VirtuallyYours

by Caroline McCall

  “Karl has given them a list of people who weren’t on the base last week, so we’re free to go. Charley, we’re going to the Italian place for something to eat before Tanith goes back to the city. Would you like to join us?”

  She remembered their hungry kiss in the parking lot of the restaurant and the way that he had reached for her hand across the table. Was that only a week ago? Charley pleaded a headache and said that she wanted an early night.

  Outside, it was raining. Heavy drops pelted down, bouncing off the canopy over the door. Pete frowned at the leaden sky. “It looks like we’ll have to run for it.”

  She watched as they raced across the parking lot. Tanith clutched Pete’s arm, shrieking with laughter, as if she had never seen rain before. Charley headed back to her room, too sick to eat and too tired to cry.

  * * * * *

  Pete’s head was fuzzy when he woke. Damn, he had fallen asleep with a tech journal again. Tanith and her wedding plans had distracted him for a while, but now that she was gone, he couldn’t stop thinking about Charley.

  He made his way to the mess hall. He had just grabbed a coffee when one of Karl’s techies waved at him. “Pete, have you heard the news? The police have impounded Professor Liston’s terra-pod and Karl has called a meeting in the hangar, as soon as possible.”

  They hurried to the hangar. The techies weren’t used to anyone invading their domain and the law enforcement guys were bug-eyed when they saw the exterior of the ship. Charley sat alone in one corner. She didn’t look as if she’d had much sleep either. Karl had a furious glint in his eye as he called the meeting to order. This was not going to be fun. “Attention, everyone, settle down now, please.”

  The workers and crew fell silent and a man stepped forward. Pete recognized the type immediately. The captain was a backwoods cop who suddenly had a plum case landed in his fat lap. This was his opportunity to crow at the guys who lived on the base next door. Fleet Command would squash him like a fly.

  “Everyone, this is Captain Laffoy, he’s in charge of this investigation. His men will be taking further statements from those of you who were on the base on the night of the incident. Pete, Charley, you’re with me.”

  Karl ushered them into his office and slammed the door behind them. “This is a fucking disaster. Fleet Command will go crazy if this gets out.”

  Pete pulled out a chair and sat down next to Charley. “Calm down, Karl.”

  “How can I calm down? Captain Laffoy’s team found blood on Liston’s terra-pod. It matches the victim’s.”

  “Shit. What can we do?”

  Karl paced the room, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. “You’re the only members of the team who weren’t here that night. I need you to find Liston before they do.”

  “Wouldn’t that be interfering with the investigation?”

  “I don’t care,” he snapped. “Fleet Command wants Liston tried by a military court. He knows too much about their top-level projects to end up in an open prison.”

  Pete quashed a brief spasm of guilt about the dead girl. He hated to admit it, but Karl was right. Every terrorist and criminal gang in five galaxies would be aching to get their hands on Liston. If he was still alive, they had to find him first. “What if Liston has been taken by one of the crime lords? Sorza’s organization collapsed recently. They could do with the funds. Or maybe the Vashtar?”

  Karl frowned. “I hope not, Pete. Until we find out for sure, I want you to set up quarters on the Pegasus. It’s off limits to the police. I’ll see to it that you have access to all security camera data and everything I can get on Liston. And Pete, no one must know about this.”

  “Yes Sir.” Pete ushered Charley out of the office. “Pack your bag, Charley, we’re moving onto the ship.”

  It was eerily quiet on the Pegasus without the noise of the workers or the rest of the team. The ship had no crew quarters apart from stasis pods. They would have to set up camp in the coms room with air mattresses and thermo-blankets. Charley had barely spoken to him since he put their relationship on hold. He couldn’t understand it. What difference would a couple of months make? There had to be more to it than that. Living together on the ship, there would be nowhere for her to hide. They would have to talk.

  Charley eyed the makeshift beds on the floor with barely concealed disdain. “Which one is mine, Sir?”

  How was he supposed to work with her when she was acting like this? “This is important, Charley. But if you’d prefer to go back to Fleet Academy, feel free.”

  Pete threw himself into a chair and accessed the security file from the day of the accident, trying to figure out Liston’s movements.

  “I apologize, Sir.” Charley sniffed. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Ah hell,” he muttered under his breath. Charley had been acting weird all day, and now he had upset her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Please don’t go, Charley. I need you here, and stop calling me sir.”

  Charley drew a deep breath. This was it. Make or break time. She could walk out of here and give up her dream of having her own ship or she could get on with it. It was crazy to let her emotions get in the way. She took a seat at the console and opened the first security file.

  They were endless. There must have been more than a fifty workers on site that day. Karl wasn’t content with a digi-search, he wanted every frame examined. A genius like Liston could have found a way of getting around their security protocols. Charley reached the end of the file. Nothing. There was no record of Liston entering or leaving the base that day.

  Charley stretched her arms over her head. She felt stiff and her eyes were tired from looking at the flickering images. Pete was still engrossed with the screen. He needed a shave and his hair was sticking out. She resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it down. How could she still feel this way about him? As soon as this mission was over, she was never going to see him again.

  Chapter Five

  Pete stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “I’m tired. There’s nothing here. What about you?”

  Charley shook her head. Dinner from the mess had been lukewarm by the time it reached them. Pete had eaten while he worked and they had hardly exchanged more than a few sentences all evening. She used the tiny bathroom off the coms room to change for bed. Why hadn’t she brought something else to wear? The tunic barely covered her butt. She could feel Pete’s eyes on her as she came back into the room and crawled under the thermo-blanket.

  They were still working on installing environmental controls in the temporary coms room and it would get cold in here later. Charley lay on her makeshift bed and stared at the unfinished ceiling. Tears pricked behind her eyelids. She might have to work with Pete, but she couldn’t spend the night lying beside him, pretending that nothing had happened. Picking up her thermo-blanket, she headed for the bridge.

  Charley eased into the chair and pulled the silvery blanket around her. This was much more comfortable. Maybe she could talk to Marc for a while. She drew the visor over her face and initiated the Array. There was no sign of Marc. That was strange. Usually he appeared within moments of her arrival, but tonight he was silent. Maybe he was offline? She was about to run a diagnostic program when he appeared. “Hi, Marc, I thought you were offline. What were you doing?”

  Marc ignored her question. “Your eyes, Charley. Were you injured?”

  His fingers reached out and he stroked her cheekbone. His small gesture of concern made her eyes well up. When a tear ran down her face and dropped onto his hand, he raised his finger to his mouth and tasted it. “A saline solution containing vitamins, minerals and lysozymes—you are crying, Charley. May I observe? I understand the mechanics, but not the emotional trauma which usually provokes such an event.”

  Charley didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She really missed Misha for times like this. “It’s nothing, Marc, just man trouble. I’ve broken up with someone. Well, actually, he dumped me.”

  “If you are sad, Cha
rley, perhaps you should speak with a friend.”

  Charley shook her head. There was no point in calling Misha. She was probably out partying or on a date, and she couldn’t call her mom again.

  “If no one else is available, Charley, I will be your friend. Now you must tell me everything about the amorous rodent and I will respond with sympathetic platitudes.”

  “It’s love rat—not amorous rodent.” Charley gave a very unladylike snort of laughter, and once she started, she found that she couldn’t stop. Marc’s bewildered expression only made her worse. She laughed until she had a stitch in her side. Poor Marc, he must think that all humans were crazy.

  “I’m sorry for laughing, Marc. Thank you. You’ve made me feel a lot better.”

  On impulse, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Marc’s arms hung awkwardly at his sides. Then he raised one hand slowly until it rested on her waist.

  “You are welcome, Charley. However, I will need to replay this interaction again. It was most puzzling.”

  “I’ll leave you to it. ‘Night, Marc.”

  “Good night, Charley.”

  Pete had hoped that she would be asleep when he returned to the coms room, but her bed was empty and her blanket was gone. He made his way to the bridge. Charley was connected to the Array. The audio channel was still switched on and he could hear her laughing. As if it had cracked a joke or something. When she said goodnight, her voice was tender, almost affectionate. He stepped silently out of the room and made his way back to bed. For the first time in his life he was jealous of a machine.

  Hours later, he rolled over again. He had hardly slept a wink and Charley’s bed was still empty. She hadn’t returned. He heard footsteps outside and caught the aroma of fresh coffee. She had been to the mess hall.

  “I brought you some breakfast.” Charley busied herself pouring coffee and settled down to work.

  By the time he returned from the shower, she was already engrossed in another security file. Great—it was going to be another day of her barely speaking to him. Pete bit into a bread roll, took a swig of coffee and opened another file. It looked exactly like the one from last night.

  “Oh you idiot, Olafson,” he muttered.

  He grabbed the previous file and started to run it on another com until both files were synchronized. There. At precisely 20:18 on both nights the same three men entered the base. They were wearing raingear in both shots, but it hadn’t been raining the second night. Charley watched the screen display over his shoulder. There was no doubt about it. Part of the file had been altered.

  “Well, at least we know when Liston came back to the base. But how come no one has seen him since then?”

  Pete scratched his head. “I don’t know, Charley. I’ll run a utility to see if we can trace duplicate facial frames within different files over the last month.”

  “But that will take hours.”

  “Yep, but it gives us plenty of time to go on a road trip. How would you like to visit a real top-level facility?”

  Sunday morning traffic was light, and Pete took the opportunity to ignore the speed limit on the highway. Charley’s arms were wrapped around him again. Either she was terrified of his driving or she had forgiven him for breaking up with her. He slowed down when they reached the outskirts of the forest and turned onto a narrow road.

  To the casual observer, the anonymous complex looked like a storage facility, but security kicked into action as soon as they approached the gates. When they showed ID, they were ushered into a single-story building where a white-coated attendant was waiting.

  “Remove all clothing and items of jewelry and lie on the scanner, please. If you are tech-enhanced or have implants, please let me know now so that the machine can be recalibrated.”

  Pete tried not to grin. She would have to do a lot of recalibrating to cope with him. He approached the desk slowly. Her bored glance raked him up and down and she reached for a digi-pen. “Tech-enhanced or implants?”

  “Tech-enhanced,” Pete responded. “Right arm, upper and lower.”

  The attendant began to take notes.

  “Left arm, upper and lower.”

  She scribbled furiously in the margin, trying to keep up with him.

  “Both legs.” Pete was starting to enjoy himself now. “Right eye,” he continued.

  She stopped writing and stared at him. “Anything else?”

  “No. That just about covers it.”

  The bored expression was gone. “Which one are you?”

  “Pete Olafson, Ma’am.”

  The attendant shook her head. “Who said that Sundays were quiet? Go through, please.”

  Pete just had time to see Charley’s open-mouthed stare before the door closed behind him. He headed for the mess hall and drank some grainy coffee while he waited. It was forty minutes before Charley came through. Her expression was half awe, half annoyance.

  “You should have told me.”

  Pete drained the last of his coffee. “I don’t usually have that conversation with a woman until the third date.”

  Charley’s face flushed. Damn, that was a stupid thing to say. They’d had two dates before things went bad.

  “So what are we doing here?”

  “Welcome to Base Ten, Charley. All Fleet Command secure site backups are saved to a remote location and this is as remote as you’re going to get.”

  Of all the insufferable, arrogant techies. She had been terrified on the bike. Then she had to strip naked for that horrible woman in security, and all the while he got to sit in the mess hall drinking coffee. She was going to kill him later. But first, they had to find out about Liston.

  Charley sat in front of the screen and downloaded the first file. The hours dragged by as she watched workers entering and leaving the base. Karl Hays drove through the gates, and returned a short while later. She could see takeaway food cartons on the passenger seat. A lean gray-haired man left the base shortly after one o’clock. Liston. Her heart thumped. “Pete, I think I have him.”

  They searched through the images from the security files, until at precisely 20:18 Liston’s vehicle returned to the base. His head was down, as if trying to avoid looking at the cameras, and he was waved through by security.

  “Good work, Charley. I’ll see if I can get access to Liston’s personal com records.”

  Dinner consisted of food from the mess, but at least it was hot. Pete went through the rest of the security files while Charley checked Liston’s private com records. Most of the coms were to other scientists back at the base and quite a few were to Fleet Command headquarters. Some didn’t answer when she called. One number appeared with clockwork regularity. Charley patched a com through. It was almost 22:00 hours. Maybe they wouldn’t answer.

  “Grayport Medi-Care Facility, how can I help you?”

  “Oh. Hi,” Charley stammered, unsure what to say. “I want to check the status of a patient.”

  “Surname please?”

  Charley hesitated for a second. “Liston.”

  “Putting you through to Neuro Unit One, Ma’am.”

  The line went quiet for a moment and Charley waved frantically at Pete. Could Liston be hiding out in a medi-facility? Grayport was only an hour away from the base. “Hi, I want to check the status of a patient called Liston.”

  “Are you a relative, Ma’am?”

  “Yes, I’m Charley Maxwell, a cousin,” she lied. “I’ve been off-world for a while and I’m just checking in.”

  “I’m afraid he’s still the same. The doctor isn’t here right now. He could probably give you more information, but the patient is still unconscious. The last procedure didn’t work. I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Charley whispered. “Can I visit him?”

  “Of course, Ms. Maxwell. They say that he’s not aware of anything, but I don’t agree. I make sure that his nurses talk to him every day, and I could swear that he listens.”

  “That’s very kind of you. I’ll try to
visit him tomorrow.”

  * * * * *

  The grounds of the care facility were neatly manicured. Charley climbed off the bike and removed her helmet. She didn’t want to do this. It was one thing to help find a man who had killed a girl, it was quite another to visit someone she didn’t know and pretend that she cared about them. They followed the signs for Neuro Unit One and went inside. A blue uniformed nurse greeted them.

  “We’re here to visit a patient. His name is Liston.”

  “This way, please.”

  The corridor was silent, except for the regular hiss and beep of ventilating machines. Through the open doors, Charley could see the patients attached to life support units. Some had flowers and cards on the tables beside their beds, as if they might wake up and see them. In one room, a fair-haired boy slept next to a tattered blue teddy bear. Charley wanted to cry. All of them were coma patients.

  “Here we are,” The nurse ushered them into a room at the end of the corridor. “If you need anything, I’ll be at the nurses’ station down the hall.”

  Unlike the other rooms, this one was empty of personal touches. It was anonymous, sterile. The blinds were drawn to keep out the morning sun. Charley approached the bed. The bandages on his head were evidence of a recent surgical procedure. His eyes were closed, but she knew that if he opened them, they would be dark brown. She pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down heavily. Reaching out, she picked up the resting hand and brought it to her face. He felt warm, alive. She knew that hand, knew how those fingers could interlink quietly with her own.

  Pete rested his hand on her shoulder “Are you okay, Charley?”

  She shook her head wordlessly. Dear God, what has Liston done?

  In the absence of the next of kin, the facility administrator refused to give them access to his medical files. Through the glass door of the office, Charley watched as Pete paced the corridor outside. From the occasional overheard word, she knew he was speaking to Karl Hayes. Eventually, the door opened. “Fleet Command will have a court order within the hour. We’ll see the files then.”