Trickster

by Steven Harper

  Rafille Mallory paused to examine display of perfume in a store window. An animated sign flashed Obsess with Pheromones. Harenn hung back to watch. This was growing frustrating. Three days of shadowing had turned up nothing. The woman had no hooks. Jeung and Papagos-Faye had shown vices that had proven easy to exploit, but Mallory had so far shown nothing. Harenn hadn't even been able to determine where on her person she kept her computer key.

  Bedj-ka started to speak, then coughed hard.

  "Cover your mouth, please," Harenn said, and pretended to stare thoughtfully into a gushing fountain so she could spy on Mallory, who was smiling at a display of stuffed toys.

  "Sorry." Bedj-ka coughed again, this time into his fist. Mallory picked up a small bear in motley colors, considered it, and set it back down again. "When do you want me to do it?"

  "Soon," Harenn said.

  Mallory wandered into the perfume store, her walk almost a waddle. Harenn decided to wait outside for her rather than follow her inside and risk being noticed. She paid an exorbitant price for two giant cookies from a nearby bakery, and mother and son settled down on a bench to keep an eye out for Mallory's exit. The cookies were warm and soft, made with peanut butter. Neither Harenn nor Bedj-ka much cared for chocolate these days.

  "I had a weird dream last night," Bedj-ka announced amid a spray of damp crumbs.

  "Do not speak when your mouth is full," Harenn said, taking a delicate bite of her own.

  Bedj-ka swallowed and said, "I was walking through the dormitory at the Enclave, but all the rooms were empty and everything made these weird echoes around me. It felt like there were other people there with me, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I looked and looked, and then I started to run, but I still couldn't find anybody. Finally I ended up in the dining hall, and it was empty, too, except the tables were all full of food." He held up the remaining half of his cookie. "There were cookies like this one there, which is why I remembered the dream just now. Anyway, I was hungry, so I grabbed some food to eat it, and then I noticed I was breathing hard and I had to wait until I caught my breath before I could eat. The foods were all my favorite ones--fried chicken and creamed corn and sweet-and-sour fish--and I could eat as much as I wanted and it all tasted really good. That was weird because I never remember stuff like breathing or tasting food in dreams. Then I woke up."

  Harenn thought about this. Bedj-ka's dream was fairly straightforward. The empty rooms symbolized his feelings of abandonment and betrayal, while the banquet and its plethora of choices symbolized his new-found freedom. But she wasn't sure that Bedj-ka would appreciate all this.

  "Your dream is a good omen, my son," she said. "Dreaming of abundant food indicates good luck for the future, or so the Ched-Balaar say."

  "What are they like?" he asked, flipping easily into a new subject. "I've never even seen one, but Father Kendi talks about them sometimes."

  "They are strange and graceful," Harenn said. "I enjoy their company--most humans do--and they seem to enjoy ours. They have four legs and two arms and a very long neck that ends in a rather flat head. Their language sounds strange because they speak by chattering their teeth together and by making hooting noises. No human can duplicate the sounds, just as they cannot duplicate our language, except in the Dream, of course."

  "Have you ever been in the Dream?"

  "Only once, and very briefly. Sejal brought me in. He has the power to pull other Silent out of the solid world into the Dream. I am not Silent, but he was able to bring me there for just a moment."

  "Did you like it?"

  Harenn smiled at him. "I was not there long enough to form an opinion."

  "I was supposed to start training to enter the Dream in two more years," Bedj-ka said wistfully. "But now I guess I'll never get there. The Despair ruined it for almost everyone. I really wanted to see the Dream, too. Everyone says it's really rigid."

  Harenn put an arm around his shoulders in a brief hug. "Perhaps it is best that you never entered it. From what I hear, it is devastating to lose the Dream. I know Gretchen is greatly disturbed by what she has lost."

  "Is that why she's so mean all the time? She yells at me sometimes even when all I'm doing is walking down the corridor."

  "She is very unhappy," Harenn said, making a mental note to have a few pointed words with Gretchen. "And unhappiness makes people do things they would not normally do."

  "I was unhappy." Bedj-ka took a pensive bite of cookie. "During the Despair, I was so unhappy, I wanted to die. It was awful. I felt completely alone, like there was no one in the entire universe who cared about me or even knew I existed. I couldn't even move, it was so bad."

  Harenn's throat thickened. Her son had needed her, and she hadn't been there. The Despair had rocked her, filled her with pain, but she had been used to dealing with pain and had continued to function. The universal depression had ended once Kendi, Vidya, and Prasad had forced Sufur's twisted children from the Dream, but wounds still lingered. The scars ran deepest for the Silent, who had stronger connections with the Dream. Bedj-ka hadn't even entered the Dream, and he said he had wanted to die. She ached with guilt at not being there to share his pain. She hugged him again.

  "You were very strong and very brave," she said. "And I am proud of you."

  Bedj-ka smiled at her, and Harenn's heart swelled. Then he pulled away and munched his cookie again. A moment later, Rafille Mallory exited the shop. Harenn stood and brushed crumbs from her loose-cut blouse.

  "I think now is the time," she said. "Do you know what to do?"

  Bedj-ka flashed another smile. He was quite handsome, she realized with a touch of maternal pride. "I know," he said.

  "Let me get ahead of her, then. Once you see me signal, do what we rehearsed."

  Harenn trotted through the light crowd of shoppers until she was well ahead of Mallory. Then she stopped to admire a display of blue roses in a florist shop window while she activated the camera in her ocular implant. A tap on her earpiece opened a communications link with the Poltergeist.

  "I am recording visual," Harenn said, "but you should watch as well in case I miss something."

  Harenn turned and saw Bedj-ka among the people a little way to Mallory's left. Mallory herself was about ten meters away from Harenn, strolling casually in her direction. Harenn scratched her nose and Bedj-ka nodded. Abruptly, he dashed up to Mallory and all but slammed into her. She staggered. Bedj-ka tugged at Mallory's jacket, then with a laugh vanished into the crowd before she could react. Harenn watched carefully. Several other shoppers turned to stare as well.

  Mallory regained her balance, her expression startled and surprised. Quickly she patted a tiny pouch on her belt, then she spun to see if she could spot Bedj-ka. A man approached and said something to Mallory, but she shook her head, refusing his apparent offer of help. Then she opened her shoulder bag, rummaged through it, and quickly checked her shopping bags and parcels. Apparently satisfied with what she found, she closed the bags again and, with a shake of her head, wandered off through the crowd again. Harenn moved to follow.

  "The belt pouch?" Harenn said.

  Harenn nodded in private agreement. If Mallory thought her pocket had been picked, she would check for her most important possessions first. Identification and cashcards were all easily deactivated and replaced, but the same could not be said of her computer key, and Mallory's instincts had made her check for it right away.

  Mallory continued on her way, and Harenn continued to follow. Bedj-ka, she knew, would head back to the ship. It would be too risky to keep him at the shopping center in case Mallory spotted him and grew suspicious.

  In quick succession, Mallory visited a toy store, two clothing stores, and a candy shop. She emerged from each, sometimes with more bags, sometimes not. The woman clearly liked to shop. Harenn was trying to figure out how this bit of information could work to her advantage when Mallory ducked into a department store. Harenn followed, able to remain inconspicuous in the larger store.

 
Mallory browsed aimlessly among various clothing displays. Harenn grew bored. The whole thing seemed pointless, and the longer Harenn continued to shadow the woman, the more likely it became that someone would notice. But then the continual guilt she felt about rescuing Bedj-ka first overtook her again, tightening her stomach and forcing her to keep at it.

  The store smelled like fresh cloth, and the customers were all human. Mallory paused to try on a series of straw hats, none of which suited her coloring or clothing style, then ambled onward to look at a display of key rings. She held up one shaped like a little silver cat, then put it back.

  Or seemed to.

  Harenn blinked. Had she seen correctly? To the casual observer, it would appear that Mallory had put the key ring back on the display rack, but Harenn had been watching carefully and was sure she had seen Mallory palm the key ring. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when Mallory strolled away and casually dropped a hand into her pocket. Harenn hurried to catch up, but paused long enough to check the key chain display. She saw no silver cats.

  All traces of Harenn's boredom vanished. This was quite the fascinating the development. Had it been a unique event? Or had Mallory been shoplifting all day? Harenn suddenly wished she had risked following Mallory into some of the other shops.

  Harenn's ocular implant flashed a message across her retina. Memory full, it said. To continue recording, please empty memory cache. Harenn had forgotten to turn off her implant's record function. Harenn did so and turned her attention back to Mallory.

  Mallory headed back to the main mall area. Harenn held her breath as she left the store. Would security pounce on her? Most stores were outfitted with AI cameras that watched customers unceasingly and untiringly, looking for exactly this sort of behavior. One of them should have noticed Mallory's move and notified security. But Mallory calmly crossed the threshold into the mall. No alarms sounded, no security guards appeared on the scene. Harenn narrowed her eyes. How had she fooled them?

  Harenn remained behind Mallory, hoping against hope that Mallory wasn't done for the day and planning to head back home. With a heavy sigh audible even at Harenn's distance, however, Mallory shifted her parcels around and entered a food court. She bought a plate of noodles and sat down to eat at one of the empty tables in the middle of the court, where food smells from a dozen different worlds and cultures clashed into a melange of scents both spicy and sweet. More humans strolled by. Aliens were few and far between in this sector, as the stores were geared primarily toward products humans used. Harenn waited patiently until Mallory finished eating. She rose, gathered her parcels, and continued on her way, Harenn trailing unobtrusively behind her.

  Eventually, Mallory entered another clothing store, this one specializing in leather goods. The fine smell of suede wafted over Harenn, who pretended interest in a pair of boots while never once taking her eyes off Mallory.

  Mallory looked at a leather coat, several belts, and a red leather corset before slipping a pair of gloves into her bags and striding nonchalantly toward the door. Again, no one raised a fuss as she exited. Harenn stayed right behind her, and a few minutes later got to see Mallory lift a small case of makeup in another department store.

  Harenn's mind raced, examining possibilities and discarding them one by one until she settled on something she thought might work. She tapped her earpiece and called Ben.

  "I know how to get Mallory's key," she reported. "But you must move quickly. Listen . . . "

  Rafille Mallory emerged from the bookstore barely restraining a smug smile. Two bookdisks, recently liberated from their shelves, nestled in her jacket pocket. A touch of excitement thrilled through her. All day she had been lifting various objects from different stores and not once had she been caught. She had even paused in one store to chat with a security guard who remained completely unaware that Rafille was carrying several hundred chits worth of liberated goods. The idiot.

  The sense of excitement continued, and Rafille allowed herself to grin for a moment. She needed this. Her job was deadly dull--overseeing security for a bunch of captured slaves was no big deal, occupying only a small part of her attention every day. There was no challenge there, not when Roon's indoctrination program was operating fully on schedule. Eventually, the Silent drones wouldn't want to leave, would believe that their true place in the universe was in Roon's little enclave. She didn't know if the Alphas believed Roon's claim about being able to enter the Dream without drugs. She didn't much care, actually. People were so gullible, so willing to believe in miracles, it had apparently never occurred to any of them to question what he said. Roon wasn't even Silent, and how would they react to that?

  Rafille checked her pocket. The jammer was still there. Now that had been a challenge, coming up with a device that would temporarily disrupt from a distance the AI programs that watched the stores. A part of her felt like she was cheating, but she still had to avoid the store security guards, both the ones in uniform and the ones in plain clothes. And it was almost impossible to beat the AI programs. Rafille wanted a challenge, but she wasn't stupid about it.

  She checked her ocular implant. Time to go home. Her feet were tired, and the packages were growing heavy. She was just turning away from the bookstore when heavy hands landed on her shoulders from behind.

  "Excuse us, ma'am," said an unfamiliar male voice, "but I'm afraid we need to talk."

  Rafille's heart wrenched inside her chest. She wrenched her head around and stared at a man and a woman, both dressed in simple suits. The man was tall and thin, with dark skin. His companion was only slightly shorter, with blond hair and bland features. Each of them had a hand on her shoulders.

  "What's this all about?" she gasped, though she was dread certain she already knew.

  The man flashed an identification holo. "Security, ma'am. You'll have to come with us now."

  "But I didn't do anything," Rafille spluttered. Her heart was now beating fair to shake her blouse, and the bookdisks felt very heavy and conspicuous in her pocket.

  "I don't think we should discuss that here, ma'am," the woman said. "If you'll please come with us?"

  They had her dead to rights. A hundred different scenarios flashed through her head. She could make a break for it. She could throw the packages into their faces and then make a break for it. She could pretend to faint. She could hit the man with her fist and punch the woman in the stomach. Rafille discarded all of these possibilities. Both man and woman were clearly far more athletic than she was, and Rafille doubted she would get ten meters before they caught up with her. As if reading her thoughts, the man tightened his grip on her shoulder enough to make her wince, a subtle indicator of his strength. Rafille's mouth went dry. She was in deep, deep trouble. If Roon found out she had been arrested, Rafille would land in the job pool so fast, she might well have traveled there through slipspace. She would lose her luxury apartment and almost everything she owned. Her daughter would have to drop out of college.

  The security people steered Rafille toward an empty store. The front windows were obscured by blank beige screens and a sign read, Coming soon: another fine store! The blond woman pushed open the door and the man guided Rafille firmly into the space beyond.

  Inside was a great, empty space. The floor was simple gray tile. A few empty clothing racks made a tangled metal jumble, and a sales counter sat off to one side. A line of closed doors marched along the back wall, and Rafille assumed they were fitting rooms. The place smelled of stale air and dust.

  "What's going on?" Rafille demanded, deciding to play the role of indignant innocent. Perhaps she could brazen it out. "What is this place?"

  "It's where we take shoplifters for . . . debriefing," the man said, and held up a small computer disk. "We caught you on camera. Would you like to see it?"

  "But that's . . . I mean, there's no way you could have . . . how did . . . "

  Without a word, the man produced a datapad from his pocket and slotted in the disk. A holographic display popped up
. Rafille watched herself in miniature as she palmed the silver cat key ring. Her heart plummeted into her shoes and her hands began to shake.

  "Pretty conclusive," the man said. "Would you like to see the rest?"

  "No," Rafille whispered. "Oh god."

  The man pulled a large card from his jacket pocket. "Please give me your hands, ma'am. I need your prints."

  They were treating her like a criminal? A common thief? Rafille couldn't believe it, even when the man rolled her fingers carefully across the card. They left black prints in their wake, though her hands remained clean.

  "Detective Dell here is going to search you now," the man said next. "Hold your arms out to your sides, please."

  Rafille numbly obeyed. Detective Dell's search was quick and thorough. It produced the silver key ring, the bookdisks, the leather gloves, two bottles of perfume, a scarf, and the AI disruptor. Dell laid the objects out on the counter in an accusatory row. Rafille didn't respond until she felt Dell's fingers open the little pouch on her belt, the one that contained her computer key. Rafille's hand shot down and grabbed Dell's wrist.

  "There's nothing of importance in there," she snapped.

  "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to look," Dell said neutrally.

  "Please remove your hand from my partner's wrist, ma'am," the man said, "or I will remove it for you."

  "The key in that pouch is classified property of Silent Acquisitions," Rafille said, obeying with reluctance. "If you tamper with it--"

  "I'll set it on the counter, ma'am," Dell said, and did so. "No one will touch it."

  "Look at me, ma'am," the man said, and Rafille did so. "My name is Detective Melthine. Who are you, please?"