Been There, Done That (April Book 10)

by Mackey Chandler

  “If I can find somebody to provide a place to sleep and some guidance, preferably several people, then I have no objection to your allowing your minor son to reside on Home until he can be voted his adult status. I’d defend your choice against any accusations of neglect, particularly from your ex. As far as I’m concerned she has no standing to make that complaint anymore, and I’ll say so and why before the Assembly. I already regard Lindsey as being an adult and the wait now, until that can be legally acknowledged is just a formality.”

  “OK,” Mo agreed, “I’m going to call Dr. Lee and if he has no objection, explain what is planned to Eric, unless Lee doesn’t want to upset him for medical reasons. Then I’ll call Lindsey and fill her in. Call me or leave a text whenever you have anything arranged,” Mo said. He felt it was in good hands with Jon.

  Chapter 27

  “We’ve gotten a much better return up here than lower on the stream,” Eileen said. “We got almost a quarter ounce here last Sunday. Why don’t we skip a hundred meters or so upstream the next couple times we set up, to see if it’s worth the extra travel to work there? It might be closer to wherever the gold is weathering out and give us a better yield. We might even find a place worth dry dirt mining.”

  “I’ll have to show you my property map,” Vic said, frowning. He took the opportunity to stop working the rocker for a little. “This is near the uphill limit of my land. If we leave traces up there showing where we worked, somebody might contest our rightful possession of the gold. I’m not sure of the owner. It’s never been developed. It’s not like we have any way to register mining claims with North America, and I’m not sure what if anything will do for semi-autonomous areas. I’m not sure there is any authority that would care. But I’d like to play it safe and stay on my own land.”

  “Why not claim it by adverse possession?” Eileen asked.

  “How did you even come to know that term?” Vic asked.

  “My dad and grandfather talked about doing it quite a bit sitting around snowed in last winter. They were planning on cutting trees in a path up the hill and claiming at least to the top, and then cutting a line each way to establish a boundary. Seems to me we could stack up stone markers easier, since upstream of here is pretty rocky.”

  “I remember hearing about local cases of adverse possession back before The Day. It got so the timber companies had to do an aerial survey every couple years to keep people from claiming land that way. One element of it was that possession had to be notorious. If you got your mail there and had packages delivered for example. You couldn’t just hide a camp out in their woods and all of a sudden pop up claiming it. Not sure how we could do that with no mail and no UPS. I remember one family proved how long they had lived there with pictures of their cars and license plates matched to DMV records. We haven’t had any new plates in awhile either,” Vic said and grinned.

  “They have a big bulletin board at Mr. Mast’s Barn, and folks post news and stuff for sale there, even between festivals. I know, because I read the dates on a lot of them. That would be pretty public. Maybe if you pass word along they will make a short announcement in the evening radio message,” Eileen suggested.

  “I’m sure they would if I pay,” Vic said. “It bears thinking on some more.”

  Eileen shut up. From Vic that was almost an exuberant endorsement, and pushing for an immediate commitment would just irritate him now.

  * * *

  April got a call before coffee. She wasn’t expecting Gunny and Lindsey on a split screen. She wasn’t even aware Gunny wasn’t in his room, but the background was wrong for that.

  “I think we have things sorted out for Eric,” Lindsey said, “at least for the immediate future. He can stay here with Sylvia and me, where Diana is now. That lets us still see each other, more actually than we were living with my mom.”

  “Where is Diana going?” April asked. “Back home to Hawaii?”

  “She’s going to rent Jeff’s cubic from him,” she said, “with the lotto now she has enough income to rent it from him.” She cued Gunny to speak with a glance.

  “I’m going to be staying with Diana most of the time,” Gunny said, “which means we’ll have a guest room there if Eric needs it. Lindsey’s old room actually. That means my room with you will be empty more often than usual.”

  “That’s where you come in,” Lindsey said. “You asked if there was anything you could do. We’d like you for another layer of backup, so if they all decide to go off to New Las Vegas again or something, he can stay in Gunny’s room.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Gunny said. “He won’t mess with my stuff.”

  “Sure, why should I have peace and quiet, or privacy, when I could host a teenage boy?” April asked. “I can be on call to keep him if Gunny trusts him, but Eric and I will still have to have a little talk-talk about the house rules and what I consider civilized behavior.”

  “We’ll tell him, in exactly those words,” Lindsey promised.

  “I’m kind of surprised,” April said. “I thought when it was all sorted out Theo would take him, just like she took in my friend Doris before, when Jon needed to shelter her.”

  “This all happened right when Theo decided to finally go have the full course of Life Extension done, and she doesn’t want to drop her appointment, or redo the duty schedule for Security, that’s been moved all around to give her a week off.”

  That surprised April too. Theo was rumored to have money, yet hadn’t sought LE Therapy for years now. She was one of the few remaining people who looked old on Home. Pretty soon if a kid wanted to know how naturally old people look they’d have to see pictures or go down to Earth.

  “How does Eric feel about this? Is he upset at the idea he can be shuffled around to whoever can take him in?” April worried.

  “April, he knows he has a room at Sylvia’s, but he just knew we were arranging other backups until we had a solid plan to tell him. He has a really good attitude about it. He said he didn’t know that many people cared about him. Maybe that’s good for him to have demonstrated. It made a world of difference to me to know other people cared about me,” Lindsey said.

  * * *

  Linda Pennington got off the com with Jeff and sat considering what she would do without the apartment. Staying here and living out of a storage locker and sleeping in hot slots was a non-starter and a dead-end trap. If she went back to Earth without her children or a husband she’d have little choice but to go on negative tax, and that had gotten progressively stingier.

  They put singles in accommodations like barracks now, especially in the South where so many had migrated. They issued clothing that shouted what you were to people, and imposed tight rules about coming and going, because negative tax people weren’t really welcome out in the community.

  She had her degree, but the reality was in North America government was shedding compliance people instead of hiring. The laws hadn’t changed, but in order to compete with Texas, they simply weren’t supporting the mechanisms to enforce regulations except where they needed to protect favored industries.

  They weren’t supposed to hold her long absence from the work force against her, but she had no illusions about the reality of that. If a manager didn’t want to hire you there were plenty of legal reasons to use to reject you.

  If she went back to Earth it was a one way trip. It cost a lot more to come up than go back. That didn’t seem fair to her, and the reality of physics making that so, didn’t matter to her. Once you made it to any hab then traveling between them or to the Moon was fairly cheap.

  Mo had described Central as chronically short of workers and everybody made enough to buy LET eventually. It was even a little cheaper on the Moon. If she went to the Moon instead of back to Earth she’s at least have some options. She’d been intending to go check it out and consider moving there anyway before all this brouhaha with Eric. It was hard to go there blind, but better than any other option she could see. If it didn’t work out she suspe
cted they would have to pay her way back to Home or maybe even the Earth to be rid of her. She wasn’t sure if Jon would do that if push came to shove and could hardly ask outright.

  No, she didn’t really want to go on to the Moon, but she’d give notice at work for the end of the week, because that’s how long Jeff gave her to move out. There was no point in arguing and trying to stay when everybody was against her. She’d have to apologize for the short notice, but explain she was losing her place to live. So after all this time of resisting Mo, and putting off going to visit the Moon, she’d do it on her own anyway. She smiled. Won’t he be surprised?

  * * *

  Adam Fallat touched the taster pad that would sample his DNA and enter it in the company archives. Everything else Heather’s people provided as an identity worked just fine, but there was no falsifying this. Oh, there were work-arounds that would allow you to spoof a system once to gain entry. One could dip your hand in a solution that would dry to form a thin matte finish film that was almost impossible to detect visually. You simply applied a coating of the DNA you wished the system to detect and you could spoof another’s identity easily.

  To maintain such an illusion everyday would eventually fail. The film was too delicate to avoid being breached by abrasion and weakened by common cleaning agents. Besides which one would need a substantial supply of the genetic material that was being substituted. Just a full day of working a keyboard could put the method at risk. Working with tools and objects with sharp edges and rough textures as an instrument repairman would destroy it for sure. Shaking hands with someone was enough to introduce false positives, and if an agency was doing an actual identity check, instead of using the data to open a door or give access to a computer, they would spray your hands with an agent that striped off all the genetic material picked up by casual contact.

  What he was counting on was that the French agency, the CPO, shielded the handful of agents they ran from such detection at a much higher level than your common run of the mill spy. They didn’t keep records of their high end agents’ genetic makeup on the theory that that which they don’t have can’t be stolen. In addition they ruthlessly eliminated such records from not only public sources, but even the other branches of the French security apparatus. An action the other branches would be quite upset over if they knew.

  The Martians certainly had his DNA code. He was protected on that count by both the paranoid nature of the Martians and the fact their security apparatus was so small only three or four people would have access to their catalog of genetic signatures. The only avenue of failure he worried about was the fact he knew France had another agent on Mars. If in the course of gathering intelligence the other agent might have harvested the Martians data base he would be in it. If they had, he was going to find that out very quickly now.

  When he touched the board he counted off mentally two seconds for Marseille to inquire of their French allies, perhaps a second for their Earth based systems to peruse the records, and two seconds for the results to get back to the Moon. When the Resources in People drone sitting opposite him didn’t frown or alert on any red flags coming up on his screen Adam relaxed a little. The rest of his interview went flawlessly. He was promised an answer in the morning but he was entirely confident from the manner of the interviewer, and the way he started speaking about the specifics of the job.

  He was certain he had the job locked down unless something went bad, like his identity failing to match some point of the one Heather gave him, or insulting the man’s mother. It just reinforced his surprise and discomfort that these Centralists knew he worked for the French, knew there were aliens, and then they supplied an identity within three days which was as detailed and deep as any a national intelligence agency on Earth would assemble.

  It appeared from his interview that the job he was applying for might not involve working on the new ship they were assembling at all. Rather it would be for servicing that ship if it successfully returned, or aiding the construction of other similar vessels. The systems on this initial vessel appeared to be already in place and configured when it was lifted from Earth.

  That might disappoint Heather and her people who were hoping for immediate intelligence, but it was a foot in the door. It was the nature of the craft to require patience in penetrating another organization. Indeed, it might require years for an agent to follow the normal course of advancement until he was given access to really useful information. That had certainly been the case with his own assignment on Mars. He considered it a good start actually, and it was his nature both by training and personality to patiently take the long view. He was entirely capable of not only performing his cover job as a matter of necessity, but honestly taking satisfaction from doing it well. He shook hands with his interviewer and the man said he’d contact him before breakfast in the morning.

  Dakota, Heather’s assistant and secretary had slipped and mentioned a name, Chen, when Heather asked for his identity dossier. He’d seen Heather’s eyes flicker to Dakota and then relax. He was pretty sure Dakota was going to hear about her breach later, but saying anything right then would have just reinforced his perception that it was a name to remember. On Earth such a slip might have resulted in a demotion from access to sensitive material, but he realized Central had a limited supply of personnel to dismiss any easily, and the sovereign seemed to have a personal relationship with her secretary. That seemed a weakness, but it was as these English speakers said, ‘above his pay grade’ for him to concern himself with it. Since he didn’t have access to any resources but what they provided at the moment, he’d just have to file it away as one of those things he’d like to know in the long term, with a heavy dose of caution. He suspected too much interest in this ‘Chen’ could be hazardous to his health. Anyone who could supply this complete of an identity on such short notice very likely had robust safeguards in place to identify anyone making unwanted inquiries about him or his networks and principals. Such a man didn’t fall from the sky yesterday.

  They also provided him with a Central girlfriend as a cover reason to occasionally visit instead of relying on awkward dead drops or transmissions that might be intercepted. The young lady worked in accounting and would be sending him regular messages and expressions of endearment. Adam was a little uncomfortable having a non-professional assume a part time role as a handler. When he asked, he was told that yes, she was a real person who did that actual job. But then who was he to argue with the obvious success of their methods? He’d joined himself to them, and as his mother would have said, ‘The carrots are cooked.’ One could not uncook them, and he must live with the results now.

  Sitting in his room that evening at Marseilles, thinking about the way the three interviewed him when he arrived from Mars, he had to reassess everything. He had fixated on Heather as the power too early, impressed with her being a sovereign. April took the initiative over Heather to interview him, and even offered to put it off it he wished without consulting Heather, Jeff too spoke right up without asking Heather’s leave to speak. When April said they were equals he’d simply discounted it. But looking back he was sure each had their own prerogatives and Heather’s authority as sovereign didn’t override everything like he imagined.

  Yes, Heather had been the one to offer him his freedom with almost contempt at his effort to bargain with them, and a sum of money to make it reality that was more than he’d have ever asked for. But Jeff was far the most arrogant of the three, revealing facts casually that Adam would have never given away except piece by piece in exchange for information of at least equal value.

  So Heather did have authority, an authority that seemed superior to him, but didn’t seem to matter all that much between them. She didn’t exercise it just to make a show of having power, And Jeff had authority too, and he wielded it almost unaware he was doing so and a bit recklessly. April however was the one he decided should be watched closest of the three. She offered to alter his situation with soft words and quiet kindness th
at somehow managed to hide the fact she knew neither of her companions would dare gainsay her until he’d thought deeper on it later.

  Heather was obviously the executive, and Jeff was their technical person and innovator, but they both deferred to April to start the interview, and when they were through she was the only one of them for whom he was at a loss to define what her duties and position in the triad was. Her deliberate lack of use of any forceful projection to intimidate him reminded him uncomfortably of several master spies and interrogators he’d met. That might be part of what she did for the three, but he wouldn’t bet that was the end of it.

  Adam noticed that of the three, she had been the only one to wear a visible weapon. She never touched it or even felt with her elbow to assure herself of it, but neither did she ever position herself where she could not draw, or where she did not have a safe line of fire to defend her friends. It was strange, because of the three she now seemed the most dangerous, but the one he was sure would feel just terrible about it if she had to gun him down.

  * * *

  “The French have finished assembling their ship at the lunar Marseille, and have launched it into orbit. They didn’t announce anything publicly and only named the ship to traffic control when asked as “Inutile de discuter”. It’s a really odd ship name, Chen told the Three. “And the pilot is an unknown to me.”

  “What does that mean?” April asked.

  “I asked a couple of my people. It was translated for me as, ‘It’s pointless to argue’, Chen said. It seems a truism, but argue about what, and with whom?”

  “I suspect that for a snarky comment,” Heather said. “It may even be a falsehood that was substituted for a valid ship’s name for now.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that can be a crime,” Chen said. “One can after all rename one’s ship at will. But what would be the purpose?”

  “I believe they are quite irritated at all the lies and negative press surrounding their first ship. I’m guessing that was their way of implying that they are going to show the world instead of debating the matter,” Heather said.