He was going to keep a close eye on her, too.
He grabbed her stuff from her and helped her into the house. Once they had settled back in, he found Molly in the kitchen and offered to go get some pizzas for them all. “Then we can sleep for a few hours before we move out to the ship and get going, eh?”
“Good plan,” agreed Molly. She nearly offered to go with him to pick up the food, but she was exhausted and her head was spinning. Deciding to stay put, she poured herself a mocha and sat down at the kitchen table to recover.
She heard Joel leave. Though things were much better between them post-rescue (and apology), the sound of the door closing triggered the feeling and memory of when Joel had left the last time.
She laid her head on her folded arms and closed her eyes.
Neechie appeared on the table and plunked himself next to her. She’d never admit it to Joel, but the sphinx was actually quite a comfort.
Pizza Parlor, near the safe house
Joel pulled up at their local pizza take-out.
“How’s it going, Bill?” he called across to the Ogg as he closed the door behind him.
“Greetings of the wee hours to you, Joel. It’s going well. You look like shit! Everything okay?” He peered over the counter before hopping up onto his step.
“Yeah, rough day is all.”
The Ogg nodded sympathetically.
“The usual, then?” he asked.
“Yeah, but double it up. We’ve got friends over tonight.”
“Oh, those two Oggs that were here?” the Ogg was confused. He was sure they had been looking for someone else. Maybe he was just mistaken. He suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything.
“Which two Oggs?” Joel remained calm, not wanting to spook his new informant. He’d had a lot of experience in getting intel out of people in a relaxed way.
Across the board, studies and his experience had shown recall was best when people thought they were just talking casually.
“Yeah, well…I dunno. There were these two guys came in here looking for a girl, who might be with a guy. I mentioned that you had just moved to the neighborhood recently. Mind, one of them said the girl was a cousin, but given that your girl is human, I thought it probably wasn’t you.”
“Did you tell them where we live?” Joel tried to hide the rising concern in his face. Putting it together, he realized that these were the two guys they had stunned at Dewitt’s place, and that they had already taken the girls from the safe house. But this was how they had found them?
He wanted to kick himself.
“I dunno where you live. You never have delivery. But I suggested they try the old place just down the way, which might have been where you would be. So they weren’t your friends, then?”
“No. But thanks for the heads up.” Joel got his credits out, behaving as casually as he could.
After bartering with Bill to take two pizzas that were almost done so he didn’t have to wait, he emerged with food two minutes later, walking more purposefully than normal. He placed the pizzas onto the passenger seat in the car and fired up his holo to dial Molly. He couldn’t reach her.
He tried Garet.
“Hey…” Garet answered. There was background noise, like a hairdryer. Then a door closed, and the noise deadened. “What’s up?” Garet asked.
“We’ve got to move. We’re not safe in the house,” he admitted.
“What do you mean?” Garet was confused.
“I mean we’ve got to move. Get everyone rounded up. We have to leave. The guys who kidnapped the girls from the house, they know where we are. They could be sending more people after us.”
Joel was adamant he wasn’t going to take any risks with these people. They had caught them off guard once. Well, twice. It wasn’t going to happen again.
“Ok, I’ll tell Molly when she gets out of the shower.”
“No time. You have to tell her now,” Joel insisted.
“She’s in the shower. She doesn’t hear anything in there,” he protested.
Joel answered curtly. “Walk the fuck in.”
Garet went quiet on the line.
“Dude, are you there?” Joel checked the connection on his holo.
“Yeah…” Garet said quietly, as if his voice had evaporated.
“It’s ok. Bang on the door now. And tell her.”
Joel could hear Garet banging on the bathroom door. “Molly. We’ve got to go. Joel says it’s not safe!”
Joel spoke loudly. “Go in! For the love of your fucking ancestors. I’ll be there in three minutes.”
Joel started the car and raced back to the safe house as fast as he could.
* * *
By the time he arrived back at the safe house, he’d thought through the permutations in his mind.
What this also meant was that their safe house was known to be temporary accommodation, somewhere where strangers might be staying. He would never allow them to make such a fucking ignorant mistake again.
The other thing was that if those two Oggs could find them, then anyone who wanted to tie up loose ends would be able to as well. Though Dewitt was out of play, they had no way of knowing what other forces might still be at work.
“Ok people, let’s wrap this up,” he called as he walked through the door. Paige emerged with her bag, half-dressed and with half-styled damp raven hair.
“You got everything?” Joel asked her.
She nodded. “Just need my jacket in the other room.”
“Grab it, then get to the car. We’re leaving in two minutes.” He had already walked past her and into Molly’s room.
Molly was putting a shirt on, and quickly turned around as he walked in.
“What the fuck, Joel?” As she scrambled to button it, Joel couldn’t be sure she was even wearing a bra.
She turned back to him, her eyes scowling. “So now both you and Garet have had an eyeful.”
“Come on, Mols, I’ve seen more than that in the co-ed bathrooms on base.” His face was serious, but he knew that he would get real shit for this later. “You ready?”
“Yeah. I need to grab some gear from the other room. You bringing your Master?”
He looked confused.
“Your sphinx?” she clarified.
His eyes widened. “Shit. Yes.” He almost ran out of her room, presumably to find the sphinx. Molly rolled her eyes as she finished dressing and packing and shoved a bra into her back pocket to make a point.
Car and personnel loaded up, Joel emerged from the not-so-safe house with a makeshift crate holding the sphinx. He secured the crate in the back seat between Paige and Garet, then hopped into the front and got the car underway before relinquishing control to Oz.
“So, it looks like we know how the Oggs found this place.” he started.
Molly looked over. “Pizza guy?”
“Pizza guy,” he confirmed.
“Damn it.” She chewed on her bottom lip, “We were deliberately so careful.”
Joel nodded. “Yeah, all this time we could have had delivery instead of me dragging my ass out in the dust and radiation to go and pick it up.”
“Ah, well, it’s saved you having to get a facial peel.” Molly smiled. There was nothing they could do about it now.
“We’ll be much safer at the hanger. No one knows about that purchase, right?” Joel looked across at Molly.
Affirmative.
“Right. Oz is confident,” confirmed Molly.
She paused for a moment, watching out of the window as they gained altitude onto the strato highway. “But in light of this I need to give Oz some more criteria on our next safe house off-world. I wonder how we find ‘not somewhere with a pizza place that gives out our location’?”
“I think it means finding sneakier ways to be extra careful. Maybe like a decoy residence,” he mused, glad that Molly wasn’t too freaked out about the revelation.
Her eyes opened, “Ooh,
that might be a plan.”
I’ll factor that in and re-run the search on possible options.
Thanks, Oz.
“You guys all right back there?” Joel called to Garet and Paige.
“Yes,” they said in unison. They looked at each other and smiled. The relief of Paige’s return was palpable.
“Ok. We’ll get to the hanger and then we might be able to relax a little. I’ll be much more comfortable once we’re off-world.
“Hey,” Garet seemed to remember something. “Didn’t you get pizza?”
Joel put his hand to his head. “Shit!”
Molly’s eyes snapped across at him suddenly. “What? You forgot the pizza?” Her eyes flared as if she were ready to lay all hell at his feet.
Joel allowed his hand to drop down his face, revealing his smile.
“Back shelf,” he called back to Garet.
Molly couldn’t help but laugh. Garet scuffled around, located the still-hot pizza and started handing out slices with napkins as Oz carried them safely to the Spaceport for their final escape.
Andus’ Office, Undisclosed location
“He’ll need replacing, of course.”
“Of course,” Jessica agreed, as she lounged on what she called her couch in Andus’ office. After all, none of the other Syndicate members would visit him so often as to stake a claim on any of his furniture. Andus had agreed to her point one evening as they sat shooting the breeze and hatching diabolical plans that would make them untouchable in the courts.
Tonight, though, Andus was in one of his moods. As cold and unattached to people as he liked to come across, Jessica knew it disturbed him that one of his own people fucked him over. Andus wasn’t the kind of guy who dealt with disappointment well.
“Who is it this time?” she asked casually, sipping on her martini.
“Dewitt.”
“Still? I mean, again? I thought we were done with him yesterday?” she peered at him over the edge of her glass, enjoying the scent of the orange peel she’d had added to give it some zing.
“Technically, yes. He no longer walks this planet. But it bothers me still, okay?”
She took another sip, taking in what he had confessed. “You do realize you were the one who decided to get rid of him, even before the fiasco with this employee?”
“Yes, I’m well aware of that, Ms. Newld, but I would have liked to have done it on my terms. Besides, this puts us in a predicament. The Senate race ends in eight weeks and now we have no candidate. Dewitt was well positioned, and after the bill went through he would have been the people’s champion. Now, in death, he’s a disgrace.”
He paused to slump back down into the huge swivel chair behind his desk. He reached across to his humidor and pulled out some smoky comfort.
He looked over the hand-rolled plant and slid a finger along it, breaking the seal. “Where are we going to find a replacement in less than eight weeks?” His question was more of a statement of impossibility.
Jessica had shifted into a daze, or trance, or whatever it was she did.
Jessica Newld’s family had a long history with large and powerful commercial enterprises, but also of ancestors slipping over into the etheric when they died. This gave her an extra edge that Andus was pleased to have at his disposal. Not that he knew quite what the resource was, but she would often come back out of these episodes with information she had no way of accessing otherwise.
Andus lit his cigar, sucking on it to get it to light. He was somewhat comforted as he did so that he had his best person actively on the case.
A few moments later, Jessica seemed to be present behind her eyes again. She gathered herself together and reached into her handbag for her lipstick and mirror.
“Well?” asked Andus, waving his cigar like a mafia boss.
“We need do nothing right now. The candidate will become apparent to us in about three weeks.”
“But that’s three weeks doing nothing when we could be running down other possibilities.”
“It’ll be a waste of effort if you did. But if you must…” Jessica came out of these trances often less engaged in the problem.
It was as if whatever she saw back there made her so convinced that what was unfolding was inevitable, the immediate problem just became unimportant to her.
Jessica finished reapplying her lipstick, and put the mirror and makeup back into her bag. “Let’s go out,” she said.
Andus had to admit it was a good idea. At least it would be a distraction from the moment-to-moment torture of uncertainty he now felt. And it sure beat trying to catch a falling knife, which is how it felt right now with these short news cycles.
His normal reporting channels were still scrambling to figure out their asses from their elbows, now that they’d lost their candidate and one of their champions for their bill.
He got up from his desk. Cigar in hand, he led the way out of the office, beckoning Jessica to follow. Perhaps we should try that new bar down on 3rd Street, he mused as he holoed for the car to be brought around to the front.
Jessica took another sip of her half-finished martini and set the glass back on the end table. Getting up, she grabbed the atmojacket that she had draped over the back of the silk-edged sofa when she had waltzed in not twenty minutes before, then followed Andus out of the office to the car.
There were perks to spending one’s free time with other members of the city’s powerful and wealthy elite. Daddy would approve of her choice in friends.
Chapter 22
Spaceport, Hangar 08177A
“Hi hi!” Paige called out, being the first to wander in through the open hangar door. “Crash? Brock? You guys here?” Garet followed closely behind her.
The sun wasn’t yet up, but the sky showed signs that the night was ending. Paige couldn’t help but think there was something weird about seeing the morning from this end. Nonetheless, it tied in nicely with the planet-hopping they were about to do. You really started to appreciate that day and night came from the rotation of the planet, rather than being an inevitable demarcation of your day.
Paige put her bag down just inside the door. She hadn’t brought much, just what she’d taken to work with her that morning when she’d pulled the download and then fled from work with Molly. Molly had given her some t-shirts and military sweats as a change of clothes, but she felt like she was walking around in her pajamas. She was excited about this new adventure, but damn she wished she had some of her own clothes.
She noticed her fingernails as she placed her bag on the hangar floor. The polish was chipped and needed redoing. Badly. This wasn’t like her. But it was something that was going to have to wait until later when they were safe again.
Garet put his gear down too and put an arm around her, pulling her close and giving her a squeeze. She had just started to relax into it when he got distracted and moved away to look at the enormous ship that completely filled the hangar, wing tip to wing tip.
A second later there was movement from underneath it.
Brock emerged from the underbelly and walked over. “Yo! How’s it going, girlfriends…and Joel?” He winked at Garet by way of introduction. Way to piss off a new person, thought Joel.
Still, he couldn’t help but smile. The guy radiated light, as if his ancestors were holding candles within him. Garet understood the joke and reached out his hand to introduce himself.
“Ah, so you the one that this lovely lady risked life and limb to save! You must be a great man. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” They shook hands.
“Crash ain’t here. He went to grab his gear and some breakfast for us. But we gonna be ready to go any time he gets back. We’ve got the flight plans submitted. Just waiting to hear about our window.” He turned to Molly, who had just joined them in the hangar and was carefully placing the crate with Neechie down on the floor. “Your supplies showed up a few hours ago. The delivery guys helped us load them, so we�
��re ready to go when Crash gets here.”
“Great!” said Molly. “Ok, so the bottlenecks are approval and a flight window?”
Joel knew where she was heading.
“And Crash. Who ain’t here,” qualified Brock.
“How long till he gets here?” she asked.
Brock checked the time on his holo. “Forty minutes, max.”
“Ok. See what you can do to hustle for a flight window soon. If you can charm, bribe or threaten your way to the front of the queue, then great.” She could feel Joel’s eye on her as she slipped into her old way of doing things. “This is urgent. If we can legitimately take off as soon as Crash gets here, do it. Otherwise, we pay the fine for skipping ahead of our takeoff window.”
Brock nodded. “You think we’re still in danger?”
She glanced over at Joel to check he was still of the same opinion. “Yeah. The safe house was compromised. It’s just a matter of time before they track us here. It’s going to happen. I want us to be off-world when they do.”
“And you ain’t talking about the police, right?”
“No. It’s not the police. It’s people who want us dead. Silenced.” Her face was serious. “So see if you can raise Crash on his holo too, and tell him to step on it.”
Brock nodded, agreeing they weren’t home free yet.
Molly, satisfied they were doing all they could to get away faster, nodded back to the sphinx crate she had set down. “Hey Joel, you forgot your cat in the car.”
Joel dropped his gear on the ground, then spun around and jogged over to the crate. He cooed and chatted to Neechie as he went.
Brock looked at him, one hand on his hip. “We have a sphinx coming with us?” he asked.
Joel had picked up the carrier. “New team member,” he called out.
“Don’t you guys know that everyone is a slave to a cat? Now we got how many bosses?” Brock raised his voice and his hand in mock outrage.
“I tried to tell him,” Molly said, giving Joel the “I-told-you-so” look.
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 21
