As she walked around the side of the house, she bit back a curse. She had been seen. She had been seen by a small blond-haired boy of perhaps four who was very quietly trying to tie a very patient-looking golden retriever to a small green wagon. The boy looked at her gravely and put a finger over his lips, “Shhh…” Stifling what might have otherwise come out as a slightly strained giggle, Cally put a finger to her own lips and walked down the driveway to the street, and resumed the jog around the block to her car. She didn’t look back. It was shaping up to be one of those days.
Three different stores yielded several pairs of pantyhose, plastic ties, and a pack of cheap bandannas. Then she went to a mall near the mistress’s apartment to window shop until lunch. It was one of the aspects of the job you never got used to. Or, at least, she never had. Hours and hours of hurry up and wait interspersed with brief periods of pure adrenaline. Of course, her body’s response to adrenaline was atypical, in the same way as every other member of the special class at school had been. If not at the beginning, then certainly after training and who knew what tinkering. Adrenaline triggered time dilation, focused concentration, and emotional flattening, as well as adding a certain edge to physical performance. But Cally had reason to believe her own atypical adrenaline response was purely natural, for the simple reason that she’d had it years before ever reporting to school. It seemed to run in the family.
Didn’t do crap for the boredom, though. Every agent had their own way of coping with that. Some read. Some played games on their PDAs. Some collected the most fiendishly difficult crossword puzzles they could find. Cally shopped. Oh, not if there was some strategic advantage to lying low, of course. She kept a backup supply of about a gazillion color catalogs just in case. But mostly she watched the people, tried on clothes or shoes, looked at the latest gizmos and gadgets. She’d been told it was a reaction to the privations of her childhood. Personally, she thought the shrinks were full of shit. For a young, attractive female, there was no place that was more completely anonymous and unremarkable than a shopping mall. She was seen by at least one hundred people in a given hour, and remembered by none of them. She made sure never to buy enough to give a salesgirl a memorable commission, she never responded to any boys or men with eye contact or more than a totally impersonal, casual social smile. It was the next best thing to being invisible, and the walking worked off some of the pre-mission nervous energy. Besides, sometimes she found a really good bargain. Today there was a lovely boat-necked coral blouse on clearance. It would look great under the oatmeal slacks and blazer she was planning to wear tonight. The reason it was marked so low was a snag in the back that would be obvious the minute she took the blazer off. It was perfect, since she was only going to wear it once.
By mid-afternoon, the mall restroom was empty enough that she could change clothes and do her makeup without drawing a lot of attention. The dark, permed curls didn’t need more than a quick brushing.
A bit before four, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot near the apartment complex. She tapped the buttons to wake up the AI simulator. “Hey, buckley.”
“It’s all coming apart, now, isn’t it?”
“No, buckley. I just want you to plot the three most probable routes, based on the target’s pattern information from the cameras, from the Fleet Strike Tower area to the apartment complex at 2256 Lucky Avenue.”
“That’s all you know. Can’t do it.”
“What do you mean you can’t do it? Buckley, just plot the routes, okay?”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“Buckley, I’m really not in the mood for this.”
“Nobody ever cares about my mood. Here we are, mission falling apart around our ears, about to be overrun by the Posleen, no doubt, or have a nuke dropped on us, or have a C-Dec fall on our heads, or a building col—”
“Enough, buckley.” She clenched her fists in exasperation. “Why can’t you plot a probable route for the subject from the Tower to the apartment complex?”
“Who said I couldn’t? I never said I couldn’t,” it sounded infernally smug.
She counted to ten very slowly. “Buckley, plot the most probable route, based on the target’s pattern, from the Tower to the apartment complex. Display on screen.”
“Okay.” A section of Chicago street map appeared on the screen with a route outlined in red. It looked like the one she remembered from Friday, but it paid to make sure.
“Now, without erasing the current map and plot, add to it the plot of the second most probable route for the target to take from the Tower to the apartment complex.”
“Why do I always get saddled with the idiots? Can’t do it.” It sounded rather pleased about it.
“Why can’t you follow that last command, buckley?” she asked between gritted teeth.
“No data on the target’s movements exists that is inconsistent with the first route.”
“He takes the same route every time?” Does the guy have a death wish, or what?
“Brilliant. Keep this up and you may actually begin to understand some of the many things that could go wrong with this situation. Not that it’ll do any good,” it pronounced morosely.
“Fine. Without getting caught by the host computers, hack in and watch the cameras along his route. If he’s moving along the route now, or whenever he starts moving along the route, tell me, place a dot on the screen to show his probable location along the route, updating the information whenever you get more data from the cameras.”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Why, is he en route?” she queried sharply.
“No. I just thought if you were one of those people who handles disaster better when you don’t know it’s coming…”
“Buckley, other than telling me when the target leaves the Tower to start over here, or telling me if he starts to go somewhere else, shut up.”
“Touchy today, aren’t we?” It fell silent.
Cally checked the cheap briefcase she’d gotten from an office supply store in the mall. Change of clothes, sealed in plastic, good. Okay, drugs, wine cooler, plastic ties, multiple pairs of pantyhose, gags, gloves, switchblade, soundbox… She took the small, gray box with a switch on top and flipped it on. “Testing, testing, testing.” The sounds of traffic became muffled and her voice was hollow and muted. She turned it off and clipped it to her belt before taking the switchblade out and shoving it in her pocket. It was a useful weapon when you wanted to avoid killing someone, as it usually immediately convinced them you would kill them, and ensured their full cooperation in whatever you asked of them. Well, with certain psychological types, anyway. Right now the non-target’s healthy sense of terror was the woman’s best chance of staying alive.
She opened the wine cooler and took a couple of swallows, making a bit of room at the top. Then she took the bottle with the red mark and carefully poured the drugs into the wine. The drug bottle went back in a pocket of the briefcase, and the cap back on the wine cooler. She swirled it around very gently. Won’t take much to mix it up, but we don’t want any soda-pop showers.
She put a small red mark on the label with one of the markers and the wine cooler bottle went back in the case, along with a fresh one, and took out a small pink nametag and pinned it to the lapel of her jacket. The tag announced that she was Lisa Johnson and bore the familiar logo of a well-known cosmetics company. She glanced at her watch. Four-twelve.