Saving Morgan

by MB Panichi

“She stopped by, yeah. Gave me her card.” Morgan paused and finally added, “I got the impression she and Shaine don’t get along well.” Okay, that was an understatement, but she was curious, and he seemed open to answering questions. She probably should have just asked Shaine, but it hadn’t occurred to her at the time. They’d been distracted with other things.

  Maruchek’s smile widened. He leaned back in his chair. “No, there’s no love lost between those two,” he admitted. “Before she worked for me directly, Lissa was one of Rogan’s high-profile agents. Wendt joined Rogan’s security team and rather quickly became senior to Lissa. There’s been bad blood between them since.”

  Morgan nodded thoughtfully. Well, that explained that, at least to a certain degree. She figured there was likely a lot more to the story than he was giving her, but she would ask Shaine about it when they had more time.

  Maruchek continued, “Wendt is good at what she does. Knowing she was watching over you was a relief to me.”

  Morgan’s breath caught in her throat. “Was Shaine joining my crew a setup?” Her voice broke on the words.

  Maruchek looked startled. “What? Oh. No. That was a coincidence. A rather fortunate one, but no, Wendt being assigned to your crew was a fluke, though it certainly worked to our advantage.”

  Relief washed over her. She figured if she’d been standing, her knees would have given out. She took a shaky breath and tried to school her expression to neutral.

  Maruchek asked, “Do you and Wendt get along all right?”

  Morgan knew her face was flushed. “Yeah, sure. We’re fine,” she said quickly, covering her reaction by sipping her coffee.

  Maruchek seemed to try very hard not to smile. Morgan scowled at him. The smile he tried to hide showed in his eyes. “I’d gotten the impression that was the case,” he commented before artfully changing the subject. “More coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” She looked down. Bastard, he knows. They probably had a freaking spy camera set up in the guest suite. Christ.

  Maruchek got up to refill his cup.

  A shortish, robust figure dressed in a pressed white kitchen uniform arrived on the patio with a covered platter balanced in his hands. “Your breakfast, Mr. Maruchek.”

  Maruchek smiled. “Thank you, Ray. You can set it on the table.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man set the covered tray down and disappeared without another word.

  Maruchek lifted the dome. “There’s plenty here. Please, take a plate.”

  Morgan hesitated. Her stomach clenched with nerves and she wasn’t hungry. Still, she hadn’t eaten since last night, so maybe a taste of something would be okay.

  She stood and joined Maruchek at the table. He’d already piled his plate with fruit and cheese and a large croissant. She studied the tray. The warm, sweet scent of fresh bread wafted to her nose. The bowl of freshly cut fruit glistened alluringly. Her empty stomach grumbled. Okay, maybe food wasn’t such a bad idea. She filled her plate, grabbed a set of silverware wrapped in a linen napkin, and returned to her chair.

  Taking a bite of the croissant, she chewed slowly, hoping the bread would calm her queasy stomach.

  She and Maruchek talked while they ate. Maruchek kept the conversation to pleasant generalities, talking a bit about sports, asking her if she’d ever gone to a soccer game at Luna City. After a bit, he apologized, saying he needed to attend to some business. He got to his feet.

  Morgan followed suit.

  “I’ve enjoyed talking with you this morning,” he said.

  Morgan managed an awkward smile in return. “It was nice.”

  “I have a holobook you might want to see. I’ll have it sent up to your suite, if you like.”

  “Sure.”

  He nodded.

  She and Maruchek stood uncomfortably for a moment. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to try to hug her.

  After a second, Maruchek simply smiled. “Please remember you’re welcome to spend as much time as you’d like here in the gardens. If you need any assistance getting back to your suite, you can ask anyone you see, or call Lissa’s number on the card she gave you.”

  Morgan nodded.

  Maruchek said, “Have a good day then, daughter,” and with a quick bow of his head, turned and headed down the flagstone path.

  She watched him walk away. He had a strong stride, and the wide shoulders and narrow waist of an athlete. His physique had clearly filled in some over the years, but despite the graying at his temples and the lines at the edges of his eyes, he still seemed very young and vital. So very different than Vinn Rahn, she thought sadly.

  Her dad seemed so much older, but she suspected the two men weren’t that different in actual age. She pictured the line-etched planes of her dad’s face and the way his eyes had faded. He used a cane now, his gait stiff and careful after so many years working in the asteroid mines. She remembered the occasional injuries he’d come home with—pulled muscles and backaches from working the heavy equipment in the processing plants, or just from spending too many hours in zero-g without a break, having neither the time or the energy to exercise in full gravity to rebuild bone and muscle lost to floating.

  Morgan shook her head as despondency washed over her. The years had been a lot rougher on Vinn Rahn. It wasn’t fair. But life rarely was.

  Feeling a bit at loose ends, she wandered the gardens a while before turning back toward her suite. She wasn’t certain she knew exactly where she was going, but she didn’t want to ask for help, especially from Lissa. Better to just work the route out for herself. If it took awhile, that was fine, because what she needed right now was time to think and to process.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Maruchek promised, a thick book of holophotos waited for her when Morgan returned to the suite, left on the coffee table in the living room. She felt a bit unnerved at seeing it, knowing the only people able to access the suite were Shaine and herself, Maruchek and Rogan. She hoped the visitor had been Maruchek because the thought of Rogan in her space weirded her out, and the thought of having missed Shaine made her sad.

  She found a sheet of letterhead with a short note written in neat, flowing longhand placed inside the front cover of the book.

  “Morgan, I hope that you will enjoy the holos. The book is yours to keep. —TM.”

  Maruchek, then. She sat with the book for the next couple of hours, paging through the images, repeatedly going back to the ones of Arella Maruchek, fascinated by the woman who looked so much like her. Still, she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was nosing into someone else’s private memories. This wasn’t her family. Not really. She looked at holos of strangers. If it wasn’t for the eerily familiar face of her birth mother, she didn’t think she would have been able to make any connection at all to the people on the pages.

  While Morgan flipped through the holo book, Shaine called to ask how breakfast with Maruchek went. Morgan was glad to hear from her. Shaine didn’t know when she’d be done with mission planning and made Morgan promise not to wait for dinner or wait up that night. Through the entire conversation, she felt like Shaine sounded rushed and distracted.

  After the call, Morgan returned to the book for a while, but her curiosity waned and she set it aside. She cast around for something else to do, found a movie on the net, and stared blankly at the film awhile before turning it off. She thought about going back out to the gardens—at least she’d be moving—but didn’t feel quite comfortable going there alone. For the hundredth time, she wished Shaine would return, and for the hundredth time she berated herself for being so damned needy.

  Finally, she flopped on the sofa and scanned through the news channels on the entertainment center. The hours passed slowly.

  By seven o’clock, Shaine still hadn’t returned. Morgan gave up waiting and ordered a sandwich for a late dinner. She ended up only eating half. Too wound up to finish the meal, she abandoned her half-finished beer on the coffee table too.

  Morgan prowled around the suite, m
entally exhausted, but physically too wired to sleep. She stared out the windows, feeling restless and trapped.

  The night skyline winked with flashes of light and neon color, the city alive with movement. Vehicles drew avenues of streaking light between the sky-scraping buildings. Airplane, space shuttle and helicopter running lights dotted the blackness over the city. She searched for stars, but only a few were bright enough to show through the ambient light. The moon was a pale, thin arc, partially veiled behind wispy clouds. She traced the outline on the windowpane, finding it odd to reconcile the sliver of faded yellow as her home.

  The antique chron on the wall finally chimed eleven thirty p.m.

  She turned from the window and padded into the bedroom, grabbed her comp pad out of her gym bag, and brought it back with her to the sofa. A couple of days had passed since she’d written in her journal and she had at least three books loaded in her reading list. At the very least, she figured she could waste some time playing mindless tile games.

  She settled sideways into the corner of the sofa, leaning against the overstuffed arm with her legs stretched out the length of the seat. Powering up the pad, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back for a few moments. Her brain reeled. She wasn’t doing very well with coherent thoughts. One image after another and muddled fragments of logic ran circles around each other—snapshots out of time from the holo book, memories of her past, thoughts of Shaine and her impending mission, flashes of the attack in the street, of the explosion that caused Digger’s death and the gruesome sight of his blood-splattered faceplate. So much happening in just a few days. She hoped some time on her pad would push it away awhile.

  Her friend Charri’s avatar popped up on the small monitor almost instantly when the pad finished powering up. Her voice exploded over the tiny speakers, “Morgan Rahn, where the fuck have you been?”

  Morgan jumped, instinctively hitting the mute button. Charri’s pink and magenta jungle cat avatar glared up from the screen. Aw, fuck, she groaned internally. With all the security around Maruchek’s compound, it hadn’t even occurred to her she’d have an automatic net uplink here. She tapped the avatar messaging controls to go to text mode. Before she could decide what to type, Charri’s continuing tirade popped up in a text window.

  Morgan? Morgan! Her name in bold red blinked furiously at her, registering the emotion in Charri’s voice as oversized lettering.

  Morgan sighed. She could pretty much hear Charri yelling into her mic and knew the woman would be pissed she’d switched to text-only. She typed, Hey, Char.

  Where the fuk r u? R u ok?? Talk 2 me Morgan!

  I’m fine. I’m ok.

  Put the f-ing mic on, Mor!

  Can’t.

  WHERE R U??????

  Morgan couldn’t help grinning at the angry, frustrated expression on Charri’s avatar. The typeface in the text window was getting bigger and bolder. But what could she say? Hard 2 explain. But all ok.

  Even Strom doesn’t know where u r! Ur going to get fired!

  Char—calm down. It’s ok. It’s all good. I promise. Sure it was all good. Some obsessive bastard was trying to kill her because she looked like her birth mother, her family had lied to her all her life, her birth father owned half the freakin’ solar system, and she was falling in love with an assassin. Yeah. All good. Really.

  MORGAN! Charri’s text blinked for attention. MORGAN!! ur with her, rn’t you? With Shaine???

  Morgan sighed. Yeah.

  U know, if u were gonna ELOPE u could have TOLD ME!!!!!

  Morgan almost laughed out loud. I have not eloped.

  Then what the FUK R U DOING??????

  2 hard 2 explain. Just trust me. I’m okay. I gotta go.

  MORGAN!!!!

  Char, I’m sorry. I can’t talk about stuff right now…please, it’s okay.

  This is completely fukked, Mor.

  Yeah, I know. I promise, I’ll explain it all later, K?

  K. Ur safe?

  Morgan sighed. She could almost hear the resignation in Charri’s words, knew her friend was worried about her, and knew there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. Hell, she was worried about herself. She texted, I’m safe. I gotta go. Talk 2 u later, k?

  K. B careful, Morgan, whatever ur doing.

  I will.

  She killed the pad’s online connection before Charri could ask any more questions. Her friend’s avatar popped off the screen. “Fuck,” she whispered to the empty room. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  She didn’t know if she’d see her friends again, let alone be able to tell them anything about what had happened. The only anchor she had in the whole screwed-up mess was a woman she hardly knew, whom she trusted implicitly without knowing why, and who made her feel more wonderful than she’d ever felt in her life.

  She opened her journal app to write. Using her favorite lime- green stylus, she scratched in the date and sat for fifteen minutes trying to come up with something reasonably coherent to write. Finally, she just closed the app, too wiped out to try to put her addled thoughts into words. May as well just play a few rounds of tile games. Maybe some mindless entertainment would quiet her brain enough to let her sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shaine slipped into the guest suite, pausing to pull off her boots as the door snicked shut. She sighed, noting the lack of light and the silence. Only a dim lamp glowed in the corner of the living room. Morgan must’ve gone to sleep. She glanced at the chron on her wrist. One thirty a.m. Christ. No wonder she felt like crap.

  As she moved through the gloom of the entry and into the living room, she realized the shadow in the corner of the sofa was actually Morgan’s dark hair. The woman’s head was pillowed on the soft cushions. She approached silently, a smile twitching her lips.

  Morgan slept curled in the corner of the sofa, clutching her pad against her stomach with one hand. Shaine slid around to crouch at Morgan’s side. Her fingers traced lightly along the soft skin of Morgan’s uninjured cheek. Damn, you’re beautiful.

  Morgan’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Hey,” Shaine whispered.

  Morgan focused blearily. “Hey,” she mumbled. “Wondered when you’d get back.”

  “Me too.” Shaine eased the pad out of Morgan’s grip, set it on the coffee table and took Morgan’s hand in hers. “Come on, let’s get you to bed, huh?”

  Morgan sat up and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “You had a long day.”

  Shaine shrugged. “Yeah. You doing all right?”

  “Fine, I guess. I don’t know. It’s all just—weird.”

  Shaine ran a comforting hand up and down Morgan’s arm, not knowing quite what to say. “Yeah.”

  “I ran into Charri on the net tonight.”

  Shaine raised a brow. Online? When did Rogan open their net access to external personal avatars?

  “She was freaking out, not knowing where I was. How the fuck do I explain all this?”

  “What did you tell her?” Shaine’s words came out sharper than she intended.

  Morgan gave her a cautious look. “Nothing. I told her I was fine, and not to worry, that everything was okay. But it’s not, is it?”

  Shaine forced a smile she didn’t feel. “It’ll be fine, Morgan,” she assured her.

  Morgan didn’t appear appeased.

  She sighed and brushed the bangs out of Morgan’s eyes, idly letting her fingers trail through the short, silky hair. Suddenly too exhausted to deal any longer, she held out a hand to Morgan. “Come on, I’m beat. Let’s go to bed.”

  Morgan took her outstretched hand and followed her tiredly to the bedroom. Shaine stripped out of her clothes and helped Morgan with hers. Pulling down the covers, she waited until Morgan got settled, then slid in beside her. Morgan snuggled against her, laying her head on Shaine’s chest. Shaine smiled and covered them with the thick comforter then wrapped her arms around Morgan. She kissed the dark hair, feeling Morgan’s body relax with a sigh.

  “Good night,” she whisp
ered.

  Morgan murmured into her chest, already asleep.

  Sometime later, the harsh, incessant beeping of a portable communicator eventually worked its way into Shaine’s consciousness. She blinked into the darkness. Groaning, she realized the com was on Morgan’s side of the bed even as Morgan flailed out a hand from under the covers to grab the irritating thing.

  Morgan fumbled with the communicator, finally keying it on, and mumbled into the receiver, “H’lo?”

  In the quiet, Shaine heard an agitated voice coming from the other end of the line. “Wendt? Wendt, get down here, we gotta talk!”

  With her eyes still mostly closed, Morgan handed over the transceiver. “’S for you.”

  Shaine took the device from Morgan’s boneless grip.

  The voice on the other end yelled, “Wendt? Hello?”

  Shaine groaned and rolled on her back. “Ellerand?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Wendt, we gotta talk. You gotta get down here, now.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. Just get here.” The line clicked dead.

  Shaine sighed heavily.

  Morgan rolled over to face her and drifted a hand across her middle. “Something wrong?” she asked sleepily.

  Shaine shivered at the light touch. She caught Morgan’s hand and squeezed. “Ellerand gets excited,” she said softly, rubbing her thumb across the soft skin on the back of Morgan’s hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’d better go find out what’s going on.” She leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on Morgan’s mouth. “Don’t worry. Go back to sleep. I won’t be gone long.” She held Morgan’s gaze until the woman relaxed into the pillows. A quick kiss on Morgan’s forehead, and she slid out of bed with a sigh.

  She pulled on pants and a tunic, padded out to the living room and shoved her bare feet into the boots she’d left by the door. She let herself out of the suite and hurried through the building, back down to Security where Ellerand waited impatiently.

  Ellerand spun around on the chair in front of his desk when she walked into his office. “About time, Wendt.”

  She gave him a dark look. “It’s four o’clock in the fucking morning.”