by Laer Carroll
"Care to come in for a coffee?"
Sasha had been ready to go home. But she was in no hurry. She keyed the air car to Off and slid the driver-side door back on its tracks.
"Sure. As long it's just coffee and snacks, none of them served up on your no-doubt nifty nakedness."
He chuckled and led the way into the house, disarming the security automatically.
Two halls traversed inside and he put a finger to his lips and began to sneak. She quietly followed him to the living room. There they found the reason for his circumspection: Danielle curled up on the couch, dozens of printed-out photo proofs scattered on the low table in front of the couch and the nearby carpet.
He paused in the doorway and looked for moments at his sister. Then he walked quietly to her and gently gathered her up and walked toward a second doorway. Sasha followed him to a stair and up to a guest bedroom.
Seeing the bed made up Sasha went around him and drew back the covers. He laid the girl on the mattress and began to slide the covers over her.
Sasha stopped him. In motions she conveyed that she would partially undress Danielle. After a brief pause, he nodded and left the room.
As she slid the covers over the now-bed-ready young woman she opened her eyes. Sleepily she said, "You came back. Be gentle with him. He's not as tough as he seems."
"I have a boyfriend, mi cara ." My dear . How had this girl become beloved in such a short time?
"OK. Good night." With that she was fast asleep.
At the doorway Sasha slowly slid the control to dim the already-dim overhead light to darkness and gently closed the door.
The smell of coffee and hot chocolate led her to the kitchen. Daniel Crewe had both made and poured into thermal jugs. He was depositing cookies and cheese and crackers onto a plate. His presentation was decorative.
At her entrance he picked up the silver tray on which everything was set and nodded downward at it.
"This OK?"
Assured it was he led the way to the living room, set the tray on the low table, and began to clear away the photos. Sasha helped and sat on the couch, one leg under her so she could turn to watch him settle on the couch and ask her for her preference.
She let him pour her preferred hot chocolate and picked up some cheese with a toothpick with a tiny plastic flower on one end. Before she took a sip and then a bite she said, "Didn't know you were so girly."
He grinned and quoted, "A real man can kill an enemy, diaper a child, and cook a meal."
"Dos Passos? Quiroga?"
He shrugged and took a sip of well-creamed and -sugared coffee. He looked soberly at her.
"You've killed people."
She grimaced. "Had to. Otherwise others would have died. It wasn't fun. But it wasn't horrible. Just something that had to be done. Like diapering and cooking."
He nodded, looking inward. "I can use that."
"Is that what the question was for? For your God-damned acting?!"
He shook his head No. "I'm just wondering about you. Dannie likes you. I might get to like you. No, Hell, I already do. Wanted to know you a little better. Sorry."
Embarrassed, Sasha picked up one of the photos his sister had taken, gazed at it. Her anger disappeared in an instant shapechanger psychic-wash of her bloodstream. With that the photo came into focus. It showed Daniel smiling at the camera, and thus his sister, with love in his eyes. Not a shallow man.
"She's really talented."
He craned his head to see what she saw. "Yes. It's a good thing she turned away from acting. Her talents are bettered focused elsewhere."
"Not all actors are as shallow as the stereotypes say. I've had enough contact with professionals to know that."
"Oh, there are plenty who are. But, yeah, we come in all kinds. Some pretty smart, even."
"Like a certain history teacher. What's with that?" She placed two hands out before her and moved them as if weighing first one thing and then another.
"I was a good teacher. Partly because I have an actor's flair for making historical figures real people and not just names and dates and such. It was always the people who drew me to history. Not the 'great sweep of history'." That phrase had the sound of a quote but she did not know its origin.
"But acting is about people, too, if you approach it right. For me, at least, it's about stretching myself beyond myself, becoming people I've never met, or who are made up but display some real truth.
"Boy, that sounded pretentious." He took a sip of coffee and stuffed a cracker in his mouth and chewed.
"Coming from someone else, si . Pero I know what you mean. Much of my athletic motivation was stretching beyond my physical limits. And psychic ones, too. Acquiring discipline, deepening discipline, struggling against depression when I failed."
They switched easily into the combination of English and Spanish of true bilinguals. At three they retired to the kitchen where he cooked a quick quartet of hamburgers and shared them with her. At four Sasha exchanged chaste hugs and kisses and lifted off for her home in Pasadena.
Predictably Sunday she was barraged with questions from Gia about Daniel Crewe and from Silvana about the fashions displayed at the premiere. Silvana was quite pleased to hear that her work was being referred to as "a Canaro" and declared Danielle a woman of rare perception—quite unlike a certain sister whose idea of casual chic was jeans and tees and tennies.
Also predictably Monday lunch turned into an inquisition into fashions and personalities at the premiere. Those questions were mostly from the women; even hard-as-nails Oseye had a feminine side. When teased about that she said that Nigerian women were known for their colorful and imaginative fashions.
One of the men, dour Captain Tornquist, was also very attentive. Sasha got the impression it was more from curiosity about how to blend in to any company. She was pretty sure he was part of Bluebird's espionage contingent.
The rest of the men were disgusted or indifferent. Squat thuggish-looking Lieutenant Cruz broke in near the end of the lunch period.
"Yeah, but what's this Daniel Crewe like? Is he as tough as he acts?"
"Of course he's not that tough. Nobody is."
Cruz looked at her. "You are." He'd realized that quite early on. His obvious stupidity hid a brilliant and devious mind. Another spy, she thought, and ignored his comment.
"His real name is Cruz. Did you know that?"
Cruz shrugged. "So what's he like?"
"Deep. He has hidden depths. Like others I know." She gazed at him. He returned her gaze, stone cold, almost unreadable even to her ultra-human powers of observation.
"Deep. I'm deep." Lieutenant Blake was a tall blond mountain of a man.
Lilith, the blond seeming-cheerleader, snorted, a very ungirly sound. "Oh, please, the only depth you care about is five inches."
"Seven," he said smugly.
"I've seen your sorry dick," Sarah the "schoolmarm" said. "Lily is right."
Blake put on a fake hurt expression and gathered up his empty dishes and walked with dignity toward the garbage disposal area. Laughing, the others followed him.
In the second week of the advanced testing course all the equipment had been mastered intellectually. The tests now turned to how quickly they could become second nature through practice, and what procedures and equipment sped up or delayed this process .
Occasionally equipment had to be changed and the development engineers and technicians worked on overtime or even overnight to provide the testers what they needed.
More often they were changes in procedure. The learning and relearning of these was much aided by the fact that everyone on the testing team were very bright. This was a disadvantage in a way, because ordinarily bright users would be slower to learn and might need additional help in ways the very bright could not even imagine, having never needed that kind of help.
In the third week the testers were split into two teams, red and blue. Each took turns being the aggressor against the bat plane and figuring way
s to detect or otherwise hamper it. The other team fought to overcome the aggressor. Every day the teams were re-organized so that no one team would develop their unique esprit de corps. In real life such esprit was essential to effective operation. But this was testing, and it got in the way.
The fourth and fifth weeks this process continued, becoming fiercely competitive. Near-accidents happened several times, each one being celebrated because it found a problem to be fixed, problems which if encountered by ordinary though good personnel would have often been fatal.
Sasha fought to keep up with the other testers but not to exceed them. This was difficult. She was constantly privately holding herself back, and at the same time increasing her public capability. The challenge was exhilarating.
No one of the other extraordinarily capable testers failed to be impressed. Each tried to match her, and each stretched their own capabilities. They were helped by Sasha's covert upgrading of their abilities toward her superhuman ones. Yet they could go only so far and began to plateau, forcing Sasha to fake a plateau with them .
In the sixth week the testing process began to wind down. The bat plane design had gone as far as it could go without becoming an entirely different vehicle. That Friday Anna Prince and Colonel Adrian Storm Cloud presided over a brief ceremony and a two-hour lunch break heavily lubricated with alcohol. Every other tester told Sasha, each in their own sometimes-oblique way, that if she ever needed someone to form an operations team for some difficult Bluebird endeavor to be sure to call on them.
After the last person said Goodbye Sasha stood in the dining patio extension of the cafeteria looking after her. Lilith, the little blonde who looked like a cheerleader, seemed to bounce along her way.
Sasha wondered what put that energy in her step. Was it habit? A boyfriend (or girlfriend)? Or family? Or some deadly and challenging assignment?
Tears of sadness stung the edges of her eyes and threatened to spill over in a public display. It warred with the warm feelings in her chest from all the calls to work together again.
Finally Sasha turned away. In a corner of the patio, shaded somewhat by the skimpy transplanted trees added when this northern part of CampPendleton was ceded to Bluebird, sat Anna Prince and Adrian Storm Cloud. Prince wanted to talk to Sasha about something. Though from the way the two sat they would be in no hurry to bring it up.
As the last testers left the base, some semi-comatose and with assistance, in taxis or airport limousines, Sasha sat with Anna Prince and Storm Cloud in the dining patio extension of the cafeteria. They were saying little and enjoying the increasing breeze off the ocean a few miles to the west. A rain storm was creeping closer from out in the Pacific. Sasha could smell the tiny but increasing amount of salt water in the air. But for now the sunshine was still warm on their bodies where the nearby short trees let it through their skimpy leaves.
Finally Sasha took the final sip of the iced tea she had been sipping for the last quarter hour and set down the bottle in which it had come.
"You asked me to stay late. Why?"
Prince set her plastic wine glass down and sat more upright.
"Do you know how many web sites are devoted to you?"
"A couple of dozen? Besides the one Felice maintains for me?"
"It's 113. Some are dormant. Some are not very active. But maybe a third are."
"Wow."
"Don't let it go to your head. A lot of celeb girls are up in the thousands. Bettie Holliday has more than a hundred thousand.
"A better measure is from a service called Web Scan. They measure influence. On the latest report you're number 614 in your age and sex class."
"So?"
"I have a project called the Lifelong Learning Institute. You can get more details on the web. But let me give you the basic idea behind it.
"The college 4/7/9-year pattern for bachelors, masters, and doctors degrees originated more than two hundred years ago. It was for the sons of nobles and rich merchants. Who could afford to loaf or study for years before they had to put the knowledge behind their degrees to use. If they ever did beyond impressing each other and their lessers.
"Today most working people have to go deeply in debt to get a degree. And even afterward they have to continue their education every few years, the world changes so fast.
"Online and adult-education programs have been around a long time. And they will continue to grow. What I want to do with the Lifelong Institute is accelerate this process. Which is where you come in. What are your college-education plans?"
Delay it forever so I can travel the world and play superhero? It would not be smart to admit that.
"Hmm. I thought to wait a few years. I've traveled the world for, maybe, ten years and seen almost nothing of it.
"And all the college catalogs I've read make it seem as if their programs are too structured for my taste. I'm used to home-study and independent programs because of my training and competition schedules. I suppose I got spoiled by that."
Adrian Storm Cloud lifted his beer bottle and ironically saluted Sasha. She grinned at him.
"That fits," Prince said, "with my plans. I'd like you to enroll in the Institute. You'd select an affiliation with a college or university, such as Harvard or another Ivy League school—"
"I was accepted by Harvard several years ago. And Columbia. And—I forget the others."
"Good. I'm not surprised. Then, once whatever school you pick OKs you—and I can expedite that—you, through Felice, would announce that you have started college studies through the Institute. That would be part of the PR contract with Prince Enterprises.
"You'd first enroll in a Conversational Russian course, then after that you'd become the 'Face of the Air Car' in the Russian Federation for a few months."
"Which means I'd wind down my part of the 'Face' campaign in this country. I was wondering when you'd want to do that. My part was running into diminishing returns, it seemed to me these last few months."
"Right. I want to open up the air car market to other countries. Russia's economy has been perking up quite a bit these last few years and they seem like a good place to expand."
Sasha thought of the pros and cons of the offer. She decided and spoke up.
"I'll have Felice examine the offer and they and your Contracts department can hash out the details. But I say, Let's do it."
Storm Cloud took a token sip of his beer, which Sasha figured had long ago run out of bubbles, and set the bottle down.
"Good. Now that the unimportant stuff is out of the way, Katie wants to know when she's going to see you next."
The "unimportant stuff" took a few weeks to iron out. Sasha selected prestigious ColumbiaUniversity as her Lifelong "affiliate" since it was in New York City, making it convenient to combine her modeling career and education. It also let her spend time with Storm Cloud's family. His wife Katie had semi-adopted Sasha as another daughter. And Eliza Thompson had semi-adopted Sasha as another aunt.
Sasha reconnected with her friends in the New York Police Department and the FBI. Both solicited her help as a "psychic" on a few of their more difficult cases. Her fame was spreading and she got enquiries as far away as Miami, Florida, and Houston, Texas, for "The Bloodhound." She had to keep setting her consultation fees higher and higher to keep down the number of jobs she took.
Yet she could not turn away all requests. One was in Montreal in the French-speaking Quebecprovince of Canada. She accepted partly because of the case, a kidnapping of a child for ransom, and partly because it was a chance for her to refresh her French. It was a beautiful city in Spring time and she concluded the case happily. This did not always happen on the cases on which she was called.
Sasha also participated in the usual party-scene events models needed to maintain their public image as glamorous and to network with other people in the fashion industry.
Then at the beginning of ColumbiaUniversity summer semester she took her first class in Russian. She had several options to choose fro
m, some conventional and several invented by Lifelong to serve the new model of learning they championed.
There was Class Participation, the conventional choice of three hour or two hour-and-a-half classes every week. There was Online Only, another conventional though newer choice. An even newer option was Limited Class Participation which was one class a week combined with online study. And for languages Full Class, Online Only, Half-Class/Online, and Half-Class/Online/Immersive.
Sasha already was fluent in two Romance languages, so if she had chosen another such language she could have opted for one of the other choices. But Russian was a Slavic language, one of more than a dozen such languages, and used the Cyrillic not the Roman alphabet.
She needed the additional practice of being immersed in the language outside of class. This included dining in the many Russian or Russian-related New York restaurants. In some of the restaurants there was dancing, most of it Russian or Russian-flavored.
She joined in the dancing happily, her beauty and enthusiasm making her a great favorite with men. And with many women, for she did not act "stuck up" and was free with fashion advice to young women, and to older women she was always ready to listen to medical complaints and (secretly) give medical treatments.
Chapter 4 - Raid
In the late summer Helen Shaver phoned Sasha.
"Helen. How the Hell are you?" She had picked up that salutation from Storm Cloud. She was trying to break herself of the habit but it still came out occasionally.
"Fine. Look, I wonder if you'd see a colleague of mine. He has a problem I think you could help him with."
"Sure. What is it?"
"He needs your bloodhound abilities. Or so he said. I prefer to let him tell you the details.
"So is it OK if I give him your number?"
"Sure. Everybody at home OK?"
"Kids are driving me crazy about going to Disneyland before the summer ends. But everything else is fine. See you at the barbecue in two weeks?"