Jezebel's Ladder

by Scott Rhine

  Tan folded his arms tightly against his chest as he relived his old injuries. “When we finally arrived, the clinic is closed. Been closed all day. Police very busy. Mister Ben would not give up. He convinced police to give us ride to the city. Offer to let them lock him up. I sing to Mali the whole drive our mother’s favorite song.”

  Tan wept openly.

  Jez stepped in. “It was too late for her. Somebody contacted the movie company and money made everything go away.”

  Tan nodded. “But not Mister Ben. He stayed for six months, raising enough donations to keep the clinic open always. He started a new charity and collected enough to give each village a phone. Even this was not enough. When his visa expired, he came back here to get bigger donations, to make real change. Mister Ben offered me his home because he destroyed mine. I tell him…I told him that I only stay here as his friend.”

  Placing her hand on his shoulder, Jez said, “Friends like you are hard to find, Tan. Thank you, for forgiving him and for sharing your pain with me.”

  When Jezebel found Benny, he was on his computer in the study, drafting his resignation letter from the hospital charity he had helped to found. When he noticed her arrival, he said with mild surprise, “You’re still here.”

  She placed herself between him and the screen. “You’re not going to need that letter.”

  Benny said, “Fortune has the tox results from the hospital. I demanded they do a blood test on me. The results didn’t come back till after all charges were dropped, but the doctor still saved them. I was over the legal blood-alcohol limit.”

  Jez nodded, “Mea maxima culpa. Those prisons aren’t very friendly. And Tan seems to think you’re doing a lot more good out here.”

  When he started to object, she placed a finger on his lips. “You’ve risked yourself for me twice now. I’m standing by you this time, and you’re not going to stop me.”

  Reaching under her shirt, she said, “I’m going to share something with you this afternoon I’ve only showed to one other man.” When his eyes got big, she hastily amended, “Relax, this isn’t a pass. When I make a pass, you’ll know.”

  Jez pulled out her golden butterfly and held the back side up in front of his face. “Take a quick look, but don’t touch.”

  Math symbols danced across the surface. He covered his eyes, “Holy Mother, you’ve had a page the whole time?”

  “I covered the front in eight dollars worth of gold leaf, but left the back bare to give me direct skin contact. Nobody searched me on intake. The nurses removed it before you met me. Direct contact with this page is why I can see Daniel. I think you’d call it Quantum Computing. Chance and I used it to design some cutting-edge illusions. Nobody could figure them out. As long as no one else was looking, he could even do tricks like making all the traffic lights green. I never got that good, but in combination with group think, I was able to guess Fortune’s password and change it.”

  “That means you have three pages!” His face lit up.

  She shook her head. “Today I made four. That makes me Queen of the Hill. I’m willing to keep that a secret if Fortune meets our demands. Though you’re going to have to handle negotiations because I don’t think I can lie anymore, not even a shade.”

  Benny raised an eyebrow.

  She sighed. “The ‘blank’ page is Ethical Geometry. Once it starts reformatting your brain, you can’t violate the rules.”

  Benny laughed so hard that Tan came in. Seeing the two standing so close, he pulled the door shut on his way out.

  She continued. “I still want to acquire the envoy, but I’ll do the sales pitch myself. I want him to work on a moral code for the whole project, everyone with pages, really.”

  “You continually amaze me, but as long as you get results, Fortune won’t care.”

  She stepped away and held up a hand. “I don’t know that I can keep this level up for long. I might be able to swing one per month, some of them just paragraphs.”

  He was still smiling. “All good.”

  Jez sighed. “Not fast enough. Here’s the last thing, the part you’re not going to like.” After Benny sat back down to brace himself, she continued, “Once a person gets enough pages, the document speaks to them like some kind of artificial intelligence. I think it’s sort of like holographic storage when you assemble enough pieces.” She described Sensei to him.

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  Jez snorted. “Other than them throwing me in with the Zombie Master because of my hallucinations? The Fossils have enough pages to do this already. What if one of them tries what I did? They might use it get to the top of the Ladder first. You really don’t want Wannamaker to get that particular set of master keys.”

  “So now there’s a fuse?” he said.

  Jez nodded.

  “We can make that work for us. I’ll take care of Dirt Bag,” Benny said. “Thank you, for everything.” After a beat, he asked, “Why didn’t you show me earlier?”

  Jez smiled. “I had to trust you with my life first. Besides, it’s the only part of Chance I still have. I didn’t want to lose that, too.”

  He hugged her close for several minutes. When the phone rang, it jolted him out of his reverie. He said, “Fortune, right on cue.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow your shower,” Jez said.

  Benny said, “Fine. Sorry I don’t have any women’s clothes for you to change into.”

  On her way out, she said, “That’s okay; I’m not wearing any underwear right now.”

  He dropped the phone, but managed to pick it up again without too much fuss.

  Chapter 12 – The Way We Do Business

  Jezebel was able to return to her corporate apartment that night as the official head of Eye Corps. The next morning, dressed and rested for the event, she met with the other department heads. First, Jez handed Crusader the contact information from the woman at Spago, along with her description. “At least one team has been following Benny. I spotted the car on the way to lunch yesterday. This woman was too friendly.”

  Benny blinked, unaware that he had people after him or that Jez had noticed.

  Crusader grudgingly admitted, “Good catch. We’ll run this down, but if they had tried a kidnapping, you would have been helpless. You shouldn’t be in the field until you’ve been certified in self-defense.”

  Jez grimaced. “I can’t cut back my time in the field. We filter out half of our nightly missions that way.”

  Crusader said, “Then one of my agents has to accompany you at all times until I’m satisfied that you can take down a two-man Rex team.”

  “Seconded,” Benny said.

  Jez looked over the schedule on her phone. “I have an hour and a half I use every day to work out. That slot will be reserved for physical training till you tell me otherwise, but my kids come too.”

  Crusader balked. “I like Flakes. She has spunk and she’s sneaky. But I don’t know about Oobie. It’s hard to fight from a chair.”

  Jez said, “He’s got great arm strength, and no one would expect him to fight back. Work with that. The Project doesn’t succeed if my people die.”

  With a silent glance at Fortune for confirmation, Crusader agreed. “We’ll start after this meeting.”

  “Any other changes?” the London chief asked.

  Without padding for egos, Jez said, “We have to change your screening procedures. Now that we know what categories the pages fall into, I need Dirt Bag’s team to concentrate on Life Sciences and Buddy to concentrate on Space Fundamentals.”

  “That’s not how we do things!” Fortune erupted from the TV screen at the head of the table.

  “This is the only way we can beat the competition,” insisted Jez.

  “We don’t know that this cockamamie, three-part theory of yours holds any water,” complained the big boss.

  Jez remained calm. “Then give me six months. If I can’t prove the effectiveness of the new model in that amount of time, I’ll ste
p down. But you have to commit to it 100 percent, or nothing is going to work.”

  “Two months,” Fortune snapped.

  “Four,” she countered. “And I’ll give you the butterfly if I’m wrong.”

  Fortune stewed for several moments. “Three months, not a day longer.”

  Everyone let out the breath they had been holding. With the big pill swallowed, the rest should be easier. Jez glanced at her notes. “We need help with the red-giant viewer. I’m convinced that there is more to that device than we know. The Anomaly and Ideal Planet pages need to be integrated into the core somehow, but someone has to hold both concepts in their brains at once.”

  Everyone around the table agreed. Trench Coat pressed, “What do you suggest?”

  Jez took a step onto the thin ice. “In addition to following up on Whirlwind, I need you to reach out to the Midas project, the people who know about pages in our own government.” Rumbles of objection sounded, but Jez raised her voice above them. “Whoever or whatever wrote these pages, they require us to work together to solve the puzzle. Offer to trade Midas access to Ideal Planets in order to get some personnel. If nothing else, it’ll get the government on our side when war with the Fossils breaks out.”

  All eyes moved to Fortune. “Tentative queries only. Treaties go through my office.”

  “Speaking of treaties, I need the peace envoy, the swami, and maybe that inventor doctor as soon as possible,” Jez said.

  “Vetting takes time.” Crusader insisted. “The rest I can expedite, but the swami is from Kashmir, a place rife with splinter groups.”

  Jez replied, “They don’t even have to know about the Ladder Project. I just want them for their brains.”

  Several of the men at the table chuckled at the reversal. Trench Coat was the only one who seemed puzzled. Crusader explained, “Miss Johnson is able to use her unique combination of pages to borrow mental power from experts who are in the same room with her.”

  The Intelligence leader paled. “An intriguing ability.”

  “Let me know if you need group-think for any difficult problems,” Jez offered Trench Coat. “It works kind of like a Ping-Pong ball in a tornado, but it hits the mark eventually.”

  Biting her lip, Jez pushed the envelope a little. “Buddy, as long as Space isn’t a problem with you, I need a favor from somebody with your expertise. Most of the space geeks out there love certain shows on TV. It would make it a lot easier to recruit them and get information if you would…”

  Benny looked appalled. “I’m not wearing a rubber alien suit on that show!”

  Fortune hooted. “Come on, boy. I’ve seen some of your Spring Break movies. We’ve already established what you are; now you’re just quibbling about the price.”

  Benny blushed, causing Jez to step in, “Not that show per se. You could narrate another PBS show about space exploration, make it popular. Go to a few of the conventions. We just want people to associate your name with the concept of space exploration. You could even have a booth for your charity there.”

  Benny got an evil look in his eye. “I’ll go to one of those conventions, but you’ve got to be right there, by my side…”

  “Sure.”

  “…dressed in the femdroid costume. I have to look the part.”

  It was Jezebel’s turn to blush, hem, and haw. The men at the table eventually razzed and prodded her into the sacrifice for the team. “Fine, but I’ll need a week’s warning.”

  Benny immediately ordered one of the skin-tight costumes in her size from the studio.

  ****

  The group made considerable progress toward their reforms. The workout that Crusader provided left Jezebel black and blue. He pioneered a new technique for their group: defend, analyze the opponent’s style, and then strike the hole. After several painful demonstrations, Jez was able to use Simplification to counterattack in a similar manner. However, she cheated to get the first blow. When she was ready, she casually asked, “Find any more serial killers?”

  Her surprise kick doubled Crusader over. Once he recovered, he bowed and said, “Now you just need to spar with my men till you can beat two attackers.”

  From the success of her attack, Jez inferred that he was still looking for aberrant criminals, but without official sanction. She used her sleight-of-hand training to snatch and bag one of his sweatbands-just in case Oobie had to track him down later. For good measure, she sent Trench Coat a discreet e-mail asking him to keep an eye out for extra-curricular, crime-fighting activities.

  ****

  During her frantic two hours of packing before her recruiting flight to Paris, Jez went over the basics of Daniel’s nightly routine with Nena in their shared living room. The girl was good with written instructions, but with verbal instructions more than a few hours old, she sometimes needed a reminder. “Remember, check his monitors once a minute during your shift and make sure he works out every afternoon. You might have to stroke his ego a few times to keep him exercising.”

  The girl waved her advice away. She needed no help bending men to her will. Nena wanted to talk more about the mission. “You just started in this job and now you’re practically running the place.”

  Jez snorted in amusement as she stuffed clothes and an encrypted laptop into her second suitcase. “That’s like saying the fox runs the hunt.”

  “Everybody’s talking about your promotion. People who don’t gush about you are terrified of you. What’s your secret? Did you sleep with Mr. Hollis?”

  “No,” Jez replied instantly. She wanted to say, And you won’t either. Instead, the older woman paused to consider. She had learned to do this with every important question to avoid sharing too much. “I know where we have to be in five years to survive; the rest of them are just playing spy.”

  Chapter 13 – First Class Offers

  The first-class, commercial flight to Paris was a rare treat for Jezebel. The handsome, young man in the seat next to her introduced himself as Gerard, a psychologist on his way to give a lecture on sexual practices and their influence on the Japanese and French aristocracy. Although the stewardess offered samples of several fine, French wines and Gerard pressed her to try some of his, she refused. Over five-star cuisine, they had several intriguing conversations. Slide fifty-seven from his presentation was particularly intriguing. He was cute and his accent was to-die-for; nevertheless, in the middle of the night, she turned down an opportunity to try out slide fifty-seven in the bathroom. “I'm flattered, but I need to be focused when we land. However pleasant, that would be a distraction.” Instead, she read the UN Bill of Human Rights and Plato’s Republic, taking copious notes.

  In the morning, as Gerard picked up his carry-on to leave the plane, he handed her a card with only a phone number. “You are more adept than we suspected. I am authorized to offer you one million dollars a year to work for a winning team.”

  Suddenly, she felt vulnerable. He had her boxed in, with no opportunity for a solid kick. Bodyguards from the London office wouldn’t be meeting her till she got through the baggage claim. “I think you might have me confused with someone else.”

  “Fortune will fall sooner than you think. A smart woman like you knows where the future will be.” He dropped a tiny pellet on the arm of her seat.

  “Poison?” she asked. Fortunately, she was still sitting, because the brush with death was making her dizzy.

  “I would sooner deface the Mona Lisa, but next time, it won’t be me. Decide soon, chérie.”

  She slipped the pellet into her purse before it rolled to the floor and some poor janitor got exposed. Heart racing, she staggered off the plane and went to the phones. Hand shaking, she dialed the number for Benny’s cell. “Buddy?”

  He sounded genuinely glad to hear from her. “Hey, Dirt Bag’s team has a new lead. A Falun Gong cell that claims they have a combination of proteins and vitamins from common plants and herbs that provides all the nutrition a human body needs. He sent out friendly scouts to see if the brew has
any Golden assistance. He’s taking you seriously!” After a pause, hearing nothing but a choked sob, Benny snapped to alert. “What’s wrong?”

  “Fossil contact. Join or die. Expect another attempt on DB soon.”

  She heard his warm voice say, “Understood. Anything else I should know?”

  “I need a bloody drink. Double the guard on Oobie, one guard in his room and one outside at all times.”

  “We can scrub this mission immediately. Catch the next flight home. I’ll send two men along.”

  “No. Now it’s more important than ever.”

  He paused and his tone grew softer. “I wish I were there to give you a hug when you need it.”

  The heartfelt sentiment meant more to her than slide fifty-seven ever could have. Jez reminded him, “The rules say we can’t risk more than one of us in the field at a time. You need to stay safe.”

  Hanging up, she composed herself for a long minute before going out to meet her team. Belatedly, she regretted risking the butterfly on this trip. If she had fallen asleep on the long flight, the enemy agent could have stolen it. She couldn’t afford to screw up again.

  ****

  Since she had arrived at 7:00 a.m., Jez had the driver take her to the hotel first. She had to shower, eat, and psych herself up for the meeting. She chose the charcoal-grey, skirted suit with a burgundy, silk, sleeveless chemise—competent yet feminine. Her shoes were black and low-heeled. She put in eye drops to dampen the effects of fatigue and fear.

  Back in the car by 8:30 a.m., she arrived at the target’s office early. An exceedingly hairy man with a Liverpool accent briefed her in the back seat. He had coarse hair everywhere. Even his elbows were wooly. “Wolfman Jacques,” the man told her.