Scavenger Vanishes (The SkyRyders Book 3)

by Liza O'Connor

  Betty had added several large age spots to her face with a tattoo laser, to enhance her elderly appearance. Betty had also created a skin cream that, once dried, gave the appearance of wrinkled, aged skin. Alisha applied the lotion to her face, arms and legs every morning before going to work. It caused her skin to break out in rashes, but that only made the effect more realistic.

  As Alisha performed her tedious and repetitive task of ensuring the machine dropped in the tiny circuit board properly, she noticed Betty and Freddy walking the production line. She had expected Fred to be a tall, brawny man who could move mountains, when in fact he looked like a cute boy who would require his mother’s permission even to go to the mountains. Betty said he was twenty-three, but he sure didn’t look it. That could be due to the youthful long hair and the fact he wasn’t more than five feet six inches tall.

  Yet as he walked beside Betty, who was only four foot eight, he seemed to tower over her. Alisha couldn’t help but worry. Anyone could see Fred was hopelessly in love with her. The problem was Betty wasn’t really a “her”, she was a “him”. Alisha was concerned when Fred discovered the truth, which he was eventually bound to do, all hell would break loose. She had tried to warn Betty she couldn’t continue to flirt with him and not have it culminate in sex. Betty just laughed and assured her that there was nothing to worry about. She had everything under control.

  Watching the two of them together, Alisha seriously doubted it. Betty looked just as enraptured as Freddy.

  Chapter 25

  Logan listened to Marge and Tucker’s report on casualties from the Silverton battle. He noticed their solemn faces.

  “Why no smile, Marge?” he asked. “We’ve now removed all but three on your damn list.”

  “I’ve removed those three from my list. They’ve been under scrutiny for two months now and I’ve nothing on them beyond a poor choice in associates. They’ve fallen into the new Corps ways better than most,” Marge conceded.

  “So they were good soldiers all along.”

  “Probably,” she replied.

  “I wonder how many other good soldiers we’ve murdered in the last three months.”

  “None—not with the level of proof you required,” Marge replied curtly.

  Logan stared at her. “You still think I was wrong to require proof?”

  “You want the truth?” Marge asked.

  “If you think you’re capable of supplying the commodity.”

  “Your requirement of proof has saved these three men’s lives, but at too high of a price. In the time it took you to finish this job, we’ve lost over seven thousand crates of laser rifles, five hundred concussion launchers, and sixteen thousand concussion bombs. That’s enough ammo to kill every flier in the Americas if used wisely.”

  Logan looked at Tucker. “Is that how you see it, Colonel?”

  Tucker glanced at Marge, then locked eyes with Logan. “If it had been my call, I would have done it quickly, but I respectfully disagree with Colonel William’s assessment of what the delay cost us. The additional time spent gathering evidence brought out a few key players we might have otherwise missed. With those men undiscovered, we would have continued losing gear even if we had removed every man on the original list. More importantly, and something I missed in the heat of battle, your insistence on proof kept us grounded to the foundation of what the Corps stands for. We aren’t just a Cartel that acts on the whim of whatever thug is strong enough to hold power. We not only represent law and justice, but in our darkest hour we still cling to it, even if it is by a thread.”

  His words were a balm to Logan’s scorched heart. It gave him hope he hadn’t turned Tucker into a murdering psychopath. “What I clung to was the thinnest of threads,” Logan warned him. “What I did, I did to pull this Corps back from the brink of annihilation, but now that we have stepped from the brink, my continuing as an officer is impossible. I have submitted my request for retirement today. Hopefully, MAC will assign my replacement in short order, but under no circumstances will that officer be you, Colonel Tucker.”

  Tucker flinched at his words but didn’t argue.

  “Don’t misunderstand me. You’ve performed remarkably over the last six months. You adapted to the requirements to win this war and never failed me. My decision to prevent you from further promotion at this time is not based on any dissatisfaction with you, but with what I have taught you about leadership.”

  Logan leaned forward and met his eyes. “What you have seen me do over the last six months had nothing to do with good leadership. It was just the opposite. There will never be another time in your career that requires such measures. If you are to continue in the Corps as a SkyRyder, you have to unlearn everything I’ve shown you in the last six months, and that will be the hardest job you’ll ever take on. Motivating and training is a hundred times harder than sending men to their deaths when they become a problem.”

  “Respectfully, sir, I must disagree,” Tucker said with quiet intensity. “I have clear evidence that sending men to their deaths is the more difficult path. When I compare the man I see before me today to the one I knew on the West Coast, I see the price you have paid, and sir, it scares the hell out of me. I will gladly return to Corps standards and pray to God I am never required to sacrifice myself as you have done.”

  Both Logan and Marge stared at Tucker in amazement.

  “There are other opportunities in the Corps besides being a SkyRyder,” Marge stated.

  “I appreciate that, sir, but all I’ve ever wanted to be is a SkyRyder,” Tucker explained.

  “You’ll never be promoted beyond your current rank. If you take another psych test, your career will be over. I’ll be protected, the general will be safely retired, but you’ll likely spend time in prison,” Marge warned him. “The Corps has a way of being ungrateful a few years after the fact.”

  “I understand that, sir. Being a colonel is more than enough. Had it not been for General Logan, I would probably never have seen a higher rank than captain in my whole career, so I consider myself lucky. I’ll have the remainder of my career to make myself the best leader of men this Corps has ever seen.”

  Once the meeting was over, Marge remained behind.

  “You must be disappointed, Colonel,” Logan said as he scanned and deleted all West Coast emails without reading them.

  Marge walked up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “About Tucker? Not at all. I think he can turn himself back into a good leader. But about you? Yes, I am disappointed.”

  “There never was going to be anything between us,” he said, his tone a bit softer now.

  “I had hoped for friendship at one time, but I wasn’t talking about our relationship. I was talking about your place in the Corps.”

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “I agree. I had hoped once we pulled back from the brink you’d be able to return to the hero you once were. These men need that now more than ever.”

  “I’m no longer that man. If I ever was a hero, he died when I sent the first man on your list to his death.”

  “You’ve sacrificed a hell of a lot for this Corps.”

  “More than you’ll ever know,” Logan replied, recalling Alisha’s tearful face when he left the East Coast.

  Marge watched as he continued to delete emails with attention flags and high priorities from General Powell and his strategist. “Any reason why you’re ignoring the West Coast?”

  “The man they’re trying to write to doesn’t even exist anymore.”

  Marge watched as he went to his delete file and permanently emptied it of the unread emails he’d just harvested.

  She lightly squeezed his shoulder. “Finding someone to fill your shoes may take a while.”

  “It had better not. If MAC hasn’t provided a replacement in the next two weeks, I’ll resign my commission and take half pension, and you can run this damn place.”

  “That would send the growing morale south in no time,” she m
uttered, and left him to his own dreary thoughts.

  Chapter 26

  Today was Alisha’s screw-up day. Every two weeks, she dedicated one day to screwing up her job so badly that the possibility of promoting her became unthinkable. Her favorite screw-up was malingering. Today, she planned to fail to return to work after lunch break. Instead she’d hide out in Betty’s rooms. She’d chosen Betty’s rooms for two reasons. First, the supervisor wouldn’t be able to find her and drag her back to work, and second, her rooms were very nice. Fred had procured the best of everything for her, including a virtual reality screen in the bedroom that allowed you to experience being anywhere in the universe.

  Alisha walked into the bedroom anticipating a pleasant afternoon of flying the Cully. What she got was an eyeful of entangled body parts—someone was having hot, passionate sex in the bed. At first, she thought Betty had left the virtual reality program on a porno file, but then she realized she knew the owners of all those arms and legs. It was Fred and Betty.

  Alisha’s first shock was that Fred was gay, but upon further inspection, they weren’t making love as gay men would. That brought her to the discovery Betty had all the anatomical parts required for standard heterosexual lovemaking, and she seemed quite adept at using them.

  Alisha was still staring in shock when Betty finally noticed her. “Alisha!” she exclaimed, and broke away from Fred. “Mrs. Pennington,” she corrected herself. “Are you ill? Is something wrong?”

  Alisha looked down at Betty’s petite body with small, firm breasts and a curly patch of hair between her legs. “You’re a girl.”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Pennington,” Betty said. “You’re just a little confused, that’s all.” She looked up at Fred, who was trying his hardest not to laugh. “Maybe it would be better if you left,” Betty suggested to him. “I think the sight of ‘you know what’ has scrambled the poor old lady’s brain.”

  Fred got up and slipped on his shirt and pants, but he made no effort to leave.

  In fact, he helped Betty lead poor Mrs. Pennington to the couch.

  “Thanks, I can handle it from here,” Betty assured him.

  He sighed and walked over to her and pulled her to her feet, ignoring Alisha altogether. He kissed her and smiled. “Someday you’re going to tell me why she thought you weren’t a woman,” he warned, then frowned. “If there’s anything really wrong with her, you’ll let me know? We’ve a doctor on staff who’s very discreet. His expertise is gynecology, but whatever the problem, he should be able to handle it. There’ll be no reports, no records, no contact with the outside world. Do you understand me?”

  Betty stared at him in surprise for a moment, then kissed him hard. “You are one hell of a logistics manager,” she teased. “Somebody should give you a raise.”

  He looked down at his pants, bulging at the crotch. “Somebody did…but they aren’t finishing the job,” he complained.

  “Come back in thirty minutes and we’ll get the job finished. I just need to explain things to Mrs. Pennington right now.”

  The second Betty closed the door, Alisha spoke. “Do you trust him?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Betty said, and sat down beside her. “I’m sorry about calling you Alisha, but if he’s had a baby doctor on staff for four months now, he’s known who you were from the very first.” Betty shook her head. “He’s so sneaky! I should have realized he was on to us when he put the lock on the truck door.”

  “But you do trust him?” Alisha asked again.

  “Absolutely, and not just because we’re lovers. I don’t lose my head over love affairs. He’s played fair from the very first. He never promises something he can’t deliver. If he says there’ll be no contact with outside authorities, then there won’t be. You’re still safe. In fact, you’re safer, because you’ll have a doctor to help you if something goes wrong as it did with Carol.”

  “I think about that all the time,” Alisha confessed. “How she managed to stay hidden all those months, only to have it all ruined.”

  “Me too,” admitted Betty. “But that can’t happen to you. You and the baby are going to be fine. Speaking of which, were you looking for me? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m fine. This is my screw-up day. I came in here to use the VR machine.”

  Betty laughed. “And you got the real reality instead.”

  “Except the sex of my friend has mysteriously altered,” Alisha said, and waited for an explanation.

  Betty shrugged her shoulders. “I was sold for a shot at a virgin birth when I was twelve. When nothing took, he dumped me out on the street like a thousand other girls each day. I looked around and decided being a twelve-year-old girl on the street was not a good idea. So I became a boy instead. Life was still hard, but at least I had a chance. Betty took me in, just like she did you. She had me run errands for her. Later, she used her own lay money to buy me a computer so I could start a business.”

  “Just like you bought me my catcher,” Alisha said.

  “Yep. Betty’s kind heart was contagious. She’d do a kind deed, and next thing you know, everyone on the block is doing kind deeds.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were really a girl?”

  “You were going through a hard time. I didn’t want you to know your dear friend Denny deceived you for all those months.”

  “You’re always looking after me, like a big sister…but if Betty took you in when you were twelve, you can’t be more than sixteen.”

  “I told Freddy I was twenty-one.”

  “But that was how old Betty would have been,” Alisha reminded her.

  “That’s who I am now,” Betty replied. “The truth isn’t always a good thing, Alisha. Sometimes it’s better to let it go.”

  ***

  As Betty promised, life continued on much the same. The first few days, Alisha expected the door to open and the police to carry her away in handcuffs, but the only thing that happened was a scolding from her supervisor for disappearing on Friday.

  One significant change was the romance between Fred and Betty heated up, leaving Alisha on her own more of the time after work. Betty still invited her over, but sitting on the couch with two lovebirds was excruciatingly painful. She had never experienced anything like the love they shared. She’d only had one beautiful night and then a “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am” speech in the morning. Watching those two made her realize she knew absolutely nothing about the pleasures of love. She only knew the pain of rejection.

  Chapter 27

  Logan had just received notice from MAC that his request for retirement had been accepted and his replacement would be arriving within twenty-four hours. “Stupid goddamned computer,” Logan muttered.

  Marge was in bed and almost asleep. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I just got notice my replacement will be here tomorrow.” He joined her in bed.

  “I would have thought that would make you happy.” She opened her eyes and studied him. “Have you changed your mind about retiring?”

  “No,” he assured her. “I’m pleased that my replacement is coming, it’s just the damn computer failed to say who is coming.”

  “Really? If you disagree with MAC’s choice, are you going to refuse to retire?”

  “Not a chance,” Logan replied, then turned onto his side and faced her. “Why do you keep asking if I’ve changed my mind?”

  “Because in the last few weeks I’ve seen you returning to the man you once were. You’ve spent a ridiculous amount of your time lecturing the troops on respecting one another and the value of working as a team. I feel like I’ve fallen into a group therapy clinic,” she teased.

  “So why are you still here?”

  “Here in your bed…or here as your colonel?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, I’m here as your colonel because I asked to stay on until your replacement came. I’m still here in your bed because I’d like to end this on a friendly note, and you’ve become more approachable in
the last few weeks, at least to your men…”

  “But not to you,” he added, voicing her unspoken thoughts.

  “Not yet…but hey, I’ve still got a few hours.” She laughed.

  Logan sighed and reached over, taking her hand in his. “It’s easy to blame you for my actions, because you tried your damnedest to be the master of my puppet strings. However, the truth is you never controlled me. I did what had to be done, my own way. Every choice I made was mine alone. So to hold you responsible because I find my actions to be deplorable is unfair and wrong.”

  “Does that mean we can make love as friends?”

  “No…as your friend, I’m not going to use you like that anymore. We both know I wasn’t making love. I was venting rage.”

  “I remember a time when we joined in kindness,” she reminded him.

  “I remember many pleasant things,” he replied. “But they’re memories of a different man.”

  In the morning, when Logan awoke, Marge’s side of the bed was empty and her clothes were gone from his closet. He sighed and pushed himself out of bed. He had never loved her, certainly not as he had loved Alisha, but she had helped him survive these last months. She had been a vital ally in his battle. He knew he owed her more affection than he’d given her, but it was all he had. When Alisha had confessed she and Jack had been lovers from the very beginning, he’d lost the capacity to ever love again.

  God, what a fool he’d been to think otherwise. Jack was young and handsome and an experienced seducer. Why would Alisha want a tired old curmudgeon when Jack was available?