“So, buckley, is there a Bane Sidhe regulation for people confined to quarters that would make downloading a few books and movies from the base library count as ‘electronic liberties’?”
“They’ll probably shoot you and I’ll get wiped and handed to some kid as a video game box.”
“Is there a regulation, buckley?” she repeated coldly.
“No, but you don’t really imagine that that’s going to matter to them, do you? Would you like me to list the five top policies they could use to justify shooting you?”
“Shut up, buckley.”
“Really, it would be no trouble.”
“Shut up, buckley.”
“Right.”
One of the things in her backpack from the road trip was the cube where she had stored the initial take from the research on Sinda Makepeace. It said she grew up in Wisconsin. In addition to a broad selection of really old movies, the base library had a textbook with a junior high level history of the state, including a rather large volume entitled The Complete and Unabridged History of Cheese, and a whole pack of Fleet Strike manuals for training generally, and Makepeace’s MOS in particular.
If they didn’t decide to send her out on the mission, it wouldn’t matter. If they did, being unprepared could really suck. And between that and watching Fred and Ginger cut a rug — flat and not colorized, thank you very much — she managed to kill time until a knock at her door told her lunch had arrived.
She looked at the single link of soy sausage, cornbread, creamed corn, carton of milk, and apple on the tray with a touch of disbelief.
“I ain’t believin’ this. I think they’re really pissed at me, buckley.”
“You’re just catching on to that? You used to be smarter. Incoming message from Michael O’Neal, Senior. Do you want the bad news now, or after you eat?”
“Play it, buckley.”
A foot-high hologram of her grandfather, from the shoulders up, appeared a foot or so above the PDA. She had to move around to see his face. The buckley wasn’t smart enough to display the message at a conversational distance in front of her like a true AID would.
“Cally, you have a three-fifteen appointment in medical. Please be a few minutes early.”
Well, it didn’t sound like he was coming to deliver her personally or sending an escort. That was something.
Doctor Albert Vitapetroni had a well-developed poker face and empathetic manner. It was a professional necessity for a psychiatrist. As the head of psychiatry for the clinic at Chicago Base, he might have to see any human member of the large organization. It would have been humanly impossible, not to mention in specific cases irrational, to like all of his charges.
The lean and fit, though balding, man pacing in his office and playing idly with one of his desk toys was not one of his favorite fellow Bane Sidhe. He couldn’t actually say the man was a patient, because as a computing operative the man generally stayed out of the line of fire enough not to require his services. And, of course, he was not here for those services now. Instead, the operative was making a bit of a nuisance of himself rambling on about his three-fifteen patient.
“That’s the trouble with operatives in her branch of the business. You can only make somebody kill over and over for so many years before they go sociopath on you.”
“Mr. Wallace, you have just illustrated why professionals are so chagrinned by laypeople’s use of psychiatric jargon. Miss O’Neal is most certainly not a sociopath.”
“Psychopath, whatever. And you can’t exactly say that if you haven’t seen her yet, can you? If you have preconceived notions before you even see her, seems to me you’d do everyone a service by, well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but by—”
“Operative Wallace, while I admired your father as a professional colleague, I feel I need to remind you that growing up with a parent who is a psychiatrist does not make you a psychiatrist.” He took a deep breath and tried to recover his professional calm. “Jay, if you need to talk or something, feel free to talk with my receptionist and she’ll fit you in. We don’t have to even call it an appointment if you’d rather not, but right now I really need to get some of this paperwork done before this afternoon’s round of patients. Sorry to shove you out the door, but if you’ll excuse me…”
“Sure. No problem. I guess I’ll see you later or something.” The operative held up both hands in a gesture of acceptance and backed through the door, shutting it behind him.
The doctor watched him go and sat staring at, or really past, the closed door for a minute. I don’t have any rational reason I can put my finger on, other than minor little annoyances like what happened just now, but I just plain don’t like him. I’ve never caught him doing anything underhanded — well, more than any operative has to — and there’s nothing in his file, test results are fine, but I just can’t stand the little weasel. And this whole Cally O’Neal mess is extra stress I did not need this week. Dammit, I told them years ago what would happen if she ever found out that rat bastard was alive. I told them to keep that secret and keep her out of Chicago to reduce the risk of an unfortunate coincidental meeting. So somebody doesn’t listen well enough and now the mess lands in my lap. God, I need a vacation.
Vitapetroni answered the knock on his door at ten after three. It was like her to be early. It would take longer to jot down his impressions than it would to make them. Subject was neatly but casually dressed. Faded but neat jeans and olive drab T-shirt consistent with Cally persona. Head carried slightly awkwardly. Probably uncomfortable with a hair color and texture that doesn’t match current role. No contact lenses, eyes natural color.
“Cally, how are you? Come in and have a seat.” As he took her hand, he noted that the nails were bare of polish and dull, as if polish had been recently removed. Also consistent with Cally persona. Good.
“Hi, Doc.” She smiled brightly, but he noticed as she sat in one of his comfortably, if cheaply, upholstered chairs that her arms stayed close in to her sides and her body tilted at an angle, not facing him straight on. Her hands were not clasped, but they were together in her lap, the fingertips lightly touching.
He cocked an eyebrow at her and waited, as he grabbed a seat in his desk chair. The desk itself was pushed against the wall to keep it from coming between him and the patient. He waited, but she’d been around long enough to know that game, and they trained them out of any tendency to chatter. She didn’t fill the silence.
“It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I meant it. How are you?”
“I’ve been better. Work’s been a bit stressful, lately.” Her tone was still falsely bright.
“But it wasn’t work that caused your current problem, was it?” He made a couple of notes on his second PDA, the only one in the room at the moment, which was unusual in that it had no AI at all. He didn’t trust them. He met too many really warped programmers in his profession to trust their imitations of the human mind with confidential patient data. It had nothing to do with his having tried to treat a buckley once. It had ended badly.
“Oh, I think that’s a matter of opinion, don’t you?” Her voice had a definite edge to it.
“Well, they told me you killed a Bane Sidhe agent. When you were supposed to be on vacation. That’s their opinion, as you said. I’d like to hear yours.” he said.
“Okay. There was an individual on the Targets of Opportunity List who was mistakenly listed as dead. I became aware of the mistake and the target’s location. I had time, I felt like taking a trip, I took the target, I filed my report. If the organization doesn’t want a specific individual dead, then perhaps, just perhaps, the organization shouldn’t have that individual on the TOL.” She smiled thinly.