Fontanas Trouble

by T C Archer

  Fontana remained motionless, thrilled by the feel of his groin spooning her buttocks, and his quiet cock, still full, inside her. His arms tightened around her, and her insides melted when he pressed a warm kiss to her shoulder.

  “You’re wonderful,” he breathed into her hair.

  An unexpected vision rose of waking up next to him tomorrow morning, then the next morning…and the next. A lump rose in her throat. Four days on the fantasy planet, and she’d become delusional. She could no more form a lasting relationship with Brent than she could forget that she was there to hide from the cartel and get over Jenny’s death, all in ten days’ time—and she had to find out what the Corps didn’t seem to care about: what Gaelen Castor had beamed off Rigil IV. Brent was a wonderful diversion, but that was all he was, a diversion.

  Brent gave her a squeeze and pulled back. His cock slipped from her channel. He turned her to face him and braced his arms on each side of her against the pool edge. Fontana traced a finger down his chin. Surprise flickered in his gaze, and she realized the foolishness of her action. She drew back her hand, but he grasped it and pressed a kiss to her palm.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from.” His eyes darkened, and Fontana was surprised at the desire that fluttered in her belly. What would it take to get enough of him?

  He reached for the edge of the pool, hoisted himself up, and spun himself around to a sitting position on the ledge, his legs in the water. Naked and glistening in the soft light, he did look like a Roman god.

  Fontana turned and folded her arms on the pool’s edge. “We’ve got the bath for another hour.”

  “Just enough time to get warmed up again.” Light glinted off his eyes. “I could take you somewhere, and we could try something a little different.”

  Fontana blinked. “Something different?”

  A communicator chortled in the dressing room, sounding like something from an old James Bond movie—a low tone, then one high, and two low.

  Brent jumped up. “That’s for me.” He hurried into his dressing room. The sound cut off midtone, and his low murmur filtered out to her. Fontana hoisted herself out of the water and grabbed one of the snow-white towels from the table beside the pillows.

  A moment later, he walked back in. “That was my agent.” Brent held up a wristwatch that probably doubled as a radio. “I have to get those access codes, or the station will fall into the sun.”

  Fontana paused in drying her arms. “The station will fall into the sun?” Laughter bubbled up. “You’re supposed to save the station from annihilation?”

  He grinned. “I can cancel, and we can spend our last days here in the Roman baths in each other’s arms.”

  She could easily envision spending days in his arms. “This is the fantasy that had you running naked in public?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I slipped Eslanotine into Janice’s champagne and pretended to seduce her.”

  “Janice?” Fontana interrupted.

  “The Lauren Bacall look-alike. She was supposed to fall asleep; then I planned to break into the safe behind the painting in her bedroom.”

  Fontana tried not to smile. Could this get anymore cliché? “So what happened?”

  A sheepish grin lifted his mouth. “She must have switched the champagne. I passed out. When I woke up, I was naked, and the authorities were in the next room.”

  “What does your agent suggest you do now? Drugging her drink won’t work any better the second time than it did the first.” Fontana tossed him the towel.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” he said. “The computer codes to stop the override aren’t in Janice’s bedroom safe anymore. Actually, it was her husband’s bedroom. He moved the codes. I have to break into his hideout, neutralize his bodyguards, and steal the codes before midnight tomorrow.”

  “I guess that means no troopers or sentry robots will be after you until then,” Fontana said.

  “No. My agent wiped the records.” Brent toweled off.

  “No running naked in public?” She lifted a brow. “What will you do with all your spare time?”

  “Plan the operation.”

  She bit back a laugh at the serious note in his voice.

  “You could help me,” he said. “With your expertise, we’re sure to save the station.”

  She snorted. “I suspect Sagitariun will still be here tomorrow.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, amusement back in his voice, “but the fantasy would be a lot more fun with you. I won’t tell anyone, and it won’t cost you extra.”

  Fontana started to refuse, then paused. If the Corps were watching her, or even if the cartel discovered her whereabouts, she would want them to believe she was enjoying a real vacation. Not to mention, Fontana didn’t like the fact that Janice—the Lauren Bacall look-alike—had been in the same remote part of the station they currently were in, or that strange flash of anger on her face when Brent had brushed her off in favor of Fontana. Joining in on Brent’s fantasy –- an affair with him –- was the perfect cover.

  * * * *

  Fontana shifted on the hotel bathroom toilet seat as she studied the screen on her subspace videophone. Dawn had only begun its crawl across the streets an hour ago when she’d slipped from the bed where Brent still slept. They had fallen asleep at three in the morning, and he hadn’t stirred since.

  As hoped, the New Kenyian had sent information on the freighter. His source reported the freighter had been carrying PAs, or photonic activators. Fontana’s jaw tensed. Who had the freighter captain paid off to get PAs past inspection? That had taken serious funds. By themselves, PAs were harmless. But customs had to know that when combined with Poincaré crystals, it created a near infinite source of energy using the zero-point state of the quantum vacuum.

  Poincaré crystals were extremely rare. She didn’t have to ask where they planned on getting them. Jenny had been working on Poincaré crystals on Rigil IV. But no one was supposed to know that was part of her research. Someone had leaked the information to Gaelen Castor.

  Anger rose, but Fontana concentrated on the message. She now knew what Castor had wanted on Rigil IV. But the crystals couldn’t be what he’d beamed off the planet in those last seconds before his warehouse exploded—the substance wouldn’t have gotten past the security filters.

  And what about the freighter's shipment? Had they set out before or after the Corps had captured Gaelen? How did the Track Cartel plan to get the crystals? All cartel members on Rigil IV had been arrested, and nothing had left the planet since then. Fontana stilled. Except the S-warp drone with Jenny’s body.

  Her heart sped up. It wasn’t possible. Fontana’s stomach turned. Surely even Gaelen Castor wasn’t such a monster as to murder a woman in order to use her coffin as a way to smuggle contraband off a planet. Was he?

  Chapter Eight

  At 9:15 that night, Fontana stood shoulder to shoulder with Brent in a dark alley in Sagitariun’s section of the 1920s replica of Chicago, their backs pressed against a building with a brick facade seven stories high. Imitation moonlight illuminated wooden crates and steel trash cans outside the back doors of the ground-level businesses. An occasional scrap of simulated newsprint drifted in the breeze. A horn blasted, and Fontana jerked her gaze to the Ford Model A that dodged a pedestrian cutting across the street. She hadn’t been to this part of Sagitariun and found it oddly attractive. Rick’s Morocco had a civilized veneer that was absent here.

  Brent’s instructions said the crime kingpin Jimmy the Bull had the abort key, a data file Brent needed. Jimmy’s office sat across the street in the back room of Eastside Billiards. Fontana had located a rough floor plan for the building on the resort’s help system. The layout was simple. Like many speakeasies, this one had been a bar before Prohibition, but the bar area now served as a pillbox for Jimmy’s henchmen.

  “You think we cased the joint good enough from the cab earlier?” Brent asked.

  Fontana bit back a laugh at his attempt at 1920s mobster v
ernacular.

  “The guy with the Tommy gun could be a problem.” He stared at the man outside the pool hall.

  Yellow light from the streetlight streamed down on the guard who leaned against the brick beside the front door, the early twentieth-century submachine gun hugged against his body like a lover. The report from Brent’s agent had stated that Jimmy kept two bodyguards close. But it wasn’t the guards that concerned her.

  “The people playing pool could be a problem.” She’d noted the half-dozen players through the front windows when they’d passed by in the cab. “If they get in the way, we’ll have to abort the operation.”

  Brent turned his head toward her, an odd look on his face, and Fontana realized her words abort the operation had caught his attention. This was a fantasy, not an operation, and casualties weren’t a possibility.

  She grinned. “What do you think; can we beat the system and finish your fantasy ahead of time?”

  A smile spread across his face. “Hell, yes!”

  “They’ve got a couple more customers.” She nodded at the man and woman entering through the front door.

  In the hour since they’d watched the building, they’d observed guests coming and going, headed for the speakeasy in the back of the building. She and Brent wore loose brown suits, white shirts, and thin neckties. Had this been a real operation, she would have been properly outfitted, have complete intel on the building and Jimmy’s operation, and possibly have had backup and extraction arranged. At minimum, she would be wearing Nylene body armor, a formfitting bodysuit that wouldn’t stop a bullet but was effective against slow-moving projectiles like knives and flying glass.

  She had no access to equipment or weapons here at the resort. Nothing more dangerous than a table knife could be had. But that was also the case for the Bull as well as the guard carrying the wicked-looking Tommy gun. Their guns—props—only looked real. Fontana again shifted her attention onto the guard. Unlike the inconspicuous modern handheld weapons, the submachine gun looked every bit an instrument of death. She wouldn’t want to face the primitive weapon if it was real.

  As part of Brent’s cover, his agent had given him a pool cue that unscrewed into two pieces and rested inside the case he’d set on the ground beside him. She and Brent had agreed that he would leave the cue here, and Fontana would use the thick, heavy end as a weapon.

  “If we get in and out without any trouble, the people in the back room won’t be aware anything’s going on,” she said. “We can retrieve the key and be out of here before they report to Sagitariun that it was stolen. You know your part?”

  “I get a game of pool going, then start a fight with the thugs that keeps them busy.”

  Fontana would enter through the alley and surprise the actors inside, who wouldn’t expect him to have an accomplice. She would force Jimmy and his gang to retreat so Brent could retrieve the code from the safe. She was almost giddy. What would the resort do when Brent solved his fantasy well in advance of their schedule? The fantasy adventure games were designed to be unsolvable until the very last hour. Many guests finished their quest in the last few seconds and ended up rushing to catch their departing ship or missing it altogether and taking another flight. That was considered a successful fantasy. If she and Brent beat the computers, the planners might have a nervous breakdown.

  The prospect of blowing off steam with some hard play had her blood pumping. She hadn’t played war games since her days at the academy. This was a damned good distraction. Fontana shifted her gaze to Brent. He stared at the building, oblivious to her interest.

  The only better distraction was having his cock inside her—or hers inside him. The thought of repeating their experience at the Roman baths sent a frisson of desire through her—just as seeing the way his broad shoulders filled out the brown suit did. The white collar of his shirt hugged his tanned neck like a silk manacle. Fontana leaned the few centimeters toward his ear and drew in a deep breath of his scent. His head swiveled in her direction. His eyes lay in shadow, but she recognized the sudden tensing of his body as both surprise and desire. She’d give him a little distraction.

  She again brought her mouth to his ear and brushed his skin with her lips as she whispered, “See the window up there?” The shudder she felt in his body sent a jolt straight between her legs. Yep, this was the way to play war games. “The window,” she repeated and pointed at the side of Jimmy’s building facing the alley.

  He looked toward the building. “The window with the sash propped up with the piece of wood?”

  “I’m not positive what room it is,” she said. “The plans weren’t detailed—but it’s close to Jimmy’s office.”

  “The window is three centimeters from the ground,” he said. “Can you get up there?”

  “One of those crates over there will hold my weight. You ready?”

  He looked at her, and a corner of his mouth curved upward. “I’ve never walked in the front door when trying to break into a place.”

  “The best defense is a good offense. I’ll wait two minutes, then go in. You sure you can handle those boys?”

  His smile widened. “Somebody’s got to save this space station.”

  She laughed. He dropped a kiss on her mouth, then sauntered across the street and into the vulture’s den. She watched him through the plate-glass window. The men inside turned as he entered. He strolled up to the bar and said something to the two men behind the counter. The men looked at each other, and the taller man—he stood two meters tall and skinny as a laser beam—raised his chin and answered. Brent stepped to the side out of view. She would love to watch him in action. Better yet, drag him back out here and straddle him right there in the alley.

  What would he have done if she’d shoved him against the wall and impaled herself on his cock? She recalled the thick rod inside her ass, and a shiver slid down her spine. The man wasn’t shy. She was half-surprised he hadn’t fucked her in the alley. Maybe when they got the codes from Jimmy, they could stop to finish what they’d started that first day outside Spacer Jack’s.

  Brent’s two minutes were up. He still stood talking to the men. Fontana retrieved the heavy end of the pool cue from its case and stuffed it into her waistband at her back. She fitted her jacket over the cue as she shifted her attention to the guard. His gaze was straight ahead. She slipped from the alley, walked up the sidewalk a few meters, then dashed across the street between traffic. The guard gave no indication he’d noticed her, and she ducked into the alley beside Eastside Billiards.

  She slid a crate under the window and piled a second smaller one on top, then climbed up. Her fingertips just reached the windowsill. From her vantage point, the only thing visible inside the room was a white ceiling. Fontana jumped up and latched on to the windowsill and started to pull herself up. A globe light fixture came into view, then a black-and-white-checkered tile wall opposite the window. A tile wall meant a washroom. A men’s restroom, she realized once the stalls and porcelain urinals came into view. Who would be expecting a trained woman to attack from the men’s bathroom? That should send the actors running for their mamas. From her vantage point, she couldn’t tell if any of the stalls were occupied.

  Fontana heaved herself over the sill, threw one leg through the opening, then pulled the other leg over as she touched down inside. Three stalls stood on the left, and sinks jutted from the wall on the right. Straight ahead on the opposite wall hung two urinals separated by partitions and the entrance door. She squatted to look under the stall doors into the toilets. Empty. She strode to the entrance and eased the door open a crack. To the left, the hallway led to the poolroom, where one of the pool tables was in sight.

  Brent’s voice drifted down the hall. “How about you? You think you can kick my ass?”

  Fontana grimaced. If he wasn’t careful, those men would strip him and send him running, an element that seemed to be the theme of his fantasy.

  “I’ll take you on,” said a man with a gravelly voice, followed by the
sound of crumpling paper.

  “All you mugs are witnesses.”

  Fontana chuckled. Brent had watched too many old movies.

  “One hundred bucks.” Brent stepped into view as he crossed to the cue rack on the wall. He selected a cue, sighted along its length, and inspected the tip like a pro. “I’ll break.”

  “No,” said Mr. Gravelly Voice. “We lag for break.”

  Brent turned. “What’s that?”

  Raucous laughter broke out, and someone said, “You have a pigeon, Mac.”

  “Go ahead, you break, then,” Brent said.

  Fontana needed to get a look at the hallway to the right. Jimmy’s office had to be in that direction, but she would have to open the door wider and expose herself to anyone who moved into the line of sight from the poolroom or any guards lounging at the end of the hall.

  A crack of colliding balls indicated the game had started. She eased open the door and peeked around the doorjamb. No guards stood in the hall at any of the three doors right outside the men’s room: one to her right, one on her left, and one straight ahead. She frowned. Those three rooms weren’t on the plans. But then, the men’s restroom hadn’t been either. She guessed the room beside the men’s room had to be the ladies’ room, and the one on the left was probably a storage closet. She hoped she was right. If she got them caught, Brent would never let her live it down.

  Fontana glanced toward the poolroom to find no one in her line of sight, then hurried to the door at the end of the hall. She turned the handle and stepped inside.

  Jimmy the Bull looked up from behind a wide desk that was neat enough to belong to a corporate executive. A banker’s lamp with a green shade sat in the right-hand corner, and a twenties-style telephone lay beside it, along with a cigar box and ashtray—all of which she recognized from watching old movies. Sitting on the left side of the desk was a pair of dice and something with a dozen buttons and a lever with a handle sticking out the side.