Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  “Hi,” one girl said with a giggle. “How long are you going to be here?”

  “There’s no set limit,” he replied. “Sanctuary could orbit for a few centuries before refueling. The people in stasis wouldn’t even notice.”

  He chatted about piloting a starship for a few minutes, answering harmless questions.

  The tallest girl said, “You’re very easy to talk to.”

  “The mantra of a navigator should be to go with the flow,” Stu replied. “It saves fuel.”

  “I’m Fiona.” Her chest was bigger than Laura’s, and she seemed to have more teeth—white ones. Her one-piece suit provided some interesting topography.

  From behind the gaggle of girls, the coach cleared her throat. “Unless our visitor is giving a diving demonstration, I would ask that he yield the pool to those of us who are.”

  Stu didn’t want his time with the enchanting Fiona to be over so soon. He glanced up at the board high above the pool. “I could show you a trick I learned back home.” Now that he had their attention, maybe he could question them about people with talents. He crawled out of the pool near the ladder, wetting the area thoroughly.

  Girls gasped and whispered as he strode, dripping, to the ladder. As he climbed, he heard someone who sounded like Joan. “No. Your bones are too brittle. It isn’t worth it just to show off.” He couldn’t see her in the room but knew she was spying.

  Jealous much? He visualized the full tumble with a twist, stopping his momentum just short of impact on the water’s surface. I’ll be like Superman.

  When he walked out onto the plank, Joan very clearly shouted, “You idiot. You can’t fly here.” She was invisible in her armor, but he could see the blur of her open faceplate as she ran toward the ladder. “Stop!”

  Then Joan slipped on the wet patch, smacked against the cement, and splashed into the water. No one would see the sneak suit in water, and Joan didn’t have a breather tank.

  Focusing his gravity sense, he searched for her hidden mass. Then he dove into the water beside his friend. He didn’t take long to locate her among the bubbles. They had played hide-and-seek often as children. Stu grabbed Joan’s armored form and dragged her to the lip of the pool. He switched off the cloak mechanism to conserve battery power and make rescue breathing easier.

  That created a buzz. Fiona and the coach helped to drag Joan from the water. Stu detached the helmet first to make certain Joan was still breathing. When he noticed the red skin on her face, he panicked. What would give her such an extreme reaction so quickly? The chemicals in the water didn’t bother me, but I’m not part alien. Shit. “Showers!” he shouted, lugging his friend toward the locker room. Joan whimpered as she wiped at her face. However, the additional pool water from her gloves made her cry out even louder.

  A few girls shrieked and scattered as he shouldered through their ranks. Fiona ran interference, leading him to the spray nozzles and turning them on. Stu rinsed Joan’s face first and then every part of the armor before he removed it. Red rings encircled her wrists and ankles at link points where water had penetrated. She was hyperventilating, and her face turned the purple shade of a birthmark. “Calm down. We’re going to get you to the infirmary.”

  “It’s on the first floor, across the quad. I’ll show you,” Fiona offered.

  Onesemo appeared at his elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  Stu lifted his friend. “Chemical burns?” He followed Fiona through the halls of the recreation center. “What do you people put in that water to make it stink?”

  “Chlorine. It prevents disease transmission and algae,” Onesemo explained.

  When Onesemo opened a glass door to the outside, Stu said, “Mo, I need you to go back and get that armor for me.”

  His bodyguard nodded and vanished back down the hall.

  Jogging toward the infirmary, Stu asked, “Who teaches xenobiology here?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Hans?” Stu called over his shoulder.

  “Here.” The Ballbusters director puffed along behind them. “I had to go around the long way.”

  “I need you to call Dr. Lena Maurier in LA. Tell her she’s flying here as soon as possible.”

  “Why?” Hans asked.

  “Hint at a Nobel prize.”

  ****

  Covered in a medical gown, Stu sat beside Joan’s hospital bed. The doctors had smeared her face in salve. Fiona paced the hall. A friend had brought her clothes.

  Joan groaned. “What did you hit me with?”

  “You were in a lot of pain. I called in Dr. Maurier. She had the staff take a genetic sample so she could formulate a custom analgesic.”

  She sat up in a panic.

  Stu pushed her back down and explained, “We encrypted the genetic sample, and only Maurier saw it. She knows about your extra chromosomes. On the bright side, the swelling went down, and you’re breathing easier.”

  “I itch all over.”

  “The doctor prescribed aloe lotion. She should be here tomorrow. While you’re in the infirmary, you’re going to need a cover story, so I’ve registered you as a student. My uncle should arrive with your ID in a few minutes. I sent him a photo from before you looked like a beet.”

  “So you’re not a total screwup,” Joan said sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry I was showing off,” he whispered. Nodding to the student pacing the hall, he said, “Fiona probably saved you. I gave her an invitation, too.”

  Joan closed her eyes. “If you’re apologizing, there must be bad news you’re hiding from me.”

  “I called your mother. She’s flying back on the Fortune corporate jet.”

  “You blew both our covers?”

  “Relax. Themis told me Brazil never signed certain extradition treaties. Once your mom lands, they won’t arrest her.”

  “Come on, you have that guilty look.”

  “We were able to track down all the pieces of your sneak suit except the helmet.”

  “What!” The heart monitor flashed red for a moment.

  “Would you relax? Onesemo is on it. We figure the same girls that stole my clothes at the pool took the helmet too. I’m sure they don’t know what they have. We’re on it. Corporate security has the list of team members, and we have a lead through an online auction site. Uncle Kieran is being very cooperative.”

  “Auction?”

  “The fans didn’t keep all my belongings as souvenirs. One of the poorer girls sold my shoes online.”

  Joan giggled. This was a very good sign, considering how much pain she had been in. She put her good wrist over her forehead and faked a swoon. “His body actually touched this hand. I’ll never wash it again.” She ribbed him mercilessly. “Like you needed more to give you a big head.”

  “Yeah. I tried to pop over to the cafeteria dressed like this, but I got mobbed. They shredded my last hospital gown.”

  Joan’s laugh turned into a snort. Blunt as always, she changed the subject. “So do you like the Amazon who’s out there waiting for you?”

  “Fiona’s nice. She’s from Gibraltar. Her dad was a British athlete, and her mom is Spanish. I promised her breakfast for everything she’s done and the secrets she agreed to keep.”

  Kieran tapped on the door frame and nodded toward Fiona. “Is she the one who stayed over last night? Good show.”

  Behind his back, Stu held up a finger, warning Joan not to correct the assumption.

  “I brought the ID card you ‘dropped.’” Kieran set the card and a bundle of paperwork on Joan’s bedside table.

  “Thank you,” Stu said.

  “Your new friend out there has a spare bunk in her room. She let me fill in your crew member’s name as her roommate this semester. No one will suspect.”

  “How can I ever thank you?” Stu asked rhetorically.

  “Well, two ways. Since your little speech to our students aired, downloads of applications to this university have soared. I’d like you to be a guest speaker at a few of our seminars to c
hum the waters even more.”

  “Sure. I’ll look at the course listing over lunch,” Stu said.

  “That’s the second thing, boy. A man in your position can’t be seen with a girl in public. Catering will deliver to your room. Ask for Javier. He knows the drill.”

  “Position?” asked Joan.

  “Stewart hasn’t told you? It’s all over the web now. Your lady friend in Rome spilled the beans when the media caught her doing her pre-wedding shopping. Though I must admit, if you’re going to take the plunge, marrying one of the richest girls on the planet is the right move. Not a bad looker either. From her reputation, she’s probably even modern enough to allow a few indiscretions on the side from time to time.”

  Stu couldn’t talk. Joan spoke for him. “Who?”

  “Miss Zeiss, of course. The press is calling it a fairytale romance, her saving you from the death penalty and all. She’s even having that operation at a clinic in Rio so she can wear white at the ceremony. Is she thinking about becoming a student here, too? That would be a real coup. Since she’s practically family, I’ve extended an invitation. The press will be even more eager to take video of you now. Don’t be surprised if someone sneaks in here with a camera.”

  Joan hooted and snorted more with each successive statement. Tears of amusement formed in the corners of her eyes.

  Pale, Stu said, “I need clothes.” And to explain myself to Fiona.

  Chapter 27 – What is Truth?

  Laura spent the morning touring ancient Roman sites with her mother. Her knees ached from kneeling on the hard wood of the Holy Stairs the day before, but thankfully she had no bruising. Grant was off somewhere doing research.

  When Laura came back that afternoon, Oleander was packing for an emergency trip to Rio. Oleander made a phone call, and someone high up in Fortune Enterprises sent a private jet.

  One of the Johnny’s cousins offered Oleander a ride to the airport. Wanting a moment alone with her, Laura said, “I’ll go with.”

  On the drive, they managed to lose most of the media-bot brigade in a tunnel. Mama B, who sat beside Oleander, wanted to visit her injured granddaughter but didn’t have a passport. Between last-minute phone calls and family good-byes, Laura couldn’t squeeze a word in edgewise.

  Laura chatted nervously as she escorted the female astronaut to the Fortune corporate hangar. “Do you think Stu is going to be upset?”

  Oleander stared sideways at her. “Not my biggest concern. Are you going to carry some of this gear?”

  “I usually tip the cab drivers very well to do that for me. It’s not my fault Grandfather froze all my accounts. Let me try plan B,” Laura said as she approached an airport guard. She could ask men for simple favors in a dozen languages. “Scusi.” In shopper’s Italian, she convinced the man to carry the bulk of the bags.

  Oleander kept the bag with the sneak suit in her possession. Shaking her head, she said, “Damn, you’re spoiled.”

  Sure, spoiled people often get nasty threats from family in their morning email. Laura followed her out onto the tarmac. “Look, your flight doesn’t leave for quite a while. Could we talk about Stu? He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Every empath feels like that about him. As a woman of science, you’re probably attracted to him because of his Ideal Planets Page. Physically, Stu takes after his dad. I think you’re just a victim of a bunch of biological effects combined.”

  Laura put a hand on Oleander’s arm. “Please. It could be more, and I have one hour to convince him to give me another opportunity. What do I say? As someone who helped raise him, you have to have some hint for me.”

  “The only thing Mercy ever whipped his butt for was lying. In space, not knowing the truth can get your whole ship killed. If you want a chance, tell him everything before someone else does.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ask Grant. Guard him until he gets his passport and can meet up with the rest of us.” Oleander turned to ascend the staircase up to the plane.

  “Hey, come back here,” Laura demanded.

  Armored bodyguards stepped in front of Laura to prevent her from following Oleander. “Sorry, ma’am, your access has been revoked. We’ve been warned you may try to sabotage company property.”

  Defeated, Laura slunk back to the curb. The Bartiluccis were gone. She had told them not to wait, as her talk with Oleander could have taken hours. With few euro notes in her pocket, Laura had to take the train back to the central terminal, Termini, at rush hour. Being in the crowded underground was like being caught in rapids during flood season. The noise of the commuters competed with the roar of the trains and the ads overhead. She saw the same Viagra ad three times before her line advanced far enough for her to squeeze onto the next car. She had to ride the Metro seven stops and walk thirty minutes in heels.

  She was drenched in sweat by the time she returned to Mama B’s doorstep, where the multitude of media drones reacquired her.

  An excited Grant burst outside to greet her. “Where have you been? We have an interview for the … thing in twenty minutes near Termini.” He couldn’t mention the semolina crisis where news drones could eavesdrop. That could be fatal.

  “Funny,” Laura said, thinking another phrase beginning with f u. “I was just there. Could you go without me? I need to put my feet up and drink a gallon of water.”

  Grant muttered, “I told them you were too much of a princess.”

  Piqued, Laura flicked him on the nose the way Nana had often done to punish her for stupid comments.

  “Ouch. What the—?”

  “Let me kiss my mother, change into work sneakers, and grab a drink. Call the cab. I should be ready by the time it gets here.”

  Her mother was staring at a momentum toy in the dining room as its steel balls on strings clacked back and forth like pendulums. Kaguya was camped beside a plate of dinner she had prepared for Laura.

  “Hi,” Laura said, trying to wake Computing Beauty.

  “Action and reaction, it’s getting more extreme,” her mother mumbled ominously. Then she seemed to see the rest of the room, and her face brightened. “I helped with dinner.”

  The spaghetti with massive meatballs on her plate smelled delicious. The bread, however, had been tortured, burned, and mangled. Laura forced a smile and shoved a big bite of the awful bread into her mouth. She had to immediately chase it with cheap red wine. “You used garlic salt, not real garlic, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Mama B didn’t approve. What do you think?”

  “If I don’t try her meatballs and tell everyone they’re better than your cooking, our hostess might be offended.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Laura wolfed down what she could and wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Everything has been going sideways this week.”

  “That’s because your emotions aren’t in sync with your actions,” Kaguya said.

  My mother, the Zen master. Oops, just lost Obiwan to a TV. Laura left her mother to zone out to a news feed while she walked into the kitchen.

  There was no water in the refrigerator, so Laura stuffed a couple bottles of Orangina soda into her new purse. She could use one of the empty bottles at a public fountain to refill. Is this what it’s like to be poor? Planning where to get your next drink of water? When she returned to the front steps, Grant was waiting in a driverless cab with a smiley face on the front. Someone had drawn a cartoon of Mario from the old racing game on the windshield in the position where a human driver would sit in a real car.

  Once inside the soundproof passenger space, Laura whispered, “Mother hinted that this might be dangerous.”

  “Nah.” Grant scribbled notes on a map of the city from a home computer printer. “We’ll be in the military police complex by the medical university. No one would hit me someplace so public.”

  “Well, our worries will be over soon. We can be out of here and back to the team by tomorrow.”

  Grant gazed out
the window at the passing hotels and shops. “I don’t know. I seem to have lost my taste for the show. We don’t seem to be making a difference. As you pointed out, I could stay here and earn a Pulitzer with this story. People need to know the truth.”

  “What is truth?” Laura quoted Pontius Pilate. If you answer that question in a politically embarrassing way, the people in charge reserve the right to crucify you. Worried, she asked, “Did you research anything on the Bartiluccis’ unsecured home computer?”

  “No. From there I bought us two-day unlimited Metro passes. We can pick them up on the way home.”

  “How considerate.” Laura forced a diplomatic smile and swigged down more cold orange soda. Maybe you could have mentioned that before I waited in line twenty minutes to buy tickets with the last of my cash. “So Oleander said I need to come clean to Stu before someone else does it for me. Happen to know what she’s talking about?”

  “Uh-oh.” He glanced out the door, as if gauging to see if the cab was moving slowly enough to jump.

  She placed an arm around his shoulder. “Talk.”

  “I don’t know if you’re mature enough to handle this discussion.”

  “I endured the groping of a large-animal vet to bust you out of that Saudi compound. Do you know where those hands had been minutes before he fondled my breast? Two words: elephant constipation.” She squeezed his neck painfully for emphasis.

  “Okay. I started the project before you rescued me. Everybody on the team goes through the ritual. You’d know that if you ever watched the show.”

  “What do you mean? I watch all the time.”

  “Then you know that every huntress is subject to extreme public scrutiny. To protect the show, I research the skeletons in each cast member’s closet and expose them to the light.”

  She recalled a few juicy spots about Artemis and then made the connection. “Oh, God. You’re doing a special about me?”

  He unwrapped her arm and kept his right hand on the door release. “It’s better for everyone like this. We tell both sides in a balanced way. It inoculates you and the show against any future smear campaign with the same accusations.”