Patricia cried, “No!” She flung herself to the floor and tried to pry Patsy's jaws apart.
“What are you doing?” Spencer demanded.
“I should have guessed!”
Patsy started foaming at the mouth and writhing around in apparent agony.
Patricia said, “A suicide membrane, affixed to the soft palate! Virtually undetectable. One click of the tongue, and it's all over.”
Patsy Klein stopped writhing and just lay there. Deathly still. Eyes wide open. Lifeless.
“Damn!” said Ramon. “Now we'll never find out what she knew.”
“Or who she really was,” Spencer added.
“You don't know who she was?” Patricia frowned at him. “You still haven't figured it out?”
“Huh?”
“This is Dr. Jen Roper.”
“What? The same woman who put this plastic plate in my head?”
“Right.”
That must explain those hallucinations where he couldn't figure out which woman he was having sex with. It must also explain his initial instinct that Jen might not be trustworthy. Damn, he was good!
“That's some disguise,” he said to Patricia. “Considering that you're white, and you're also a foot shorter than she was.”
“Her appearance as a tall, gorgeous, oversexed black woman was also a disguise, probably one of many,” Patricia replied. “She was a master of short-term prosthetics. Plus, heels always make a woman look taller than she really is.”
“What about this plate she put in my head?”
“I'd say that your behavior of late is proof that it's affecting your judgment and hurting your performance,” Patricia replied.
“Why aren't you dead?” Spencer asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You said her assignment was to take you out before she assumed your identity. So why aren't you dead?”
“Ah. She tried to assassinate me while I was briefing at New Barchester for this assignment. Luckily, she wasn't as efficient with me as she was with the dead guy in there. Men aren't the only ones who underestimate a female op; it's amazing how many women make the same mistake.”
“So if she botched it, how did she wind up with Spencer?” Ramon asked.
“On Parapara's instructions, I let Roper think she'd succeeded, and I shadowed her. Given how devastating that plasma bomb on Goldmeadow was, and how puzzling it is that anyone wants the foundations of the galaxy to be threatened, we've got to get more intel on her org—and she was the best lead we'd come across so far. So I've been on your trail since the beginning. And I naturally assumed that you'd quickly realize she was an imposter and make a point of learning all you could from her.”
“Yeah, uh-huh. Moving on now.”
“That's why, when you arrived on MacDougal, the two of you were shunted to low-level tasks involving Wolfe-Dexter IV,” Patricia continued.
“Of course!” Ramon said to Patricia. “You and Parapara were trying to discover all you could by letting Roper think she was succeeding, but you couldn't actually let her work on the real mission. Because she was out to sabotage it!”
“I'm surprised you didn't wonder about your seemingly pointless holding pattern here, Spence,” she said, “given the urgency and the galactic import of this mission.”
“Well, actually, I did wonder. In fact, I objected to it. I said to Ramon—”
“Anyhow,” Patricia said, “Roper's dead now, we've retrieved no useful intel from her, and we've got work to do. So here's the priority list as I see it.”
Spencer said, “I've been thinking about our priorities, too, and in my opinion—”
“We need to find out who that dead guy in there is and why Roper took such a risk to kill him,” Patricia said. “We need to learn all we can about bellflowers so we can figure out how one wound up in the dead garrison commander's hand on Leonardo. Was that flower a lead or a false trail? Do bellflowers have a practical value or a symbolic meaning we haven't uncovered yet? And we need to develop a plan of action for infiltrating Leonardo.”
“Leonardo can't be infiltrated,” Spencer said gloomily.
“That's why we're the best, Spencer,” she said. “We do the impossible.” Her expression brightened. “Hey! Maybe that's what we should call this op—Mission: Impossible.”
Ramon frowned. “I think we may have used that one before. Besides—”
“Operation Leonardian Freedom?” Patricia suggested. “Leonardo Storm? The MacDougal Connection?”
“How about the Leonardo Ultimatum?” Spencer proposed. “The Klein Identity? The Bellflower Supremacy?”
“Okay, maybe naming the op shouldn't be on our priority list right now,” Patricia said.
“As I was about to say,” Ramon said, “Parapara already named it: Operation Bellflower.”
Spencer frowned. “That sounds so ... so feminine.”
“And you're saying that's a negative thing?” Patricia asked in a dangerously cool voice.
“Oh, never mind.”
She nodded. “Let's examine the corpse and search the dead guy's office.”
As they entered the room with the blood-soaked carpet, Spencer asked, “So was this guy one of ours, one of theirs, one of someone else's, or a bystander?”
Ramon rolled the corpse over so it lay face-up. “My God! It looks like...”
“Snorkin Mibble!” Spencer said.
“But a little younger and cleaner than I remember him,” said Ramon. “Well, apart from the blood, I mean.”
Patricia pulled a device off her belt, lifted one of the dead guy's eyelids, and scanned his lifeless retina. Reading the handheld scanner a moment later, she said, “Yep, this is a Snorkin Mibble clone. Number seventeen-C. He's one of ours.”
“Seventeen-C?”
“The lab's been experimenting with various sub-types of this basic clone,” she said. “This is one that has so far demonstrated an ability to pass unnoticed in white collar employment situations.”
“But Patsy Klein noticed him.”
“Indeed.” Patricia nodded. “Why?”
Spencer noticed something clenched in Mibble 17-C's first. He pried open the dead man's hand and removed the object. “Hey! Here's a partial answer.” He held up a wilted blue bellflower.
“That can't just be coincidence,” Patricia said.
“Thorough search,” Ramon said firmly.
“Right!” Spencer said.
They found the answers they sought in Mibble 17-C's computer. “See these encrypted files?” Patricia said as she sat at the console and the two men looked over her shoulders. “These are the ones we need to review.”
“If we can crack the encryption,” said Spencer.
“Oh, that's no problem,” said Patricia. “That's just the Da Vinci code.”
“The what?”
“The encryption system we use for transmitting any top-secret intel regarding the planet Leonardo. Now we know why Roper killed Mibble.”
“We do?”
“Yes. Mibble had just encrypted these files. He was about to send this info to SpaceOp HQ for analysis.”
“Ah-hah! Patsy found out,” Spencer said.
“And she was so desperate to stop him from delivering this intel that she killed him,” said Ramon.
Patricia said, “It'll only take me a few moments to get these files open. Then we can—Ah! Here we go.” She opened a large document and started reading. A few minutes later, she announced, “We've got it! The Leonardo connection!”
Peering over her shoulder at the computer screen, Spencer couldn't make head or tail of the information there. It was all in MacDougalese, which he didn't speak. Luckily, it was one of the many languages in which Patricia was fluent. “So what is the Leonardo connection?” he asked her.
“Mibble had discovered a bellflower smuggling ring!” she said.
“But how can you smuggle an indigenous plant that doesn't survive off-world?” Spencer wondered. “And why smuggle it to Leonardo, of all places?”
&nb
sp; “That's what we've got to find out,” said Patricia, still reading.
“Did Mibble have any idea exactly who the Leonardian connection was?”
“Hmm. According to these records, Mibble was posing as a dealer in hopes of making contact with the top individual in the Leonardian smuggling ring.”
“And?”
“And there's a meeting set up for tonight!” Patricia smiled triumphantly at her colleagues. “We've got our lead!”
“I'll pose as Mibble,” Spencer said. “And tonight, we'll blow this op wide open.”
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter 7: Your Own Private Gulag
by Kay Kenyon
As the second moon set, the McDougal night deepened. Three figures dressed in black bagaloons and tunics crossed the plaza from different directions, meeting in the fetid alley.
Patricia carried her malice pistol at the ready. By her side, Boganda's clothing bristled with an array of smalls arms, some of them spiced with interdicted military grade nan. Tonight the lead blue bellflower smuggler would meet the three best agents in SpaceOps. Here was their first break in the most baffling case Spence had ever had the pleasure to pursue. Yes, pleasure. Even with Carol and the kids kidnapped, he couldn't help but feel the old lure of danger. If poor dead Mifflin-17 was right, they'd soon confront a person who knew the secret of transporting the bellflower—and perhaps why agents were strewn across the galaxy clutching the bloom in their cold, dead fists.
Leaving the town behind, the three of them waded into a creek, following the stream bed as Mifflin had been instructed. The water pulled at Spence's bagaloons, reminding him of the dream of tiny teeth nipping ... cold, dark water, and—the image came—Spence towering over it like a lotus flower. Damn Boganda and his Hindu theories. The last thing they needed was poetics and metaphor. Spence had always thought that metaphors were the wrong bird in the wrong tree.
In any case, why had the smuggler insisted on meeting in the woods? The stand of oaks, the instructions said. Sounded like a set-up, but they were ready.
Boganda pointed. “Oaks,” he whispered. “Up at the crest.”
Patricia made a hushing motion with her hands and led the way up the hillside. By the time they entered the grove, they heard a rhythmic huffing from nearby that might be human voices.
“Ambush...” muttered Boganda. But they were armed and Space Intel-trained. No problem, Spence thought.
They crept forward. Soon the trees thinned and they had a view into a broad and shallow depression.
It was Stonehenge.
Replicated from Earth's megalithic ruin, the circle of stones held a small gathering of people, dressed in white body suits.
“Guess we wore the wrong outfits,” Patricia muttered.
Boganda gestured that he would circle around to one side. He disappeared into the blackness.
Spence and Patricia went to their stomachs in the grass, crawling to a spot where they might be able to see the proceedings between two of the stones, but standing worshippers blocked their view. Forced to stand, the two agents sidled up to one of the megaliths and hid behind it.
The view to the altar lay clear before them. They saw that someone led the proceedings, chanting in what sounded like McDougalean. Patricia gripped Spence's arm and pointed. But she didn't need to, Spence was already gaping at the specter in front of them.
The leader was very tall compared to the mass of worshipers. And very blue. The aperture on his throat sounded a melody like a pipe, while the mouth in his jaws simultaneously voiced words. The famous Leonardoin solo duet. As he held aloft a large burden, his arms glowed neon in the candle light. Before Spence could respond to Patricia, the priest—if that is what he was—laid his burden down on the altar in front of him.
A sound behind them. They whirled.
Boganda, with weapon pointed at them.
“You too, Boganda?” Patricia spat.
“Man, I need a cup of joe,” the dwarf rasped.
“And you're going to kill us for it?” Spence growled.
“How about a couple chocolate-covered espresso beans. Just to steady me.”
By the look in his eyes, Spence knew something was up. “Tell, Boganda. I'll fill my hot tub with Java Rejuv and you can soak in it, later. OK?”
“The Leonardoin,” Boganda said. He looked at Spence so searchingly that Spence backed up a step. Was Boganda coming on to him? Not his type. But Ramon was handsome in a jittery sort of way.
“The Leonardoin,” Boganda repeated. “He's...”
At that moment Boganda evaporated like suds on a cheap beer.
Spence blinked. “Did you see that?”
“You mean Boganda disappearing like suds on a cheap beer?” Patricia asked. “You bet I did. And I saw something else, too.”
“Don't say it. I don't want to hear.” He'd seen it too. A claw extruding from thin air. A claw that looked all too familiar. And with that rip in the dimensions, a sickening smell pierced their nostrils.
Boganda, however, was gone. What had he been trying to say? No time to wonder, as a yelp erupted from the center of the stone circle.
Patricia was on the move. “I'm going to keep tabs on the Leonardoin, Spence. Can't let him get away. See if you can help the poor bastard who's being sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed?”
“These are Druids, guy. Meet me back at the stream.” With four steps she became one with the shadows.
Moving into position for a victim-extraction maneuver, Spence saw with chagrin that it was too late for this particular victim. Dark red rivulets ran down the altar sides. Atop it a small lump lay unmoving. Their purpose completed, the human congregants exited in a ritual march, never looking behind where one glance would have exposed the infiltrator. The Leonardoin had left too—with Patricia on his track.
As Spence approached the altar, he saw with disgust that the sacrifice was a dog. A brown and white Pomeranian, of the ankle-biting variety. Still, it hadn't deserved this ignoble death.
In the dog's mouth, a blue bellflower.
Uncharacteristically, Spence felt a surge of dismay. He thought of his own dog from his childhood. Rufus was a mutt, but he was the only one in the family who seemed to like Spence. Maybe the dog was grateful. Given a choice of all the animals at the pound, Spence had chosen old, decrepit Rufus. The pound operators told Spence's dad that normally the dog would be destroyed, but the animal had a propensity for farting, and the euthanizing kiln might have ignited a fire storm. Spence was thrilled to take Rufus, and the feeling was mutual. Rufus spent his declining years gimping along with little Spence and chasing trains on the tracks near the Spenser house. One day Rufus met his match in a Maxim Cannonball Express out of Dubuque...
Spence sobbed.
From behind him he heard, “God almighty, Spence, get a grip.”
“Carol!”
“Here I am lost in interdimensional space-time, and you're slobbering over a dog that's been toast for 25 years.”
“Carol, I...”
“Not to mention Timmy and Todd, your own sons, for crying out loud.” She looked at him with genuine compassion tinged with loathing.
He hadn't noticed that he'd gone to his knees. He stood up and reached out for her, but she was incorporeal.
“Carol, tell me the truth. Is there someone else? Did you leave me?”
“So it's all about your ego and manly honor.”
“No, no ... but still.”
His wife sighed. “I don't have much time. I'm in consonance with this plane for only a short while. Now listen.”
“Carol, your tracking tags went down. We couldn't find you.” Not that he'd had a moment for personal stuff lately.
“Tracking tags.” Carol laughed, a little out of control. “You think those work here?”
Without warning or preamble, Timmy appeared at her side. His face scrunched up into an all-too-recognizable scowl. “I want a pizza.” Pause. “I said I want a pizza.�
�
Carol waved a hand and Timmy's form sucked back into somewhere else, pizza-less. Her moment of hilarity passed. “The little shit is surfing the worlds like the dataphreak he always was.” Her form wavered, stabilized. “Oh oh. Worse than I thought. I have to hurry. Listen, hon, we got trouble.”
Hon, she called him hon. Maybe it wasn't over, after all.
She tucked a stray wisp of red hair behind her ear and murmured, “Where to begin. Maybe with Brahma? No, too complicated. Maybe the thing about the egg. Yes, better. It all starts with the egg, Spence, as you might have guessed.”
He hadn't, but he nodded.
“You think the big secret is all about the bellflower. You're wrong. I mean it is about the bellflower, but that's not the main thing.”
“OK, so it's the egg. What about it?”
“We'll get to the egg. First, you have to understand that Boganda was right. He always was sharper than you. This deal is sort of about Brahma, although not exactly.”
“Glad you're here to clear things up.” Their old dueling habits were rapidly reasserting themselves. Odd that she'd lavish praise on the dwarf. He was the one that suggested she had always been a plant, making their marriage a sham. Resentment flared. “If you're in a hurry, try getting to the point.”
Carol went on—typically—as though he hadn't spoken. “You think the Leonardoins are aboriginal. Wrong. Eons ago these supposed warrior-wanderers were a supremely advanced civilization, with powers far beyond yours. Er, ours.” She put up her hand to stop his protest. “They may look backward. But it's by choice. They've renounced technology in favor of unfettered and immediate apprehension of reality.”
“Why are you talking funny?”
“You get like that, treading the boards of the cosmos.”
Well, sure. “Go on.”
“Long ago the Leonardoins discovered that powerful thoughts—memes—gave birth to new worlds. We're not talking here about just a half-assed solution to quantum dilemmas, but rather a pesky and horrid side effect of quantum reality. They discovered the power of pessimistic thought. Any depraved thought, if powerful enough, can create little hells, new universes of suffering. You may ask, what about positive thinking?—Well, that gets you nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada.”
The Omega Egg [A Fictionwise Round Robin Novel] Page 7
