Vatican Ambassador

by Mike Luoma

BC laughs, “Thank you for being so understandable,” he says sarcastically.

  “Oh, my pleasure,” she retorts, matching his sarcasm.

  BC gets up. “Okay, so let’s swing by my offices.”

  She shakes her head, “Tell you what. You swing. I’ll meet you back here.”

  “Back here?”

  “Back here.”

  “Sure.”

  BC walks over to the bar and pays the bartender for his tab. Anita Capituna sits back down at the table, as if to wait for BC.

  Yeah. I’ll bet she just sits here waiting. Doesn’t strike me as the type. Bendix, Capituna, or whoever you really are.

  BC sets off on his way to his office.

  What do I want? Not a gun, obviously. Be nice to have some nano’s... No more of those without the OPO. Maybe a toxin? Poison of some kind? Do I have anything left? Damn, I’m out of practice!

  Back in his room a few minutes later, BC settles on a wrist-worn poison dart launcher. The “darts”

  are sliver thin and made of an instantly deadly neurotoxin.

  Undetectable by most contemporary security systems. And they conveniently melt away without a trace. I’ll drop her in her tracks if I have to... hate to be a prick... heh. BC laughs to himself at his wordplay. He heads back to McGrady’s feeling just slightly more secure. He chuckles again to himself as he enters the bar. Anita is there, waiting. I wonder if she did go anywhere?

  She stands up as he approaches the table.

  “Ready?” she asks him.

  “Ready,” BC replies. “I guess. So where are we going? How are we getting there?”

  “It’s hard to explain. You’ll see. We’re not going far. I said it was nearby, here on the Moon. Still suspicious, huh?” she observes.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I understand,” she says.

  “That’s big of you,” BC counters. She looks exasperated.

  “Okay. Please get over yourself so we can move on! I’m sorry you think I tried to kill you! I’ll explain what’s going on when we get going to the lab. I have a lot to tell you. There’s more you need to know.”

  Bitch.

  “What?” she asks when he doesn’t say anything.

  “Nothing. I’m just working on repressing all my feelings of mistrust and hatred so I can keep my tensions bottled up inside while I follow you,” BC tells her.

  She wrinkles her brow, but then nods, “Okay. Fine, I guess. For now. I’ll take what I can get from you. At this point.” She sighs. “Follow me.” She brushes past him and on out of the bar. She doesn’t look back.

  He follows her out. They cross the atrium and head for the spaceport. Funny, this is right near where she tried to lose me that time... or didn’t try to lose me, according to her current version.

  “Deja Vu, huh?” BC comments as they head down a familiar looking tunnel.

  “Yeah. We’re actually going to be near the same place I left you for, um, dead. But not really.”

  “Huh. Not really the place? Or not really dead?” BC prods her.

  “Didn’t really leave you for dead,” she says, not looking back at him. “In fact, your deja vu should continue. One of the ships you call flashers is coming to get us. Might be the same ship that called for your rescue back then. When I told them to call.”

  “Yeah? I hear what you’re selling. I just haven’t committed to buying it yet,” BC responds. They end up in the same outbuilding where she tried, or didn’t try, to kill him two years ago. Well this just creeps me right the fuck out! Talk about-facing things head on...

  “Come on,” she says. BC didn’t realize it but he stopped in the doorway to the building. “Sorry. Old wounds ripping open and all,” he says as he walks into the outbuilding.

  “Sorry. This is one of our regular rendezvous spots. Grab an EV Suit. We’ve got to go outside.”

  “What, did you sabotage them ahead of time?” BC cracks.

  “Ha. Ha. No,” she says with no humor in her voice. “Get dressed. We’re supposed to be out there to meet them in five minutes.” She answers BC’s inquiring look. “I called when you were back at your office.”

  BC gets dressed. He pulls on the bulky pants and oversuit and snaps them together, puts a helmet on and clicks it into place.

  Just to be careful, I’ll put my gloves on last. Keep the darts available until she opens the airlock...

  BC hears his breathing echoing in his helmet. The helmet’s nearly clear all around. He can see pretty well around him. Anita Capituna is over at the airlock. She stops just before she starts to cycle the airlock.

  “Let’s go, Campion,” she says in his ear, over the com. “They’re waiting for us.”

  BC pulls on his gloves. “Go ahead.”

  She opens the airlock and walks in. BC follows her in and closes the door behind him. She cycles the airlock. BC can feel his suit puff up a little as the air escapes from the airlock and the pressure drops. Capituna opens the outer door and bounds through out onto the lunar surface. BC follows her out, feeling the artificial gravity let go as he crosses the airlock door’s threshold. Low gravity... always makes me feel like trying to fly!

  “Campion,” Capituna says over the com. “Close the door, huh?”

  Oh. Yeah.

  BC bounces back and hits the button for the door. He turns and sees Capituna waiting for him about a hundred yards away.

  “Here they come!” she says in his ear.

  Wait... did I blink?

  Because, suddenly, there is a ship behind her.

  Holy shit... I think we’ve got ourselves an actual flasher here!

  He bounds over towards her and they approach the side of the ship.

  A door opens on the side of the ship. She bounds over to it.

  “Come on!” she yells in his ear, louder than she has to.

  It’s a com, woman!

  BC tries to take it all in as he scrambles to get to the door.

  The ship is identical to the one I saw in this same place two years ago. BC climbs up into the flasher and the door closes behind him.

  It’s relatively dark inside the ship. BC climbs out of the airlock and looks around the “flasher’s” interior. Everything’s a utilitarian gun metal gray: the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. There are no portholes, no windows that BC can see. Lighting is provided by small round lamps overhead. They disappear off into dimness in each direction, making a dimly lit line of dots down the corridor ceiling’s center. My eyes need to adjust. It’s so bright outside. You don’t realize how bright until you come back inside. Huh, gravity again, too.

  BC steadies himself against the wall as the ship lurches a little. His boots stop him short from sliding on the two non-slip strips that run parallel down the center of the corridor floor.

  “We’re off,” Capituna says in his ear. Then she clicks off her helmet and secures it to a Velcro loop on the wall of a small cubby next to them. BC takes off his helmet and does the same. It smells new. Like the Vatican mission smelled for a while after we rebuilt it. Everything looks new. Maybe they just keep things very clean... My eyes are adjusting…. It really is dim in here... I’m not the only thing here that’s not very bright, bada bing. Wonder what’s up with the mood lighting? I’ll feel better as soon as I... now.

  BC gets his glove off. His dart hand is free. His other glove is off soon after. He swivels his head around on his neck trying to work out a slight crick he got when the ship lurched earlier, and to see if there’s anyone else lurking in the shadows.

  Anita Capituna takes off the rest of her EV Suit, and then attaches the suit to the wall next to her helmet with more handy Velcro loops. BC undoes his EV suit, too, and following her example uses the loops on the other wall to fasten down his suit below his helmet.

  “This won’t take long at all,” she says. “It’s a very short trip to the lab. We’re almost there.”

  BC looks at his EV suit.

  “We won’t need those to get from this ship into the lab,” Capituna
says, answering his unspoken question.

  BC and Anita Capituna stand side by side in silence.

  “Are we going to go sit down or something?” BC asks, feeling awkward. She laughs, “Oh no! It takes about two minutes. We’ll be docking at the lab in a minute,” she assures him.

  “Nice ship,” BC says.

  “Thank you.”

  “So... Who are you guys again?” BC asks her.

  “We’re The Project. We began as Van Kilner’s Transpace Project back in 2066,” she says, nearly reciting, and then breaks in on herself, “I haven’t been with it myself for that long, obviously,” she clarifies.

  “The Transpace Project? Van Kilner? They developed the first Transpace Ships. Every school kid learns about that in history class... But that project ended years ago! I mean, the first Transpace ships came out, what, back in the eighties? Are you telling me that project is still ongoing? That it’s your ‘Project’?”

  “The government...” she begins to answer him, but she stops. She puts her hand on the wall of the corridor. The airlock door opens again. A small corridor, brightly lit, is visible beyond the threshold.

  “Go ahead. We’re here. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  Yeah. Right.

  “No. I don’t think so,” BC says, staring at her.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I’m supposed to just walk into whatever this is by myself? I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, I think you’re going to lead the way for me. Kinda like a human shield, how ‘bout?”

  She nods, “Fine, fine. But you know you’ve really got to work on these trust issues...”

  “Right,” BC says. He stands there. Waiting.

  She waits for a minute as well.

  What, you wanna play stare down, honey? I don’t think so. Don’t play as dumb as your new blonde hair might suggest you are...

  “Oh, all right!” She huffs, then heads into the bright corridor. BC lets her get a couple of paces ahead, and then follows her.

  “Oh good, you’re coming,” she calls back at him.

  “Yup!” BC calls. As he gets close to her he says, “Gee, too bad you aren’t fatter.”

  She stops, and he almost walks into her before he stops as well.

  “What?!” she demands, taken off guard.

  BC laughs. “You’d make a better human shield. If you were, you know, fatter. More for me to hide behind.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You sure do know how to make a gal feel sexy,” she jokes. “Besides. There’s nothing to hide from!”

  “Uh huh,” BC agrees, without conviction.

  She sighs. “Let’s go. This corridor opens right onto the lab.” She walks up to the door at the end of the bright corridor, presses her hand against the wall to the side. She turns back to talk to BC as the door slides open.

  “You see? No one’s here! There’s no one to shoot you, take you hostage, whatever you were anticipating in your fevered little bray...” Her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses into a heap on the floor in front of BC.

  BC sees a tranq dart sticking in her shoulder. He looks up from her body in time to see someone through the doorway with a gun. A dart hits him in the shoulder.

  BC blacks out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BC can hear voices as he tries to wake up.

  “…trying to gain his trust, and you shoot me! And then him! Way to go, brainiacs!”

  Anita Capituna.... Nita Bendix! That’s right...

  Betrayed... Fuck! What was I even thinking! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  BC opens his eyes on unfocussed brightness.

  “He’s awake!” someone shouts.

  “BC!” Anita says anxiously, “I’m so sorry! I had no idea they were going to...”

  “Fuck you,” BC spits out in a hoarse, forced whisper.

  BC’s eyes begin to adjust. He’s lying on a plain white bed in a small blue walled room with no windows. Anita stands next to the bed, dressed in a plain white lab coat.

  BC moves his hands, his legs, experimentally.

  No restraints… Well, that’s something, anyway. Don’t feel too strong though... very weak... not quite right yet... Huh, the wrist launcher is gone… What the hell was I doing, trusting her...

  “Look,” she protests, “they weren’t supposed to, I mean, I had told them not to... I didn’t even think they were going to be here... shit.” After stopping and starting several times she pauses, looks him in the eye. “I’m sorry, BC. How are you feeling?”

  BC ignores her. He tries to sit up. His brain feels like it’s moving at a slower rate than the rest of his head as he pulls himself up. It feels like his brain stops a second too late, crashing into the inside front of his skull when he sits up straight.

  Oh, my head... what did they shoot me with?

  “You might want to keep lying down for a few more minutes,” Anita says. “They injected you with an anti-reactive to counteract the sedatives in the dart, but you’re probably still feeling some of the sedatives’ effects. The anti-reactive itself is only just starting to take effect,” Anita informs him.

  “Hey, gee, thanks,” BC says, lying back down. “I’m ever so, er, um, thankful. Yeah.” He closes his eyes. BC hears voices talking in whispers as he lies there with his eyes shut. If I could only concentrate on them, it would probably be to my strategic advantage to know what they’re saying... What are they saying? Can’t keep my thoughts in order… Can hardly keep my head together... That murmuring is annoying... Who’s talking? My head hurts.... Not like those other headaches, though... Starting to feel a little better...

  After about fifteen minutes, BC opens his eyes again. He tries sitting up again. This time, his brain behaves and moves with the rest of his head.

  Better… better… let’s see if I can get them off guard…

  Anita Capituna is across the room with her back to BC, talking to two guys, like her, wearing a white lab coats, in a small circle: the source of the murmuring.

  One of the guys is older, white-haired and balding, pale and thin framed. He towers over Capituna. The other is slight, short and dark complexioned. He gestures wildly with his hands as he tries to make his whispery point with the other two.

  BC clears his throat. “Ahem.”

  The three turn in unison.

  “How about some explanations?!” BC says, trying to sound stronger than he feels. “You say you’ve got a shitload to tell me, so how ‘bout it?! Let’s go!” BC‘s shoulder throbs where the dart hit, “And let’s start with why you fucking shot me, huh?!”

  “Okay, calm down, hothead!” the short guy says, his voice a little shrill, with a slight accent BC can’t place.

  “It was fear, BC,” Anita says, cutting off the short guy. “They were afraid of you,” she says as she looks back and forth between the other two.

  “We know all about you!” the short guy butts back in, “We know who you are! What you’ve done!

  You’re a dangerous man! You were armed!”

  “Yeah, just look at me,” BC says, and a wave of nausea washes over him. “And I’m feeling real fucking dangerous right now,” BC says. “Uh oh,” BC says, “Woah...”

  “What?” the other three say in almost comical unison.

  I’d laugh but...

  “I gotta puke!” BC leans over the side of the bed and heaves up some nasty, bitter, yellow bile that splats across the floor.

  Less than I thought I’d toss. Ugh. I hope that’s it.

  “We pumped your stomach,” the short guy says. “Had to clear out the toxins. Sorry.”

  BC leans back up to a sitting position and wipes off his mouth with the sleeve of the standard issue hospital gown he’s wearing. He’s suddenly sweating, drained and shaking.

  “Thanks,” BC rasps. “Can I get a glass of water?”

  They oblige his request. BC sips his water and analyzes his surroundings. Half lab, half hospital room. Just the kinda place to keep a great big rat!

  “Where a
m I?” he manages to ask.

  “We’re in a lab complex on the other side of the Moon from Lunar Prime. We’re just where I said we were going, The Project base,” Anita says.

  “Yeah,” BC says, voice still raspy, “I got that. You’re ‘The Project’ or something.”

  The tall man speaks for the first time. “We are The Project,” he says in a soft but firm, deep voice. “We also called ourselves Kilner’s Kids, or even TP, as a joke. But we are The Project. The Transpace Project. Only now, we do more.”

  “BC,” Anita says, “Meet Doctor Krishnavarti,” she nods at the short guy, “And Doctor Dundell,” she says, indicating the older, taller man. “Krish is the little guy, Dell is the tall one,” she says by way of introduction. “Dell is the one who shot us.”

  “My apologies, sir,” Dell says to BC. “We... um, we were improvising, you see.”

  “What’s with the we?” Krish says. “You pulled the trigger!” he protests to Dell. Dell looks down at Krish, “You thought it was a good idea,” he says in a quiet, measured tone of voice. Their voices echo inside of BC’s head.

  “Right. Please shut up. Both of you,” BC asks. “Just don’t say anything for a minute.”

  BC winces as a headache pounds at his temples.

  Shit... now my head hurts!

  The two men look at BC, silent and hurt.

  BC closes his eyes. He opens them when he hears Anita make a strange noise. She’s trying not to giggle, suppressing a smile while the other two glare at him.

  She thinks it’s funny? Huh... maybe it kinda is... Those two... well, now, at least it’s a little quieter...

  “Thank you,” BC says. He closes his eyes again and rubs his temples.

  That’s some nasty shit they hit me with. Wonder if the pain is from the dart or the antidote?

  BC cracks his eyes open a little. Squinting, he sees the three still standing there, watching him. She is something else, man, and those two are almost comical. It would be funnier if they hadn’t just done me some serious damage... still, hard to stay mad at ‘em when they act like cartoon characters...

  “BC?” Anita asks, to see if he’s awake. BC opens his eyes fully.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re going to leave you alone a bit, to rest and get your strength back. Aren’t we, boys?”