by Pam Uphoff
The grid swung around and Trev could see what she was doing. "You have a knife?"
"Dry Scales always have a knife," she said, as it parted with a snap, evading her grab. "You never know when you'll need one." The bottom of the grid thudded down then tipped, dumping him on his face.
"Oww! Have I mentioned lately that you are a just a bit scary?"
She hastily sliced through the ropes tying his hands to the grid above his head, then went to work on his legs. "Only a bit? Personally I find the idea of trains much scarier." She helped him stagger to his feet. "Let's get."
After a single step, she returned and rescued her boots, hopping to get them on and still get out of the tunnel. She wasn't sure she liked the idea of risking her life on a train schedule.
Catching his curious glances toward the knife she carried in her hand she handed it over.
He studied it for a long moment then handed it back. "There are two just like this in the Imperial History Museum. So, what did your Grandfather usually do on Mars Victory Day?"
"He found that if he started drinking at Venus Rising by the time he was conscious and no longer focusing on his personal pain Mars Victory was well past and could be forgotten for another year."
"Do you have problems with it?"
"I did as a child. It seemed to be the day everyone I knew remembered I was part Dry Scale and decided to tease, harass or attempt to beat on me."
"Attempt."
"Not only was I a little smart mouth who could outdo their verbal efforts, I could kick their tails as well. Grandfather taught me how. The end result was always a lot of other parents complaining to my parents about my beating their little darlings up. Fortunately they understood the situation and never backed down."
She paused at the door M'kabon had dragged her through. "Shall we do this very carefully, so as to avoid both of us getting stunned?"
"Do you think he's got this door trapped too?" He opened the door carefully. She shucked a boot and handed it to him. He waved it around, to no obvious purpose. "I hate that lizard." He said casually. Pushing the door all the way open while keeping his body as far away from the doorway as possible, he started snickering.
Looking past him, she snorted. "That's got to hurt!" According to the principle of geological superposition, Vee must have been the first through the door and first stunned. He lay well into the room, as if he'd rushed through the door. Elissy must have rushed to him for she lay sprawled across his legs and tail. Ouch! Raelphi must have tried a cautious approach, he was just inside the door, one hand thrown out over Elissy's tail spikes. Silver was folded up gracefully at his side, her head cushioned on his shoulders, one arm across his crest.
From this side she could see the trap mechanism, a simple motion detector wired to a stunner that was aimed down and into the room.
"Did Gold actually have the sense to not enter the room?" Trev wondered out loud.
They entered carefully, and eyed the angle of the stunner.
Trev frowned at the pile. "I don't want to trigger the stunner too many times." He said. "Raelphi's already had a double dose, and Elissy three. Vee fell far enough that, well, he may have some problems with his legs, but his brains should be OK. Despite how he acts, that's his best part."
The far door opened suddenly. Trev drew back the boot, as if to throw, then relaxed.
"Not only was Gold smart enough to not get stunned, she went for the best possible help. Hi Boss, got a reflecting blanket on you?"
Xaero grabbed her boot and pulled it back on.
Captain W'ufda looked at the situation silently shaking his head. "Great Sand. They don't put things like this in vids because they aren't believable, you know? Where's the stunner?"
"Over the door. Centered, triggered by a motion detector."
Gold who'd been peering worriedly at Silver and Raelphi, swept a frown between W'ufda and Trev. "Boss!? Do you mean to tell me, that all this time we've been, been . . ." she sputtered to a halt. "I was actually feeling bad about using you when you were about to get arrested."
Trev grinned. "I know, and you kept trying to keep me away from Xaero. It was highly entertaining."
A rumble grew behind them, and roared past. Xaero shivered a bit.
W'ufda popped a silvery parabola open. "On the count of three, Gold. Please grab Silver and drag her well away from the door. Miss Xaero, the other young lady, while Trev grabs your nephew and goes back for the intrepid Sergeant. One, two, three."
He shoved the parabola over the trap, and they scrambled over Vee to get the others clear, then Xaero helped Trev with Vee as he staggered a bit, not fully recovered himself, or perhaps it was just the sheer size of the lizard. Trev and Xaero folded up against the wall nearly as relaxed as the stunned.
"I don't believe this day is happening." She watched Gold fussing over Raelphi and Silver, who was starting to stir. "Clearly we have gotten stuck in one of those very bad novels you keep trying to publish."
W'ufda straightened from taking Elissy's pulse. "They all seem fine, and I'm beginning to think I should read some of these works, if they resemble your day. Do you have any idea where M'kabon has gone?"
"He said he had a train to catch, now that he has all the parts for his time machine. I trust you have a spot reserved in a very secure asylum for him when we . . . " Trev trailed off and started at W'ufda's alarmed—not amused—expression. "He's got a loose screw, right? He can't possibly, I mean, time travel?"
"Well, the head of the Imperial Research labs says that what he is doing is theoretically possible." He shot a look toward Gold, but she was fully engaged with a moaning Silver. "Later, please."
Trev sighed and eyed Xaero instead.
"So, how come the Mad Scientist likes you and thinks I'm stupid?"
"Well it could be his low opinion of all royals, or perhaps because I'm a pretty fem who talked science to him and you're a male trespasser on his turf who sneered at him."
"She's got you pegged, Trev." W'ufda said, pulling out his hand comp. "Had a train to catch did he?"
"He was walking south down the Fuldar tunnel at 85." Trev told him. "He'd have been at the Met south terminal by 87 at the latest."
"Which is about the late shift rush, around here." Xaero told him.
W'ufda nodded, brushing his muzzle spines. "Tons of trains."
"Check the long range ones, especially." Trev suggested.
"And get us any available data on, umm, that mechanism he's building, power requirements, limits or constraints on what it can do." Xaero suggested.
W'ufda frowned at her. "You're not cleared for any of this. In fact you ought to be a suspect."
"Cops." She grinned at Trev. "You just can't handle nosy civilians. First thing Trev did was lock me up. Didn't even bother to search me."
"Did you have that knife in your boot?" he asked.
"Two of them, and my Grandfather's war club in the brief case you barely glanced at."
W'ufda snickered. "Underestimating fems, Trev? Must have been those new hormones kicking in and messing up your nice logical brain."
"Yes, and unfortunately you are proof that they aren't going to quit anytime soon." Trev retorted.
"Check specifically about departure and arrival velocities matching, please. He said they had to, and that coming and going on the same date and time took care of it." Xaero told him.
"In three days, he said." Trev glanced at Gold who was talking to Silver, and lowered his voice. "So some Mars Victory day in the past?"
"And probably in the same location, or, hmm, same latitude, and adjust the time?" She tried to picture it. "I think that would work."
Multiple footsteps herald the arrival of the Met Police and medics, and the rapid departure of the stunned, including the woozy Silver. W'ufda sent Gold off with them, and set the locals straight as to who was in charge. W'ufda left them to deal with the stunner and motion detector, and led Trev and Xaero off to Double Moons, to wait while he closeted himself with a secure line.
He came out looking extremely dissatisfied. "The Specials are taking it from here." He growled as if biting one of the aforementioned high-handed intruders. "You are to have nothing to do with anything, Miss Xaero. Trev, you go back and play publisher in case any more of the missing show up." He hesitated visibly. "Miss L'svages? Is there anything you would like to mention, either to me, or the next set of investigators?"
She cocked her head at him. "I doubt it would be a new concept to either them or you, but I have no idea how or why Blozolli or L'azlod became clients of the firm. Both were dumped on me with no notice by the senior partners. If your Specials wish to look into that further, they may contact me for the few details I have, off hours if they wish, or officially." She shrugged. "I'll write it all out, such as it is, in any case."
W'ufda sniffed. "They are not my Specials. In fact they are pains in the tail. Please send your report to Trev The Publisher and we'll pass it on."
With that, she was dismissed.
She stopped by the hospital, where the group was all in the process of being discharged. Elissy was looking sick and Vee was limping on still numb feet, but Silver and Raelphi were fine. She flagged two cabs and sent Vee off to the Double Moons, and rode with the rest to the Builtdown.
They kept pestering her with questions, so she gave up and invited them all to her place. It was too early for breakfast, so she ignored their questions while she threw together a quick post midnight snack. Then she sat them all down and tried to explain.
"Yes, Trev is a DMS officer. Yes, Double Moons Publishers was started solely as a cover for some investigations they were undertaking, mainly a cleanup of L'azlod's organization. I can't say a whole lot about it, mainly because they wouldn't tell me anything."
Elissy moaned. "My books!"
"Umm, I don't know if they are staying in business or what. So I don't know about the books." She winced internally and decided to not tell Elissy any of their actual opinions of the stories.
"What about that old lizard?" Raelphi asked. "Not the cop, the other one. He's messing up my opinion of Elder Wisdoms, you know. So's the cop, for that matter. Shouldn't he be too mellow to chase criminals or something?"
Xaero snorted her amusement. "Mellow? No, I think I'll take mellow off my list of things I expect from wisdoms. If you see that old wisdom, if you even think you might have seen him, call Trev, fast. He's dangerous." She looked at them curiously. "How, what were you doing? Following me?"
Raelphi flushed. "We met after work, Elissy tagged along hoping to meet that oversized . . . Dim. And we grabbed some food and sat around and talked a bit. When we finally headed home, we spotted you and . . . Trev." He glared at her. "A DMS agent! All this time you let me think. . . " he broke off with a growl. "Well, we really didn't want to run into you, so we hung way back behind some of those weird sculptures they're trying to beautify the plaza with, and we saw that big Lizard . . . "
"Vee," Elissy snapped.
"Get mugged. We sort of wondered if we should do anything, or, or, but finally we went to see if he was all right."
Elissy glared. "Wondered my tail! You, you, grabbed me. If I hadn't gotten loose you would have let him lay there and die!"
"He wasn't dying. That old lizard just shot him with a stunner. He came to and flat out freaked," Silver said. "He had some sort of tracker and followed it to a locked door."
"He picked it so fast, he might as well have had a key." Raelphi said. "Then we followed it some more, to another locked door, and he tried to call someone on his comm and couldn't get any reception."
"He gave it to me and sent me up to the surface to call and explain what had happened to whoever answered." Gold said. "Which was that DMS Wisdom. I took him back to the locked door, and there you all were."
The food was mostly picked at. Appetites were not at their best, and finally everyone drifted away. Xaero massaged her temples and then ran a hot tub of water while mentally organizing her recollections of how it had all started. And continued. And kept going.
Clean and relaxed, she collapsed into her bedpit. She slept late, and wandered over to the office mid morning, where she found massed indignation. Apparently the DMS Specials had descended upon the Firm and "implied things" and had been closeted with the senior partners for the entire morning. Xaero collected all the delicious tidbits of gossip available, then decided she wasn't going to get a thing done and headed home.
She started keying in a detailed account of her association with Blozolli, right up to her first encounter with Trev. She hissed a bit at the soft chime from the door. Whoever it was could just, umm, come in and seduce her. Excellent way to get in a nap. Afterwards.
***
"You lawyers all live like this?" Trev asked sleepily as he stretched out on her heated 'rock' lounger.
"Just the successful ones." She replied, reading the Firm's chat page on the local net.
"What went on with the Specials today? They came back looking very disgruntled." He smirked in satisfaction, eyes drooping closed.
"From what I'm reading, I guess they'd never tackled an old established family law firm before. The six named partners are just the tip of the boulder. There are ten junior partners, sixty-four associates, and all of the assistants. I think there are a couple of hundred of them, mostly law students. Call it close to three hundred experts in law. The clerks have been trained to never talk about clients, and the secretaries don't answer to anyone. Make that five hundred experts. The poor fool Specials were left with trying to intimidate the poor little receptionist, whose Daddy is filthy rich and showed up to make sure the Brutal Police weren't bothering his Little Darling who was so bravely and independently making her way in the world. Then they tried the spouses." She shook her head. "No one's actually reported any blood on the floor, and the Specials apparently still had all of their all their body parts when they left."
Trev snickered. And yawned. "Apart from the nut case escaping, I am entirely smug and self satisfied."
"I hope they hurry up and get him. The umm, potential for changes is disturbing to my orderly logical lawyerly mind."
"Yeah, gives me the creeps too." He barely opened an eye when the door chimed. "Expecting anyone?"
"Nope." She answered. "Either your VLL has tracked you down or the Specials are dropping by with the scale pullers." She stood on tiptoes and peered through the spy hole. "Vee and Woofie." She swung the door open.
"What did you just call my esteemed Boss?"
"Don't repeat it in my hearing, please Miss Xaero." W'ufda was beaming. "I do so approve of anyone who can do that to the Specials, I'd hate to have to change my mind over an epithet."
"I had nothing to do with it. It was the rest of the family, and frankly I want some of the answers too. And it was only a rather obvious nickname you've probably heard before."
"What was different about . . . what are you grinning about?"
"My family so abused the Specials they asked you to help? To play the Good Cop?"
Multiple snickers aborting W'ufda's denial, he glared around.
Xaero walked over and grabbed her minicomp from the table. "What I think we need to try and find out is who Blozolli first contacted at the firm, and why we didn't just refer him to someone who does regular criminal defense."
W'ufda draped himself over a comfortable chair. "That does bear a reasonable resemblance to what the Specials want to know. By all means continue interviewing yourself."
She curled up next to the rock and leaned a bit on Trev. "Now, none of you are going to notice that I seem to be doing something that could be construed as hacking my own firms computers, right?" she tapped away and didn't wait for a reply.
"Surely there's nothing wrong with a partner accessing the firm's computers, is there?" Trev shifted around so he could see the screen. "Phone records?"
"When exactly was Blozolli arrested?"
"35-3-29." W'ufda told her. "He had his unmonitored call to his lawyer at 65."
Xae
ro scrolled back half a year and found it right where it should be. "Here's a call from the Met Justice building. Hmm, not through the public number, he called Apru's office direct. Assuming this is him." She scrolled around a bit. "Nothing else from that comm block code. You might check what exact number he called from."
"Now, let's see if we can get into Uncle Apru's . . . Password God. Sand take me. My relatives are so embarrassing."
"He opened a phone record." Trev read. "And closed it in three millisplits. Can you play it?"
"I think so . . . " she hit the right combination and Blozolli's voice rolled out.
"L'svages, this is Blozolli C'dasl, we met through Metini L'azlod. I nee." The recording cut off in mid word.
"Drat. Fast reflexes. But presumably he said ‘send a lawyer.’ Now, how does Apru know L'azlod?" She dug around in her uncle's files but couldn't find any references to L'azlod at all. Finally she found his calendar and printed out three years worth of it.
"Here," she said. "Impress the Specials with your devious and underhanded actions, hinting at how clever you were to get this list for them to cross check against L'azlod's known movements."
W'ufda took the list gingerly. "Trev, what sort of fem are you associating with?"
"A very bad one, sir. A lawyer and a hacker. Utterly appalling. I'm shocked."
"Yes, I can tell by the rickus of horror on your face, although some might mistake it for a smirk." W'ufda studied her for a moment. "You think this is amusing?"
"I find the reactions of the police, considering anyone in the vicinity of a criminal, including or maybe especially their lawyer, to be implicated in the crime, amusing.
"The probable involvement of my family is infuriating. I suppose a more normal reaction would be to dig in and present a family wide wall of stone." She shrugged. "In fact my family is such a pain in the tail that throwing the bad ones out into the sandstorm is utterly irresistible. Anyway, our founding documents require us to turn in members who go bad. Although it doesn't say anything about tracking them down in the first place."
