by F P Adriani
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said now. “Before the break-in, you shut the camera by my front door, but you didn’t shut the other cameras. Why?”
She frowned at me. “You showed up at my place the next day, so I never went back to get the disks…. I knew to avoid the other cameras, but other people wouldn’t know when they got there. The disks were my insurance, just in case I got screwed out of the rest of my money.”
“That was smart of you.” Millie started smiling for the first time that night. “But you’re still a stupid fool.” Now her smile collapsed into a frown. “You’ve been dealing with dangerous and unscrupulous people. Your nature’s certainly aligned with the latter, but the former? I don’t think so. At least not intentionally. They’re the really dangerous killers, or did that never cross your thieving mind?”
Her mouth turned into half a sneer; then the sneer faded into worried shaking. “So what am I supposed to do about all this now?”
“You’re supposed to talk. To both your cousin and the cops. I’m sending this video message to both. And you better be convincing that you’re still alive.”
I heard the brief bark of a laugh come from Jamie’s direction.
*
Millie and I stood before the communications camera. I told her to keep her bandaged hand out of view, and then she put on her best acting face: she told the camera that she’d heard about a very reasonable plastic surgeon on Hera, and she’d finally worked up the nerve to have her face fixed.
“None of that had anything to do with Miss Senda here. I’m sorry I caused everyone so much trouble.” At this point she whimpered a little—I couldn’t tell if it was fake or not. But she did make a good—and hopefully convincing—effort.
By the time I’d shut down the communications, I felt satisfied that at least I’d vindicated myself somewhat.
We all went up to my hotel room. But when I gave her a slight push inside, Millie protested again. “Now I’ve gotta stay here with you? You’re not the cops, and I’m not your fucking prisoner!”
“Tonight you are,” I said. “At my…suggestion.” I pulled out my gun and laid it on the table beside me.
“This is kidnapping!” Millie said.
But then Nell told her, “Shut up,” and Millie did.
On a loud I-give-up! sigh, she plopped down onto one of the two chairs near the TV. “Might as well make myself comfortable then. The days I work at a hotel here—those are the only days I’ve been eating. I’m starving.” She pouted at the three of us.
“I’ll go get her something,” said Jamie then, looking as if he really wanted to bolt for good.
When he came back about ten minutes later, he held a tray with a big veggie burger and all the fixings. And it took less than two minutes for Millie to swallow the whole damn thing.
“Jesus,” I said, looking at her.
Jamie asked me then, “So do you need me anymore tonight?”
I shook my head. “You can go.” I moved over to the phone intending both to use it and to say to everyone in the room that I had arrangements to make. But the phone suddenly rang. It was the hotel.
“Yeah?” I said into the receiver.
The concierge replied in English: “We have a call for you from a Don Smith in the Communications room. Shall we hold the line?”
“Yes!” I said, flashing a quick thumbs-up at Nell.
*
The three of us took Millie back downstairs. She seemed pretty eager to talk to her cousin, and now I wondered if they were really blood-related; their relationship seemed a little too weird, a little too emotional.
…Unbelievable: on the screen, Don was near tears.
“Millie, why ARE you in that stinking place?” he whined. “Come HOME, Millie.”
Tilting my head at her, I said to him now, “Your cousin thinks I’m keeping her here, that I’m kidnapping her.”
Don swallowed, his thin throat up-and-down shifting fast. “But, Millie, I HIRED her to get you. I don’t like HER, but I knew she’d find you.”
“Thanks for the confidence and the compliment,” I said. “As much as I’d love to continue on with this warm family reunion, Don, you’ve got a call to make to the cops. I sent them Millie’s message too. But you better tell them that everything’s okay and she’s coming home.”
Millie’s head spun around toward me. “I am?”
*
On the way up to the room again, I stopped at the front desk to order a cot for Millie to sleep on.
Then when we finally stepped into the room and I shut the door, I said to her, “So tomorrow, you and Nell are taking the shuttle back.”
“What!” both Millie and Nell said at the same time.
I turned to Nell now. “Nell, our working together like this has been awesome. You’ve been invaluable. But someone’s gotta take Millie back. And I’d rather you weren’t around when I go to TNI.”
“TNI? The Institute?” Millie’s brown eyes widened and her thin lips shook. “Why are you going there?”
“You know why,” I snapped. “And now I want to know why The Neon Institute was on your itinerary, especially when you seem so afraid of them. Why go there?”
She frowned now, her head turning down to the floor. “I didn’t want to, but that John told me there might be work there for me. There wasn’t. They wouldn’t hire me. So I found that hotel job—”
“But, Pia,” Nell said now, passionately interrupting the conversation, “how can you be here on your own—remember Derek’s list about the hotels!”
My head slowly turned to Jamie. “What do you say, Jay R? Can you give up your hostel bed for a little while?”
His brown eyes widened, a little too much. His voice held a teasing lilt. “You mean you trust me?”
“Well, I will say: you’ve been better lately.”
He shifted on his feet. “Nell finally told me you both had boyfriends. Sorry for my Don-Juanisms at first. I was trying to have fun, but I really want you to think well of me.”
Now my eyebrows shot up. “I do think well of you or you wouldn’t be here with us…. Now go get some rest—and be back tomorrow with your things. We’ll be going with Nell and Millie to the shuttle-port.”
A smile on his face, he nodded as he left the room.
*
For the rest of that night and then at the shuttle station the next day, Nell wasn’t her usual in-a-solid-mood self. I knew she was happy to leave here physically because her stomach had never totally calmed down. But she pouted and frowned a lot—at me. I’d spent the whole of this trip worrying about her; now she was worrying about me.
At the station, she pulled me aside from Jamie and Millie, and said to me through one of her pouts, “The guys will ask why you didn’t come back with us!”
“So then you’ll explain…with only as much as they need to know. I probably won’t have a chance to call Tan today.” Well…I didn’t want to call him: I didn’t want to hear it from him.
She hugged me then—hard, her arms clinging over my shoulders. I heard a little whimper near my ear. “Don’t worry—I’ll be all right,” I said fast, first hugging her back, then shifting to patting her on the back, a little stiffly. I noticed the other two were watching us, and Jamie’s face looked worried, like maybe he was having second thoughts…. I pulled away from Nell.
“But Pia,” she said, fixing dismayed brown eyes on me, “if something happened to you—I couldn’t forgive myself for leaving.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen to me. And you let me know that you got home okay…. The shuttle just pulled in. It’s time to—g-go.” I’d been trying hard to maintain my composure, but my voice had still cracked on that last word. Remaining here wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do in the Universe. But I needed more information….
I said to Nell, “Now you take good care of my niece—and yourself of course!”
“Same to you!” Nell replied, not being able to stop herself from grabbing me into one last h
ug.
*
From inside the port, Jamie and I watched the shuttle lift off. Then I jerked my head away from him, indicating we should leave and he should follow me.
“Where are we going?” he asked in a shaky little voice.
“You know where,” I replied.
*
But first I had some more-than-minor changes to make to my appearance.
Via contact lenses, my eyes became a really pale gray. Via a wig, my hair became a really pale blond. Via some stage makeup and prosthetics, my face became more muscular. I also padded my bra. A lot.
“Christ,” Jamie said, looking over the new me in our hotel room.
I spun around for him. “Opinions?”
“I wouldn’t recognize you. Honestly.”
“Good,” I said, rummaging around inside my case.
“Me next?”
“Nope. Not to this extent. You got a hat? Put it on. I’ve got a mustache here somewhere….”
“You often use one of those?” he said, laughing, and making me laugh too.
“Well, you just never know what you’ll need. But I brought it for my employee. He was supposed to come at first, not Nell.”
“I like Nell,” Jamie said now.
“So do I…. And here’s the thing: I don’t want you inside TNI.”
“But—” he started to say.
“It’s simply too dangerous. Here’s what you’ll need to do outside….”
*
When we finally got to that outside, my mouth immediately dropped open: I was staring at the TNI building—or, more correctly, at the TNI palace and grounds.
The palace was an enormous multicolored building composed of one ornate wing stacked beyond another. Dozens of smaller similar buildings surrounded the palace, but all those buildings were still huge too. And every single structure looked clothed in not only tons of varied foliage, but also the ubiquitous neon tubing—even the fucking plants between the buildings were lit up with neon.
The bubble the gigantic place sat under must have been the highest bubble I’d seen on Hera so far. The whole area screamed M-O-N-E-Y.
Jamie must have noticed my wide eyes. “For sure, they’re in a space by themselves here. Their own rarefied city. Everyone could rot around them and they wouldn’t even know. A lot of people are rotting here. Haven’t you smelled the stench?”
I sort of grunted a reply. As I stared at the central building, I still couldn’t get over what a palatial monstrosity TNI looked like. It was also an impenetrable monstrosity because it was guarded like a fortress. I was good, but not that good. There was no way for me to get inside using only the minimal equipment I possessed. Which was why I’d basically have to walk through the fucking front door.
At least part of the palace was supposedly open to the public. I began walking toward that part, where a line of people waited out front.
“Here’s where we split up,” I said to Jamie. And he nodded as he moved back down the street.
*
There were cameras everywhere inside. Even though I couldn’t see them, I felt them.
Apparently, visitors were all being watched, all the time. I even wondered about the bathrooms.
I spent some time in one of those. Then I joined the English-speaking tour—good-old Jamie had been right about that.
As I walked along with the tour, I noted the numerous warning signs saying visitors weren’t allowed to touch a lot of the displays. But we were allowed to touch some, and other things of course, so I touched them liberally.
A tall, well-dressed very-attractive couple were in charge of the English tour, and their looks alone seemed to pull the visitors around. Most of the time, the guides grinned while they spoke. They’d clearly been paid to act.
“Heran zenite is special,” said the woman guide now. “It yields the highest energy return of any zenite in the galaxy. Hera helps make even faster space-layer travel possible, and at a reduced cost. We’re on the cutting edge of technology here, and Herans are proud to be such an important part of the galaxy.”
Of course the guide didn’t mention that the “cutting edge of technology” didn’t apply to worker safety when the zenite and other resources were mined. Jamie had educated me during the train ride here; he’d explained that both his parents had worked in the Heran mining industry. His dad was dead now, his mom was alive in an assisted-living home. But, generally, Heran mine workers too often disappeared, never to be heard from again….
The guides were still speaking, and security guards hawk-like watched everything from various positions around the room.
The male guide finally stopped in front of what looked like a large diamond; the solid block rose to about half his height. When he spoke, his voice was loud and proud. “Everyone knows about the strength of what Diamond produces. But Hera’s no slouch in the solid-minerals department. One of the largest hardest diamonds ever found in the galaxy is actually a Heran Diamond. And this is it.”
I heard a few “wows” and obvious intakes of breath as we all stared at the beautiful lightly faceted diamond. It must have been worth a fortune. I wondered how TNI had procured it. Somehow, I suspected someone else had gotten hold of it, and TNI had quickly relieved the person of that diamond-burden….
I did not like this place. There was something exceedingly fake and sneaky about the whole fucking building and all the people working in it. I even wondered about some of the visitors. They looked a bit too bored…was the whole fucking place a sham for the benefit of only a few true visitors? I couldn’t be sure of that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
The male guide now called “Break time!” as he led us over to a cafeteria-type restaurant. I bought a Supershot there; then I disappeared into a bathroom with it: my hands had been shaking badly on the glass, and I didn’t want anyone to see.
So far, my TNI-trek had yielded zip, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. Today I had no to-do plan, only a just-in-case plan. And I didn’t want to have to come back here a second time.
I felt tempted to pull out my communicator and contact Jamie. But that would be too early for a communicator rendezvous, and I didn’t want to worry him, which might make him come inside.
I swallowed my shot, dumped the glass onto the long silver sink counter, then began washing my hands. In the big mirror above the sink, I glanced at my face, instantly feeling shocked at my strange appearance, and then feeling even more shocked at what I could see of the rest of me. Not counting my fake boobs, my neck and upper body looked as if it had gotten thinner, the skin of my hands grayer. Basically, I looked like shit. And I had never been such hot shit to begin with. Good thing Tan wasn’t around to see me now….
Tan. I hadn’t seen him in days. I hadn’t even spoken to him either. What will happen there? I wondered for the millionth time lately.
I was sighing when I stepped out of the bathroom, hitched my case strap higher onto my shoulder and went in search of the tour again. Locating important paperwork was probably what I needed to do next—in other words, locating the not-for-visitors paperwork. But I had no idea where to begin there. And if something like that existed, I doubted it would even be in this part of the palace. For sure, anything related to Amy Castano wouldn’t be anywhere near where the public could be.
For a moment I felt at a real loss, like I had wasted time coming here. Nevertheless, I needed to see for myself who might be behind everything….
Gently and slowly so no one could see, I pulled out my Osier scanner and began running it here-and-there around the building, especially whenever I passed a doorknob. Doing that might not help, but what could it hurt?
Eventually I followed the tour into a very large room containing many display canisters; I moved over to a few displays and read the bronze plaques underneath, which contained the names of the contents’ donors. My eyes glossed over one plaque, then my eyes moved away; then, when my mind remembered what my eyes had read, they quickly slid back again, only to open widely at
how foolish I had been.
My heart suddenly ba-boomed loudly in my ears…goddammit. I was more than a little surprised and more than a little upset.
But I had no time to think about this new development because I suddenly noticed that from across the room, one of the guards was looking right at me. I’d had my Osier beside my jacket; now I slipped it back into my right pocket and pulled up the pocket’s zipper.
The guard moved toward me, and the pulse in my neck pounded a mad staccato.
“I saw your camera,” the guard said when he reached me. “You know you’re not supposed to take pictures in here.”
I shifted my eyebrows innocently upward. “Oh—really? I didn’t know, actually.”
He stood very close to me and now his eyes narrowed; he was looking at my nose, at my fake nose. I tried to hide my face, turning it away from him.
But then one of his hands shot out and yanked at my left arm. “Come with me.”
*
“What’s this about?” I asked, my right hand in my jacket pocket now, my left hand squirming as I twisted my arm, trying to remove it from his grasp.
For a public place’s security guard, he sure had a violent attitude. I said this to him. And got a scowl back in response.
Now was probably when I should have made my getaway and contacted Jamie, but I couldn’t get away and the communicator was locked in my case.
However, I did have a few very important things right on my person—in my jacket.
The guard pulled me up to an office door and pushed me inside.
I saw a secretary-like woman seated at a big black desk. She looked up at us as we approached, and the guard said, “Tell the Thorntons this one was snooping around too much on the tour. And she’s got weird make-up on her nose.”
The secretary picked up her desk phone while the guard pulled me into another room: a long fancy office containing an enormous desk and an enormous window with a view of the enormous grounds.
