by F P Adriani
I heard a few “wows” and obvious intakes of breath as we all stared at the beautiful lightly faceted diamond. It must have been worth a fortune. I wondered how TNI had procured it. Somehow, I suspected someone else had gotten hold of it, and TNI had quickly relieved the person of that diamond-burden….
I did not like this place. There was something exceedingly fake and sneaky about the whole fucking building and all the people working in it. I even wondered about some of the visitors. They looked a bit too bored…was the whole fucking place a sham for the benefit of only a few true visitors? I couldn’t be sure of that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
The male guide now called “Break time!” as he led us over to a cafeteria-type restaurant. I bought a Supershot there; then I disappeared into a bathroom with it: my hands had been shaking badly on the glass, and I didn’t want anyone to see.
So far, my TNI-trek had yielded zip, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. Today I had no to-do plan, only a just-in-case plan. And I didn’t want to have to come back here a second time.
I felt tempted to pull out my communicator and contact Jamie. But that would be too early for a communicator rendezvous, and I didn’t want to worry him, which might make him come inside.
I swallowed my shot, dumped the glass onto the long silver sink counter, then began washing my hands. In the big mirror above the sink, I glanced at my face, instantly feeling shocked at my strange appearance, and then feeling even more shocked at what I could see of the rest of me. Not counting my fake boobs, my neck and upper body looked as if it had gotten thinner, the skin of my hands grayer. Basically, I looked like shit. And I had never been such hot shit to begin with. Good thing Tan wasn’t around to see me now….
Tan. I hadn’t seen him in days. I hadn’t even spoken to him either. What will happen there? I wondered for the millionth time lately.
I was sighing when I stepped out of the bathroom, hitched my case strap higher onto my shoulder and went in search of the tour again. Locating important paperwork was probably what I needed to do next—in other words, locating the not-for-visitors paperwork. But I had no idea where to begin there. And if something like that existed, I doubted it would even be in this part of the palace. For sure, anything related to Amy Castano wouldn’t be anywhere near where the public could be.
For a moment I felt at a real loss, like I had wasted time coming here. Nevertheless, I needed to see for myself who might be behind everything….
Gently and slowly so no one could see, I pulled out my Osier scanner and began running it here-and-there around the building, especially whenever I passed a doorknob. Doing that might not help, but what could it hurt?
Eventually I followed the tour into a very large room containing many display canisters; I moved over to a few displays and read the bronze plaques underneath, which contained the names of the contents’ donors. My eyes glossed over one plaque, then my eyes moved away; then, when my mind remembered what my eyes had read, they quickly slid back again, only to open widely at how foolish I had been.
My heart suddenly ba-boomed loudly in my ears…goddammit. I was more than a little surprised and more than a little upset.
But I had no time to think about this new development because I suddenly noticed that from across the room, one of the guards was looking right at me. I’d had my Osier beside my jacket; now I slipped it back into my right pocket and pulled up the pocket’s zipper.
The guard moved toward me, and the pulse in my neck pounded a mad staccato.
“I saw your camera,” the guard said when he reached me. “You know you’re not supposed to take pictures in here.”
I shifted my eyebrows innocently upward. “Oh—really? I didn’t know, actually.”
He stood very close to me and now his eyes narrowed; he was looking at my nose, at my fake nose. I tried to hide my face, turning it away from him.
But then one of his hands shot out and yanked at my left arm. “Come with me.”
*
“What’s this about?” I asked, my right hand in my jacket pocket now, my left hand squirming as I twisted my arm, trying to remove it from his grasp.
For a public place’s security guard, he sure had a violent attitude. I said this to him. And got a scowl back in response.
Now was probably when I should have made my getaway and contacted Jamie, but I couldn’t get away and the communicator was locked in my case.
However, I did have a few very important things right on my person—in my jacket.
The guard pulled me up to an office door and pushed me inside.
I saw a secretary-like woman seated at a big black desk. She looked up at us as we approached, and the guard said, “Tell the Thorntons this one was snooping around too much on the tour. And she’s got weird make-up on her nose.”
The secretary picked up her desk phone while the guard pulled me into another room: a long fancy office containing an enormous desk and an enormous window with a view of the enormous grounds.
I turned on the guard, finally tearing my arm from his hard grasp. “Why am I here? What right do you have to detain me like this?”
“Every right. Any suspicious activity can be called aside—it’s in the guide booklet. You agreed to this once you walked through the door. We don’t take kindly to thieves here casing the exhibits.”
I just looked at him. This was good. He only thought I was a thief. I hoped the others here were as dumb as he was.
I didn’t respond to his charge—I neither admitted nor denied anything. I just stood looking nervous, my arms crossed over my torso, my right hand resting inside my left pocket, my left hand resting inside my right pocket, and my case resting against my hip there.
A tall redheaded man finally rushed into the room from a side door. “What’s this about, Andre?” he said fast as he frowned at the guard.
Andre’s head tilted at me. “I think she was casing the exhibits, Mister Thornton.”
Now a woman in a sleek black dress came in from the same side door, and Thornton said to her, “I’m just too busy right now—you deal with this, Katherine.” Then he walked out as fast as he’d walked in.
The woman sat down behind the desk. Her shiny dark hair had been carefully fixed into a perfect shoulder-length hairstyle that gracefully hugged her neck; her long elegant fingers and red-painted fingernails picked up a piece of paper from in front of her.
She was perfectly made up and perfectly dressed. Beside her, I’d always look like a frump, especially when sporting a weird fake look as I was now. I felt at a disadvantage here in more ways than just the detained one.
…But, feeling that way sometimes helped in circumstances like these. The feeling made me look more pitiful, less threatening. I knew this because I’d spent quite a lot of training-time feigning certain looks in mirrors.
I affected my best scared look now. And then the woman said in a calm voice, “We quite often have visitors get a bit mesmerized by all the wealth and get…ideas. But we’re very protective here, Miss…?”
“Meek,” I said.
A small smile slowly formed on her lips. “Very nice name.” She laid the paper back down onto the desk and threaded her fingers in front of her. “Now, what’s in your case?” Her head motioned to the guard, who quickly worked off my arm strap and pulled the case from me.
Fucking shit.
He handed over my case to her. She laid it onto her desk, her perfect fingers slowly sliding over the case’s sides. But there was no way she could open it. Only I could. And there was no way I’d open it for her.
Her frustrated fingers finally jerked from the case; her face hardened at me now. “I’ll ask you again: what’s in your case?”
“My things. The more important question is: what’s in my pockets?”
“She had a camera,” the guard said, turning toward me again.
But before he could reach me, I said fast, “You mean this?” as I pulled out a small square black box. My thumb quickly pressed one of the fa
ce panel’s familiar buttons and the button on the box’s top, and then a short silver antenna rose out of that top.
Both the woman and the guard stilled.
I grinned slyly as I spoke. “Let me introduce you to Celia. Celia’s a special long-range piece of digital equipment. When I clicked in the field here, then I input this preprogrammed code there, the red light here shows Celia’s fully armed.” My thumb pointed to the round light at the top on the antenna’s other side.
I watched the woman’s eyes widen and her mouth drop open; it was shaking now.
“See,” I continued, “while I was poking around on the tour, I took the liberty of placing Celia’s buddies around the building. At any time, if I don’t enter the code again, in about five minutes—POOF! goes those places, including this room because Celia and my case you’re holding are also suicide devices, if I don’t get what I want. If I get what I want, I’ll leave Hera, effectively taking Celia’s buddies with me because I’ll be out of range. And, anyway, her buddies don’t last long before their circuits begin disintegrating. But long enough for me to get the hell out of here.”
“I don’t believe you,” the woman said, but her brittle voice sounded as if she did believe me. Her tongue nervously licked her lips as she shoved the case away and leaned back hard in her seat.
“Three minutes and forty-five seconds—see there’s a clock here—”
“All right!” Fury animating her eyes, she stood up, and then her eyes seemed to twitch in thought more.
But I quickly said, “Don’t bother getting anyone, don’t bother searching. You won’t find Celia’s friends; they’re so tiny, they’re homemade, with a unique fingerprint you don’t have a pattern-map for. You’ve got about three minutes, the clock’s ticking. Now I want my case and I want to leave here unmolested.” I grinned again, and the woman pressed back against the wall behind her desk, letting out a loud breath through her shaking lips.
“All right, all right. Let her out, Andre,” she finally said, coming out from behind her desk, my case in her hand now.
Unfortunately, that was the moment Andre decided to be a hero. His hand grabbed for me, his fingers tangling in my fake hair. A sharp pain against my scalp—my wig began slipping till it half hung off my head.
I kicked out at Andre, my booted foot connecting right above his knee. He yelped, I held up the box—in an obvious way—and the woman shouted, “Oh be careful of the device, Andre! And open the damn door—let her go already!”
Andre dropped his hands—to his poor leg. Then he took my case from the woman and limped over to open the door, his eyes shooting angry daggers at me.
I grabbed my case as I fled the room.
*
I ran through the building, past the astonished curious-eyed visitors on the tour, past the guards flashing me their curious but aggressive glances. I had no time to answer all their facial questions. And even if I did have the time, I certainly wouldn’t have answered them.
I also had no time to open my case and contact Jamie. I just kept running down the street toward where we were supposed to meet. When he saw me charging in his direction, he began running toward me, closing the gap between us faster.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” I shouted.
“To where—where!”
“Anywhere—let’s just get on the rail and keep moving!”
Which was exactly what we did. And for the next several hours, I got to see more of Hera than I ever wanted to see in a whole lifetime. We kept jumping from rail to rail, from city to city. At one point when the rail stopped at a station, we wound up near a mining operation.
Ahead of us in the distance of the Heran landscape, I watched a slow progression of heavy machinery disappearing into holes within the earth. And then I watched the long lines of dirt-covered suited-up workers entering or emerging single file from the same dark tunnels.
This looked even worse than the Diamond mineral mines; this looked like a death march.
“What the hell,” I said. “That looks sick.”
“The more money they save on the working conditions, the more money they make,” said Jamie, slowly shaking his head from side to side.
*
We had to ride the rail in the opposite direction to the hotel, so we didn’t get back there till evening. By the time I’d scoped out the place for anyone suspicious, I was exhausted.
Inside the room now, Jamie asked me in an equally exhausted voice, “When are you going to tell me what happened?”
So far, I’d told him nothing about what had gone on inside the palace; the less he knew, the better for him. At the same time, keeping him totally in the dark wasn’t fair. So I finally told him about their having spotted me while I was using the scanner, and then I told him about my detention in the office.
When I stopped talking, for a moment, he didn’t speak either. It seemed he couldn’t. His eyes were on the gadgets I was pulling from my jacket and putting back into my case. His throat visibly worked as he swallowed and asked, “That thing really is an explosive device—you really rigged the place?”
“What do you think?” I said, staring back at him. He didn’t need to know everything.
His face relaxed. “Damn, you took a big chance.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
“They could still come after you if they figure out there’s no danger.”
“That’s why I’m packing up. I’m out of here tomorrow on the first shuttle.”
“What!” he said, his hand grabbing my wrist. Not hard, just a little desperately. I stopped fiddling with my case and frowned at him. “What about me, Pia?”
“What about you? I can’t take care of you here.” I pulled my arm from his grasp and moved around the room fast as I collected my stuff.
He stood in the center of the room, his back a bit hunched, his face a bit lost. “Pia, can’t I come with you to Diamond? There’s only me and my mom left here. Hey…you think whoever’s behind all this might go after her?”
“I doubt it. You said her mind’s all messed up. I’m sorry for your troubles there but…wait a minute. Can’t you contact you-know-who? Maybe she can help protect you.”
His voice became more intense. “But I really want to go to Diamond! I’m sick of Hera. It’s a planet-sized dump. I’m sick of the slimy puddles and the skin-eating air—everything’s about money here. No one gives a shit about the people. Art and culture here? Please. There are two museums on the whole damn planet—that’s it! I can study my music more on Diamond. I can move my mom too! Can’t you, like, sponsor me there or something?”
My dismayed eyes darted round the room, as if he had been talking to someone else, some super-responsible person, someone I just wasn’t acquainted with. “Christ, Jamie, do I look like the sponsoring type?”
“Yes. You do. I’m not asking for a favor. Maybe I can do work for you—don’t forget my language talents!”
“Actually,” I said, suddenly thinking, “there might be somewhere else you’d do better at with that.”
His dark brow rose eagerly at me. “Yeah—where? Tell me and I’m on it!”
But I only sighed, then rapidly shook my head of the idea. “I just don’t know how safe Diamond is anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. This shit’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than me. So you’re probably better off staying here…. I really don’t want to discuss this anymore right now. I’ve gotta be ready to leave tomorrow. I mean, really, are you ready to move your whole life onto another planet in less than fifteen hours?”
His lips shook, his dark eyes lost some of their fire. But not much. “So maybe it could just be temporary.”
“Like I said, I’ve got other things to think about, such as, how to get through this night? I’m fucking hungry and exhausted, but we shouldn’t both sleep at the same time. While you sleep for several hours, I’ll guard, and vice versa.”
“Guard—what?” Now it was his turn to do some eye-wise da
rting around. He took a step away from me, the backs of his calves banging into one of the beds. Then his eyes shot down toward his pants, as if he would find something scary behind there.
“Yes. Guard.” From within my case, I pulled out my smaller gun. “You ever used a gun?”
“No. And I’m not about to start learning now….”
“Yeah, you are actually. You just point and push and let the weapon take care of the rest. Let me show you: here’s how you prime it, here’s how you fire it….”
Getting him to handle the gun wasn’t easy; his sensitive fingers had been built for making music not for killing. It was obvious from the way they gingerly shook on the gun’s barrel. But he was all I had available. I could probably take more Supershots, maybe take something else too to keep me up all night. But then I’d soooo not be at my best tomorrow. And who knew what that day would bring my way?
Cautiously, my eyes moving in all directions around us, we both finally went downstairs, first to check for any messages from Nell; there was one. I listened to Nell’s voice saying they’d gotten back to Diamond fine and Mike had picked them up from the shuttle-port. Her voice also asked when I’d be coming home, but I couldn’t risk contacting her about my plans….
When we were finished in the Communications room, Jamie and I went to the restaurant and got several veggie burgers to bring back to the room. After we ate those, I finished packing just about everything. Then I showered and dressed in the bathroom. Then he did the same. Then I went to sleep fully clothed.
I would sleep till four in the morning; then he would wake me and sleep till nine. At least that was the plan.
*
I dreamt of Tan.
Dressed in his favorite all-black, he was in a big sunny field, slowly walking toward me. But a gray-robed Arlene stood in the way of his reaching me. When he tried to walk around her, she said, “But do you really know where you’re going?” Then she took Tan’s hand…
…and I heard an urgent whisper in my ear: “Pia, fucking wake up already. Someone’s trying to get in the door!”
