Something told him she wasn’t going to be easy to crush, human or not.
Safe house, fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung
His elbows were on the table, “Okay, if we’re going to be living in the same quarters, we need to agree on something.” Joel had been working his way up to talking about this, and there was no way of doing it without having a painfully embarrassing conversation.
“Okay,” said Molly slowly, before taking another bite of pizza. They’d picked it up from the next village rather than have their location compromised by giving their address to their local fast food place.
Joel was still feeling pretty smart about that.
“It’s just that…I, erm…Okay, so there’s no easy way to say this. The sex tapes, and the 4077. I just...I don’t want to have to come in here and find you doing the wild thing with some Estarian.” He slapped a hand down on the table and then pointed it in her direction. “Okay. There. I said it.”
Molly swallowed hard, trying not to choke on her pizza while covering her grin so as not to drop food out of her mouth.
“You’re serious?” She practically hooted with laughter as soon as she had emptied her mouth.
Taking a swig of beer, she turned her head so she could keep her eyes fixed on Joel in order to maximize his discomfort. For someone who was socially inept, Molly had picked up a trick or two along the way.
“So…you think I’m a party girl, do you?” she said finally, regaining her composure but still grinning.
“Erm…I wouldn’t say party girl…” Joel practically stammered. His cheeks were flushing a little, and it wasn’t on account of the two bottles of beer he’d downed before broaching the issue.
“Well, what then?” asked Molly, her face suddenly straight, pretending to be serious.
“Well, I just don’t want to be in that position. And what, with you being newly out of the military, and young, and gorgeous, I know it’s only a matter of time before you start hooking up with civilians.”
Molly stopped with the bottle halfway to her lips, suddenly looking at Joel in a new light. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
Eyes down, he got up from the table to grab another two bottles, taking the tops off with his hands. He placed one on the table in front of Molly and took a swig of the other before sitting back down. Still avoiding eye contact.
“Look, Joel…I’m not that wild. And I have no interest in hooking up. I’m a geek, remember? We just don’t do that kind of thing. And we have a mission now. An important one.” Her teasing voice from before seemed to slide into one that was concerned.
She was letting him off the hook. The girl might make a leader yet, he would think later when he replayed the conversation in his head.
She took another slice of pizza and folded it up on her plate. “Besides, that would be a total breach of security. If I were going to be bringing Estarians back for sex, we may as well have had our damn pizza delivered while we were at it.”
Her eyes twinkled as Joel finally decided to look up. She smiled directly at him, watching for the effect that it might have.
“Well…er…that’s okay, then,” he said gruffly, taking another swig and dropping his gaze back to his pizza again.
How he had gotten himself into this situation, he’d never know.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mac Kerr’s Office, Health Corp Building, Downtown Uptarlung
The Estarian was sitting behind his desk when the call came in. He paid the communications device no attention as he answered, “Yes?”
“We lost them, sir.”
Mac ground his teeth, got up from his desk, and swiped across the holo to jam the recording devices in his office.
He was getting tired of this bullshit.
“You had one simple task.” he attempted to keep the irritation out of his voice.
His attempt didn’t work.
“Sir, I know. But they just disappeared.”
“Which direction were they heading?” he asked, feeling a migraine approaching.
“They came out of your building, did a few loops around the town, and then headed west. We suspect their base is out that way somewhere. We’re closing in on them.”
The voice over the holo was trying to sound confident, but Mac had been running ops for some time. He’d survived on his instinct. And this time his instinct was telling him that they were dead in the water with this.
“Okay, bring your team back in. I’ll be in touch.”
This was what you got using Ogg teams for the task. They were all about following orders to a T. He’d need to find someone more creative to put onto this problem.
He walked back to his desk, swiped the holo call off, and closed the jamming patch.
Looking out of his floor-to-ceiling office window, he scanned the city beneath him as if that was going to somehow help him find Molly Bates and her new associate. He watched the streams of cars heading hither and thither on invisible trails. People going about their business. Their very existence and indifference to his problem felt like mockery.
And he didn’t like feeling mocked. Or threatened. Molly Bates may be safe from him for now, but eventually he’d find her.
Then he’d make her pay.
Safe house, fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung
“Hey!” Joel poked his head around the doorframe, then stood in the doorway and reached up to grab the top of the frame, showing off his rippling muscles.
“Hey, yourself,” responded Molly, barely looking up from her archaic handheld holo. She knew she must look like something from out of the old world with her external device, but that wasn’t her fault.
Since Oz the pain-in-the-ass AI had hijacked her military wristband holo, she had little scope to do anything on her own. He had taken up all the storage and processing capacity, and, via her bio-implants, taken up residence in some of her brain too. She would get around to doing something about that as soon as she could, if only to get her onboard holo storage back.
“So, erm…” Joel looked down at his feet and shuffled a little. “I’m going to hit the sack in a few.”
“Kay.” She didn’t look up at all. She was in full geek mode. Joel saw that and smiled.
He tried again.
“I’m glad we’re working together…”
“Me too.”
Realizing he was looking for something more, she looked up briefly. “You did a good job out there, Joel.”
She flushed, embarrassed at her lame-ass words. And not cottoning on to the fact he was trying to have a human conversation with her.
Then it was Joel’s turn to flush. “We make a good team.”
God, he wanted to kick himself. What the fuck was he? A high school kid with a crush? Normally he’d be… well, different. Why was this so hard? He dropped his arms and crossed them over his chest.
“You know…” he started. Molly asked him something at the same time.
“Sorry, you go,” she smiled.
“No, go ahead…” he pointed to her.
“I was going to ask how the search for Andus is going?”
He wanted to roll his eyes. Oh my fucking god, we’re flirting over work stuff. I’ve reached a new low. When did I lose my game? “Oh, yeah. Good. Well, not good. Nothing’s turned up with any of my contacts yet. I take it Oz hasn’t had any luck?”
“Nope. He can only access something if it’s in digital format and connected in some way to the XtraNET. These guys look like they’ve been careful. Andus must be pretty much off-grid.”
“Or using a different name,” volunteered Joel.
“Yes, we’d considered that. If your guys turn anything up, like a second name, or even a strand of DNA, then maybe we’ll have more luck with Oz.”
“Sure, I’ll keep you posted.”
Joel hesitated again, like he was going to say something else.
Molly had gone back to her holo research, very aware that Joel was still standing there but pretending to read her screen anywa
y.
“Whatcha looking at?” he asked after a moment of indecision.
“Researching possible operations ships. We’re going to have to get off-world soon. Very soon. I don’t think Mac or his evil Syndicate are going to let us just keep interfering. And I want to do lots more interfering. So we need a safe place to operate from.”
Joel frowned, “Wow. That was fast. I didn’t think we’d be leaving so soon.”
Her eyes danced over the data on her screen. “Oz doesn’t think that we’re going to be safe for much longer either, and you know, algorithms never lie.” She had a twinkle in her eye as she gently mocked the situation with her passenger and her own nerdiness.
She continued a moment later, “Not with the Syndicate and everything else that has gone on, and that’s not even taking into account the new cases we have coming in. He’s calculated a bunch of probabilities and scenarios using all that processing power he has. Some scenarios give us a month, but most only a couple of weeks before we’re found and taken out. We need a safe haven where no one will think to look for us.”
“And so we need a ship,” Joel said, starting to follow her logic.
“Exactly.”
Joel’s face lit up a little. “A ship with guns?”
You can take the man out of the military, but you can’t take the love of blowing shit up out of the man, thought Molly. “Preferably. Or if we can find one at the right price, maybe we can retrofit. We’re just looking into options right now.”
“We? You and…”
“Oz.”
“Right. Oz.” Joel took a couple of steps and perched on the foot of the bed next to Molly. “How mad is that? You have an AI tied into your holo. And your brain.”
“Yeah. Mad, or maddening,” agreed Molly.
I heard that!
You hear everything, Dickwad.
“Yeah…I just, I can’t wrap my brain around it.” Joel was still working to come to terms with the idea.
Well, that’s not unexpected.
Get back to your searching, or I will upgrade your name to ass-crack or something similar. And c’mon, cut out the snark. Joel’s a good man, and our only team member.
“Hey, you know what you could help with?” Molly looked up again from her browsing.
Joel smiled over at her. “Anything…”
“We’re going to need a pilot. And a really badass mechanic to keep this ship running. Someone ex-military. With experience. A variety of experiences. And someone who can adapt to the changing nature of our operation as we grow. Know of anyone?”
Joel thought for a moment before answering, “Not offhand, but I can start asking around.”
“That would be amaze-balls. Thanks, Joel.” Molly smiled encouragement, with a glimmer of flirtation.
Joel just looked at her, a little stunned. She totally knew the effect that was having on him. Fokk, this girl is ruthless.
He tried to slow his heartbeat back to normal, but it was so hard. He should go ahead and leave. Being here in her bedroom, his thoughts just got mangled. This was something he was going to have to manage carefully.
Then reality hit him through the onslaught of his mind’s hormonal shields: “How are we going to pay for all this?”
She cocked her head, “You mean the ship and the new team members? I have a plan.”
“Uh huh. Care to share with the rest of the group?” he replied as he pointed to himself.
She smirked, “It’s a very complicated plan, using the latest in AI research and, trust me, more than a shitload of computational power. Are you ready for this?”
He nodded, so she answered. “We’re just going to take on bigger clients,” she admitted.
Joel looked at her a moment, trying to figure out which part of that was true, and which part of that answer was false. He came to the conclusion the first part was her idea of a joke.
“Just like that then?” he harrumphed.
“Just like that,” she agreed.
Joel was stymied. Her logic was clear, simple, and pretty damned direct. Often he couldn’t tell if she was autistic or a genius.
It was like she had no anxiety around taking on a challenge and taking on even larger clients would be a challenge. She just did what needed to be done. It was always the same on operations, back when they were running the same missions. Sometimes he really envied that ability she had.
Other times it was damned annoying, if not intimidating.
“Okay, I’m going to hit the sack then.” He stood up and looked back at her.
“Night, Joel.” She told him.
“Night, Molly.”
He headed out of her room, and into his own. Closing his door behind him, he leaned against it. “Goddamn it, Joel. You’re such a drulludel” He cursed himself, gently banging his head so as not to make too much sound.
---
The safe house was all quiet, and Joel’s light had been off for hours. Molly was still filtering through ship specs.
As much as she’d always enjoyed her solitude in these wee hours, she was enjoying having Oz as company. Apart from anything, he was making the work go much faster. It was fun to cut out some of the mundane searching and just tell him what she needed.
Maybe she just liked the feeling of making progress more quickly, and it had nothing to do with the company. She’d always considered herself something of a lone wolf, so maybe it really was the faster progress that made the difference.
She set another search running, having adjusted the criteria to include the newer core fusion system and an operating system that was programmed in Estarian, rather than Ogg basic language, so she and the crew could actually understand the labels and directions on the ship. She hated not knowing which chain to pull for help and which to flush the toilet with when she traveled public air transport in Ogg.
She hit search, and then made a note to make sure that she procured other items they would need once they got to a base off-world. Furniture. Weapons. This was turning into one mammoth project. She was starting to gain a new appreciation for all the administration the military did.
She thought for a second she heard a noise somewhere in the house. She wasn’t sure, though. It might have been something in her auditory implant as she set the note to save. Plus she was tired.
She paused and waited, listening.
There was a noise again, like someone moved something in the kitchen. Stiffly, she put the holo to one side of the bed and wiggled off the mattress. She’d been sitting for too long with her legs crossed; she needed to give the blood time to run.
Picking up her weapon off the makeshift bed stand, she started creeping towards the bedroom door. She noticed she was only in her underwear and a t-shirt.
Oh well, maybe I can distract the intruder, she thought glibly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at herself.
She had been expecting Mac to send someone after her. It had been a few days since her appearance in his office, and she had threatened him. She knew at the time it was probably a bad idea, but if she hadn’t riled him up, they wouldn’t know about the Syndicate or his involvement in the political landscape of fuckery that was the Central Systems’ way of governing.
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