah, not really. The boss isn't too bad a guy. If he finds out I'll just tell him it was part of your fee for riding guard from here to Knoxville."
"So what do you haul?" she asked politely, glancing over her shoulder into the back of the van where several packed aquariums bubbled away, air exchanges sticking up several inches above the sealed lids.
"Blue crab. Like, live, you know? Buncha rich dudes in Chicago like their fresh seafood." He shrugged.
"So why you and why not one of them?" She waved at the lines of semis ahead and behind them.
"Oh, like, it's a niche market. They're carrying frozen stuff, and, well, some of 'em have iced down live oysters and clams and stuff. Crabs are just incredibly fussy about live travel. But a little of the right stuff in the water so they aren't too crabby," he grinned, "and you can pack a lot of the little buggers into the tanks."
"So, what, they're too drugged up to rip each other to bits? What's that do to them as food?"
"Basically," he agreed cheerfully. "Like, put 'em in a clean, salt-water tank and in like six hours or so they're clean. And crab valium doesn't really affect humans, anyway, you know?"
She politely ignored that the inner dimensions of the back of the van seemed to her practiced eye to be just a bit smaller than the outside would normally indicate.
Business out of the way, he seemed more inclined to listen to his music than chat. That suited Cally fine. It must have been ten years since she'd had the time or need to take the overland route out of Charleston and she let her eyes glaze over watching the miles and miles of pine forest, punctuated by the occasional burn zone and abat-meadow.
It was only as they approached Columbia a couple of hours later that the now mixed pine and hardwood forests gave way to cleared fields of cows and crops, each field bordered by widely spaced sensor poles.
"I guess the bounties cover the costs
of the sensors and the power to run them," she said.
"Those bounty farmers are some strange birds. Get at least half their money off stalking bounties, spend half of that fighting the abat and grat. Real loner kinda dudes. Then there was one of 'em about fifteen years ago went totally off his nut and got caught breeding Posties. It was before my time, but he'd had a Postie God King next to his land. Seems he'd made a deal with it to deliver heads of Postie normals just up from nestlings in exchange for half the take. It was, like, really nasty what they did to him when they caught him."
"How'd they catch him?" she asked politely, since Marilyn wouldn't remember the story.
"He was always delivering twice the bounty of the other guys around him. I guess somebody just got suspicious. Next time the Postie God King made delivery, they had surveillance on him and everything." He stuck a fresh piece of gum in his mouth. "What was real weird was when they traced the Postie back to where it had been living. Man, it was like a freakin' magpie's nest. Tinfoil, polished pennies, chromed bike bars and car parts and stuff, even some gold. The Postie must have been bughouse nuts, too. I mean, what are the odds." He shrugged and they drove on in silence until the convoy began to slow as the front vehicles reached the gate into Columbia Trading Station.
Entry through the gates was much faster than exit from Charleston had been. The Columbia guards obviously wanted to keep the gates open as short a time as possible, admitting the entire convoy and closing the big steel slab behind them before beginning the paperwork.
As he waited his turn to sign in he waved across the large parking lot to a squat building with gas pumps in front of it. One of the tankers in the line had pulled around to the side of the building and was unhooking hoses.
"I've gotta top off my gas after I get through here. It's just the way they do this convoy thing. Won't let you leave unless you're full. If you want to go stretch your legs or buy a drink or, like, other stuff, this is the last stop until Spartanburg Station in three hours."