“Ah . . . maybe here’s not a good place, but I need to get this done. Can I come by tonight before curfew?”
“Uh, sure,” Michi and Tamara said, almost in unison.
“OK, see you then,” she said, looking around as if trying to see who might be watching. “Maybe you should go, and I’ve got a lot to do here before then. See you later.”
She quickly walked off as the two women stared at each other. Michi started to ask what that was all about, but Tamara held up a hand, stopping her.
“Well, it’s good to see everyone,” Tamara said to Michi, but loud enough for anyone trying to overhear to do so. “But you promised me a bubble tea, so let’s boogie.”
She took Michi’s arm in hers and turned around, heading for the door. They stopped only to greet two other people they knew and exchanged banal pleasantries, but within a minute, they were out the door and into the street.
“Bubble tea? You don’t even like it,” Michi said quietly as they walked.
“So sue me. It was all I could think of,” Tamara whispered. “I should have said coffee, but we’d better stop for some tea.”
“Don’t you think all this cloak-and-dagger stuff is a little much?” Michi whispered back, wishing she had spoken aloud but spooked by Tamara’s actions.
“If it’s too much, no harm, no foul. As it is, better safe than sorry.”
They made their way to the closest tea shop and sat outside in the spring sunshine, sipping their tea. Tamara didn’t like bubble tea much, but Michi loved sucking up the little tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup. Twice, she tried to ask Tamara what was going on, but both times, her roommate changed the subject. Michi thought it was all too much, but she was willing to play along.
They left the tea shop to do some window shopping, ignoring the presence of large numbers of jacks. Along Manteo Drive, with all the high-end shops, the jacks didn’t intrude, but even there, the two women felt eyes on them. Michi found it surprisingly awkward to try and act innocent, as if they were doing nothing.
Eventually, with Tamara controlling the pace, they made it back to the condo.
“So what’s going on?” Michi demanded as soon as the front door closed.
“You didn’t feel the vibe in there with Cheri?” Tamara asked.
“She was stressed, sure. But wouldn’t you be? What with the Marines tipping the Federation’s hand on where they stood?”
“I think it was more than that. Just call it a gut feeling. Anyway, she’ll be here in an hour. Let’s get ready to dial up a dinner. Maybe the bœuf bourguignon?” she asked, pulling out the keypad on the fabricator. “Why don’t you get a bottle of shiraz and make up some sangria. Cheri is rather partial to that, you know.”
Michi frowned. She had known Cheri for over a year and had dined with her, yet she didn’t know Cheri drank sangria. She wondered just how close Cheri and Tamara really were.
The pitcher of sangria was already down two glasses when the door chimed. Tamara poured a fresh glass and went to let Cheri in.
“Oh, you know me, girl,” Cheri said, gratefully taking the drink.
She took a swallow, gave a happy sigh, then sank down on the overstuffed chair next to the couch.
“So what couldn’t you say at WRP?” Tamara bluntly asked without preamble.
“Getting right to it, huh? You always were direct,” Cheri said.
She took another sip of her drink, and then turned to Michi.
“Michi dear, this is going to be hard, really hard. But I want you to think back to when Franz was killed. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Michi stared at Cheri. Whatever she expected, this was not it. And she had been trying over the last month-and-a-half to move beyond that day, to move beyond the point when her life changed.
“I know this is hard. But please, tell me, what did you see?”
Michi tried to gather her thoughts. She took several deep breaths before starting.
“I was at the studio, practicing—”
“Skip ahead, dear, to when the trouble started.”
“Huh? OK, well, the first two people spoke, and then it was Franz’ turn. He said something funny, and the crowd laughed. You know, like he always does. Did,” she corrected herself, a lump forming in her throat. “He said something about Henry Jugos coming, then started on about how PI needs their workers. You know, like you told me Hokkam wanted. Then the jacks started moving about, like they were nervous or something.”
“And?” Cheri prompted her.
“Franz tried to calm down the jacks. He said we were doing nothing wrong. But it seemed like they might want to arrest him, so I started forward. I wanted to be there. Franz told everyone not to resist, and he even held out his hands like he wanted to be cuffed. Then one of the jacks fired, and Franz shouted out that he was surrendering.”
“Did you actually see a jack firing?” Cheri asked.
“Well, no. But it had to be one of them, right?”
“OK, go on.”
“Well, then, Franz was screaming at the jacks, and, uh . . .”
“What happened next,” Cheri asked as both she and Tamara leaned in.
“You were there,” Michi said angrily, pissed that she had to relive it. “His head exploded. They murdered him!”
Cherie leaned forward, taking Michi’s hands in hers. “Michi, dear, think carefully. I know this is hard, but just how did he get hit?”
“They shot him in the forehead. I saw it. One moment he was shouting, the next his forehead was gone.”
“And which way was he facing?”
“I told you. He was shouting at the jacks, and they shot him in the head.”
Michi gulped in the air, trying not to break down. Cheri just looked at her in sympathy.
“You happy now?” Michi asked, pulling back from the woman.
“Michi, when a bullet hits, it makes a small entry wound. When it exits the body, it makes a huge, catastrophic wound, just like what happened to Franz.”
Michi stared at Cheri, then simply asked “What?”
Tamara sucked in some air as she seemed to realize what Cheri was inferring.
“Michi, Franz was shot from behind the crowd. He was not shot by the jacks.”
“Bullshit! I was there! I saw it.”
“Michi, dear, most of the jacks were armed with their Jamisons, not projectile weapons. And none carried the caliber of weapon that probably took Franz’ life. The PI report absolved the security forces, but we weren’t sure.”
“Of course those bastards would absolve the jacks.”
“All of the security recordings are classified, and we have tried to hack them, but what you just said confirms what PI reported, and from what we are getting from our sources inside. Franz was not killed by the jacks.”
“But . . . but maybe they sent one of them to the back of the crowd to kill him, to confuse people,” Michi said, not willing to let go of her convictions.
She had killed a jack because of what happened to Franz. They had to be guilty.
“That could be. It might even be probable. But we don’t know.”
“Who else would want him dead? No, it was the jacks, and if not them personally, it was Propitious Interstellar.”
“I agree with Michi,” Tamara offered. “Who else had the motive?”
Cheri looked at the other two for a moment and seemed to come to a decision. “We don’t know. It probably is the company, but it also seems we have a traitor in WRP.”
The two roommates looked at Cheri in stunned silence.
“That’s why I wanted to come here and not talk at the office. There have been too many coincidences, starting with that rally. We changed the position of the stage from what we had been permitted due to the planting of the spring flowers. We never submitted that change.”
“Yet someone knew where to get into position to shoot down Franz,” Tamara said as understanding dawned on her.
“Exactly! And there have been other things as wel
l—too many to be purely bad luck.”
“Who is it?” Michi asked in a steely voice, her thoughts drifting back towards vengeance again.
“We don’t know. I don’t know. I am getting paranoid, suspecting everyone,” Cheri admitted.
“Someone inside the WRP had Franz murdered?” Michi asked, her voice rising, bordering on hysteria.
“I’m not saying that. I still think it was the company, or even the Federation itself. It’s just that they had help from inside,” Cheri said.
“If it goes as high as the Federation, that explains the Marines,” Tamara noted. “They needed an excuse to send in their enforcers, and by us acting out, we handed it to them. This could be another Ellison or Fu Sing.”
“What? Ellison and Fu Sing?” Michi asked in a confused voice.
“Geez, Michi. Don’t you follow anything? Both planets had worker protests put down, and it was the Marines who did it. On Fu Sing, the Navy even bombarded the refugee camps. Maybe 50,000 were killed,” Tamara said.
“I think I remember that one, but wasn’t that a revolt? Didn’t the Navy and the Marines have to rescue the people there?”
Tamara snorted as Cheri said, “Really, Michi, dear, do you even have to ask that? You’ve seen the newsfeeds here. Is that what’s really happening, or is that what the Federation propagandists want you to believe. Do you think it was any different for those two planets?”
Michiko sat for a moment, digesting what she had just been told.
“So, killing Franz was just a set-up, to create a situation where the Marines could be called in?” she asked.
“We think so. I think so, at least,” Cheri said.
“And I gave them that excuse,” Michi said, more to herself than to the other two.
“You gave them? What do you mean?” Cheri asked.
“Michiko!” Tamara warned.
Michi held up a hand, palm outwards, stopping her roommate. “No, she needs to know.”
“Know what?” Cheri asked, obviously confused.
“You know those two jacks? The one that got killed? Gerile Fountainhead? And there was another that got mugged, his Jamison stolen. We did that, Tamara and me. Or we did the second jack. I killed the first one.”
Cheri slid back into her chair, looking at Michi in stunned silence.
Michi looked down at her hands, examining the fingernails as she waited for some sort of reaction.
“You what?”
“I killed the first guy. Broke his neck. I don’t think I planned that, but maybe I did. We, Tamara and me, we jumped a second jack, right before they declared martial law. We did that. We gave them the excuse to come here with the Marines.”
“Why? I mean, I know why, but we figured that that Fountainhead lad wasn’t just some drug deal gone bad, but we thought it must have been the NIP[10] who did it, deny it all they wanted. But you? You’re a—”
“I’m a First Family, from both sides, Clan and Kaitakusya, I know. But they took my Franz, and that’s all that mattered. I might as well have given the Marines an engraved invitation,” she said bitterly.
Cheri edged forward, putting a hand on Michi’s knee. “It was coming anyway, dear. You may have sped the process up, but you didn’t cause it. If Franz was killed by them, and I completely believe that to be so, this was a long time planning. If it wasn’t you, it would be something else. Now, we just have to think of what to do with it.”
“It should be obvious,” Tamara, said. “We have to nip this in the bud. No freakin’ Marines are going to be allowed to run over us. We’ve got our Highlander Samurai here, our Jeanne d’Arc. She’s a marketing miracle, so use her. Let’s push them back off Kakurega.”
Cheri listened to Tamara’s rant and seemed to consider it. Michi could almost see Cheri’s thoughts war against each other across her face.
“Actually, that falls in line with what some of the WRP think, and certainly the NIP agrees with that. We’ve been discussing it, to be honest. The trick is to make it uncomfortable enough for them to leave, but not go over the line and invoke a severe retaliation,” Cheri said. “Michi, I want you to tell me exactly what you did, every step along the way. Don’t leave anything out.” She looked at her watch. “And it looks like you’ve got a guest tonight. I won’t make curfew.”
For the next three hours, with Cheri being surprisingly thorough in her questioning, Michi and Tamara related everything they could remember. Michi knew that Cheri was high up in the WRP, but she’d always been sort of a slightly eccentric aunt to her. Only now, could Michi see the organized, driven leader Cheri really was.
“OK, I know that was tiring,” Cheri said as she had finally wrung all she could from the two roommates. “The question is, what do we do next?”
“It’s obvious what we do next. We jump a Marine,” Tamara declared. “We don’t kill him, but we let them know that we aren’t going to meekly stand by and let the company throw the charter out the window.”
“You know, I think you’re right, and that surprises me. I do think we need to make a statement,” Cheri said. “Do you think you can do it?”
“No problem,” Michi said, determination in her voice.
“A couple of things different, though. No more cozies for camouflage. I’m going to send someone over, someone I trust. He’ll have something a little better for you. And I want backup. No two lone rangers out there. Let me work some things out, and do not, I repeat do not, attempt anything until I get back to you. Agreed?”
“You can count on the Highlander Samurai and the Tattooed Avenger,” Tamara said in an excited voice.
“This isn’t fun and games, Tammy,” Cheri said. “This is serious shit, so no grandstanding. Am I clear?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
Cheri turned to Michi and asked in the same serious tone, “Am I clear, Michiko MacCailín, blood of the First Families.”
Cheri, not being First Family herself, didn’t have the power to invoke a First Family honor-binding, but Michi didn’t care. She didn’t need to be honor-bound to tell the truth.
“If you will give me the means to get revenge, then I am your woman. I will do as you say.”
Chapter 16
“Oh, that’s pure dead belter,”[11] Michiko said as she stared in the mirror, looking at the stranger’s face staring back at her.
The “stranger” had red hair and a pale, round face sprinkled with freckles across the nose. Her body was essentially Michi’s, but the face was that of a 15th Century Scottish lass, not the darker First Family countenance that Michi had grown used to over her 19 years. She reached up with a hand and touched the round, pug nose she saw, but felt her own smaller, familiar nose.
“OK, OK, I mean, this can’t be penetrated by anything in the electromagnetic spectrum, I promise you that,” Doug Taggart said excitedly. “It can be jammed, of course, but that would take a directed beam transmitter, not the surveillance equipment we have here on Kakurega.”
“My turn, Michi. I want to see who I’m going to be,” Tamara said.
Tamara pushed Michi away from the mirror, took a breath, then turned on the facial recognition spoofer attached to her collar. Michi thought it was freaky to see Tamara’s short brown locks and round face immediately switch to an exotic, dark-skinned stranger with close-cropped corn-rowed hair. Both girls had put on T’s for the test, and the top of Tamara’s jungle-scene tattoo disappeared, slightly coming back as her skin color faded lower into her chest. From under her bikini panties, her normal tattooed palette ran down her legs to her pale ankles and feet.
Michi stepped to stand beside her, both taking in the sight of two strangers looking back at them.
“Dougie, my boy, you done good,” Tamara said, awestruck for once.
“This is a pretty new development,” Doug started. “It was started as an application for psychoanalysis, of all things, but progression with TET-cells made miniaturization and more refined refractory lanes—”
Tamara cut him off. “Sl
ow down there, boy. I don’t really care how it works, just that it does,” she said, before turning to the redhead Michi. “Think of it, Michi, we can set our look in the recipe, then just turn it on in the morning. No make-up, just instant glamorous me.”
“Well, I guess that would be possible,” Doug started. “Let’s see, if we . . .”
Michi looked at her black roommate in the mirror, and both of them broke out laughing as Doug went on. They had met Doug only two hours before. If Hollywood had cast a resident geek, this is who they would have come up with. Doug was earnest, gangly, and overwhelmingly devoted to technology. He was like a puppy, eager to please. He had almost started stammering when the two roommates had stripped to T’s and panties, but once he had attached the small spoofing units, he had forgotten the fact that the girls were only half-dressed as he became engrossed in his toys.
Doug worked for the company, probably as they were the only ones on Kakurega with a big enough lab to interest him. Somehow, though, Cheri had recruited him. Michi wished she knew how Cheri had done that. Doug didn’t seem like the political sort. But he had come through. If the face-spoofers, for lack of a better term, could spoof the surveillance cams as well as they fooled the eyes, then no more pulled up cozies. This was brills.
They had met at a local shawarma stand, and before anything was said, Doug had handed Tamara an envelope. There was no subterfuge, no attempt at a covert hand-off. He just said hi and passed the envelope.
The handwritten note told the two roommates that no one else at WRP knew about “anything,” and that Doug’s presence was also a secret, known only to Cheri. Once they had finished reading, Doug opened his mouth to speak when Tamara hushed him. Evidently, Doug was not a fan of spy flicks. Neither woman was anything close to a real spy, but both knew you just didn’t openly discuss potential illegal actions at a café table on a public street.
They finished their shawarmas, then walked back to their condo, Tamara’s arm in Doug’s as if he were her boyfriend with Michi trailing behind. Even in a make-believe world, Michi was a third wheel, she thought to herself ruefully.
Once back in the condo, Michi found herself liking the eccentric young man. Actually, he was some seven years older than her, but something about him spoke little brother, rather than big.
Rebel (The United Federation Marine Corps) Page 7