Kris had to fight back tears. “Grampa, that is the most loving thing I think I have ever heard from one of my blood relatives.”
She left her place at the table and went around to give him a hug. It was hard to tell under his tan, but it sure looked like he blushed. So she made it worse by giving him a peck on the cheek.
“Here, here,” came from Jack, so on her way back to her place, Kris gave him a hug. His kiss was not on the cheek and took a bit longer.
“Get a room,” Penny suggested.
“There’s only one here,” Kris said, “and our snoring giant needs it if any of us are to get any rest.”
“I did warn you that I sawed a lot of wood at night,” Grampa said with no repentance.
Kris took her seat and returned to the life-or-death matter before them. “Okay, General Trouble, what have you got for us?”
The general leaned forward and began in a low voice. “Like so many businesspeople, Al is penny-wise and pound-foolish. He’s contracted out the outer layer of his security. The pay for rent-a-cops is low and the turnover what you’d expect. They’re always hiring in new faces.”
Kris shook her head. “So you can get us in the front door. It’s a long way from there to his bedroom.”
“Stay with me. My contact has downloaded a complete map of Al’s compound and the central tower. You’ll want to study these before you go in,” the general said, and handed the tiny data chip to Kris. She held it close to Nelly.
“I’m loading it all now. Sal and Mimzy are getting it, too.”
“The internal security gets tighter,” Kris said.
“It does, but my good friend has created false handprints for you as well as a couple of matching eyeballs for scanning. The owners of these are scheduled for a night off, but they get called in enough that main security won’t think anything of them being in for a while.”
“And if they are called in while we’re in?” Jack asked.
“There will be a problem,” the general admitted.
Kris leaned back in her chair, food forgotten, and weighed the odds. They weren’t very good, but if Grampa’s cybermagician had pulled some really nifty new stuff out of her hat, Kris would take the chance to hop along with it.
“We do it. When, General?”
“Tomorrow night,” he said. “You’ll be doppelgänging folks that get two days off starting tomorrow. If something doesn’t break right tomorrow, you’ve got the next day as an option.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kris said.
“As much as we ever have,” Jack added.
“Better than several I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming through,” Penny said.
“Who goes?” Colonel Hancock asked.
“Not you,” Kris said. Jack and Penny nodded along with her. “You’ve risked your neck enough just getting Jack here. I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me. Now, you and Grampa Trouble go back. Cover your tracks. Do what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“I’d really like to go with you, Commander,” the colonel said.
“You will be, sir. You taught me a lot of what I know. Or kicked my butt and got me learning a whole lot of what I thought I knew but didn’t. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t marched into my life, sir.”
The colonel half snorted. “I wasn’t doing much marching back then. You made my life a whole lot more interesting.”
“She has a tendency to do that if you survive her,” Penny added.
“And a whole lot haven’t,” Kris finished.
“You’re going to have to cut that out, Commander.” Now it was Grampa Trouble’s turn to hold Kris with his eyes, demand that she attend to his words.
“You made a call. It was the right one in my book. You planned your battle and fought it the only way you could. As so often happens, it worked, and it didn’t. Nothing unusual in that. The odds against you looked bad when you started and got worse as you went along. I’ve been there, done that, and got the scars on my body and soul to prove it.”
His crisp words paused for a moment, before going on. “I can point you at history books and tell you that is just the way it happens, but your history is fresh in your mind, and it was written with the blood and sweat of good men and women you knew personally. It’s easier to handle if folks give you a nice victory parade, but it doesn’t take away the scars on your soul even if they do. Take my word for it. You are the only person who can make the call for you. You can either spend the rest of your life eating your liver, and likely die young, or you can stand up, throw your shoulders back, and soldier, girl. What’s it going to be?”
Kris let the words run over her, like baptismal water from some fiery preacher. Fire and brimstone in camouflage. Her head already knew everything he’d told her, but under his stern eyes, the words flowed like a torrent into her heart. A heart that had gone cold and hard in the pressure of battle, and rejection now met the old soldier’s fire . . . and melted.
“I will soldier,” Kris said. “I’ve got too much to do to lie around eating my liver.”
“I never much cared for liver,” Grampa Trouble muttered.
“But it does raise a question, Grampa,” Kris said.
“Which one?” he growled.
“How come I’m the one that keeps having to save the world? Why can’t somebody else step up to the plate and, for example, give Grampa Al a good whop to the head and knock some sense into him?”
“Oh, that old question,” the general said, and took a deep breath. “You ever find the word ‘fair’ on your birth certificate, Kris?”
“No, sir. And I looked real good a couple of times or twelve.”
“I never found it either. It’s damn unfair that some people get an easy life and others get a hard one, but that seems to be the way it works. And the problem with having a hard life and handling it well is that you get handed even harder stuff the next time. And if you do that well, the next one is even harder.”
“Until you get the one you can’t handle, and it breaks you, huh, Grampa?”
“Or it turns you into someone like Ray. There is another option. Your gramma Ruth keeps me human. Keeps it all in perspective. The love of a fine person can do that for you.”
Kris looked at Jack, reached over, and took his hand. She gave it a hard squeeze. “You willing to take on that job? Keeping me human and, whatever Grampa Trouble was talking about. In perspective.”
“That’s a job I’d volunteer for,” Jack said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Good, then let’s finish our sandwiches and think,” Grampa Trouble said.
They finished their meals in silence. Kris spent the time with Nelly reviewing the data on the chip. From the way Jack and Penny stared off into space, they likely were doing the same. Finished, Kris summed up what she’d found.
“So, you’ve got the necessary certificates for Nelly and her kids to fake it online as some old computers. Nelly, can you do it?”
“No problem, Kris. You remember when I was working on probing that alien rock, I created a part of me and isolated it from the rest of me. We can create a pretty lame and outdated section in our self-organizing matrix and let any security system probe that to its heart’s content without getting a hint there’s more lurking behind.”
“That’s a start,” Kris said. “Now, where is the sneaky gear that will get us in and through Grampa Al’s wondrous security walls?”
“In one of the suitcases you brought in,” Grampa Trouble quickly answered. “You want to look at it now?”
“No. I’ll take your word for it. Crew, it looks to me like we’ve got everything we need. Jack, Penny, you see anything that I’ve missed?”
“Nope. It’s a thin plan,” Jack said. “But then, I can’t think of anything to thicken it up. If you’re sure Grampa Al won’t order his security guards to shoot to kill, then I guess we do our best. We can’t end up any worse than we’ve been.”