by Laer Carroll
“This is very interesting. An old fund. But everything is in good order. Now—”
He looked directly at her. “Our procedure is to do this in several stages. We can remit a minimal amount to you immediately. For this account that would be $100,000. In a debit card, of course.”
He smiled at her. “Cash is so inconvenient. We can remit $1000 to you if you wish. I’d advise against it but some people do have an immediate need for cash.”
“I don’t. A debit card will be fine, but I’m in no hurry. I can come back when it’s mutually convenient.”
“Oh, now is fine. Here, let me begin that.”
He typed a few things into his computer, then began to detail the “stages” he’d mentioned. In a few minutes an older woman approached him and handed him a debit card. He handed it to Bethany, handing her a pen so that she could sign the back of it. She did so and tucked it into her small clutch purse.
Meanwhile he was doing something else on the screen .
During the next half hour several documents were printed out and signed by her and him. At one time a bank vice-president, a starchy very efficient woman of later years, came by and scribbled a signature before glancing disinterestedly at Bethany.
Finally “Sandrine Ascaride” was done with paperwork. She was given a thick small pamphlet about the investment counseling and counselors of the bank, of whom he was sure she would find a “compatible” officer.
Albert stood as she did and shook her hand. She had already gauged him as convinced of her identity and the legitimacy of the transactions. Now her probes of his body told her he was feeling moderately satisfied. Which matched his last words to her.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Ascaride. A nice little puzzle, this account.”
Sandrine walked out of the bank, adding a tiny something to the swing of her backside as she did so.
·
Shortly “Sandrine” found another taxi and began the business of finding an apartment.
Someone with a debit card for $100,000 had no trouble. She selected one in Santa Monica which fronted on Ocean Ave near Wilshire. It was on the highest floor, the 24th, and had a balcony which overlooked the Pacific.
Below her was the Santa MonicaBeach and below and a little to the left the Santa Monica Pier. At night, she knew, the neon-lit Ferris wheel on the pier would be visible. To the right the coast curved westward toward far Santa Barbara, hidden from her by a part of the huge Santa Monica range.
She also had a key to the rooftop, available only to premium customers like herself. There was a party pavilion up there and seats scattered around it, most of them shaded by small potted trees.
There were also several utility buildings and an air conditioner barrel which threw warm air into the sky. Thus it had plenty of hiding places where she could go invisible and fly into the sky.
Which she could also do from her balcony if none of the balconies to either side were occupied.
·
It took ten days for the trust account to clear all the hoops the bank and the various regulation agencies required. Then on a Wednesday morning a package was delivered to her apartment. She only discovered this two days later when she dropped down onto her balcony and checked the apartment mailbox downstairs before going out to eat at a nearby seafood restaurant.
She took the package with her and perused the contents while ordering and eating a large meal of salmon with a glass of iced tea, chased by a salad and a glass of wine. The alcohol was quickly metabolized by her shapechanger body but she enjoyed the taste. She was reading up on wines so she could better impersonate someone raised partly in France—“partly” excusing any slip-ups in her cover.
She went through the package once quickly, then a second time more slowly, trying to fix the more important details in her mind.
The most important one was that she could now spend up to $11,000,000 on anything she wanted to.
Bethany looked out over the ocean. She felt overwhelmed. What the Hell could she spend it on? She was only 17! And woefully ignorant about the important aspects of the world!
She could give some to charities. But which ones? There must be hundreds, thousands. She could support political candidates. But which ones? She could buy businesses. Which ones?
Maelgyreyt’s memories had the answer. She had been many people in her hundreds or thousands of years of life. She had amassed some wisdom in that time.
Take baby steps. Take her time. She had centuries or millennia in which to live. Take the days as they came, enjoy them. (Or she’d commit suicide from boredom before her first century.)
Love people. Mourn them when time sent them to dust. Meet and love more.
That made her terribly sad. She thought of all the family and friends who made her life brighter. How awful to know she’d live long after them.
For a long time she watched the ocean. Infinitely older than she was, it sent waves onto shore and brought them back. Seagulls swooped. Sail boats coursed the water, like swans with their wings raised high. A power boat fled away from the white wake it left behind.
“Another glass?”
She looked up. The young waiter in his white shirt, black vest and pants, and white apron was bending over her, a bottle poised to freshen her glass.
“Yes, please. And bring me the check please. Add 30 % to it for your tip.”
He smiled and said, “Right away, Miss!”
She had a car to buy.
·
But first she had a computer to buy to help her research automobiles. On the 3rd Street Promenade a computer store had top-of-the-line computers. A hundred dollar bill got a very helpful young man to drive it and her to her apartment, lug it up the elevator, set it up, and leave with a kiss on his cheek in addition to the tip. Unknowingly he also left with perfect health.
She established an email address for SandrineFrance. Convenient, no tie to Bethany Rossiter. Then she began to research automobiles on the InterWeb. A question to her robot told her it could handle five tons if the dimensions were within so-and-so. Quite enough for a four-door German coupe with awesome power and luxury.
She took a taxi to a Beverly Hills auto seller. There she bought a sleek four-door sports sedan. For $66,000 they would be happy to do the paperwork while the machine’s gas tank was topped off.
Soon she was driving an automobile west and south toward Santa Monica. She’d channeled Gerard and picked a rich burgundy color rather than the bright red they’d suggested she purchase. The leather seats were butter-yellow, lively but not flashy. Sandrine Ascaride had taste.
She triggered the remote to her apartment’s underground garage, found her parking spot, rolled up the windows, and sat in the car smelling its interior. It was wonderful.
Suddenly she pulled out of her parking space. The wheels squealed a genteel protest and she slowed to leave the garage. A few left and right turns and she was speeding north on the Pacific Coast Highway a hundred feet in from the ocean. Busy as the highway was, twenty miles out the traffic died down enough to hide her as she went around a long curve. And the automobile vanished.
Robot was right. It could handle an automobile of the right size and weight as if it were nothing. And still make San Diego in 10 minutes.
·
Bethany found that maintaining a secret identity was nowhere near as easy as Kendall’s superhero comics made out. But practice made better if not perfect.
Summer passed into Autumn. Bethany became a Senior. She now had to seriously think about college, though it was still too early to get catalogs and begin selecting possible choices. She did select required and elective courses which would get her into college. This included Pre-Calculus, College English, and the second year of French.
The last she spent just enough time on to pass with As. She already was fluent in two dialects of French and had already begun to read books in French so that she could sound educated in conversations.
Though she had learned a secr
et about being taken for brilliant: ask questions and listen. People loved to brag about themselves (though some did it more subtly) and appear knowledgeable.
Her friends occasionally commented on how much less time she spent with them than she used to. But her excuse (extracurriculars) was also true of them. It saddened her that she was losing the closeness the five of them shared.
But she also made acquaintances if not friends in her other life. Sandrine Ascaride was rich, charming, and beautiful—a quality trivial for a shapechanger to assume. She was also a jet-setter, though no one had ever seen her get on or off a jet.
Sandrine appeared at fashion shows, premieres of movies and plays, and contributed to several charities in which she passionately believed. She was frequently photographed with other beautiful or celebrated people. She was amused to find that Lihua followed reports of her as well as a dozen other “celebs” and hoped someday to meet her .
She helped C&R Security some evenings or weekends. She was determined not to lose her closeness to Kendall and her increasing closeness to Miguel.
Thanksgiving came. For the long weekend she was once again fully immersed in her family and her fireteam. The same was true of Christmas.
Then came Easter. And her life changed radically once again.
“Bethany!” Her mother’s voice sounded strained over her cell phone.
Beth was being Sandrine at a party. She smiled, held up a finger, and walked quickly to the nearest bathroom.
“I can talk now, Mother. It was noisy there.”
“God. I was afraid I’d lost the... Ken is hurt.” Her voice steadied. She was now the cool doctor.
“Where is he?”
“Cedars-Sinai. He’s being operated on. The surgeon’s good so don’t panic.”
“I’ll meet you there. I have friends here who’ll take me.”
“Very well. But stay calm. His injuries are not life-threatening.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“You, too—” But Beth had closed her phone and was heading out of the party, waving and smiling across the room at people she knew.
She stepped into a hall and hurried to the outdoor stair to the four-story apartment building, glanced around carefully, and disappeared.
A sonic boom rattled windows as far as a mile away.
·
Sandrine became Bethany during the trip. She could do little about the party clothes she wore but when she came down at the hospital she did so atop the Emergency Wing. There she hid her shoes, purse, and jacket under an air conditioning unit, then lifted into the air. She next came down in the nearby parking lot between a car and a tree. Her hair was now her straight glossy brown not Sandrine’s curly gold.
“Hi,” she said to the clerk sitting on a stool behind a counter top laden with paperwork and two clipboards. She put on a determinedly calm look which was leaking around the edges. It was not hard to do.
The young man looked up at her.
“My brother was admitted recently. His name is Kendall Rossiter.”
He looked her over briefly and examined a computer monitor briefly.
“He is in surgery. Take that elevator to the third floor and turn left out of it. The waiting room is down the hall.”
She hurried away and waited impatiently till the elevator door opened. In the waiting room was her mother, step-father, father, and her father’s friend Miri. She rushed to her mother and opened her arms. In an instant she was in a five-way hug. She had to restrain her superhuman strength.
“What’s his condition?” she said as she untangled herself enough to look in her mother’s face.
The tall red-headed woman hesitated.
“I’m your daughter. I’m the sister of a med student. I’ve had three first-aid courses. Gruesome details are not going to bother me.”
“When it’s your.... He was shot. The bullet struck a rib and ricocheted. His insides are torn up some and he’s lost blood.
“His surgeon is Osborne. He’s very good. So let’s all calm down. Let’s sit down. We just have to wait. ”
The waiting room was the size of a large living room, nicely appointed with cushioned chairs, but they shared it with several other people who also had a relative or friend behind the swinging double doors into the emergency room.
Bethany took Miri aside and asked how her brother was. Miri hesitated before answering. Beth was lightly holding one of her elbows. She trickled in comfort and calm.
“He’s very upset. He doesn’t show it. He goes very cool and distant.”
Beth nodded.
“Bethany, I’m worried he’s going to do something bad!”
“Oh?”
“I’m afraid he’s going to find the man who did this and...”
They spoke a bit more, Beth giving assurances she herself did not believe in.
Shortly they were joined by the rest of her fireteam and both sets of grandparents, and later several aunts and uncles. They sat, stood, chatted, went to the cafeteria, returned from there bearing gifts, read magazines or info slates, and did all the other things people did in that situation.
Once a couple was called out into a hallway. From it Bethany heard weeping. Another time three people were called out there but came in looking grimly composed and were escorted through the double doors.
Finally after two hours a nurse called her mother into the emergency area. A minute later Ryanna came back out, held one of the double doors open, and called Beth, Beth’s father, step-father, and Miri into it.
Inside it a bald, stout, black man in blue surgical scrubs was giving instructions to a yellow-coated nurse or aide.
Ryanna Corcoran said, “He’s out of danger for now. They’ve got him in Intensive Care. He’s sleeping so we can’t visit him. I’m going to go in briefly to check on him.”
The black doctor gave one final instruction and came to speak to Beth’s mother.
“I don’t advise it, Doctor. He’s in good shape but the sight could distress you.”
“Doctor, I believe I can maintain professional objectivity.” Her words were as stiff as her spine.
He looked at her for long moments. “Very well. But I’m accompanying you.”
“That’s—”
“That’s what we’re going to do.”
Allan and Nicolas looked at each other. For a moment Bethany thought they were reading each other’s minds.
Nicolas said, “Ryanna, we’re going to calm everyone down and get them on the road home. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Allan said, “I will, too.”
“And me,” said Beth, touching her mother’s nearest hand and lending her some of her strength.
·
In the next half-hour half the family waiting for Ryanna Corcoran were soothed and sent home. Beth went into a five-way huddle/hug and soothed her fireteam and sent them home. Then the four left behind sat and chatted in a disjointed fashion until Dr. Ryanna Corcoran returned.
·
Her family settled in at home, each with a two-pill sample packet of tranquilizer from Dr. Osborne to help them sleep. Bethany pretended to swallow hers with a glass of water and retired to her room.
Her mother and step-father were soon fast asleep, the tranquilizer boosted by a shapechanger’s much more potent medicine. Then Beth glided down the stairs and out into the back yard.
·
Ten minutes later Sandrine Ascaride arrived at the hospital, her shoes, purse, and jacket restored to her. Calm and beautiful she waited in the Intensive Care waiting room. At nearly midnight she shared it only with a grieving couple. A touch from her hand eased them. Soon after they left.
Sandrine sat very relaxed, reading her info slate. Twice nurses or aides tried to get her to leave. A gentle touch to the back of a hand and a smile and they forgot all about her.
At about 3:00 she stood up and peered through the porthole-sized windows into the Intensive Care room. It was fairly big but each of the beds were surrounded by equipment, some of it
free-standing, some of it hanging from the ceiling. A square frame-work hung from the ceiling with light-green drapes which could be closed or left open. Perhaps half the drapes were closed.
It would not be possible to sneak inside enclosed in her bubble set to invisible. The clearances were too narrow. And someone walking down an aisle could bump into the infinitely hard surface of the bubble. She could imagine the fuss that would arouse.
The perimeter of the bubble can be adjusted to accommodate the space available.
Explain.
The shape the bubble usually takes is the minimum energy configuration. But it can be adjusted so that the surface follows your surface.
Why did you never tell me this before?!
You never asked me.
Bethany blinked. Then she understood.
She had gotten so used to the robot’s ever-more colloquial speech, which was based upon her own, that she had subconsciously come to think of it as a person.
But it wasn’t. It was a machine, a servant. An extension of her will. It had no will of its own.
Explain what happens when you adjust the surface. Does it conform to my skin or to my clothes?
It conforms to your clothes, of course. The other would be inefficient. But I can do that if you wish.
Again she had to remind herself that the way it spoke was that of a very sophisticated machine. It was not a person chatting with her.
Do you have an option which allows you to volunteer information that I do not ask for but may need?
Yes. It is engaged but at a minimal level. Do you want me to increase that level?
Yes. But one notch only. I don’t want to be constantly bombarded with so much information I become confused.
I can monitor your information-processing function and if it becomes disordered I can reduce my volunteer level.
Then do so.
Bethany waited for long moments to see how the robot acted. It did nothing. Nothing that she could detect, anyway. And it did not “speak” to her.
Explain what happens when you adjust the surface of the bubble to conform to my skin and clothing.
