Horseplay

by Cam Daly

  She breezed through the room to its single other exit, gave the men one more glare and then moved out into the hall.

  “Hurry, Keryapt! Ruut blew it. The guard has hung up. If she notices her keycard’s gone, there will be trouble. Stairs are up ahead.”

  She didn’t glance back at the Deep Thinker as she crossed the few steps to the way upward. It was labeled as a fire escape route and had a heavy door which opened to reveal industrial looking concrete and steel stairs. No cameras. She smiled at her good fortune.

  As the door closed behind her, she leapt from the concrete floor towards the wall at the top of the flight of steps. In mid air she pirouetted and landed so that her feet were against the wall, then leapt again to reach the first floor of the building. Still no sign of anyone else in the stairwell. Two more leaps took her back to the second floor and she exited the stairway only a few meters from the bathroom. It had taken her less than two seconds to go up four flights of stairs.

  “I need a quick distraction. Call her back. Right…now.” She didn’t care if Ruut or Shadow did it. She just needed to know where the guard was in the bathroom.

  The guard’s phone vibrated against the marble countertop as Keryapt opened the door, revealing that the woman was near the sinks. She didn’t have a view of the door. The Active switched back to the Kery Lee appearance as she entered and concealed the guard’s keycard in her hand.

  The woman was oblivious to her presence for a moment, glaring at the screen of her phone as it revealed that it was her presumably now ex-boyfriend calling back. Keryapt bent down next to the sink, straightened and presented the keycard back to her. “I think you dropped this.”

  The guard straightened her stance, accepted the card and pressed a button to decline the call. “Thank you.”

  Keryapt turned to leave the bathroom. “You’re better off without him.”

  The woman stared at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. “I know.”

  Shadow seemed to want some explanation from Kery. “In this case, you might be right. But how do you know that for sure?”

  “It’s always dangerous to depend on someone else too much. You should know that by now.”

  #

  Connor was relieved that the ferry seating area was nearly empty. As soon as the small vessel moved away from the dock, he pulled his computer out and prepared to delete the spectral data file.

  The message from Director Maxwell and Senator Ormlan had been very clear in the meeting. Classified data. National security. Maybe the chemical sensors in his spectral rig had recorded something leaking from the damaged Knight? Or they were worried about the PR damage of one being destroyed even before they had gone into public use?

  “Is this seat taken?” Kery Lee suddenly loomed over him.

  He looked around to verify that the ferry was still nearly empty.

  “Umm…no. Help yourself.” He had been so distracted by his own musings that he hadn’t actually deleted the file yet. He tried to be casual about closing the lid on the computer, but she looked pointedly at it as she sat.

  “Thank you. What were you working on?”

  “This? Nothing. Just checking something. I thought you weren’t going to make this ferry?” He was fairly sure that he shouldn’t tell her that he hadn’t deleted the data.

  “Something gave me the impression that I should arrange a meeting at another time. I’m glad I caught you, though. How about we go up on deck and enjoy the scenery?”

  “Uhh…okay. Let me just put this away.” He started to slide the computer back into his backpack, but she put a hand on his forearm to stop him.

  “Why don’t I hold on to that? So that you don’t do anything rash. Anything else, I should say.” Her smile was completely pleasant, contradicting her words. She knew he had duplicated the spectral data.

  “What? What do you mean?” He couldn’t help himself from trying to play innocent, but didn’t resist as she pulled the computer away and slid it into her own bag. A distracted corner of his mind noticed that his computer fit almost perfectly inside. He would have guessed that her bag was too small for it.

  Her smile stayed in place as she stood and headed towards the rear of the ferry. His heart hammered in his chest as he rose to follow her, feeling like an errant child being taken to the principal’s office. There was nowhere else to go.

  A short flight of stairs and a pair of doors later and they were outside, Alcatraz fading into the distance. A few seagulls trailed the ferry, perhaps hoping for tourist scraps, but there were no other people around them. Kery turned away from the prison island to look towards the Golden Gate Bridge, and Connor stepped up to the rail next to her.

  She raised her voice slightly to be heard over the throbbing of the engines and rush of water under the boat. “That bridge is a marvel of ingenuity. Did you know that a four man painting team works on it year round? When they get to one end, it’s time for them to start over on the other. Their work is never done.”

  He stood beside her and stared at the bridge. That sounded incredibly depressing to him.

  She slid incrementally closer to him and lowered her voice to the point that he could barely hear her. “There are cameras inside the ferry, and if we were facing Alcatraz and someone with the right equipment was watching from ESWAT, they could probably read our lips. Perhaps not in real time, but with the right processing system it would be trivial for them.”

  He froze, eyes locked ahead. He tried to think what his face would look like if he hadn’t committed a crime against national security. “What? Trivial for who?”

  “I’m not sure. I do know that it is very fortunate that you still have this file. They don’t want anyone else to have it.”

  “Why? Who are you?”

  “My name isn’t Kery Lee. I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t work for your police union. That was a pretext to get me in the meeting. It isn’t safe for me to show you my ID, but I can assure you that you want to help me and not cause a scene.”

  He hadn’t even considered causing a scene. He risked a sidelong look at her, studying her face more intently. She had been staring off into the distance, seemingly somewhere far beyond the bridge, but glanced at him. He guiltily reverted his gaze to the bridge. “But why? What’s in the data?”

  “I don’t now yet, but I will soon. I’m copying it now. Your computer is quite slow but I should have it all before we reach the pier.” The ferry was moving at a decent clip and should be there in a few minutes. He wondered how she could be copying it while it was still in her bag. “As soon as you’re alone, you should use the SFPD utility you have to permanently delete it.”

  “But - who are you, really?”

  “You can still call me Kery, but it’s better if you don’t know much about me or what agency I work for.” She paused for a long moment. “I can tell you that I’m investigating the blast at the Dogpatch. That’s all.”

  “Did VSE cause it?”

  She looked at him for another long moment, brow slightly crinkled as if she was trying to figure something out about him. He couldn’t guess her age, but she seemed vastly wiser than him. “How would VSE cause a meteorite impact?”

  She asked the question in a very neutral voice. He was reminded for the second time today of his ethics professor, and how he would drive his class to provide answers with questions put that way. The lawyer-turned-secret agent was a lot more attractive than his professor had been, though.

  “There was a lot of speculation online. The conspiracy theorists said it was a false flag operation, an excuse for more anti-terrorism money. That the government has satellites that can drop meteors wherever they want, or shoot antimatter. That would explode without radiation.”

  She smiled unexpectedly. “‘False flag’? I like that expression. Very…nautical.” Her smile faded. “But that explosion in Dogpatch would have required at least fifty micrograms of antimatter.”

  “Fifty micrograms…that doesn’t sound like that much.”

>   “It's around one one-hundredth the weight of a snowflake. But in the last forty years, all of humanity has produced less than one microgram of antimatter.”

  “Oh. Okay. So maybe there are secret labs that have made more. They say that it would make a perfect weapon…” Her eyebrows raised slightly, giving him the feeling that he had wandered from the correct path of questioning.

  “Antimatter is an incredibly difficult thing to control. It’s always ready to detonate at the slightest opportunity.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing, for a weapon?”

  “Not like this. It can’t be armed or disarmed.”

  “But that’s true of nuclear bombs, too, right?”

  “No. Without perfect timing, a nuclear bomb would only kill a few hundred people nearby, not millions.”

  “But that’s-“

  “It’s different, okay? Imagine going into a fist fight with a delicate glass vial of nerve gas in your pocket.” She had lost the professorial air and seemed almost angry. “Suicidally dangerous to yourself and your opponent. No one should-” She suddenly clamped her mouth shut. Looked down at the deck and kicked the ferry’s bulwark a couple of times.

  He watched her. The silence stretched on into an awkward moment. He decided to change the subject. “Do you live here? San Francisco, I mean?”

  She inhaled a lungful of the moist bay air. He realized he was staring at her chest and averted his gaze again. “No, I'll probably just be here two or three weeks. A new full time person is coming and then I’m done. I might go sightseeing some after that.”

  “Then back home?”

  “No, I’m not really welcome back home. Or, to be more precise, I’m not welcome unless I agree to a more permanent placement. And I don’t think I’m really cut out for that. I’ve seen too much.”

  “That sounds complicated. Family?”

  “That’s also complicated. How about you?” He found himself disappointed that she had evaded the question. She didn’t wear any rings, but that didn’t always mean anything about marital status.

  “My parents live in New York, but I haven’t seen them for a long time.” He decided to put his cards on the table and see if she would follow. “I had a fiancée for a while back there but it didn’t work out.”

  “Right - I read something about you dating a politician’s daughter and calling off the wedding at the last minute. That was around this time last year, wasn’t it?”

  He knew that the story was public knowledge, but it threw him off that she brought it up so bluntly. “Umm, yeah. A little while after that I moved out here. I got into the forensic photography thing through a friend.”

  “Because no one in the fashion industry would hire you again?” She asked the question in such a straightforward manner that she didn’t seem to realize she was twisting the knife.

  “Yes. That was my life in a nutshell.” It was his turn to go silent, thinking about Amanda and how easy things had been in New York.

  Kery looked down and away, perhaps realizing that she had embarrassed him. Her reactions always seemed to come a beat too late. “But now you’re contributing something to the common good. Helping catch criminals. You must feel good about that.”

  “Sometimes, but other times it feels so intangible. And it takes forever - I have to testify in some upcoming court cases from when I first started the job. I guess that I wanted to prove that my life wasn’t just about models and parties.”

  The ferry was approaching land quickly. She turned to him once more as the engines subsided. She had been holding her bag during the conversation but now lowered it so that he could see his computer peeking out. “Bend down to tie your shoe and take that back, discreetly. Go into work and stay in public places for the next few days. Don’t go back to Dogpatch, or go asking anyone any questions. Just act normal.”

  He was surprised to see his shoe was untied. He did exactly as she asked, pleased with himself for getting the computer transferred in what seemed like a subtle motion.

  When he looked up, she was already stepping towards the gangplank. He hoped for a glance back from her, but it didn’t happen.

  #

  “Shadow? I know that you can hear me. Are you really going to be childish about this?” Keryapt was alone on the Planning Stage, but she knew that Shadow could hear her. “Fine. Please ask Ruut to come in.”

  Her physical body was sitting in her rental car at the parking structure nearest the ferry building. The streets in the waterfront area were crowded with tourists visiting for the winter holidays, but once she was clear of them she had felt safe enough to let the Interloper control system handle the walk back to her vehicle. Shadow had been aghast when Keryapt revealed that she wasn’t a lawyer, then got into a shouting match with her when she told Connor about the amount of antimatter needed for the Dogpatch blast. She was still connected to her console in Labworld Command but refused to enter the Stage.

  Ruut entered the virtual space, his appearance mirroring his real world form. His lipless mouth was set in a wide grimace and his upper tongue rattled back and forth against his triangular teeth, betraying his tension. “What happened?”

  Keryapt slowed herself to baseline processing speed, the better to interact with him. Non-Actives in Labworld Command were used to dealing with superiors who could think much more quickly than them, but the Activation process didn’t improve intelligence or creativity. She knew the value of a good support team.

  “What do we have from the sexual trait glance analysis?”

  “During the meeting, Maxwell looked at your breasts on five different occasions when he thought you were focused on something else.”

  “They do seem popular.”

  “Just like us, human males of his age are often less interested in physical features, or are at least better at controlling their focus. Connor looked at your body at least seventeen times, with a total observation time for your breasts which was twice Maxwell’s. But during your final conversation, he spent more time staring at your lips.”

  He seemed to expect a response. “Let’s pretend I don’t remember everything from the social cues briefing. What’s the significance of that?”

  “It means that he had moved past the general appreciation of your attributes and was wondering what it would be like to be your romantic partner.”

  “That’s…interesting.”

  “He was wondering what you would taste like.”

  “Okay, I get it! I’m not sure I’m ready to taste anyone.”

  He looked surprised. “Keryapt Zess, not ready for a new experience? You’ve ‘tasted’ aliens more than once in the past!”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “I know, I know. But I’m…different now. Let’s move on.”

  Ruut looked perplexed but continued. “Interestingly, once the Knight entered, Maxwell spent more time looking at it than at you. He really likes that thing.”

  Shadow had set up one of the walls of the Stage with pictographs of the different humans that she had met so far. Keryapt started to update them, tagging the uniformed Maxwell as “probably human” then bringing DeVries and Ormlan up. Images of the tall, bald man and the suited Senator floated in front of the group. “What about these two?”

  “DeVries looked you over twice, once when you first met and again when you were examining the Knight. He didn’t focus on any particular part of you at those times. He also spent the least amount of time looking at your face.”

  “That’s interesting. Did he treat Connor the same?”

  Ruut had clearly already thought of that possibility. “Almost identically.”

  “Ormlan mentioned DeVries had just flown in from Dallas.” Keryapt checked a map. “That’s three hours in cramped quarters with lots of other humans. Would that have affected his libido?”

  “Humans have significantly diminished impulse control when tired, agitated or mentally impaired. He should have been checking more, not less.”

  Keryapt switched DeVries’ “species” i
dentifier to “investigate.”

  “And Senator Ormlan?”

  “He’s older than Maxwell or DeVries, and has a political position which results in lots of public appearances. He took a pair of quick glances at your breasts, but spent a lot more time than either of the others studying your face. More than he spent on Connor. By human standards, he was somewhat fixated on you.”

  “I wish fewer people were fixated on me.”

  “That’s not something I ever thought I’d hear you say. What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.” Ruut seemed to expect more, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to explain things to him. She decided to refocus on the task at hand. “Maybe I should go pay Ormlan a personal visit.”

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea to go in with guns blazing. I know the ‘Keryapt Zess’ way is to simplify things, but this seems premature.”

  “I didn’t necessarily mean-“

  Shadow entered the Stage, clearly irate. She ignored the technician and addressed Keryapt directly. “Keryapt, you have to give us a chance to really study the data we got from Connor. I just skimmed the video feed and there's a decent chance that the chemical and human genetic sniffers will tell us a lot more about what was going on there. You should get to a safe house and keep a low profile for a bit. Assemble some more long range remotes for us or something.”

  “You already went through the video feed? All of it? So it’s been, what, an entire hour for you? And you’re still this angry about me telling Connor a few things that he could’ve figured out from fifteen minutes of web research?”

  “You told him things that will…hold on.” Shadow turned to Ruut, as if noticing that he was still there. She stabbed a finger at him. “You need to get to work analyzing the spectral data from Connor. And don’t screw it up.”

  He faded from the Stage without a word.

  “What was that for? He made a mistake with the guard, that’s all. Have you already forgotten what it’s like, trying to deal with things in real time? It hasn’t been that long since your Activation.”

  “I gave him a conversational flowchart. He was supposed to keep her talking and instead went down a path that was likely to upset her even more. He didn’t follow my instructions, and as a direct result almost compromised the mission right there, with you in shooting range of an enemy with unknown capabilities. What if they took you out, too?”