“Peter, you have an urgent memo coming in from General Stewart, covered as Lieutenant Pryce on Titan Base,” his AID chimed.
“He got a live one?” Vanderberg sat bolt upright in his chair.
“Not exactly, Peter. What he got was four names and identifying information including DNA, itineraries, aliases, and current physical descriptions of agents in the Chicago area,” it said.
“Holy shit! DNA, too?” Somebody up there likes me.
“That’s what he says, and the file attached has all of that.” The AID even sounded pleased.
“Wow. Show me the file.” He shook his head as he scanned the details. “Shit, Stewart hit the jackpot. Get me Morrison.” He stood and walked over to the window, tapping his lips with one finger.
“I’m sorry, Peter. Morrison is out of pocket. He has a dental appointment,” it said.
“Dental appointment?” He turned, looking at the AID on his desk as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“He broke a tooth. He’s in for a replacement.”
“Geez, did something happen? Is he all right?” he asked.
“No accident. I believe it was a statistical certainty sooner or later. He chews ice.” The AID’s voice had that prim note they took on when they disapproved of something. The AID personalities had odd notions of propriety sometimes. In this case, he suspected the cause of disapproval was that anyone would do anything so inconsiderate as to engage in a habit that would eventually necessitate taking time off from work. Every once in a while, AIDs were really strange.
“Okay, have him come in first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, I don’t think this can wait. Send in Lewis, I guess. No, cancel that. I’d rather lose a day than bring in an extra person on something like this. Shit. Tell Morrison I want him in here tomorrow at seven thirty. We can at least get an early start.” He locked his hands behind his head and began to pace, already turning possible scenarios over in his head.
“You are aware that tomorrow is Sunday, right?” it said.
“Yeah. I hate it, but this can’t wait.” He waved one hand impatiently and kept on pacing.
“That’s fine, Peter. I’m just following your standing order to remind you.”
“Yeah, that. Thanks, Jenny.” Wow. What a break.
There were so few public access terminals these days. Everybody and his sister had a PDA, well, except for the lucky bastards with AIDs. Well, clean ones, anyway. But PDAs sometimes broke, or people lost them — anyway, thank god for public access terminals.
This one was in the middle of the busiest section of the Corridor he could find. There was so much visual noise here with all the other people passing that no particular pedestrian would ever remember him. Not that anybody but the Bane Sidhe would be looking, and by the time they were, he’d be long gone.
He had really wanted to spend his retirement on Earth — the amenities were so much better, even when one was perforce keeping a low profile. Oh, well, things were how they were.
Dulain was a good planet. One of the first colonized by humans, and it had some hazards, but it also had a good belt of very pleasant islands. Not too great a place to work as a penniless colonist. But just fine for someone with a nice nest egg. And a ship was leaving at nineteen-thirty on Tuesday. Perfect. It only took him a few moments to transfer the funds from his numbered accounts to numbered accounts on Dulain. He’d opened an account on Titan with some of the cash from his payoff. The rest he had, unfortunately, had to deposit in a public locker, taking his chances. Still, the important part about the cash was the ability to buy his outbound ticket under an uncompromised ID.
And he’d never have to eat another soybean corn dog again. Ever.
The newsstand on the corner of level eight and hallway Romeo on the Corridor had a good solid range of over the counter medications, including several popular diet mixes that were mostly diuretics. Cally picked the distinctive orange and yellow package because this particular diuretic combination was not just fast acting, it was also mostly tasteless and the effective dose was small. A beer would be enough to hide the very mild taste, even from someone like her.
I hate drugging him at all. The least I can do is set it up so what I give him is as harmless as possible. Well, embarrassing, maybe, if he doesn’t run fast enough. Still, that’s as harmless I can make it. At least I don’t have to use it for a few days.
She was wearing her least conspicuous bra under the silks as she made the buy. Less out of real need than out of the normal tradecraft of reducing conspicuous factors. Obviously it was not enough. She was sure the Asian cashier’s eyes never even flickered above her collarbone.
James Stewart stood in front of the glass of his beach picture, trying to get enough of a reflection to make sure his hair was all right. He sure hadn’t been this excited about coming in to work on a Saturday night in a long time. But then, he wasn’t here to work.
In the silence of the empty headquarters office, he could hear the swish of the front door. The bag in her arms puzzled him briefly, until he remembered that she was supposed to bring dinner. He should have been hungry, but he’d never felt less like eating in his life. Well, not food, anyway. He grinned broadly as she came in and put the bag down on the front desk.
He reached for her and pulled her against him, one hand pressed into the small of her back, and the other buried in her hair. Her belly was pressed tight against his, her breasts squashed but still soft against his chest. He wanted to screw her now. Right now.
He tried to pull her back towards his office, or hers, but she wouldn’t go, laughing teasingly.
“Why not right here?” She patted the top of the desk, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “Or here…” She slid off the edge of the desk and fell back into the chair, spinning in it and laughing.
He quirked an eyebrow skeptically, imagining how far he’d have to bend his knees for that to work. But she was ahead of him. That, or she’d read his mind, pressing the button that activated the chair’s hydraulics, raising it to its limit.
As she unsealed the front seam of her silks and shrugged them off her shoulders, he reconsidered. Perhaps it was workable after all. Especially once she lifted her knees and gripped, taking a lot of the weight off his knees. As the rhythm of sex took him over, the brush of her nipples against his chest making him fight for every bit of the control needed to make it last, he promised himself that he’d never question her assessment of what was physically possible again.
After they fixed Anders’ philodendron, which had somehow gotten dislodged from its terra cotta pot, they ate dinner in Sinda’s office. He didn’t know where she’d come up with an old-fashioned picnic of cold fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and chocolate chip cookies, but it sure was good. Especially the ice-cold genuine Milwaukee beer, which must have cost her a small fortune.
Afterward, she seduced him — not that he resisted, of course — on the slimy sonofabitch’s desk. He had to admit he appreciated the irony.
The smell of her hair was thick in his nostrils as her kisses — interspersed with a few bites to make sure he was paying attention — trailed down his chest. More kiss than bite the farther she went. Finally, she was wrapped around one of his legs, her breasts rubbing against his thigh, nails and body clenched and shuddering against him in ways that showed him that she was having just as much fun as he was.