Nightstalkers

by Bob Mayer

  “We don’t do medals,” Moms said, wiping sweat and dirt off her forehead with a formerly pristine white towel in the bathroom off the kitchen, then wrapping it around her neck to absorb the sweat that was still flowing despite the air conditioning. She slumped down in an armchair, promptly staining it with forest, golf course, and backhoe detritus. Nada walked over and knelt next to her. “You all right?”

  “We almost lost containment,” Moms said. “If it had taken out several more probes, the Wall would have been breached.”

  “It didn’t.”

  “We definitely lost concealment,” Moms said. “No way can Cleaner fix that golf course in time for the first foursome in the morning.”

  “He’s on top of it,” Nada said, explaining Cleaner’s plan.

  “What about all the explosions?” Moms asked. “We made a heck of a racket.”

  “Yeah,” Nada acknowledged. “Support says they logged eighty-six calls complaining about it so far.”

  “And?” Moms said.

  “Fourth of July,” Kirk said.

  Moms and Nada looked at him questionably.

  “Today’s the second,” Kirk said. “Announce to the inhabitants of Senators Club that the gala Fourth of July fireworks display won’t quite come off as planned as the contractors who were setting it up had a slight”—he paused—“large accident on the golf course.”

  Nada smiled. “Good. Call that in to Cleaner and Support.”

  There was a knock on the front door and Nada peered out the side window, then moved the piano out of the way. “Aren’t kids supposed to sleep in?” he asked as Scout blew into the house, full of energy, the polar opposite of the exhausted team.

  “Golf course renovation?” Scout said.

  “And a mishap for the planned Fourth of July celebration,” Kirk added.

  Scout sat at the kitchen bar and swung her legs back and forth. “The last one people might buy, but you’re hitting close to the heart around here with the first.”

  “Cleaner has just closed one of the holes,” Moms said. “They can, what do you call it, play around it?”

  “Don’t know,” Scout said. “I’ve never played golf. Seems terribly boring. Hitting a little ball into a tiny hole over long distances. Of course, basketball seems just as dumb, throwing a big ball through a big hole over shorter distances and slanted toward tall people. How fair is that? And don’t get me started on baseball. A no-hitter? So nothing happens and everyone gets excited? I don’t get it.”

  “Hockey?” Nada asked.

  As if taking that as some weird cue, Roland announced: “I’m hungry.”

  They all grabbed meals out of their rucksacks and “retired” to the library, where there was a large table they could all gather around.

  “Can they even see the puck from the stands?” Scout asked, following them and going back to hockey.

  “Any sport you do like?” Nada asked.

  “Cross-country equestrian,” Scout said. “Not dressage. Never dressage.”

  “Don’t like either,” Roland said as he ripped open a meal.

  “You don’t know what either are,” Nada said. “And I don’t either.”

  “Where’s the cute guy, Mac?” Scout asked.

  Moms sighed and quickly updated Scout on the Fun on the Golf Course. She related it just like she had to Ms. Jones as soon as they got back.

  Scout became still as Moms explained the battle. She concluded with the medevac by an MH-60 Black Hawk from the golf course.

  “Is Mac going to be all right?” Scout asked.

  “He’ll be fine,” Doc replied.

  “That’s wild. Killing a machine. Terminator-like.”

  “I’ll be back,” Roland said, another strange synapse in his brain firing. “This is a weird room,” he also noted.

  All the shelves were covered with individual glass doors. You had to lift one up to get at a book. Doc was walking around the room, checking out titles, while everyone else, except Scout and Nada, his meal unopened, was chowing down.

  “That don’t make sense,” Roland said, indicating the glass.

  Moms had a laptop open next to her meal and was typing up the AAR in between bites, because despite the verbal one to Ms. Jones, she always had to file a written one that would eventually end up in the binder for future Nightstalkers to read and aid them the next time a Firefly backhoe had to be taken down. “That’s to keep dust out,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Scout said. “Miss Lilith was a big fan of easy cleaning.”

  “She did her own cleaning?” Moms asked.

  “Nope, but it’s hard to hover over everyone on the cleaning team and make sure they do it exactly the way you want,” Scout said.

  Doc tapped one of the glass cases. “I think she was more a fan of keeping things behind glass. Did you notice her wedding dress on that mannequin upstairs in the closet in the big glass case?”

  “Almost shot it when I was clearing the place,” Roland noted.

  They all nodded, because each of them had also almost shot it when first walking into Lilith’s huge closet. It just wasn’t what they were used to, and they were really beginning to want to be back at the Ranch where things made sense and were practical. The library was fancy, but they preferred the Den and the stump of a tree they threw sharp objects at.

  Scout was eyeballing Doc. “What do you mean about keeping things behind glass?”

  Doc sat down at the end of the table and steepled his fingers, which everyone on the team knew meant another great theory was coming from the great doctor. At least Roland didn’t groan, but only because he was busy eating Nada’s ration, which the team sergeant had simply handed over when Roland finished his own and looked about, still hungry.

  “Well,” Doc said, “it’s obvious she likes stuff. She likes it because it’s her stuff. But she doesn’t like other people touching it.”

  Moms looked up from the laptop. “Actually, looks like she doesn’t even want to touch it herself.”

  Doc nodded. “True.”

  “What’s the point of having it then?” Scout asked. She grabbed Nada’s CamelBak and was taking a slurp out of it, which was rather outstanding that Nada let her take it, never mind let her drink from it, but she must have figured if Nada would give Roland his food, he wouldn’t mind. It appeared he didn’t.

  “It’s part of OCPD,” Doc said.

  “Huh?” Roland said with a mouthful.

  “Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,” Doc explained. “Not like flicking light switches on and off, but rather having to control everything around her.”

  “Sounds like Miss Lilith,” Scout said. “By the way, what happened to Miss Lilith?”

  Moms exchanged a glance with Nada. “She had a bit of a breakdown and is being looked after in a secure and very nice place.”

  “Huh.” Scout handed the CamelBak back to Nada and went over to one of the racks. She lifted the glass cover and tugged on a book about bird watching in Bolivia and the whole shelf of books moved easily forward. “These aren’t even real books!”

  “They don’t have to be real to others,” Doc said. “But they’re real to her.”

  “A nutter,” Roland said.

  “Just like my mom,” Scout said.

  “The one who died in the plane crash?” Roland said, feeling like he’d scored a good one.

  Scout ignored him.

  “What about your mother?” Nada asked.

  “Oh,” Scout said, “she’s in rehab. A different kind from Miss Lilith apparently.”

  “For real?” Nada asked.

  “For real.” Scout noted the concern in his voice. “Oh, not like a place for drugs or anything. She just doesn’t like to eat, so every few months she goes in and they stick some tubes in her to keep her running.”

  “That’s terrible,” Moms said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Scout shrugged. “It’s pretty normal around here. The only sin is to be fat.” She brightened. “My mom does have real
books with no glass, so that’s good, right?”

  “It is,” Nada said, trying to sound positive, which was stretching his limits.

  “This place is fucked up,” Roland said.

  “When did you notice?” Scout asked.

  “You have any friends?” Moms asked.

  “I got you guys,” Scout said.

  Everyone glanced at each other nervously.

  Scout shrugged. “I’m what you call antisocial.”

  “You’re not antisocial,” Doc said. “You wouldn’t have come to the door that first day if you were.”

  “My shrink says I am,” Scout said with a laugh.

  “He wouldn’t if you weren’t conning him,” Doc said.

  Scout gave an evil little grin. “Isn’t that what antisocial is?”

  “Antisocial is when you con yourself,” Doc said.

  Moms closed the computer lid and tossed the damp towel from around her neck onto the mahogany table.

  Scout snatched up the towel. “Miss Lilith would have a fit.”

  “See,” Doc said triumphantly, pointing with steepled fingers. “You have empathy for Miss Lilith’s table. Not antisocial. You’re smart and conscientious and trying to survive in what is an alien environment for your personality.”

  “More alien than ever,” Scout said as she folded the towel.

  Eagle came into the library, his tour on over-watch coming to an end.

  “And you’re resilient and can function under stress,” Doc added.

  “Well, don’t tell anyone,” Scout said. “I got a rep and I got to live here long after you guys are gone.”

  For a long moment everyone got quiet because there were no words to erase what to them was a brutal truth.

  “Roland, over-watch,” Nada finally said, because no matter how tired, how fried from action the team was, someone always had to provide security, and Roland would be good for several hours before he came down off the firefight high.

  Roland tossed the M-240 over one shoulder as if it were a broomstick and went up one of the two staircases. Which prompted Doc to start arguing with Eagle about which staircase actually was the most efficient to get upstairs to over-watch. Eagle won that one easily by pointing out it would be the one Roland hadn’t taken.

  Debbie Simmons woke to the sound of someone pounding on her door.

  She found a short terry cloth wrap she used for the complex pool and put it on. The last time she felt this bad it had involved tequila and a bachelorette party. She’d sworn off both after that night: tequila and brides, but unfortunately not vodka. She went to the door and peered through the peephole.

  Black suits, dark sunglasses, blank faces. Government, no doubt. Her stomach tightened.

  She opened the door, worried and feeling naked and realized that she practically was because the wrap usually covered at least a bikini and it was almost transparent. She couldn’t tell where the men were looking because of the sunglasses, but one of them brushed past her, grabbed an afghan off the back of a chair, and draped it over her shoulders.

  So they were looking, but they were gentlemen.

  “Debbie Simmons?” one of them asked, as if they might have come to the wrong apartment, but they had an air about them that indicated they didn’t make such mistakes.

  “Yes?”

  The man who’d asked flipped open a leather wallet briefly showing her a badge, then flipped it shut faster than she could read the ID card below it. “We’re with the government.”

  “Is it about the grant?” Simmons asked. A girl had to try.

  “No.”

  “Is it about that guy who picked up the hard drive?” A girl had to give up in the face of the inevitable.

  “Yes.”

  Holding the afghan tight around her, Simmons flopped down in a chair and pointed at the narrow couch. The two men sat in unison. They removed their sunglasses also in perfect unison, as if they practiced it. Simmons blinked, not sure she was seeing what she was seeing. The one who’d done the talking and flashed the badge had a solid black left eye, the socket surrounded by scar tissue. He must have been used to the surprise because he reached across his body with his right hand and tapped his left arm, making a metallic sound. “I got a deal on the prosthetics. Black was all they had in stock for the discounted eyes in the package deal.”

  Was that supposed to be funny? Simmons wondered.

  “So, Ms. Simmons—” Black Eye began, but she interrupted, trying to level the playing field.

  “Doctor Simmons.” She usually wasn’t a stickler on that, and technically it hadn’t gotten final approval from the board, but she was half-naked and had just woken up and had a wicked hangover. A person had to hold on to something because she knew this was going to get bad.

  Black Eye leaned forward, placing his hands, real and fake, on his knees. Shrink, Simmons thought. That was the universal empathy pose they used. He probably wasn’t even aware he was giving himself away with the movement. Simmons crossed her legs and tucked them underneath her in the chair, then crossed her arms, the universal I don’t want to talk about what you want to hear pose. She stared at him across a wilting hibiscus on the table. He seemed to read her as easily as she’d read him and leaned back on the couch. “Doctor Simmons, my name is Frasier, and good luck on final approval from the board. About the other day with the Courier picking up the hard drive? Can you tell me what happened?”

  She succinctly covered the encounter.

  The guy who wasn’t a shrink pulled out a small notepad and began writing. Simmons saw a big gun nestled in a shoulder holster and realized the notepad was a charade. He’d wanted her to see the gun. This was going to get very bad.

  “And your professor? When was the last time you saw her?” Frasier asked.

  “Four days ago. The dean says she’s on sabbatical.”

  The two men exchanged glances and Gun Guy wrote something in his notebook.

  “The professor’s report is incomplete,” Frasier said. “Do you know why?”

  She shook her head.

  Frasier got up and went to the sink and brought her a glass of water. She noted it was in his artificial hand, which seemed to be capable of full articulation. You had to look very hard to see it wasn’t real, so that was no yard sale on the prosthetics. She was pretty sure he did the eye for effect.

  He handed it to her. “What happened to the professor? She’s not on sabbatical.”

  Simmons drank some water and cleared her throat. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know why she scheduled the pickup for the drive a week early?”

  “No.”

  “Did she schedule it?” Frasier asked.

  Simmons squirmed in the chair. “No. When I found out she was gone, I followed the instructions in the binder. I scheduled it.”

  “Did you, Doctor Simmons?” Frasier asked, indicating he knew the story was incomplete.

  “Debbie.”

  He smiled and actually seemed like a human being for a moment. She noticed he had very nice teeth. Government health care wasn’t that shabby, was it? Then she looked at the eye and the arm and realized some of the government people really needed good health care given their job. She wanted to smile back but her gums ached, hell, even her teeth ached. Like she hadn’t flossed in three days. And she knew where this was heading.

  “Excuse me,” she said and ran to the bathroom. She heaved into the toilet.

  “You okay?” Frasier called out.

  She stood straight and washed her mouth out. She pulled the afghan tighter around her shoulders; this would all be so much easier if she hadn’t been naked at the start. She looked at herself in the mirror and started to laugh with a manic edge.

  “Simmons?”

  She realized she was losing it, so she took a towel and pressed it against her face. Slowed her breathing down. Got control. She walked back out. Frasier was standing near the door, a hint of concern on his face. Gun Guy looked like he could care less.

  “Pe
achy,” she said in a tone that indicated she was anything but.

  “Did someone visit the professor?” Frasier asked. “Wanting the hard drive?”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing,” Simmons said. “The professor didn’t give it to him.”

  “Not directly,” Frasier said. “We found the professor’s body last night. You might consider that a sabbatical.”

  Simmons ran to the bathroom again, heaving again, but there was nothing coming up.

  Frasier was standing in the door to the bathroom. “Was his face scarred?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s strange,” Frasier said. “He could have made you give him the hard drive, couldn’t he?”

  She could only nod.

  “Instead,” Frasier continued, “he told you to move up the pickup.”

  She nodded again.

  “And he paid you to do that, correct?”

  She started to shake her head, but Frasier reached out and grabbed her jaw. “Speak.” He let go of her. “I have to hear it.”

  Simmons licked her lips, swallowed, trying to get some moisture in her mouth. “Yes.”

  Frasier glanced over his shoulder at Gun Guy and she realized who was really in charge. Gun Guy cocked his head and looked at her and she got a cold chill and knew the gun wasn’t for show. He’d as soon shoot her as write a note in that pad.

  “Go sit back down, please,” Frasier said.

  She scooted past him, gripping the afghan tightly. She fell into the chair.

  Frasier sat on the couch next to Gun Guy. “Strange that he did that,” he repeated. “There is always a purpose to things. He could have done things so much more directly and simply if he’d wanted the drive. But he wanted a reaction.”

  Gun Guy finally spoke. “Your professor is dead. The Courier who picked up the drive is dead.”

  “An eighteen-year-old girl was used as bait to kill the Courier,” Frasier added. He sighed. “Few people realize how serious life is. How our decisions, no matter how trivial, can have the greatest consequences. But you got very drunk last night because on some level, you know you did the wrong thing. You knew the professor wasn’t on sabbatical. Your dean was covering for her while she was missing. And all of that would be fine, except you ultimately did it because he paid you.”