by Scott Rhine
Stu said, “I can pay for everything if we land someplace that has access to Fortune funds and tech. Brazil?”
Hans chewed an aspirin dry. “We have no choice. We’ve already done a promo using footage from the Saudi STEM school. The Brazil girls’ school can substitute, and they may have some equipment we can borrow.” He pointed at Sif. “You knew what the rules were. Why did you do it?”
Lowering her eyes, Sif said, “The Ministry of State Security reminded me of my duties to the people.” Laura recognized the euphemism. Sif still had family somewhere in mainland China, possibly guilty of misconduct or attending a seditious meeting.
Did the Chinese want Koku, too? Laura shuddered. How big would that computer need to be?
“I had already erased the evidence. All Grant had to do was keep his mouth shut. Why did he take the blame?” Sif hugged herself in grief.
“Because he loves you, moron,” Laura replied.
Half the crew reacted like Laura had farted publicly. Sif, however, paled with shock. “They’re going to torture him because he wanted to save me?”
“Most likely, but he’s the one who told us what the consequences would be in the briefing,” Hans said, grimly.
Sif collapsed into a chair. “Why didn’t he tell me how he felt?”
Artemis cleared her throat. “Aside from what you called him almost every episode? Everyone knew your opinions on mixed marriages. When your brother married a Burmese woman from work, you practically disowned him.”
“That was my parents. Besides, they call it Myanmar now.”
Laura shrugged. “Countries are just an abstraction. You can’t see them from space. With advances in genetic engineering, the racial boundaries are blurred as well. As much as they fight, the Koreans and Japanese have the same bloodlines. Eventually, we’ll accept that we’re all just human.”
The others stared at her for the unexpected philosophical tidbit.
“How did you all know before I did?” asked Sif.
Hans snorted. “Even the fans knew he stayed here to write your scripts, even after he won those awards. He did it to hear your voice reading his words. He told me that intelligent debate with you was better than sex with another woman.”
Sif blinked, dumbfounded.
Stu turned to Laura. “You’re the fancy lawyer. Do something.”
“Who told you?” Laura snapped.
“No one.”
“I spent hours changing my appearance.” She removed her glasses and the cheek implants. “Airport facial recognition can’t even tell who I am with these on.”
He rolled his eyes. “A woman as gorgeous as you can’t hide behind fake glasses any more than Clark Kent.”
“Gorgeous? I couldn’t have made myself any plainer.”
Stu put a forefinger in the middle of his forehead. “I look with my talent as much as my eyes, Laura. You shine like a Christmas tree no matter what you wear.”
He recognized my aura. She swallowed hard. That is the sexiest thing any man has ever said to me. “I came on this trip to show you I’ve changed.”
“Prove it. Use your skills to rescue our friend.”
Only her grandfather would have the clout to help. She would probably need to beg. I’d rather drink piss again. But this was for Stu. “If I do this, will you give me an hour alone with you to explain myself?”
The request startled him, but the others pressured Stu into agreeing.
Laura asked, “Now, how do I get a comm link to Japan?”
Nemesis replied, “You’ll have to use a landline. The prince destroyed our long-range transmitters, and he’s blocked access from our computers.”
“The airport uses bots to refuel the plane and empty the toilets,” Artemis said. “They’re still connected. You could ride one of them back to the shelter.”
Kaguya looked up from her book. “We can reach them from the landing gear bay in the cargo section.” When Laura raised her eyebrow, her mother said, “What? I learn the specs for every plane I ride on in case I need to fly it in an emergency.”
Chapter 23 – Ultimatum
The Ballbusters plane departed for Rio de Janeiro, leaving Laura and her mother crouched beside the runway with overnight bags. As they crept toward the terminal, Laura opened herself to the Collective Unconscious to locate possible snipers. She sensed another mind following them—a woman. Definitely not Saudi. Laura did some fast calculations. The person was invisible and probably an ally.
Laura had heard rumors about Chinese stealth armor during the last war. In Japanese, she asked, “Did Stewart send you?”
Kaguya replied, “Relax, Tsukiko. It’s Oleander Dahlstrom. She’s under orders not to speak, but she’s been on the plane all along, protecting your boyfriend.”
“He’s not—” Laura bit back her irritation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I discovered her when the troops searched the plane. I was too busy hiding her and her daughter, Joan, to let you know. We have an uneasy alliance.”
“Where’s her daughter?”
Kaguya adjusted her head covering and attached the veil. “She continued to the school with Stu, where it’s safe.”
“Why did Oleander trust you?”
“Because her brother, Johann, works for NERO. He vouched for my sincerity.” When Laura remained skeptical, Kaguya added, “I told the crew that we broke ties with your grandfather in order to assist Conrad. When I showed Oleander proof that Commander Zeiss is your father, she agreed to this mission to protect you.”
Laura fixed her own veil in place. “Oleander, the prince has wireless electric fences everywhere around here. Also, don’t record anything, or he’ll know where you are.”
From the terminal, four paths branched off every 60 degrees around the semicircle. Each path led to an identical house. Kaguya explained, “Each wife has to be treated equally. The question is: where is the prince? We need to avoid him.”
“Any of them have a choo-choo parked in front?” asked Laura sarcastically.
Oleander tapped the gravel on the house closest to the Persian Gulf.
Laura chose the opposite direction. The house was denoted with a “1” on the door. “Stay here. You two can bail me out later if I need it.”
Her mother sat in a rocker on the porch. “Be respectful.”
A Filipino woman her mother’s age answered the knock.
“Excuse me. May I borrow your phone to call my grandfather?” Laura asked, miming a phone in her hand.
The servant smiled and directed her to the gold-plated old-style rotary phone in the foyer. Laura could hear silverware clanking on plates. She dialed the exit code for this country, followed by the Tokyo number. Back home, it was Grandfather’s bedtime.
Nana answered. “What?”
“We need you to ask a Saudi prince to release someone … as a favor.”
“No,” Nana replied.
“What?” Laura lowered her voice. “I’m stranded here in the middle of nowhere. I did everything Grandfather asked. Did he get the package?”
“The sample was so degraded by heat and contaminated with your DNA that it was virtually useless. All we could discern was that Llewellyn’s telomeres were twice the normal length.”
Someone with his genes could live 250 years! “I did everything I could.”
Her grandfather took the phone. “I heard the recording of your seduction. Where is the sperm sample? You milked him dry.”
“It’s all a misunderstanding.”
“That’s my sperm. You’re trying to sell the real sample to the highest bidder.”
“I’m not like you,” Laura spat.
“Well, you’re cut off from everything until you deliver.” Then he hung up.
Part of Laura cringed, eager to please the only father figure she ever had and reclaim her place in the Mori palace, while another part of her looked for a way to give Nana and Tetsuo the finger. I still have options. Once I have the sample, I can do anything I want. The most likely
scenario involved Stu enjoying the sample-extraction process so much that she got to keep him, too.
The maid vanished, presumably to tell someone guests were here. Laura dialed one of the high-end lawyers in England before their offices closed or Nana emailed a warning. Time to get my 2 percent of Fortune back. “Hello? Mr. Kiersgard? My grandfather has breached my allowance contract. Yes. He’s refused me transportation. I need you to reinstate every right I waived in that contract. No, I haven’t been fired. In the meantime, I’ll need the services of a corporate mediator in this area.” She provided the address just as the prince and two of his guards approached.
“You are now trespassing,” said the prince.
“I came to explain the camera situation. Grant Thisbe is innocent—”
“Take this one to the sorting pile. Perhaps it will teach her manners.”
With her mother still on the porch, Laura was hauled off to the dump. To be more humane, the sorters worked at night when it was cooler and the nanobots weren’t active. Laura hadn’t slept well the night before, and she was punchy. The thought of working all night in a stinking trash heap struck her as hilarious.
The monotony of picking out glass bottles gave her a chance to plan her revenge. She plotted several scenarios where the puritanical Stu would beg her to do wicked, perverse things. He is so going to grovel. He’ll start by kissing my feet. If he’s suitably convincing, I may let him work his way up my legs. She was the sole woman on the festering heap, and the others stared at her. Broadcasting sexual fantasies might not be the best idea in this situation.
Laura shifted her musing to how Koku could be abused. Assembling a dozen odd facts and parts of conversations she had heard at the office, she became convinced that Tetsuo Mori had worsened the wheat crisis in order to maximize profit. The number of failures in the system were too numerous and precise to be coincidence. Perhaps two copies of the AIs had been aiming for the same effect and tipped the scales too far.
Because of her inattention, she slipped down the pile and cut her calf on a broken washing machine. Several men carried her to the infirmary in the zoo enclosure. While she waited in a cinderblock room, someone tapped on the window pane. Laura sensed Oleander by her aura and could barely make out the shape of a face. Laura opened the window.
Oleander asked, “So … need a rescue yet? This compound is about sixty clicks from Qatar. Can you walk?”
“Since we’d pretty much have to walk down the beach, they’d have to be incompetent not to catch us by morning, especially since I’d be facedown in the sand from exhaustion.” Laura found peroxide and gauze to treat her own injury. “How’s my mom?”
“She’s an honored guest. Evidently, the prince and his wives were all fans.”
“That’s my family. Fall in shit, do evil, and come out smelling like a rose.”
Oleander chuckled. “They called the zoo vet to come check you out. He has to drive back from his place in Bahrain. It’s his day off.”
“He has a car?”
“All these people drive big, off-road vehicles.”
This gave Laura the beginnings of a plan. “Do you know where they’re holding Grant?”
“Yeah.”
“Wake Mom and break Grant out as soon as the vet arrives. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“What good will your mom do?”
Laura grinned. “At night, nothing can stop her. She is a bloody ninja. She can see ahead Out-of-Body, and men fall at her feet. If charm and psi-bolts don’t work, she can kick their asses. I just need you to keep her focused—no blinking lights or patterns.”
“She’s stayed in training all these years?”
The smile vanished. “Mom wants to be ready for Conrad. It’s all she thinks of. In fact, if she ever spaces out, ask her a personal question about him.”
“Yeah. About that …”
“Zeiss is my father,” Laura replied. She didn’t feel like telling her about Monty yet.
Oleander’s face betrayed shock. “Z wouldn’t do that.”
“Nana found a sample he left behind. I’m sort of a science experiment.”
“Oh, crap.”
“I’ve been saying that every day since age ten. Go. We can swap family horror stories later,” Laura said. “Before I forget, tell Mom to have everything from our New York apartment shipped to Rio before my grandfather cancels the lease.”
****
The vet arrived in a covered jeep, and Laura had him wrapped around her finger in a manner of minutes. As soon as she sensed that Oleander, Mom, and Grant were hiding in the back of the jeep, she let the vet talk her into driving to a motel out of the country for a quick fling. He gave her an antibiotic, another shot for the pain, and then whisked her away.
The guard at the border let them through in exchange for a bribe and the promise that it would only be for a few hours. Whatever he had given Laura for the pain kicked in soon after, and she was glad that she had guardian angels in the back.
She woke up in a rest stop when Mom splashed water on her face. The vet lay on the asphalt with his pants around his ankles. “Stay awake. He dosed you with ketamine.”
“I’ll drive,” Laura said, attempting to keep her eyes open. “Mom might have a seizure.” Her head flopped back against the headrest, and she admired the elephant-shaped car deodorant on the mirror.
“Maybe I should drive,” Oleander said.
“Invisible? That would attract attention,” said Kaguya.
They decided to let Grant wear the sneak suit.
Kaguya stopped at the next gas station to buy temporary black hair dye. “A blonde in this country will attract too much attention and make you too easy to track.” She even found the brown contacts back in the suitcase so Laura would match her Japanese passport. The Salome identity was over for now.
At the Bahrain International Airport, Kaguya went to the Gulf Air counter and asked for three first-class tickets to Brazil. Oleander held out the untraceable credit card and the identity card Mira Hollis had provided. Oleander and her mother had to practically carry Laura to the desk with her passport, making the woman behind the ticket counter suspicious.
Then, Kaguya explained, “My daughter just got engaged to an important sheik. Her father and I arranged it. What I didn’t know was that she recently gave her virginity to a foreign musician. The girl took pills to erase the shame on our family, but I caught it in time. We’re going to Rio to surgically reconstruct her hymen. You appreciate the delicacy.” She handed the clerk a folded bank note. The tickets were in their hands a moment later.
“Lady, you’re good at lying,” Oleander whispered.
“Saxophonist,” mumbled Laura. “Circular breather. He let me use his genes, and I let him slide mine off. God, he was good.”
Kaguya snorted. “I’m glad we have a stop in Rome. She’ll need to sleep this off and buy a change of clothes.”
“Speaking of clothes, Laura said your father might cancel your apartment lease out of spite. She hinted that you should ship everything to Rio that you want to keep.”
Kaguya phoned seven different apartments and express-shipped all the contents to the school in Rio, care of Ambassador Llewellyn.
“No need to rush the shipments. Grant will need a few days to get a new passport. The sneak suit won’t have much charge left after this flight,” Oleander said in a distracted manner.
“Talk to me, Tsukiko,” Kaguya said. “You have to stay awake until we board the plane. Where would you like to visit in Rome?”
“Bartiluccis live there. They couldn’t make it to the London meeting,” Laura said. She meant the meeting Stu held for the families of those on Sanctuary.
Oleander gasped.
“Ah, yes. Giancarlo Bartilucci,” Kaguya said. He had been the first crew member to die on Labyrinth. “Did you tell the Bartiluccis about Joan? That they have a granddaughter?”
Oleander scowled. “Screw you.”
“Hurts when the Devil’s daughter gives you mora
lity lessons, doesn’t it?” Kaguya replied.
To avoid suspicion, she bought a new sports bag for Oleander to carry on, one that could hold the sneak suit later. They stocked it with essentials at the airport shops, including some items for Grant.
On the underbooked flight, Laura fell asleep before the fasten seatbelts light came on.
Chapter 24 – Paparazzi
In Rome, Grant received medical treatment while Kaguya contacted the Canadian Embassy to get the ball rolling on his new passport. Then she called in sick for her daughter and put in for the four months of back vacation Mori Biotech owed Laura. Her division of the company would be crippled without her. On the next phone call, Kaguya reserved a four-star hotel with her credit card. When Grant rejoined them, the group found a café near the Trevi Fountain to eat dinner.
Laura dozed through the meal. Grant seemed overly concerned with guarding their meager luggage. A tourist or two snapped Kaguya’s photo as she waved gaily and chatted. When fans recognized her from an album cover from twenty years ago, she felt obligated to reward them. Following the meal, Kaguya insisted on buying Oleander a new dress and a visit to a hair salon. “I don’t know,” said the astronaut.
“You’re going to meet the family of the man you loved,” Kaguya said. “You want their first reaction to be, ‘Of course he fell for her.’”
Oleander seemed reluctant. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a salon in my life. I cut my own hair.”
Raising an eyebrow, Kaguya said, “Just like in prison?”
“Bitch.”
“Other people are afraid to tell you the truth. Crazy people like me don’t bother to lie.”
Grant tasted his hazelnut gelato. “You do have kind of a prisoner-of-war vibe going.”
“I can see why women on the show like to abuse you,” Oleander countered. She jerked a thumb at Laura. “What are we going to do with Sleeping Beauty?”
“I know all her sizes,” Kaguya replied. “I buy most of her clothes anyway. She’s always working.”
“You really think she’s a good match for Stewart?”