Blue Maneuver

by Linda Andrews

  The truck accelerated as he merged onto I-17 heading north. “How many men do you know that wouldn’t look?”

  “I know a few.” I lied. Most would look. A few would probably take pictures with their phones and post it to their social networks. I ran my hands down the sides of my shorts. Good. I hadn’t put them on inside out.

  He snorted. “Human males have not changed that much on any planet in the galaxy. At least not the ones attracted to females.”

  After grabbing my socks and my spare pair of shoes, I climbed into the front, plopped down on the seat and belted myself in. I wiggled my bare toes in the cold air blowing from the vents. God bless the man who invented air conditioning. “So you don’t think men and women can be friends? If they’re both heterosexual, I mean.”

  Tobias turned on the radio. To the mournful tone of a steel guitar, a woman wailed about the cheating ex who’d took her dog.

  I jabbed the radio’s power button and turned it off. “You’re not going to answer my question.”

  “I’ve been trained in interrogation techniques and recognize a trap when I hear it.”

  “Coward.” I turned on the radio. Before the singer could moan about her missing foot warmer, I pressed the first preset button. The digital readout changed but the music remained the same. The same thing happened when I poked the second button and the third. Crap on a cracker! “Don’t tell me the whole universe listens to country music.”

  “Just the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s a way for us to stay connected to our Earth roots.”

  Ignoring the preset buttons, I turned the dial. The singer’s voice didn’t even fade. “God that’s depressing.”

  Before Tobias could answer, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Werner.”

  I turned off the radio. Wasn’t there something in the galactic constitution about cruel and unusual punishment? I opened the glove compartment and pulled out my Smartphone. Maybe there was a way I could use it as an MP3 player before my ears bled from twang overload.

  “Yes, Ma’am. Understood, Ma’am. I’ll ask her, Ma’am.” In the passing streetlights, Tobias’s knuckles shown white on the steering wheel. “Did you get a phone call?”

  I tapped the screen and the cell came to life. “It doesn’t say I missed any phone calls.”

  “That’s a negative, Ma’am.” He sighed. “Read me the screen icons, Rae.”

  “I have the role playing icon that changes my appearance, the games icon that is just the games and a recipe exchange icon that popped up when I asked Mrs. Roberts about her home world.” At least, I think I asked about her home planet.

  “Open the recipes exchange icon.” The tires thumped as Tobias drifted into another lane.

  I selected the cupcake icon. A series of numbers popped up on the screen next to long and lat. Aw snap. I think I just messed up big time. Biting my lower lip, I flashed the screen at Tobias.

  His jaw clenched and he grabbed my hand and set it on the wheel. ‘Steer,’ he mouthed.

  I nodded and kept the trunk in the lane.

  He took my phone. “No Ma’am she didn’t get the message. The datapad was dropped in the water and had to be rebooted.” He pressed the cigarette lighter and the dash of the trunk flipped to expose a series of electronic face plates. “Yes, Ma’am, I can assure you that she appreciates the gravity of her situation.”

  I nodded. If I failed I was dead.

  “Can you resend?” My Smartphone blipped and another cupcake appeared. “Transmission accepted. Thank you, Ma’am.” After snapping his cell closed, Tobias set my phone into a slot on the dash and a map appeared where the radio had once been.

  “Thank you.” I set my hand on his arm. His muscles were like iron under my palm. “I honestly thought it was about Mrs. Roberts’s home world.”

  He jerked his head once. “How close were you to Konstantin when the icon first appeared?”

  Had I been standing up or kneeling next to him? My memory returned a blank. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “He could have sent a ghost copy to his datapad.” Tobias pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  I leaned back against the seat as the truck shot forward into the darkness. “That would be bad.”

  “Very.” His fingers danced over a few of the dash’s green buttons. “According to the transmission, our guests will arrive in five minutes and we’re twenty minutes away from their landing coordinates.”

  Plenty of time for Victor to get there, especially since he would have known the location. Thank God Tobias’s boss had called to make sure we’d gotten the message. I shook out my socks and stuffed my feet inside. I had to be ready when we arrived. My life depended upon it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Three minutes twenty-nine seconds, until the aliens landed. I was so not ready for them. My attention flew to the digital map embedded in the truck’s dashboard. The green blip marking our position was far from the red dot highlighting our destination. Please God, don’t let Konstantin get there first.

  Don’t let my first job with the UED be my last job. Ever!

  After I finished lacing my sneakers, I tossed my damp shoes in the back and smoothed my denim shorts. My attire was more beach wear than work casual. Still, maybe I could make somewhat of a professional impression when I met… My mind emptied.

  Holy Toledo! I didn’t even know the names of the people we were going to meet. “What are their names?”

  With shaking hands, I slapped down the sun visor and looked at my reflection in the small oval mirror. Wide brown eyes stared back and those hated freckles seemed overly large in my pale face. Great. And I didn’t have my purse, or make-up. I pinched my cheeks and lips to add some color.

  “Ulla and Ruud Torunn.”

  “What?” Their names were the sound most people made after eating bad Mexican food. I flipped the visor up. “The first thing they’ll need is new names.”

  Tobias shifted into the far left lane and darted around a Fiat. The speedometer hovered at one hundred-twenty miles per hour. “Yes, changing a witness’s name is usually the first order of business.”

  “Don’t get snippy with me.” I held onto the ‘aw snap’ handle as he swerved across three lanes of traffic to hit the off ramp onto Carefree Highway. “I’ve never done this before. Shouldn’t I have some information about them?”

  Or a manual? Maybe a WitSec for dummies?

  Tobias nodded. “Check your datapad.”

  Easy for him to say! My Smartphone was currently being used as a doomsday clock. One minute and twelve seconds left until the Torunns arrived from someplace far, far away. “Is it all right if I remove my cell?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  Just as I reached for it, he hit the cloverleaf. The buckle and seatbelt dug into my body as I slid closer to him during the turn. The speedometer dropped to fifty-six. “Don’t you think you should slow down? We’re bound to hit traffic or lights.”

  Tobias hit the gas as we straightened out heading west along Carefree Highway. A car horn blared as he cut them off to merge. “The lights will be green until we cross them then they’ll turn red, trapping or exposing any tail we might have.”

  I scooted back into my seat and inhaled deeply. “You can’t know that.”

  “I can guarantee it.” He waved his hand at the dash that had more lights than most Christmas trees.

  Tobias’s fancy gadgets would give James Bond a wet dream. Especially since they appeared quite mundane.

  “I’ve heard cops and firemen have a similar device.” I released my death grip on the handle and snatched my phone from its cradle on the dash. The clock readout faded. Soon after the three familiar icons appeared. “Are you telling me that’s alien technology?”

  “No, the UED believes each incarnation has to evolve on its own. We only interfere when the technology is too dangerous or might make the planet uninhabitable.” Tires screeched as he slowed the truck to tailgate a boat trailer.

  I gritted my teeth and stomped on
the emergency brakes on my side of the car before flashing him a thumbs-up. “Good job with the atom bomb.”

  “We kept it out of the Axis’s hands.” He swerved into oncoming lane of traffic and roared around the truck and trailer. “And we gave it to the Soviets to make sure your government didn’t use it.”

  “I wouldn’t be proud of that if I were you.” To this day, big mushroom clouds occasionally cropped up in my nightmares. I shook off my past. My future faced a more immediate threat. Now how exactly did my cell work again? Right, ask it a question. Who are the Torunns?

  The screen didn’t change. I tapped the cupcake icon. My messages had been there before maybe that’s where the file had ended up.

  Just two messages. I opened both of them and scrolled through the information. No attachments or other files. Maybe I was doing something wrong. “Do I have to actually ask the Smartphone a question out loud?”

  Tobias gunned the engine and we broke free of the few cars on the road. Darkness pressed against the truck. “You should be able to think it too. The CeeBees are connected to your brain.”

  Thanks for that. I scratched my scalp. Nothing like knowing hundreds of little machines crawled inside my head to make me itch. “Who are the Torunns?”

  The screen of the Smartphone fell dark. Finally, something. I waited a heart beat, then two. At ten, I touched the screen. Crap on a cracker! The darn thing had just went into hibernate mode. I quickly opened the icons.

  Nothing new. Zip. Nada. A big fat goose egg! Maybe it couldn’t hear me.

  I raised the cell to my lips. “Who are the Torunns? Give me anything on them.” No change. “Anything at all.”

  I resisted the urge to slap the screen. God I hated technology. Everyone always said buy this and you’re life will be easier. Those yahoos lied out their behinds.

  “I think my phone is broken.”

  “You’ve checked for a new file?”

  “Of course.” Just because I didn’t speak technojargon didn’t make me an idiot.

  “Let me see it.”

  I handed him the phone. Who cared if he drove with one hand at speeds just below imminent death? If I didn’t succeed at this job I was a goner anyway.

  He handed the phone back to me, glared at the road and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You should have received a file on them by now. Two actually, since we told control that your cell wasn’t working.”

  But I hadn’t. It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Especially why a man who was so gung-ho on killing me when we first met would cover for me. “You lied to protect me. Why?”

  “Not you.” Tobias kept his attention fixed on the starless sky. “The mission. Torunn is carrying valuable intell on the APres Guarda’s plans for Earth.”

  I shook my head. The cab stunk with his half-truths. Sure he needed me alive, but once the information came about the Torunn’s arrival time, he could easily have gotten rid of me and gained his precious information. “What else is going on here? And please don’t lie to me; my life is on the line too.”

  The squeaking sound of him twisting his palms along the steering wheel filled the cab. “UED’s Witness Security has been breached. Special Forces Intelligence reported six clients have fallen off the grid. Two bodies have shown up; the remaining four seemed to have just disappeared into space.”

  My mind made some dangerous connections. No. Surely not! Maybe. Heck, I hadn’t thought aliens even existed until this morning. Shivering, I aimed the air conditioning vent toward the window. “These bodies… They weren’t found on Earth, were they?”

  “No.” Tobias stopped strangling the wheel. “One was in Centauri Prime; pieces of the other were dredged up in the Midas Asteroid belt.”

  Pieces? I swallowed the lump in my throat. Don’t think about it, Rae. I had to think about it. I didn’t want to end up in bits scattered around the galaxy. “And their stewards?”

  His lips twitched then firmed into a straight line. “All safe and accounted for. No suspicious influx of credits, affluence of lifestyle or deviation from their normal patterns.”

  I sank into my seat. That was a relief of sorts. “So how did the clients get located, let alone snatched and…killed?”

  “Obviously, the same route Konstantin got a Scrambler. The UED has a traitor.”

  I shielded my eyes from the light of an oncoming truck. “While the weapon is a nasty way to die, it isn’t that much different than the smart bullets the United States military produces.”

  “You’re forgetting the CeeBees. They can sense aggression and change the host body’s energy and DNA to evade the threat.”

  They can? The CeeBees could protect me? Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as I thought.

  “It took years for our Research and Development Department to compensate for the signal changes to help us be able to track someone tagged by the CeeBees.” Tobias adjusted the rearview mirror and tapped a few of the light buttons where the radio had once been. “The system had to be very passive to work.”

  Was someone following us? I turned in my seat and stared out the back window. I didn’t see anyone. But what did that mean? Nothing. I cowered against the cushion. “So the APres found a way around it before you guys did.”

  With my luck, this was about more than professional pride.

  “Doubtful. The APres Guarda steal technologies from other worlds, they don’t invent anything.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We in the Spec Forces only picked up word of the Scrambler’s existence two months ago and that was a prototype. It’s far too early in development for a weapon to be available on the black market.”

  Even I had a hard time swallowing that much of a coincidence. I rubbed the goosebumps from my arms. Especially since the weapon had been on a key fob identical to Tobias’s. “Would any of the stewards on Earth have known about the weapon?”

  “No. Whoever the traitor is, they’re high up in the administration. Very high up and well connected to the UED governments.” He rolled his shoulders.

  “And they have the power to stop transmissions from being sent.” I straightened. “Good God, what if they tell the police we’re the bad guys and have us arrested?”

  “Spec Force would detect it the moment the locals were alerted. At least Konstantin doesn’t know all of Spec Force’s tricks.”

  That explained why Tobias hadn’t called the police. Yet, what if this wasn’t a galactic conspiracy facing us now? What if there was a simpler explanation at least for the missing data? “Maybe your control people didn’t trust me and sent the information to your phone instead?”

  He grunted, shifted in his seat and pulled his Smartphone out of his pocket. “All data from headquarters comes in under Cirroc.”

  “Got it.” I accepted the warm plastic and stared at the screen. Holy Toledo! The man had at least sixty icons. I scrolled through the cartoon pictures. Cirroc. Cirroc. Was that with a ‘s’ or a ‘c’? “Spell that for me?”

  Tobias slowed the truck as we approached a three-way intersection. He veered to the right as we shot through the light. “C-I-R-R-O-C. Look for the figure of a man in a blue unitard.”

  “Right.” I skimmed back up the pages. At least the icons were alphabetized. I taped the blue uniformed man and waited. “What kind of game is Cirroc?”

  “It’s not a game.” He lifted his foot from the accelerator and the truck began to slow. “It’s like Earth Martial Arts, except the purpose of each movement is to inflict pain or kill.”

  “Lovely. You’re probably an expert at it too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The file opened and a blank screen appeared. “You have no messages.”

  Tobias reached over and set his hand over the screen. Calloused fingers wrapped around mine. He squeezed gently before releasing my hand. “Some programs require a genetic key. Now what do you see?”

  Four message titles appeared on the screen—Keep her moaning in bed, extend your love life, improve your well being a
nd lonely single ladies looking for you. Each had an open envelop next to it. My fingers itched to tap one. Obviously stupid had invaded my head again. Those kinds of thoughts could get me killed. “Everything in your inbox has been opened and makes me wonder about your sex life.”

  “When you’re ready to stop wondering about it and find out, let me know.” He held out his hand.

  Cheeks blazing, I dropped the phone in his palm. “That was meant as a joke.”

  Although some human resource zealots might view it as harassment.

  After tucking the phone in his pocket, he slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel.

  “Never joke about sex.” Headlights cut into the cab and horns blared as he turned left in front of an oncoming semi.

  I closed my eyes as the big rig’s grill filled my window. OhGod-OhGod! My heart battered my chest and my lungs heaved as I was thrown against the door then jerked into the center of the cab. Gravel pelted the wheel well as we fish-tailed onto Lake Pleasant Road.

  I peeked through my lashes. The cityscape glowed before me and lightning flashed in the hills to the west. I clutched my chest before making sure the rest of me was still intact. Son of a monkey’s butt! “You could have killed me.”

  Smiling, he cranked the wheel again—this time to the right. We bumped onto a rutted road. The truck bounced over a pot hole and my head slammed against the seat rest.

  “Nah.” The douche winked at me. “I had seconds to spare.”

  “Seconds?” I took a deep breath hoping to still my racing heart and tucked my trembling hands between my thighs. Goosebumps raced across my legs from touching my cold fingers. If he kept this up, I would keel over from fright.

  “Relax. We’re almost there.”

  Right. Because I could loosen my sphincter that easily. I stopped grinding my teeth and stared at the passing cacti and the glowing eyes of a coyote. Nice place for an alien space craft to land. Only a trailer park could beat it. Then again, I think we’d passed a RV park back at that turn. “Where’s here exactly?”