False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  “That,” she said proudly, “was me getting us out of there without having you shoot people.”

  Now he turned her way, if briefly. “I’d suggest that next time you decide on doing something like that, you let me know beforehand.”

  There was still a bit or frustration and impatience floating around inside her and it came out when she said, “Like you always inform me of the stuff you do?” She crossed her arms at her chest, and, while she was it, stuck her chin out defiantly.

  “That was dangerous,” he told her. “Could’ve gotten in an accident.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  “We could have.”

  Fine. Whatever. Let him be that way. She turned, putting as much of her back to him as she could, and stared out the window. It’s not like she just got them out of trouble or anything. It’s not like she just kept him from doing something stupid, kept him from hurting more people because he thought it was the only way to solve his problems.

  Their problems.

  And one of her problems right now was trying to stay mad at someone who had no clue you were mad at them in the first place.

  Fine. Whatever. She’d get over it.

  The scenery outside whooshed by, taking her frustration with it.

  XI

  Herristown was situated at the base of a small snowcapped mountain and the city was divided into three distinct areas: Commerce and tourist trade, residential, and a denser, industrial area on the northern side of the mountain.

  The first signs of civilization came in long stretches of motels and bed and breakfasts along the highway, where the landscape, which had been alternating barren and lush, finally decided to go permanently green. It was along this stretch that Dent had first told Fifth to do some searching online for Lynn Wilkens to see what they were getting into here.

  And of course, such a simple task had been turned into a chore. Dent sat there, what he would have considered patiently, and listened as Fifth rattled off information.

  “Herristown is a ski city,” she reported, thumbing through her EB. “Although the rest of the off season it’s quiet.” She looked up and out the window and the mountain.

  “No snow,” she commented, and Dent noticed her lower lip protruding out just a bit.

  “This isn’t a vacation,” he reminded her.

  “Never said it was.”

  He slowed the stolen truck down to forty-five. The bulk of the city was coming up, fifteen miles ahead according to the roadside signs. And still, he had no idea where he was going.

  “Lynn Wilkens?” he prompted.

  “Yeah, yeah, hold on.”

  He did.

  “Lynn Wilkens … I think this is her.” She held her EB up so he could catch a profile picture. Quick glance told him Wilkens was perhaps mid-thirties, brunette, average build and weight, and not a fan of makeup. Though, in Dent’s opinion, Wilkens didn’t need any makeup, except perhaps below her eyes, where slight bags were evident.

  Eyes back on the road, Dent said, “And …?”

  “Let’s see. She’s a mechanic, has a shop in town.”

  “What type of mechanic?”

  “Uh, mechanic mechanic.”

  “So, vehicle repair and maintenance.”

  “No, actually it says something about NASA ….”

  Dent looked over, but when the girl started laughing, he concentrated on the road again. He wouldn’t get drawn into one of Fifth’s games.

  “Sheesh,” Fifth threw out. “Maybe we can have Miss Wilkens do some work on you. Give your sense of humor a tune-up.”

  Again, he kept his eyes straight ahead. Although, he did inquire, “Miss?”

  “Yep. Divorced. She has a kid. Jason. He’s sixteen. Kind of cute, too.”

  Now he looked over. Fifth was moving her lips as she read her EB screen.

  “The kid’s cuteness isn’t our concern,” he said, keeping his voice tight.

  Without looking up, she replied, “Maybe he is, Dent. If this is anything like The Ranch ….”

  She did have a point. But still, he didn’t want her losing focus on their mission. Whatever it was. And they wouldn’t find out if she kept reading about this Jason kid.

  So he said, “Intel, Fifth.”

  She waved a hand his way. “Hold on.” She mumbled to herself as Herristown loomed closer. “I’m on their city’s official website. Checking for … checking for … hell, I don’t know what I’m checking for.”

  “Language,” he warned.

  “Yeah, yeah. Hold on.” He had the distinct notion that she didn’t actually hear him.

  “Seriously, Dent, I don’t see anything even remotely eTechy in any reports.”

  “They wouldn’t advertise it.”

  “True, but there’s not even a hint that something weird is going on in Herristown. In fact, this place seems … Ethiopian.”

  That gave Dent pause. He looked over, expecting to see a smile on her lips, but she was serious, or at least appeared to be so. Then, he realized … “Utopian,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Utopian. Not Ethiopian.”

  She shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

  He didn’t bother answering.

  “Miss Wilkens’s shop is off the main strip,” Fifth reported. “Shop hours are from 9 to 7. It’s 4:30 now.” She looked his way. “Want to head over there?”

  He shook his head. “We have no idea what we’re getting into. We can’t just show up and start asking about eTech. If she is my target, that will surely spook her. If she isn’t the target but somehow can point us in the direction of my target, then she could tip them off. Best to know what we’re dealing with first.”

  “Fine. I’m going to research her son some more. Maybe he can be our way in.”

  “Find us a place to room first.”

  “Ha! You just don’t want me to get interested in a boy!” She laughed. “Marion Dent, you might become a good parent one day.”

  “And you, Kasumi Takeda, might locate a place for us to spend the night.”

  She scrunched up her face at him and breathed out, “Fine.”

  ---

  The Wine & Vine was a six-room bed and breakfast that currently had only one room occupied by an out-of-state couple. After paying cash for a week up front, Dent and Fifth unloaded their stuff in their second-floor corner room. Four wide windows, two beds, a small closet, a desk, and a bathroom. It would be fine for them until they determined what they were here for and Dent fulfilled his end of the contract. Fifth seemed to enjoy the fact that the lights and temperature control were voice activated, to the point that he had to tell her to stop adjusting both within the first five minutes of dropping her stuff on the bed.

  Fifth hadn’t come up with any relevant information on the ride there, so Dent hopped onto his EB and commenced a search of his own. And as far as he could tell, there wasn’t much to go on. No problems reported in the area, no threats, no deaths.

  In fact, Herristown seemed to be, as Fifth had put it, Utopian. The city had an official website where its citizens posted and digitally congregated, and reading through recent posts, the only thing that seemed out of ordinary was the bi-weekly potlucks the citizens threw together at either parks, churches, or campground sites to raise money for this cause or that.

  “Anything?” Fifth asked, coming out of the bathroom.

  “No,” he said. “Maybe it’s something I’m not … capable of noticing.”

  “Is that your way of saying I might have a better chance of finding out what’s really going on here?”

  He shrugged.

  She grabbed her EB form the desk and her shoulders immediately sagged. “Nothing from Otto. You think we should try to get him to contact us again?”

  Dent was wondering the same thing. The less he relied upon Otto, the better. As it was, the man already had a hold over Dent and Fifth. It would become problematic if Dent became even more dependent on the man. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could
cut ties with Otto. The way things were turning out, it was becoming much like his past life of contracting. Except instead of Charon calling the shots, now it was some unknown mad behind the curtain.

  Dent likened the entire situation to holding a live grenade in one hand and a misfiring gun in the other.

  “No,” he finally told her. “You continue doing research on Wilkens—”

  “And her son.”

  “—and I’ll try to figure out our next move.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they both wound up empty handed and hungry.

  “I’ll check to see what the proprietors offer for dinner,” he finally said, stretching and rubbing his back and neck. “They said there was a menu in one of the drawers.”

  The sound Fifth managed to make made him turn quickly to her, thinking she may have choked on something. She got up from her bed, went to the closet, grabbed herself a sweater and tossed him his jacket.

  “What better reason to go out and eat than to use that as a disguise for some recon?” Her voice was muffled as she worked her sweater over her head.

  He was beginning to think he should teach her less and less of the terminology he’d used when he’d been employed by the military.

  When he failed to put his jacket on, Fifth, after fixing her hair in the mirror above the desk, came over and did it for him, like he was an invalid.

  “Ugh, your arms are heavy, Dent,” she said as she struggled to get his left arm in the jacket. “Are you purposely making this difficult?”

  He didn’t think the girl would actually catch on to that, yes, he was making it difficult for her. If she wanted to dress him like he was incapable of doing so himself, he’d make her work for it.

  It seemed … funny to him.

  XII

  It was just past six-thirty in the early evening, and the shadows added to the crisp coolness of the wind that swept down from the mountain to the east. Dent pulled his jacket tighter around him and noticed that Fifth kept her hands tucked into the front pockets of her sweater.

  Other than the looming peak, Dent could imagine seeing this section of Herristown somewhere in Southern California, where he’d grown up and spent most of his off-time. The shops were clean, window-fronted affairs, the sidewalks weren’t in too bad of shape, and the aspens lining the streets seemed well-manicured, with the roots of only a few pushing up against the concrete of the sidewalk. Strands of lights were strewn about, either framing rooftops or draped about the rustling branches.

  Dent appreciated only the fact that the numerous sources of light would make it hard for any threats to approach them unseen. He kept his eyes moving, never settling on one thing or person for too long, unless that thing or person warranted a second glance. He walked closer to the edge of the curb, keeping Fifth between himself and the shops to their left. It was the best way to control the situation if a situation were to arise.

  Also, it helped to contain the girl.

  She skipped more than walked, talked more than breathed, and though Dent had never been plagued by motion sickness in his life, he was sure if he continued trying to keep an eye on their surroundings while keeping track of her, he likely might become susceptible to that affliction.

  To make matters worse, the girl, all wide-eyes and smiles, seemed to attract every other passerby and incur an exchange of words with them all. Some tried speaking to him and he felt he gave appropriate answers and feedback to their small talk, but after a few seconds of conversation they would inevitably turn back to Fifth and have real conversations.

  He didn’t think of each and every one of them as threats, but he acted as if they were. This business of openly going about the town of unknowns was not his idea of covert, and there was something very off about the situation. Perhaps it was because Herristown catered to visitors and vacationers every year, or perhaps it was because he grew up in cities where a casual nod or glance was as far as strangers went when crossing paths. Whatever it was, something did not seem to fit in with how engaging everyone was acting.

  And when Fifth grabbed his hand and led him to what was either a barber shop or an ice-cream parlor — the spinning white-and-red cylinder was the only visual cue of what the store might possibly be — Dent was beginning to get a clearer picture of why they might be here.

  The door to the shop da-dinged as Fifth led him in. The few patrons inside — and it was an ice-cream parlor, the type Dent had seen in old ‘70s movies and calendars — nodded, smiled, and waved. Fifth nodded, smiled, and waved back. Dent searched faces and eyes, clothing and demeanor, peered into the corners of the place for hidden dangers and threats.

  His scanning took him to the menu on display on the wall behind the counter. Ice cream. No dinner menu. He looked down at Fifth, who by this time had her palm raised his way. This action he at least understood.

  Even as he pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed it over, he said, “This isn’t dinner, Fifth.”

  “It’s food, so it counts.”

  “You’ll just be hungry in an hour.”

  “Then we’ll go get some dinner.”

  “That’s what we’re doing now.”

  “No, we’re getting ice cream now.”

  He made an effort not to respond.

  The couple ahead of them paid and received their cones and Fifth and Dent shuffled forward. She looked up at him, tapped her lower lip, and said, “Let me guess. You want vanilla.”

  He shook his head. “Strawberry.”

  “Really?” Her tone indicated she might not believe him. He didn’t quite get that.

  She ordered two strawberry cones and when she attempted to pay for them, the woman behind the counter tilted her head and asked, “Out-of-towners, eh?”

  Fifth, twenty-dollar bill held up before her, smiled and said, “That obvious, huh?”

  “Just a bit, hon.” The woman looked over at Dent, gave him a smile for some reason, and then, to Fifth, said, “Tell you what. The ice cream’s on me, okay?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks!”

  Fifth handed Dent his cone as they made their way outside to locate an area of high tables with no chairs. There they stood, licking their dinner.

  “That was nice of her, wasn’t it?” said Fifth.

  He looked at her, and, drawing from the various facial features she used on him, he narrowed his eyes.

  She gave him an odd look. “What?”

  “Free ice cream,” he pointed out.

  “So? Oh! That wasn’t me, Dent. I swear!”

  He allowed his features to go back to normal. “She just decided to give you the cones for free? At a cost to her business?”

  “I guess.”

  “People don’t do that.”

  “People like you don’t do that. People like her do.”

  “Apparently.”

  After a few more licks, she asked, “What’s wrong?” She pointed to where his cone was dripping.

  He deftly cleaned and reinforced the melting mass with his tongue before saying, “I don’t like how the people here are acting. Not normal”

  “Like you could tell the difference.”

  He almost shrugged because she had a valid point. But whatever was telling him something was off was enough to make even him take notice. He asked, “Aren’t these people friendly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “It only bothers you.”

  A trio of teenagers walked by and called ‘hellos’ and ‘how are you’s’ to Dent and Fifth, only further proving his point. Teenagers didn’t do that. Except maybe the one standing next to him. But Fifth was in a different category than normal people. And so was he, he had to admit. So maybe he had no clue what he thought was wrong here.

  Maybe people were friendly to strangers.

  He shrugged, not convinced that he was entirely wrong in this.

  “Come on, Dent,” Fifth said after a bite into her waffle cone. “You
can’t seriously be thinking that someone is using eTech to make people super nice, can you?”

  He hadn’t been thinking that. Now, he was. It made sense. That’s why they were here in the first place. At least, that was his assumption on why Otto had directed them here.

  He said as much to the girl.

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. It’s not Mister Chisholme’s MO. And yes, I know what MO means.”

  With all the movies she watched, he didn’t doubt she’d heard the term before. And she was correct. With all Chisholme had done, forcing people to be nice did not seem to fit into his schemes.

  “It could be,” Dent reasoned, “that maybe Wilkens knows about the eTech in use. Maybe she’s the one who built it. She is a mechanic.”

  “And if, and that’s a big if, Dent, she knows about some happy-making eTech, why should we bother her?”

  “Because that’s my contract.”

  “Your contract didn’t state the terms of what to do when you located Miss Wilkens.”

  “Implied.”

  “What’s implied?”

  “Shutting down any use of eTech. Those are the terms I need to fulfill in order for Otto to point us in the direction of getting the eBlocker reversed for you.”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I could get used to living here. People are friendly, I can be friendly. Who’d know the difference if I accidently made them happier?”

  “I would.”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “Not the point, Fifth.”

  “It is so too the point.”

  Pointless circles of words. He changed the subject. “What if Wilkens is in danger?”

  That, at least, made Fifth think. She stared into space as she finished the last of her cone. After licking her fingers clean, despite the napkin he held out to her, she said, “How can she be in danger?”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  She took the napkin, wiped herself, balled it up. “Then I guess we need to talk to her. Find a reason to visit her at her shop.”

  He was already devising a plan for just that. He finished his cone, wiped his hands and threw his and her napkin into a trash can just outside the ice cream parlor.