by Clay Moore
“Somebody in your group has political acumen.”
“They are going to run the speeches after the editorial stuff on the newsflash.”
“Even better. It can be seen as equal time, a counterpoint to the negative things the newsreader reads.”
“What do you think will be Anton Hecton’s next move?”
“Trying to kill you has not worked out for him. He would need his killers from Alphacent and it would take them almost four days to get to Giesling from Alphacent. They would start showing up late tomorrow. All he really has to do is prevent you from speaking at the rally, not kill you.”
“What’s he going to do? Take me prisoner?”
“Exactly. What else is inside that edifice on Giesling?”
“Keep me in luxury?”
“If he was it’s because he might want to force you. If he puts you in a cell, then he wants you to live and he won’t molest you.”
“Why won’t he molest me?”
“You’re not his type.”
Ofana threw another pillow at Brian.
“He won’t molest you. What would your father do if he found out you were raped? What would I do if you were raped?”
“My father would mobilize the entire Special Agents group until Hecton was dead. You would catch up to him and kill him.”
“And end up with a whole lot of resignations if he presumed to do that. That would be noticed by our newsflashes. They would ask questions about the resignation of an entire division of operatives.”
“You all would do that?”
“Maybe not all, but the majority would go. It would affect the more senior. That is why there is a mission selection committee. One person does not select the missions. The Director is supposed to match Special Agent with mission, prepares mission brief, and alerts the Quartermaster as to her estimate of what the agent will want to take along with him.”
“He would interfere with the working of a part of government into which he has no input.”
“It’s like the military. He can move fleets around and bring them home. He cannot go to war or send elements to perform missions. In order for him to do that he has to have a declaration of war from Parliament.”
“He can ask for a mission to be detailed. He cannot command it. The only reason I took this mission was I did not want to go through the consequences. Kinda glad I came.”
Brian snuck his hand up her caftan. She let him explore and then slapped his hand
“I’m not ready for that. Since you’re so talkative, talk to me about the nukes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Do they still exist.”
“I got an alert from Eridani Secret Service that two devices were taken from the nuclear vaults on Alphacent. They matched the signature of the bomb exploded in the desert. If that is so, there is one weapon left.
“A fifty megaton weapon would take out most of Giesling City and you. We still don’t have proof that it was Planetary Interests or anyone associated with Planetary Interests. All that could be done to avenge you is to use the special agents. If done according to procedure, the Special Agents would go on that mission of retribution willingly.”
“Now mister senior Special Agent what’s our plan for the Rally.”
“The team will be close bodyguard. They are mean and have learned a lot on the trip. They are also Giesling and obviously so. You will have entrusted your life to a completely Giesling team. What do you think Mister and Missus voter will think about that?”
“An Eridani of the royal family trusts Gieslings enough to have four of them in her protection squad. Eridani trust Gieslings to keep their word?”
“Exactly, you know Eridani meets trust with trust, fidelity with fidelity, and charity with charity. I don’t think Giesling is ready for what friendship with the Eridani Alliance will do for them.”
Ofana smiled. What Brian said was from one of her father’s many speeches about the Alliance. It was weird to hear her father’s words come from Brian’s baritone voice. Her Father had a tenor voice.
“Then what?”
“Well, that depends on whether I find the nuke or not. If I find the nuke, the team will shuffle you off to my ship at the starport. I will be there with the inert nuke. We take off immediately.”
“I wanted to be there when we win.”
“You mean they won. You just got the general population to hear what they say. It will be their Victory, not yours.”
“Thank you for that swift kick in the butt. I was here to help and glad to have your help.”
“I just hope that I don’t get the reputation of being the political Special Agent. One of these is enough for a lifetime.”
Ofana laughed with her furry contralto. “Okay, I’m in your ship. What next?”
“We take off. While in hyper we will watch the newsflashes for the tally. Late on that day we will know who won. All the way to Eridani we will be naked. I chose for you some stately dresses for when you debark. They include the colors you seem to like to wear.”
“My father told me that the moment I set foot on Eridani I will not be the Ofana. I will be needed for another job. My Brother’s oldest Daughter will be the Ofana. She’s four years old.”
“He needs to increase his popularity with the people. Every body likes little girls.”
Ofana laid back on the bed. She absently went through the sites. Everything from a Lovat soap opera to Leislat boxing. She stopped at a different newsflashes site.
Brian lay parallel to her. He put his hand up her caftan. She did not impede his progress up her caftan. He stopped when he got to his goal, the jade gates. He worked with his fingers there. Then she got up and removed her caftan.
“Get ready,” Ofana said. “I’m a she-demon and I will have you.”
Brian smiled and let her have him.
The sun was over Black Sands, and Julie, Pam, and April were on their second hole. This time they invited Captain Danforth to golf with them. The first outing they had with Kandace Kane was great, but it was like golfing with Brian. Kandi always hit long and got on green and putted out for birdies. The only thing Kandi did on their level was girl talk. That was great until she started name dropping.
Felicity was different, and Her game was kind enough to give the women a challenge. She did not win all the holes. Amazingly April took to the game. Julie watched her on the driving range and knew she was tanking some of the holes. Julie took her aside.
“How good have you gotten?”
“Mister Kane rated me a 10 handicap.”
“You’ve been golfing on your own.” It was not a question. April blushed caught in a lie.
“Play as you can. Give us a challenge.”
Julie grabbed her by the arm. She felt a muscle there. She thought she had seen an increase in her musculature and a decrease in her bosom.
“Look, April, it’s good that your exercising and all, but I think you are going at it the wrong way. You should be using the gym on the sixth floor. Talk with Doctor Flora Rey. She will help you get fit, but keep as much of the Breast as you can.”
“Oops, my turn to tee off.”
They finished the game Pamela won by a single stroke over April. Everybody else was within two or three behind, and The group was friendly, praising everyone. April rode to the office with Julie. April checked back at her office, and Nothing was in her queue. She, then, left her office and walked to the 6th-floor gym. In the gym, Flora was helping a male agent work on his abdomen. Flora saw April shifting from one foot to the other.
“Do ten sets of those. Then hit the showers. Same time tomorrow. We’ll be using the treadmill and working on endurance.”
The agent had pleasing white skin, and build that reminded April of Brian. He took a towel and went to the locker room, and Flora came up to her. She took a drink from a water bottle.
“You are April Z10, right?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“You were pointed out to m
e. Looks like you exercised a lot, and now you come to me because your boobs are getting smaller.”
“How did you know?”
“I am a medical doctor. The one place there is no autodoc in the gym. I help people get the look they want or just to recover from a gunshot wound.”
“I can give you a female Special Agent body. We will preserve your boobs. Allow your butt to get a little more muscular. If you’d like I can bring in the Hindjitsu instructor to help with your poise and grace. She’ll call it stance and speed.”
“How long will it take?”
“You’re mostly there now. The endurance part will be the hardest on you.”
“Endurance?”
“One of the best cardiovascular exercises we have. If you ask for Brian to be your fox, you want to be able to outrun him, don’t you.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You want to be with him. If you and he were assigned together, you would be with him more often.”
“They’re not assigning them together.”
“ There are some missions that require two Special Agents. They break those down so that they can be assigned separately. Why not assign a pair who are used to working as a team.”
“Makes sense. Why did the powers that be not start that way?”
“The old director thought he would use the Special Agent and Action squad together. He got an attack and changed jobs. The new director has her own way of seeing things. Apparently, the number of missions being requested is huge. The selection committee has to weed them out.”
“Find yourself a good comfortable sports bra. If you want to go Couture check with the tailor on the first floor. They may have some ready made. Tell them your agent number.”
“Thanks. When can we start?”
“Tomorrow, Early, 6 AM.”
“See you, then.”
“See you, then.”
The suite of rooms they gave her in the building was as sterile as the white building. The floor was plascrete with floor tiles. The walls were plascrete with a warm yellow paint. The decorations looked like they were purchased from PublicMart. The apartment was populated with food products from IFC. The Trid was connected to some kind of platinum service.
She very much felt like a bird in a golden cage. The worst thing was her slate was no longer connected to the intergalactic grid. Half her apps were no longer accessible. She could work on nothing. There were some rugby games from Alphacent. Everybody considers the Alphacent teams to be the best of the best. On head to head games Eridani wins just about every time.
Anton told her that she was locked in and not to try any data-sleazing techniques on it. He said there might be a surprise.
Anton lies a lot. She reached between her breasts and pulled out the roll of marks. When she was done counting the marks, all she had was a hundred fifty marks. Go out and have fun, my ass, thought Deanna. She would have rather stayed with Brian and made love to that Joe Little.
She went for the brass ring and it was brittle glass. She wondered when Anton will insist that while in the apartment she go naked. After that it would be his tobacco breath and slimy dick. If he liked her, then all of the things with which she could commit suicide would be removed.
He might kill her after she planted the bomb. The idea of killing millions of Gieslings no longer held savor. She looked at the bomb schematics on her slate. She looked for a way to make the bomb look alive when it was inert. The design was tamper proof. Then she looked at the code keyboard. The keyboard was a type that lights up when you press it. Even more witless was that the four buttons were color coded; red, yellow, blue, and green.
It would be nothing to inject some code that made the keyboard blink out the code until the buttons were pressed.
She brought up her bomb interpreter. She wrote the code to be injected into the shutdown combination system. She also put a kicker to make the bomb completely safe. Alphacent was afraid of their devices getting into the wrong hands. They put a failsafe system. Any failure during an arming of the bomb would cause the plutonium to be sequestered in a shielded container, and the charge that moved the plutonium in the first stage of the catastrophe known as detonation had its wires cut.
The shutdown combination simply used the failsafe system to make the bomb inert and stopped the clock. In her code she would flash the code every minute. She just hoped that it was Brian who found it, or would inert the bomb. The code was Red light, red light, green light, blue light. She uploaded the installation package into one of her datasticks. She threw the datasticks into her bag that she used as a purse. She shutdown her programming interface. She brought up her favorite casino game and was deep into the next spin of the roulette wheel. Just in time; Anton walked into the apartment, as if he owned it. In fact he did own it.
“I’m sorry that I had to put you here. You’ve become undependable. I need to make sure of you, so we will be watching you.”
“We?”
“Yes, I brought another bomb technician from home. Purely in case you failed to get the first bomb to detonate. We were going to send him back tomorrow, but you proved unreliable. Perhaps it was those two Eridaniians you were with. Who were they?”
She was in for it. He probably already knew who they were and this was a test. “Someone who called himself Brian Butler and the Ofana. Everyone called her Ofana as if it were her name.”
“In many ways it is. The Ofana is to help her father in any way she can. Trying to bring Giesling over to Eridani’s side is what she is doing here. She’s doing it effectively too. Brian Butler, I know him. I never met him, but I have been to many catastrophes he engineered.
“Dammit, I had her on the run and he shows up and wipes out one of my best group of street toughs. It’s like he’s a force of nature.”
“Yeah I got from what Ofana said about him that he knows how to please a lady. Then she corrected the word ‘please’ to ‘gratify.’”
“I thought so. All the ladies love him, and the men want to be him.” He adjusted his pants once more. He was loosing weight. This Brian Butler was a serious threat to him. The message Brian sent to Anton was clear enough. Brian was saying: come into my sights once more and you die.
The game had changed. It was not for profit anymore. It was now for survival. A new animal was in the jungle. That animal was hunting Planetary Interests directors and black purse projects. The animal had struck and cut into the profits causing Planetary Interests to hemorrhage money, that was the true lifeblood of corporations. Without money, you could not buy the things you need to continue life as a corrupt Corporation.
Anton was wondering if Brian would come closer so that he could see him with his own eye. The pictures he saw only presented a jigsaw puzzle of Brian; a piece here and a piece there, but not the entire picture. Anton believed that had fate twisted one way or the other Anton and Brian would have been friends, even companions.
A difference of 31.8 light years separated them both in distance and in favor. He had been wool gathering too long. He turned to look at Jasmine, her auburn hair glistening a coppery hue. Yes, she was attractive, but life had made her deadly. He could not trust her. Tomorrow was another day. Then he would see if she was indeed to be trusted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Long Day of Amelia Grace Stegitz
Brian awoke after the best sleep of his life. He did not know why he allowed himself to sleep so soundly. The security was not as good in other places yet, he was attacked there. The only attack here was an addled miner who thought Brian was his taskmaster.
Last night Ofana was the lover. Brian started to begin, but Ofana laid him back. She worked on him, and he let her. She needed to practice making love to a man. The only critique he had for her was to attend to his nipples as well. They were not as sensitive as hers, but they completed the erogenous zones on a male. Everybody knew what number one was.
Brian forced his mind on the here and now. He could see the rising of the Giesling main sequence s
tar, and the yellow light was creeping over the far dunes. The horticulture occurring on the grounds of the University was having an effect on the climate here. It must have rained gently during the night. He could see pools of water on the plasphalt of the roadway, and It may have been a heavy mist or condensation from the fog. His body responded to Ofana’s ministration. He reached the pinnacle.
“Is it always so juicy?” Ofana asked.
“Depends on how long ago I have reached the pinnacle.”
“That makes sense,” said Amelia. She was having everyone Call her Amelia
Brian got up and went out of the bungalow to look at the puddles of water. He crouched down to put his hand in the water. The water was cool. Condensation refrigerated the water.
“Playing in the water like an errant schoolboy,” said a motherly voice behind him.
Brian stood up to look at her. She wore physical glasses on her nose. Brian wore a shirt and slacks that cover every inch of skin. She had a slate out and a stylus to write on it. Her hair was black with shots of white running through it. Her face had no wrinkles, so she used some sort of medication or regimen.
“I was surprised to see puddles on the roadway,” Brian said
“Most visitors are. I see that you are not bashful about people seeing you near naked. That means you are Eridani, or an emigre to Eridani and were trained as a Marine.
“I am a retired Eridani Marine. Yes, we are desensitized to showing our naked body in public. I see that you are battling the sun.”
She looked at her clothes and laughed. “Touché, mister-uh—”
“Butler.”
“The original settlers are coming through. When they reached their destination, many of our ancestors took different names, or simply used their profession.”
“And you are—”
“Janice Scott. In my case, it was an ancestor pining for land on earth. It’s also the source of my fair skin that I cover over with clothing. I see that you tan well. Do you suntan naked as well?”
