by P. S. Power
“An attempt to extort us?” She glanced at Robert first, then looked over at Gwen.
Her husband shook his head.
“The Scan, peeking through the lock. If I have what happened correctly, those are the only copies. Gwen rather… Used teletransport from a distance. Did you know she could do that? Apparently she and some of the Westmorlands are planning to turn their powers toward retrieving prisoners off in Europa. It’s a most amazing concept, if it works. I was just suggesting to Gwen that I might know a few people that would love to have her turn her powers onto projects that have vexed many of them for years. More than that if people talk about it.”
That got Ethyl to set the things down, after glancing at each of them first.
“Oh, my, yes. That would be most popular, I have to imagine. What would you need in order to find objects or… evidence?”
They went over that for a while. The rules sounded pretty formal and limited to her, but both of the others seemed to think that it was practically her saying that she could move anything in the world that she knew about. Which it was, with a few exceptions.
“I can’t do more than two people at a time that way. Other objects are easier. Things that aren’t alive. I haven’t tried an animal, but I doubt I could do a horse or anything like that. No elephants from the zoo for the back yard or anything.” She tried to be light about it all, but it suddenly seemed like a huge barrier.
After all, that meant she’d have to do prisoners one at a time.
“I probably won’t be able to get things behind a good null field either. I can break those, but it takes a while. I’ve never done it at a distance, which might be harder. Just the ones on me while escaping. I should get some and practice. I bet they’re cheap and plentiful.” She grinned at the words, which got Mr. Vernor to nod along with her, getting the joke.
“Neither of those, of course. Which actually makes it more likely that you can retrieve things. I can get some though, for you to practice on. It might come up, getting those men back from the HF.” The term was a new one for her. She got that it meant the Europans, but not what it might stand for.
She looked puzzled, as Ethyl looked away and Robert went on as if not noticing that she might be missing the meaning.
Winslow had come in with a finishing glass of berry juice for her. The others had coffee. For once the tumbler wasn’t the size of a thimble. Then, the man did love his juice as far as increasing health went. He didn’t even tell her to drink it all, tilting his head a bit.
“The Europans are noted for their love of horses, Miss.”
That clicked in her head. She’d been there after all. More than once. The first time, when she’d been kidnapping a Baron she wanted to murder, she had noticed that there were a lot of the beasts on the streets. It made sense to her, since they were decedents of the Mongolian hordes. Far more directly than in her world. Enough so that people in Paris, which was still called that for some unknown reason, all spoke Mongolian first. Almost no one had spoken French at all. Which was a shame, since that’s what she’d taken in high school.
That got her to nod at no one.
“I need to get some language lessons. Radiatives, too. I’ve done a little, but I know that I’m missing things. I wonder if I could audit some classes at Western? Just sit in, I mean? That’s probably a poor idea.” Instead of telling her that she was acting insane and abrupt, which to her she was, everyone pretended like the conversation had simply shifted.
Which was the socially correct thing to do, after finding out that the polite Western Kingdom folk had taken to calling their enemies Horse Fuckers. She was a single woman after all. Not all that old either. At least Katherine wasn’t. Gwen didn’t mind the language, but it was harsh for the people there. Not in the press either. Not that she’d been keeping up with that a lot.
Ethyl actually nodded, instead of telling her that she needed to make a greater effort to learn manners. It was a first in the education discussion.
This time she smiled and clasped her hands, after putting the pictures down.
“Wonderful! Especially if you plan to travel? We can press Doctor Professor Grainger for a place in one of his classes. Or at least whatever comes before his efforts. Languages as well. As the heir to the company, you might also consider business courses? If you wish, I mean.” It was a lot different than what she’d been talking about a few years before. Then it had been about learning manners and history. Both were good ideas still, but Gwen wasn’t certain she totally cared anymore. Not that she wanted to be rude to anyone.
Everything just seemed a bit too hard to bother with. Even Tomas kind of was. Except that there weren’t going to be a lot of chances for her to find anyone. Becoming Katherine had opened up the world to her that way, but she’d been standing in her own way the whole time. Because of fear. The idea that she was going to be rejected at every turn.
Only that wasn’t real. Not here. If Gwen walked up to most men and got on her knees, they’d have probably been her friend. Now at any rate, in Kat’s body. Even if they were married and told her no. That was how it always worked in porn anyway. Which, she understood, might not be the best metric for such things. Then again, if it was what men really wanted, then it was a good start on understanding that kind of thing. The best she had, other than sit-coms.
Even without being crass like that, she had a bit of time to work things out. Losing out on a nice guy, who was better looking than she really had any reason to dream about, wasn’t a great idea even given that.
Not just because she felt too tired to go on.
The truth was, she kind of did.
Too tired by far to bother with almost anything.
Chapter seven
It was tempting to go and find that newspaper man, Stev Hess and beat him until he left his job for a better occupation. Something involving plants, perhaps. Growing things that lived and improved the world simply by being. That or teaching. He could read and write after all, as well as take pictures, apparently.
Instead of doing that, Gwen decided to actually be the grown up for once and take the win that she’d already pulled out that day. That meant changing from her nifty day suit into a dress. That one was an older style and not one of the new things that she’d commissioned before Katherine had taken over, years before. It was loose on her, all over. Then, she’d always been thinner than Katherine had.
At least until the other woman had been tied to a bed and fed low calorie drugged gruel for a few months. Then the pounds had come right off the other girl. The signs of that were still deeply marked on their shared body. It was a bit of a shame that she wasn’t back in her own world, Gwen thought, as she re-applied her makeup. This time she went a little heavier than she had for Stev. After all, the goal was to make her look better, if she wasn’t going to be fighting the man.
If it had been her world, Gwen would have been very close to being a super model, at least in looks. Her skin was flawless thanks to the healing she’d gotten. All her ribs still showed as well. Here, in this world that was at least twenty or thirty pounds under too thin to be truly pretty. Which she could have whined about, if only inside her head, but the truth was, she could gain the weight. It just took her having a reason to eat a bit more for a while. Which she decided to do. After all, being too thin wasn’t going to help her in life.
Rather than complain about anything, she made a list. One that was actually written out on a notebook page. She’d carried that kind of thing for a while, because it had fit her junior detective role, working with Bethany. The truth was however that the world she was in just held too much new data for her to not do that kind of thing. Looking down she noticed that almost everything on her page would require her to call people. That or visit. For once she decided not to be remote and stand-offish with everyone. She could travel easily enough. At least if she wasn’t pulling people along with her.
The first trip on her list was to the local air field.
At least she
thought of it that way. It was actually the Vernor shipping yard, and not something open to the public at all. The place was huge though, so it had taken her a while to understand that part. Mr. Vernor owned his own fleet of balloon like dirigibles. Airships that were capable of traveling all over the world, if the weather was right. If it wasn’t that could stop things pretty handily, but that kind of thing was simply built into the system there. If a shipment took four extra weeks to get in, no one would starve. It did cost money, but that was just part of the business.
So careful planning and hard work were important at every step, for each cruise. As well as a bit of luck. Possibly magic. Gwen hadn’t heard of anything like that taking place, but it kind of made sense to her. If you could curse a person with bad things, or even just so that a person would have bad luck in cursing other people, you had to be able to protect ships. Somehow. If that was possible, then she didn’t doubt it was part of most businesses.
Perhaps with attacks on other people’s work that way. It was creepy to think of and might not be that common, but if she could imagine it, these people probably already had.
The fact of the matter was that Gwen needed to learn a whole lot more about how magic worked. She had some good tricks, thanks to her training and the fact that she was rather fluid as far as coming up with new ideas. Really, she needed to work out a few more things like that as well, now that she was bothering to consider it. That wouldn’t be too hard, if she did it right.
That still didn’t get past the fact that Gwen Farris didn’t know enough about her world. She never really had, but back home it had been a very small thing comparatively. She’d lived inside of her house most of the time. Working from her living room, making web-sites for people online. When she went outside, it was mainly to her classes. Learning to fight. That or the store. Even doing just those things and not going out at night at all, she’d been attacked four to six times a year.
Which didn’t make her want to go and explore all that much. It hurt too much, for one thing.
Now, in this place, the rules were different. She realized that was just the truth, when she teletransported directly in front of the large hangar that the Peregrine should be inside. It took walking to see the giant silver thing in the light colored building. It was tied in place, the back hatch open to the world. Nothing was being loaded yet however. That wouldn’t happen until about one day before they left.
She didn’t act shy, just walking into the cave like place, the light from the giant open door behind her really helping to make it easier for her to handle. Otherwise it would be pretty easy to freak out. Terror ripping through her mind.
She made it all the way to the engineering section before anyone even noticed she was there. That probably shouldn’t have happened, given that she was looking all cute in her little dress like she was. Even wearing a jumpsuit, one of the men should have said something to her. No one was there however, until she found Gloria, who looked to be stripping one of the maneuvering rockets.
Gwen just stood, waiting to be noticed. Right next to the table, but the internal workings of the thing were small and distracting the women might cause her to lose her place, or possibly drop something inside the housing, which would be a pain to fix. It was clear from the shift in her body language that she got the fact that someone was standing there, however. Not that she even looked up from what she was doing for several minutes.
When she did that part, the woman actually smiled at her.
“Curly! Groundling mentioned that we got you for the next run. That leaves us a man down. Unless you’re here to beg off?” She waved at the dress and probably the makeup. The other woman had some on, but it wasn’t much compared to how Gwen was gussied up at the moment.
“Nope. I’m in. I’m just going to see some people in a bit about another project. Do you want another man for the loading crew? Totally raw and probably lazy, but still no worse than Darnell. Better in most ways. Just green.” She just waited. Gloria wasn’t the god of the ship or anything, but the engineer could say yes or no to things in her section. Technically she was Groundling’s boss, as far as that kind of thing went.
“That would be good. Where did you find this wonder? One of the Westmorlands on holiday?” She didn’t even smirk at the idea, or say no, if that was the case.
They clearly needed the help. Then most of the able bodied men had gone off to war already.
Gwen smiled and shook her head.
“He’s a young Baron. We’re dating, but he gets that we aren’t going on this trip as a lover’s getaway. Tomas is getting ready for some military training, so needs to toughen up a bit first. That part is all a secret though. Like with Groundling?” Meaning not hidden from Gloria, or the Captain. Just everyone else.
That reminded her to get with Admiral Welk, if Gloria didn’t turn the extra help away right then.
Instead the woman sighed, took a deep breath and rubbed her hands on the front of her tan jump suit.
“I… We need someone. It’s nearly impossible to get anyone to take on the work. I’m half tempted to put in a crew of kids, once summer comes. Get with King Ferdinand and have him set that up for us?” It was a question, not an order.
Gwen just nodded. If things were that bad, then they were.
“I’ll do that when we meet later. It really might not be a bad idea. At least the more locked away ships are good practice for the Air Navy. We can use that as a sales point. The Students Service should be in on that, if we can get that back together. Not that I know that it isn’t still. The truth is I haven’t checked.” She felt bad about that for a bit.
The large woman, who looked like a linebacker, if one with golden hair, laughed.
“You were a bit distracted. I think we all get that. Get your Baron in here then, in two days? We need to start loading early, if we can. No improper behavior though. Also… You have a boyfriend?” She lit up then, her face pleased. “About time! A Baron, too. I’d be jealous, except…” She turned a bit red, and looked away.
Then maddeningly didn’t let anything else drop.
Gwen tilted her head, figuring out what was likely going on then.
“You and Groundling?” It sort of made sense. As unlikely as it might seem, the man was probably her closest friend in the whole world. They’d worked together for years. Plus, Gloria hadn’t been at the Vernors the other night. If it had been about just getting her to go and work, then the woman would have been there.
That they were bothering to keep things secret meant that they felt there was something to hide.
“We’re getting married. In three months? I’m… The whole noble thing is hard, you know?”
She kind of did. Groundling was a Duke, which was high up as far as that kind of thing went. A Baron wasn’t that bad comparatively. Gwen was attached to people that were probably more wealthy than all the Barons in the kingdom, combined. It wasn’t a thing that made sense to her, but seemed true.
“Yeah. Don’t let it worry you. You’ll make a great Duchess. I mean, the airships in that area will all be running on time and the palace will stay tidy. Or else.” She grinned then, not really feeling it. Then she shook her head. “It’s worth it, Gloria. All the headaches and effort. We all need to have people. Being alone… I’ve done that. For decades. It warps your mind. If you have a chance to have a friend… Take it. Don’t let yourself…”
She giggled then. It was fake, forced and probably sounded really contrived to the other woman.
“I just realized that I’m giving that advice to myself, not you. I’m just… Tired. Of everything. Like I’m going through the motions of life, but there’s nothing there, inside?”
It was probably her being weak, of course. She knew that, on a pretty deep level.
Gloria took another deep breath and let her face go serious.
“You’ve been in the war. For years. First those magic fuckers stabbed you, not even minutes after you got here. Then you had to fight them off for us, barely
recovered from that first battle. That little bitch, Katherine… She stole years from you, while doing the rest of us up the hind end. You never got a real break. You can’t get one now, either. That’s why you feel like that. Fights, battles, they wear a body down. There are things you can do about it. Having good friends helps. Keep that in mind? You aren’t fighting for everyone. Just your pals. Me. Groundling. Ferdinand. This new fella of yours. Your Westmorland buddies, too. Speaking of which, I heard that Bethany is with child? That’s new, isn’t it?”
That gave her a topic to speak about for a while, which was nicer than anything else she could think of at the moment. The larger woman got a hug. It was warm enough that Gwen had to pull back first. She just wasn’t normalized to being close to people. It was a weakness, she knew. A thing that she doubted would be outgrown in the remainder of her life.
“Now, I need to get off to the rest of the things for the day. I just came to soften you up about Tom coming in with me. Worst case, we can always just send him home. I hope it won’t be needed, but you know how those nobles are.” She grinned then, since the ones she knew weren’t half as soft and pampered as it had always sounded like they should be.
Gloria seemed to think that was a real possibility, however.
“We need the help. For real. Even if he half does his part, it’s better than not having anything getting done for that crew slot. Let’s be hopeful anyway? It can’t hurt.”
Gwen winked then, looked at her pad, then sighed. She needed to either go back to see Adam Westmorland again, or head off to Western University, to see about enrolling in some classes. She’d met the Dean of the school before, though knew that he used to have a bit of a crush on Katherine. That would probably mean her having to date the man on the sly to get in or something. Or, possibly, her killing the man for trying. Which wouldn’t get her into college at all.
Instead she decided to head over and see if Doctor Professor Grainger might help her out that way. Waving to Gloria she left the room, calling out over her shoulder.
