“That sounds like your classic “Good Samaritan’ story.” A man in the front row replied, sounding less than convinced.
Luna nodded, and smiled, “Yeah … that’s exactly what it was. I don’t know about you, but I find it reassuring to know that there are still some people in this world—even Swampers—who are willing to go out of their way to help people in need. You can quote me on that if you want to.”
For the next fifteen minutes Luna did her best to answer questions the reporters threw at her. Though as time passed, she found herself thinking more and more about the time she’d spent in the swamp.
Ever since she’d come back to New Denver, a tiny kernel of curiosity had lodged in her mind. Now that the reporters had inadvertently brought up the subject, she found it hard to stay focused on the stream of questions.
Finally Mr. Edgard stepped forward and called an end to the press conference—much to her relief. Although she’d been looking forward to the event for the past twenty-four hours, she was more than ready for the nerve-fraying queries to be over.
“Miss McKelly? Is everything all right?” Mr. Edgard asked, drawing Luna’s attention back from her straying thoughts.
“What? Yes. I’m fine.”
Edgard smiled. “Good, you had me worried there—you were just staring off into space.”
Luna laughed. “No. I was just thinking about some stuff.”
She absently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked around at the quickly emptying room. “Um … how long was I just standing here?”
“About five minutes.” Edgard replied carefully.
Perfect. Just perfect.
Luna berated herself and bent down to retrieve her handbag, hoping that she didn’t wake up the next morning to find her spaced-out expression plastered all over the newspapers.
“Will you be going back to the lab today?” Edgard asked, clasping his hands behind his back.
Luna stood and slung the purse over her shoulder. “No, actually I was going to go to my light-therapy appointment.”
“Light-therapy? Now?”
She nodded. “I’m a few days overdue. Plus I’ve already had Alex lock down the lab for the day, so I don’t think it would be fair to him if I went back and had him open everything up again. He might short circuit.”
“I suppose that makes some sense,” Mr. Edgard said with a smile. “Just be sure to keep your phone with you. You never know when someone may need to contact you.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” She said, starting to make her way back to the elevators.
“That’s what you said about this press conference, remember?” Edgard called after her, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, I know. But seriously, don’t worry. I’ll have my phone on.”
Luna waved goodbye and climbed into the nearest elevator.
Forty minutes later she was sitting in the waiting room at the light-therapy ward, flipping absently through the crumpled pages of a four-month-old magazine while Mark’s warning repeated itself over and over in her mind.
“ … Bad things have a habit of happening to people who stick their noses into things they shouldn’t. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times to hundreds of people, and I would hate to see something happen to you. It’s for your own good that you forget everything that’s happened to you out here. And I mean everything!”
Those were his exact words. And even though their meaning was undisputedly clear, Luna found herself doing the exact opposite. Though she tried, she couldn’t forget.
Finally Alex called her name.
“I’m here, Alex.” She replied, waiting for Alex to confirm her identity from her voiceprint.
“Ah, excellent. Your treatments will be in the same room as always, Doctor.”
Luna nodded and walked through the sliding door separating the hallway and treatment rooms from the waiting area. She made her way down the hall to what had become her designated treatment room.
“You’re early today, Doctor,” Alex commented as she undressed and placed her folded clothes on the bench beside the treatment bed.
“I decided I didn’t want to go home and then have to come back in,” she replied, reaching into her handbag for her all-purpose device.
She switched the device on, then plugged it into a tiny port on the side of the treatment bed.
“What are you doing, Doctor McKelly?”
“Oh … nothing. Just a little research. You know, fun stuff.” She said, lowering herself into the glowing therapy bed.
“Ah, of course. I understand,” Alex replied, even though she knew that he didn’t even understand the concept of “fun stuff”.
The bed’s lid slowly eased shut, and she covered her eyes with a pair of tinted goggles.
“Do you remember what I said last week?” She asked Alex once the treatment had begun.
“Yes. If memory serves me correctly, I believe you said, ‘reduce temperature by about eleven degrees’.”
“And have you done that?”
“Yes,” he replied. If she hadn’t know better, she would have thought he sounded smug. “Will there be anything else, Doctor?”
“Actually, yes, there is one thing. Could you polarize the bed’s internal holo-screen and allow a system link to my all-purpose device?”
“Of course. Polarizing screen.”
Luna watched a translucent square materialize above her head, and then she heard Ada’s familiar voice echoing inside the cramped treatment bed.
“Hello, Miss Luna. How can I be of service?”
“Ada, I want you to do an Internet search for key words: Jack Anderson, Mark Anderson, Unitech, and the Anderson family.”
“Of course, Miss McKelly. Might I ask why you are doing this particular search?”
“Oh, just curious.”
“I see. Please wait a moment while I access requested information.”
A few seconds later the holographic screen began to shimmer and dance with hundreds of pictures, videos, and articles—all pertaining to Jack Anderson; his wife, Elaine; and the Unitech corporation.
Luna shifted her weight off of her healing shoulder into a more comfortable position where she had a better view of the images playing across the holo-screen. It would take her days to sift through everything that had come up with this first search.
“Ada, copy all this information to your main database. There’s too much here for me to go through in just one day,” she said with a giddy smile. Having this much information to sift through was exhilarating.
“Of course, Miss Luna. Copying to main database.”
Luna raised a finger to the holographic display, opened the first article that came up in her search and began to read.
Chapter 18
Keith walked stiffly through the security office’s doors and sighed.
Debriefings had to be the most dreaded part of being an agent. Bullets and alligators he could handle. Seven hours of one of Chief Landers’ legendary debriefing sessions? Not so much.
First, he had been confined to a chair for three hours while the Chief asked him question after question. Then he’d been ordered to compile a written report—a report that had to be submitted to Alex before Keith was allowed to leave for the evening.
Finally, after four hours of working and reworking his in-depth, no-detail-spared summary of the mission, the grueling process was over, and he was free to leave.
He sighed again and moved through the parking lot toward his black Mercedes.
He respected and looked up to his boss, but he silently hoped that his meticulously detailed report would be enough to keep the chief occupied for a day or two—giving him a chance to catch his breath.
He tossed his briefcase in the passenger seat of his car, and inserted the key into the ignition. The dashboard flickered to life, and he instinctively glanced down at the car’s holographic clock—a habit he’d picked up as a student driver.
“10:30,” he muttered to himself. He ha
d known it was late, but he’d never thought it was that late. No wonder he felt so tired.
He put the car in gear and pressed his foot down on the gas pedal, urging the Mercedes out onto the street. Keith switched on the car radio and lost himself in classical jazz until he arrived at his high-rise apartment building nearly a half hour later.
He groaned and stretched, trying to work some of the stiffness out of his healing muscles. Despite the accelerated recovery made possible by advancements in medicine, he knew he still had to take it easy for a few weeks and let his body recover naturally: something he wasn’t too keen on doing. In the world of agents, recovery time equaled desk time, and desk time equaled long, uneventful days stuck in the office when his skills could—and should—be put to better use elsewhere.
Still, he couldn’t overlook the fact that every time he tried to do anything remotely strenuous, his healing wounds reminded him of his present condition.
“Good evening, Agent Tagawa. Welcome home, sir.” Keith’s personal AI unit said as Keith stepped inside his seventh floor apartment and hung his coat beside the door.
Keith was about to respond when he noticed a strange, pungent odor hanging in the air.
He wrinkled his nose and took another sniff. Yep, there it was again. And although he couldn’t quite place it, he had the strangest feeling that he’d smelled this somewhere before.
“Thank you, Mac … ” he replied, taking stock of his surroundings.
The blinds in the living room were active, but he had done that before he’d left, so there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there. His recliner was right where he’d left it, and so was the couch.
Wait a second. The couch …
Keith drew his sidearm and took a step closer. Yes, it had definitely been sat on—and recently too. Plus the cushions were all out of place, almost like someone had been ... hugging them?
His brow furrowed, and he cocked his head to one side, thoroughly baffled—if only for a moment.
He walked forward and bent over the dark gray sofa, inhaling deeply. Instantly his nostrils were filled with the overwhelming scent, and he was forced to withdraw. There was no doubt about it. Whoever had sat on his sofa was definitely the source of the smell.
He shifted his attention to the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Wine?” he said out loud, now more confused then ever. For there, sitting on the table beside a pair of wineglasses, was an unopened bottle of red wine.
Hmm. Two glasses … Whoever was here was either expecting company or had company with them, he thought, eyeing one of the polished glasses. Two suspects.
Keith looked up toward the kitchen at his neatly organized wine collection, half expecting to see that one of the expensive bottles was missing. But it looked as if every bottle was accounted for. Which meant that whoever had been in his apartment had brought their own wine.
Keith adjusted his grip on the handgun and scrutinized the wine and sofa with renewed intensity, when his ears detected a small noise coming from somewhere off to his left.
That sounds like water running.
His eyes drifted through the apartment to the closed bathroom door and the thin wisps of steam curling up from under it.
Slowly he crept toward the door with his pistol held stiffly at the ready.
“Okay buddy, that’s it,” he whispered, reluctantly preparing to kick down his own door, “you’ve broken into the wrong apartment.”
Keith raised his gun, stepped back, and would have proceeded had the intruder in the shower not started singing at that very moment.
He couldn’t quite make out the tune, but he could tell from the voice that the intruder was a woman. Quietly he holstered his firearm and placed his ear to the locked door. There was something eerily familiar about the woman’s warbling voice ...
“Mac!” he hissed, “identify intruder!”
“Right away, sir. Intruder identified as Miss Bridget Chavé.”
He smacked his open hand against his forehead in exasperation.
“Can’t she just leave me along for a few hours? Is that too much to ask?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Mac replied, his holographic body appearing near the sofa.
“How did she even get in here?” Keith hissed, eyeing the transparent image of his suit-clad AI unit.
“Forgive me, sir. But ... she told me you were expecting her. My polygraph subroutines detected no increase in her heart rate or breathing, so I assumed she was telling me the truth.”
“Well, you assumed wrong,” Keith muttered, rubbing his temple with his index finger. “Did she say why she was coming up here?”
“Yes. She informed me that you would be returning home from the hospital today, and that she wanted to celebrate with you.”
Keith swallowed. “Is that why she’s in my shower?”
“I believe so, sir. I was under the impression that the evening would be pleasant for the both of you, so I informed her when your vehicle left the Unitech complex. At which point she promptly went to “freshen up”. Or at least, that is what she said. Once again, sir, allow me to express my humblest apologies for this horribly unfortunate mistake.”
“If you told her I was coming when I left the complex, then that means she’s been in there for at least a half hour. Which means she’ll probably be coming out any minute now!”
Mac raised a holographic eyebrow. “Yes, I believe so, sir.”
Keith grimaced and hurried past the shimmering blue figure into his bedroom, returning with a pillow and blanket tucked into the crook of his arm.
“Where are you going, sir?” Mac asked, as Keith moved toward the door.
“Back to the office,” Keith replied sourly. He turned back to the AI unit. “Mac, I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course, sir. How may I be of service?”
“I need you to stall!”
“Stall, sir?” Mac replied, sounding confused.
“Yes, stall! When she comes out, tell her I had some last minute paperwork to do and I had to go back to the office.”
“I do believe that Miss Bridget will wait for you, sir.”
Keith sighed in exasperation. “Then let her wait! Just don’t let her follow me!”
“What do you expect me to do if she tries, sir?”
“You’re a top-of-the-line artificial intelligence, Mac! Use your imagination!”
“But—”
Keith closed the door behind him, effectively silencing whatever argument the AI had formulated. As far as he was concerned, Bridget was Mac’s headache now.
Keith hurried down the hall, entered the first elevator he could get to, and punched the button for the parking garage. The truth of the matter was that, given the choice between spending a long sleepless night in an office chair and spending a long sleepless night with Bridget Chavé, he would choose the office chair every time, hands down.
Chapter 19
Luna leaned back on the sofa, rested her chin in the palm of her cupped hands, and stared intently at the twenty-three-year-old news recording playing on her APD’s tiny holographic screen.
For the past three evenings, she’d done nothing but sift through Ada’s archive of downloaded information, closely studying every file and video.
In that time she’d managed to uncover more about Jack Anderson, his family, and Unitech’s fledgling years than she’d ever expected. She had seen Mr. Anderson transform from a young man with little more than a dream and the clothes on his back to the founder of a multi-billion dollar organization.
She switched off the holo-screen then gently rubbed her aching eyes.
“Are you all right, Miss Luna?” Ada asked, her calm clear voice coming through the headset’s tiny speakers.
Luna screwed her eyes shut, counted to three, and then opened them, watching the blurry world around her slowly come into focus. “Yeah, I’m okay. … ”
“That is a relief.” Ada replied, “I was 2.6 seconds away from inf
orming you that you had violated nearly every one of this device’s health and safety regulations.”
“Really? How long was I watching those vids?” She asked, checking her watch.
“You’ve been using this device for nearly four hours,” Ada replied just as Luna’s eyes focused enough for her to make out her antique timepiece’s digital readout.
“Good grief—it’s almost ten-o-clock!”
“It is indeed. Would you like to watch the news tonight, Miss Luna?”
“Umm … sure. I think I’m going to go whip up something to eat first. But you can go ahead and turn it on.”
She removed the all-purpose device from her ear and plugged it into its stand. The lights flickered for a split second then Ada’s holographic figure materialized on the sofa beside her, brushed the wrinkles out of her shimmering blue clothes, and proceeded to surf through the local channels via her wireless link until she found the late-night news.
Luna hadn’t noticed how hungry she really was until she actually started cooking. Now that the prospect of food had been laid out before her, it was all she could do to keep from drooling.
I guess it’s probably a good thing I live alone. If anyone else saw me now, they’d probably think I was rabid or something, she thought, smiling wryly. Just then, her apartment’s phone began to ring.
Wordlessly she turned and glared at Ada, who met her gaze and identified the source of the incoming call.
“Miss Luna, you have a phone call from Miss Bridget. Do you want me to answer?”
Bridget? Why is she calling me now? Luna thought sourly, and then she wondered if maybe it was an emergency. Why else would Bridget be calling her so late at night? All at once Luna’s mind began to come up with all the worst-case scenarios. Maybe Bridget had been in a terrible accident, or maybe she was being held hostage by terrorists …
“Of course I want you to answer it!” she squeaked, feeling as if she would burst into tears if she didn’t hear Bridget’s voice immediately.
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