by S J Hunter
Isabella leaned back again and took a cigarette out of a silver case shaped like a seashell, then lit it with a companion silver lighter shaped like a different type of shell.
“As for you, my dear, there is still a subtle enthusiasm that cannot be feigned, but you also have experience to give you confidence and poise, even when I make a suggestion that would bring a blush to most women accompanied by such a handsome man. Therefore, perhaps 50?” she asked, looking up at Livvy through her lashes and a fine veil of smoke.
Chris didn’t notice Livvy react to that either – her magnificent turquoise eyes had, in fact, seemed to have lost the need to blink – but Isabella responded with satisfaction. “Ah, I thought so. I’m an actress. I read people, and I am seldom wrong.
“But how delicious. Detectives.”
The serving woman delivered an ornate silver tray with some iced water and tea, and hot coffee, all in silver urns. There were tiny cookies on a gold-rimmed plate. Isabella herself poured for them, displaying a languid fluency that nevertheless did not achieve elegance, and Chris glanced at Livvy to find her looking at him with lifted eyebrows. It was quite a performance.
“But allow me to stop wasting your time. You’re here to talk to me about Milo. I have no idea where he is. I wasn’t expecting him and he never called, so I didn’t even realize he was missing until your office called.”
“So the last time you saw him was when…? Thursday?” Chris asked.
“Let me think,” Isabella said. She lifted a beautifully manicured hand, placed her index finger against her lips and tapped them twice. “Yes, Thursday. No, no. Wednesday. He came by after work, had dinner with me, and stayed the night. He does that, or we go out, several times a week. We’ve known each other almost 60 years.”
“And was there anything he said or did during his visit on Wednesday that was at all unusual?”
“No,” she said.
“And he hasn’t mentioned any travel plans lately?” Chris asked, and waited while Isabella seemed to mull over her options.
Chris noticed a small change in her breathing. “Isabella?”
“You’re a dear.” She drew and exhaled twice and stubbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray before answering. “In the end, audiences wanted new young faces, or aging faces, and I had to make a choice. So I gave it up. Do you think they will still want me when I’m 200 years old and my allotment is gone and and I have to start aging? Enhancements and surgery…” here she shuddered, “can only do so much.” She looked from Chris to Livvy and back again.
“Never mind, how can anyone know. It’s all still so unsettling.
“You saw me act, didn’t you, when we were both young?” she asked Chris.
It seemed to be a hobby with her, Chris thought, to try to catch people off guard. “Yes. I probably even had a crush on you,” he said, playing her game.
“How sweet of you to say so. Forgive me if I doubt you. Men like you never have a crush on women like me.” She turned to look at Livvy. “They don’t, you know. They may want to protect us, but they don’t want to make love to us.
“Don’t get huffy, my dear. By us, I don’t mean you and me, Detective Hutchins. I mean me and women like me. Vulnerability, it was called. I wonder what they call it in a bicentenarian.”
Chris looked at Livvy. As far as he could see, she had neither moved nor changed expression. If anything, he would say she was projecting a hard-held tolerance. It was probably driving Isabella wild at some level.
“You’re right, there was a little something. We’ve been planning a trip to England and Scotland together and he said we might need to postpone it.” She turned to Livvy at this point to speak directly to her. “There are so few places one can travel safely anymore. He did mention something about some special project. I never listen when he talks about work, unless he’s found something new he thinks would suit me.
“That’s all, really.”
“Some special project at his clinic or some special project outside of the clinic?” Livvy asked.
“You didn’t pay attention, my dear. I said I don’t listen when he talks about work.”
“When had you planned on leaving? On your trip?” Chris asked.
“In two weeks, on Monday. You would be more than welcome to take his place,” Isabella said. “Either one of you.” She threw another smoky glance Livvy’s way and laughed.
“And how long would you have been gone?”
“Three weeks,” Isabella said. She seemed to have gotten suddenly bored.
“One final question, please. Was it meant to be strictly a pleasure trip?”
“Of course,” Isabella said, faintly amused once more. “Or I would have never agreed to go.”
“If you think of anything else…” Chris said.
“Naturally. I hope you find him. Margaret will show you out.”
*****
“Did you believer her?” Livvy said when they got back outside and were walking slowly back to the car. She turned around for an instant and walked backwards for several steps as she surveyed Isabella’s mansion one more time. “I doubt if it’s a love match, but she was an actress, and if she knows he’s gotten into something questionable… she’d want to deny knowing anything to protect herself. I suspect she’s her own biggest fan.”
“I believed her when she said she doesn’t listen…”
The first silenced shot came from the side and slightly behind them and went so close to Chris’ head that he felt the wind of its passing ruffle his hair. It hit the car fifteen meters ahead of them and ricocheted off the bullet-proof shell. The second shot grazed Livvy’s left upper arm. By then they were already sprinting for the car and yelling instructions.
Livvy’s shout of “Open doors” clashed with Chris’ “Louie down.”
Louie, who had been sitting in the back with both of the side windows open, didn’t need to be told twice. He went to the floor and disappeared from view.
The car obeyed as well, and as the third shot sounded Livvy was diving inside and simultaneously shouting “Close driver front.” The door slid shut and Livvy at least was inside a bulletproof shell.
Chris yelled “Close doors and windows” and took a shortcut to the passenger side, leaping onto the car and letting his momentum carry him across the smooth surface and onto the road on the other side. The fourth shot spit road surface three meters beyond the car. Chris did some quick vector imagining. The houses were on hillocks, but with that angle the shooter had to be on a roof.
“McGregor, get your ass in here! Now.” It was Livvy, projecting with a volume that he wouldn’t have believed she could manage and now looking quite spectacularly feral. For one hyper-amused moment Chris realized that, unlike him, his new partner most definitely had been a training officer at some point, and the instincts and skills had stuck.
For opponents within 30 meters, they had their Stingers, which were excellent for instantly dropping any opponent with a drugged, barbed dart that sliced through all clothing, even most armored tunics. Since there had been no one within view for at least 50 meters when they left the house, Chris figured Stingers weren’t going to be useful. For longer distances, all of their equipment was in the trunk. He decided the angle was adequate for an attempt.
He was her senior in every way, and even if they got to the armor and weapons in the trunk by going through the interior panel they would then be in the car and unable to use them unless they got out again. He was delighted with her good sense – she was right where he wanted her, but he had no intention of joining her. Instead, crouching and staying close, he moved towards the back of the car.
“Open trunk,” he said. The trunk slid open and Chris remembered with nostalgia the old lift hoods that might have supplied a little more cover. He cautiously reached over into the well only to have one of the small dart rifles thrust into his hand and an armored tunic and gloves dropped over the panel onto the road beside him.
The fifth and sixth shots hit the mid
line of the road a meter behind the car.
“Aarrrgh. Will you put those on, please!” Livvy’s voice came from the trunk.
Chris grabbed the armor and shifted over to the better cover near the center of the car. It was still awkward, staying behind the shield created by the car body while getting into the armor. He had barely finished when Livvy’s voice emerged from the back seat of the car, immediately behind him.
“Move out of the way. Please.”
He barely began shifting back towards the front of the car when the right rear door opened and Livvy, tunic and gloves already on and gripping a dart rifle, basically tumbled out of the car onto the road beside him.
The seventh shot hit the roof of the car and ricocheted off into the neighborhood just as Chris reached out, got a firm grip on her tunic, and pulled, successfully moving her back and drawing her up so that she was leaning against the car frame at his side, well within the cover offered by the car.
“Your arm?” Chris asked.
“It’s fine. A scratch. I’d clock you, you know, but I may need you to provide a diversion,” she said. “Just make sure the Chief knows I was prepared to huddle safely in the car, call for back-up, and scan for a sign of the shooter. Just like standard Enforcement procedures dictate. I’m going to get stomped on for this, aren’t I?”
“Not by me. But that was a good plan. I wish you had stuck with it.”
“But LLE handles this sort of thing differently, I suppose,” she added more calmly. “Proactively.”
“I want to try to flush him out before backup scares him away,” Chris said.
“So I figured,” she said.
“Whoever is shooting, he doesn’t seem to be very good at it. I’m worried about the innocent people beyond us. Now that we have the tunics, I think we should give him better targets and charge.”
“Where?” Livvy asked, closing her faceplate and turning around to look through the car window.
The eighth and ninth shots both pinged off the top of the car near her head.
“Persistent sort, isn’t he? Doesn’t he know these cars are projectile-proof?”
“I thought it might be a roof, but I think now it’s that oak over in the neighbor’s yard.”
Livvy nodded. “You’re probably right. Much better cover and more accessible than a roof, too. I can’t see him, though. Lovely cover.”
“On three then,” Chris said, moving from a seated to a crouched position. “One, two,…”
Louie chose that moment to poke his head out of the trunk. The ball was in his mouth and he somehow looked expectant, as though waiting for an invitation to play.
“Louie, down!” Chris yelled. “Three.”
He and Livvy leapt to their feet and raced straight for the huge oak, peppering the lower branches with darts as they ran. Chris stopped counting the shots that dug into the turf around them. They were shooting blindly into the lower branches, but if just one dart connected… Twenty meters out, and one of them got lucky. A very large vintage rifle fell out of the oak, followed a few seconds later by a limp body, which plunged to the ground and hit with a satisfying thump. It was bearded and dressed like a peasant farmer of the 16th century.
The dart gave them at least 10 minutes even with a very large opponent, and of course the fall may have added considerably to that interval.
Both Chris and Livvy flattened themselves against the broad trunk of the tree and stood there, breathing rapidly and searching the branches above their heads.
“I think he was alone,” Chris said.
“I think you’re right.”
Neither of them moved.
“Still, if there is someone else, I want to know.”
“Ready?” Livvy said. “Go!”
They stepped out the shelter of the trunk and scanned the roofs of the neighboring houses. Nothing.
Waving her arms in the air, Livvy walked out from under the tree. “Yoohoo.” There was nothing, other than a barely-glimpsed figure moving away from the window in Isabella’s house. Chris lost interest before she did and almost immediately walked over to begin examining their prisoner. After another minute of scanning the roofs and the windows, Livvy joined him. He’d already cuffed the peasant and, one on either side, they crouched over the sleeping man, whose garb seemed almost natural as long as he was lying in the grass.
“I’ll bite,” Livvy said. “Is this outfit traditional for the fringe groups around here? ”
“No, but maybe he was making a statement,” Chris replied. “He may have even expected to get caught.”
“Undoubtedly. Even in San Francisco this get-up would attract attention,” Livvy said. “So. How did he get here?”
“It had to be before we did. We can look for a car but I’m betting he was dropped off, probably in the dark,” Chris said.
“And he didn’t shoot at us on the way in because…?” Livvy asked.
“Now that I can’t figure. You’d think he’d prefer to distract us before the interview.”
“Isabella…?”
Chris looked up at her. “Not involved with this, at least not directly. We’re practically in her flowerbeds, after all. No. Someone who knows about her knew we were going to show up here, but she didn’t arrange this.”
Chris got an inquiry on his aural and started relaying information and instructions to the approaching back-up over his collar comu.
The sound of several distant sirens changed direction and steadily gained volume. In the next few minutes three cars arrived in rapid succession in an impressive display of force, and uniforms climbed out of the cars and fanned out in several directions. Chris and Livvy scanned the roofs again but neither of them detected any movement other than more vague forms in the windows of the surrounding houses.
“What’s your guess?” Livvy asked when it was apparent they weren’t going to spot anyone else and they’d gone back to examining their unconscious prisoner. “Religious zealot or Naturals Only fanatic?”
“Dressed like this? No ID, no comu, no paper. He could be either, and there’s a lot of crossover. I don’t recognize him in particular, but I wouldn’t expect to. This is a little extreme for the Naturals Only locals. It’s possible that they’re escalating, or this one splintered from the group, or he’s a fraud. Or he’s only a tool. Or any combination of the above.”
The shooter was already blinking his eyes and trying to move with that purposeless shifting that preceded coherent thought. Chris thought he detected the moment, from a change in the man’s expression, when he really awakened and realized that something had gone terribly wrong with his plans, and that he was a prisoner. Chris stood up and looked across to Livvy, who was still looking down on the prisoner from the other side.
“At least we can be pretty sure,” Livvy said wryly, “that he’s not one of those rare pro-Longevity fanatics that want to kill us because they believe we are denying humanity the gift of immortality. He’d be better dressed.
“Also,” she continued, “if he’s a tool, it’s because someone preyed on his fanaticism. No one would throw money away on this level of marksmanship.”
“True. Unless they have a lot of money to throw around,” Chris said slowly. “Lets hope he wakes up in a mood to talk.”
The medics arrived with a stretcher and they moved out of the way.
“So you think we can be pretty sure there’s a connection to Josephson’s disappearance. Because he knew where to find us and got here first. Can we absolutely eliminate the possibility that he followed us here?” Livvy said as they walked back to the car.
“With Louie silently watching him climb the tree?” Chris asked.
Livvy glanced at the back seat, where Louie was again sitting docilely with his ball in his mouth.
“No, you’re right. Of course Louie would have warned us,” Livvy said, reaching in through the open door to scratch him behind the ears. “Incidentally, you don’t suppose he knows what a ‘distraction’ is, do you?”
“It d
oesn’t matter. I ordered the damned dog to stay down.”
“But he absolutely loves that ball,” Livvy said without hesitation. “You know, most of the shots I could see, at least when we were charging, and perhaps before, seemed to be aimed at you more than me. When I got grazed, I was running right next to you.”
“Again, we don’t really know. I could have been the primary target. Or maybe you’re just smaller, or, most likely, he got a good look at you before he started shooting. Your native armor,” Chris said. He turned around and leaned against the car as he watched the med techs carrying the prisoner to their van.
“I don’t know about that,” Livvy said. “With the kind of fanatics LLE probably deals with, I think I just infuriate them more.”
“Well,” Chris said. “Let’s find out.”
Livvy looked at him warily. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Why not?” Chris said, eyes widened with innocence. “You’re injured, aren’t you? Your arm needs attention, doesn’t it?”
Livvy sighed. “In the medivan? Seriously?” She looked at the already crowded vehicle without enthusiasm as she removed her helmet and tossed it onto the back seat next to Louie. Tucking an errant strand of fiery, sweat-dampened hair behind her ear, she shot Chris a reproachful glance before raising her hand and heading for the medivan. The medtech in the back had been closing the door, but when he saw her coming he smiled broadly and swung it wide again and even stepped out to let her climb in first. Chris could hear the first words of what sounded like a promising stream of outraged invective just before the doors closed and it drove away. Their prisoner was definitely in the mood to talk.
Chp. 6 Tactics (Wednesday)
The bomb was simple, crude really, a typical design used by the groups that felt justified in casually killing LLE personnel because of what they represented. It was the efficiency with which it had been installed that caught Chris off guard. He didn’t usually bring an LLE car home, but after coercing Livvy into the medivan with their bigoted prisoner yesterday afternoon, he’d driven out to Josephson’s house and he and Louie spent hours performing a rigorous search. It was a huge house. They’d finished very late and he’d decided to go straight home in the car.
