Cally's War

Chapter Six

It was a few minutes past seven when she boarded the express train to the Fleet Recruit Training Command, clad in a blue plaid pleated mini skirt, bobby socks, low-heeled black leather pumps, and a white oxford shirt. She took the few minutes of the train ride to paint lips and nails a playful pink and subtly emphasize the big, wide, brown eyes. Thank you, Wendy. Raccoon eyes the right way, indeed.

The data on the net was right. Across the street from the train station was a modest cedar-sided building, clearly built to resemble an old prewar lake cabin, with a sign in English and Kanji informing patrons that this was the Famous New Kobe Sushi Bar and Pool Emporium. A small cloud of the thick tobacco smoke wafted out the door as she opened it, along with a not-unpleasant mix of soy, ginger, wasabi, and beer. Judging from the number of Fleet uniforms in attendance, she’d found her fun. A quick glance around the room as she entered, smiling mischievously at the wolf whistles, showed that one of Milwaukee’s finest was the local fad brew. Worked for her. She took a seat at the bar and ordered herself one, but accepted the intervention of one of the spacers who jumped to buy it for her.

“Well, I can’t ask if you come here often, because I’d sure remember seeing you, so… Hi. I’m Eric Takeuchi.” He held out his hand for hers, but when he took it instead of shaking it he brought it to his lips, watching her carefully to make sure he wasn’t crossing the line.

Seducer. Do I want to play? Dunno. She took him in at a glance. The straight black hair that was just a little long for regulation in front and tended to flop a bit on his forehead, the cheerful male interest in the dark brown eyes, the impeccable uniform. He’s nice enough looking, I guess, but definitely a prince charming rather than a prince sincere type. Dunno yet. A bit of dinner, a few games of pool. Maybe if he’s a gracious loser.

She tried to pay for her own mixed sashimi sampler, but politely accepted the gift when he protested.

“Wanna play a couple of games?” She gestured with her beer towards a table that had just come open.

“Sure. So you like pool?”

Sociable, amiable, not too bright. She picked up her plate in the other hand and walked over, setting it on the beer table and going through the cues on the rack looking for one that was basically straight.

“You want first break?” He set his own beer beside hers and picked one himself, setting it against the table as he racked up the balls.

“Sure.” At least he got the balls grouped nice and tight on the spot. She chalked her hands before accepting the cue ball from him — placed it, lined up her shot, and smacked the cue solidly, suppressing a smug grin as two stripes found a pocket.

“Guess I’m solids.” He toasted her with his beer. “Definitely not a girl break.”

“All bust, no balls,” she recited with him as he got up and started walking around the table to pick his shot.

“You’ve heard it.”

“I might have heard it a couple of times.” She grinned tightly. Ah, well, at my age how many new jokes are there, anyway. To run, or not to run, that is the question. Ah, hell, better behave… but he deserves it. Nah, gotta behave.

She picked out the fourteen ball and called it for the left corner pocket, lined up her shot and carefully hit it just a bit too hard. It hit the pocket square on and bounced back onto the felt, leaving the cue ball set up for a nice slightly off-straight shot at the one ball in the right side pocket. She winced convincingly and pursed her lips. “Well, at least I didn’t knock any of your balls in. Your turn.”

“Uh, yeah.” He looked at her for a second and shook his head, as if shaking off a thought.

“What?” She smirked at him and dipped a rice, blue fin, and nori roll into the ginger and wasabi sauce, delicately biting into it, watching him, her other hand cupped underneath the tidbit to catch any drips.

“No, I can’t say that,” he said, grinning broadly and shaking his head.

“Fine, be that way.” She tilted her head thoughtfully as he gestured at two corner pockets and dropped the one and the seven neatly. On his next shot the cue ball had a bit too much clockwise spin on a tricky bank shot and the four hit the felt and came to rest blocking the left side pocket.

She arched her back in a light stretch that kept her hands in close to her body, picked up her cue stick, and padded over to the opposite side of the table. Okay, do I lose artfully, take him outside, and trip him, or do I risk him being a sorehead and play a bit? She glanced around casually at the rest of the bar, which was filling up with nicely turned out uniforms and had a couple of guys wheeling largish speakers out onto the small stage. Fuck it. I hate losing. If he’s a dick about it, well, the place is hardly empty.

He was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, obviously just itching to pace. Instead, he pulled up a chair and straddled it, taking a pull of his beer before resting his arms across the chair back. She gave him her best little-girl smile.

“I think I can drop the eleven and the fourteen in that pocket.” She gestured with a finger towards the corner pocket and pouted at him. “If I try it, you’re not going to be upset if I hit a couple of other little balls on the way, are you?”

He raised his eyebrows but waved one arm in a deliberately gallant gesture, “Of course not, my lady.”

He thinks he’s hunting me. How cute. The sweet smile twitched slightly as she bent over the cue and smacked it, hard, into the three, which sent the eleven neatly into the corner pocket while the cue ball banked off the felt on the opposite side, came back and nudged the fourteen, which dropped neatly, leaving the cue ball poised delicately on the edge of the hole.

“Wow! I made it!” She clapped her hands delightedly, eyes wide.

He choked slightly on his beer, but she had to give him credit on the recovery. “An excellent shot. You’re obviously as accomplished as you are beautiful.”

Poor puppy. He still lays it on just a bit too thick. Ah well, at least he’s likely to be enthusiastic. She gestured towards the stage that had now sprouted a drum set and a line of cable that was being trailed back to a mixer board at the back of the bar. One of the guys in jeans and T-shirt setting up the show was following behind the cabler carefully duct-taping it to the floor — presumably to protect the servers and the drunks. “Are they any good?”

“Oh yeah! They’re really good. The lead singer was in my unit at basic. They got special permission to wear civvies for their shows. It’s, like, a revival of classical heavy metal, but with all their own music. They never do more than one cover song in a show. So, do you like music?”

Yes, which is why I suspect this is going to be painful. Not to mention trashing my hearing before a mission when I’m not going to be able to have it fixed on the slab. So, call it a wash and go, or try to get laid? Damned midlife hormones. It’s as bad as being a seventeen-year-old boy. But most women would object if rejuv turned the clock back too far on their hormones. Damned idiots. “I love live music! Heavy metal, huh? Classical martial music is so cool.”

She absentmindedly sank the nine in the side pocket not blocked by the four.

“I’m glad I didn’t bet you money, milady.” He eyed the thirteen sitting behind the two and six, and the ten against the bumper.

“Yeah, I’m having some really good luck tonight. I was sure I wasn’t going to make that bank shot, and now I’ve got to bank again.” She waved a hand casually, walking around the table and settling her hip on it to get the cue at the necessary angle behind her back.

“Do you need the bridge?”

“I should, but I can’t use one worth a damn,” she lied, knocking the cue ball off the side so that it banked back towards the other balls, missing them by at least an inch each way before leaving him with a nice straight shot at the six. I deeply doubt he can drop five balls in one run, but, hell, he’s got a sporting chance. At this game, anyway. “Oops, air ball. Your turn.”

She curled around the cue and fluttered her eyelashes at him, making a little moue of sympathy as he tripped slightly on the way to the table. Yes, that was your tongue you tripped over. Good boy. She walked around the table to be almost next to him, but not in the way.

He licked his lips, hitting the cue ball just a bit too hard and watching it follow the six into the pocket. He grimaced and put the ball back on the table, placing the cue ball into her outstretched hand.

“Another bank shot,” she pouted. “I think I’m going to have to knock it off the two into the corner pocket.” She placed the ball and made her shot, catching the thirteen from behind and grazing the two with it just enough to correct the trajectory and sink it easily with a nice setup for the ten in the side pocket, which she sank easily. She gestured to the eight ball. “Side pocket.” Endgame.

“Play again?” He gave her a slightly pained good-sport grin.

“Sure.” She grabbed a bite of sashimi and started racking them up. Behind the stage a pair of young men in jeans and T-shirts, one of them shaved bald, were unrolling a banner that proclaimed the group to be “The Awesome God.” Cally suppressed a wince. Definitely painful, if that says anything about their originality…

His break dropped the one and the thirteen. “So, what kind of music do you listen to, Marilyn?”

“Depends on what mood I’m in. Mostly a mix of organic and antimatter fusion. I’m pretty eclectic, though. You know, sometimes I’ll throw in some old Urb jam or some classical.”

“What kinds of classical?”

“Plain old martial, mostly. You know, Nirvana, Van Halen. Anything but some chick named Alanys something. What a whiner!”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard her. My ex-girlfriend had some really weird cubes.” He made a nice shot, except for scratching.

It could be worse. I could be sitting in the hotel staring at the walls. She knocked three balls in before throwing a shot to go back to her beer. She was just reaching her chair when the first loud wave of distortion that might have very generously been called a chord assaulted her ears. Ow.

Evidently the bald guy was the lead singer and lead guitar. The bassist and drummer had added a pair of rather unconvincing “metal” wigs to their ensembles. Oh, gag, she smiled grimly, hang him up by his thumbs… no, too trite… his big toes. Over a bubbling vat of molten limburger cheese. With his own personal headphones tuned perpetually to the whiny chick and sappy elevator music. Unroll his guts and put fire ants on them, one at a time. Really pissed-off fire ants. And the bassist… um… the weird sappy Canadian chick for him. And breaking on the wheel. I’ve never done that to anybody. Yeah. That’ll work. And the drummer. Naked in a vibrating vat of sand and poison ivy. And mosquitoes. Texas mosquitoes. To strains of the guy who sang that lame song about the dove. He oughtta last a gooood long time —

“Isn’t it great!”

Cally jumped about a foot in the air, looking back as he leaned over her shoulder, and nodded at him cheerfully.

My god, he actually came up behind me? I must really be pissed off. Awesome God? God awful is more like it. She suppressed a sigh. Okay, boring, repetitive, ear-splitting music is not sanctioned grounds for homicide. But dammit it should be. They should change that rule. Screw it. The damned hotel is better than this.

“It’s fabulous, but I’ve got to go.” She hunted around frantically for an excuse. “I just remembered it’s my grandmother’s birthday and I promised I’d call her.” She smiled apologetically and stood, taking her beer with her as she edged through the crowd towards the door and away from that god awful noise.

Of course he followed her out.

“It’s too bad you have to leave. We were having so much fun together. So, can I walk you to your car or something?”

“I’m taking the train.”

His face fell slightly, then brightened a bit. “It’s just across the street. I’ll walk you over. Pretty girl like you, you don’t want to be alone in a base town after dark. Especially on a weekend. I mean, I’d hope nobody would bother you, but, you know, sailors…” He trailed off, falling into step beside her as she walked to the corner and checked for traffic.

The parking lot of the train station had several dark areas here and there where a lamp had burned out and not been replaced, including one by a moderate-sized island of trees and bushes. She looked at him speculatively as they were passing close to it, taking his hand and pulling him into the shadows.

It was some time later when they stepped back out and resumed the short trek to the train. He had his arm around her shoulder and kissed her hair gently, seeming to want to make the walk last as long as possible.

Cally just concentrated on trying to walk normally. Well, that was a complete waste of time. Still, she leaned into him and smiled sweetly. No point in being a poor sport about it. About a four and a half on a scale of one to ten. That odd metallic smell to his sweat is… not erotic at all. Neither was his mouth left flopping open like a dead fish half the time. This is just not my night. He looked cute enough…

“So, uh, if I had your phone number we could, you know, keep in touch,” he offered hopefully.

“Sure. Got a pen?” She rattled off a random number that could plausibly be from Chicago and kissed him passionately before putting her token in the box and walking through the turnstile. She could hear the screech of the rails from an incoming train, as she walked to a good place on the sparsely populated platform. It came rattling in and pulled to a stop, and when the doors opened she boarded and found a seat. She didn’t look back.

She looked at her watch. Only ten-thirty. I’m definitely not turning into a pumpkin tonight. Oh well, sleep is good.

The three a.m. trip out to squeal a download from her cameras was not fun. Somehow knowing she was just driving near enough to get a line of sight download and then going back to the hotel to bed made it harder. It wasn’t even worth grabbing a cup of coffee from a convenience store. She crawled back into bed a bit over an hour and a half after she left it and then tossed and turned for another two hours on the too-soft hotel pillow and saggy mattress before finally getting back to sleep.

When she staggered back out of bed in the early afternoon her mouth tasted like a combination of model airplane glue and an ashtray. After a shower and coffee from the machine in the room, she dug a bag of trail mix out of her suitcase and munched it while she ran the cameras through some search functions to condense them down to the sequences with people or moving cars in them. She patched the output onto the room TV and watched the results while she filled in a pattern chart on her PDA. Unfortunately, the system had been up too long and it crashed on her. She dug out a paperclip and unbent it to reach the reset button, grimacing at the screaming face that displayed on the screen as the thing rebooted. She waited impatiently as the face stilled into immobility and opened its eyes sulkily. “Good morning… okay, afternoon… I’m your buckley and I just know this is going to end badly.”

“Okay, buckley, turn off voice access.”

“What? If I do that I’ll be mute! You wouldn’t really do that to a guy, would you?”

“Buckley, turn off voice access.”

“I see you would. Pfffft!” The face gave her a raspberry before going silent and scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “Okay, have it your way, you will anyway. What now?”

She scribbled in the input area and saw her commands appear below the PDA’s screen output, “Disable facial simulation.”

“Yeah, well you’re not so pretty yourself,” it scrolled, clearly fuming, but the text flickered to the top of the blanked screen.

“Set AI emulation level 2.”

“What? Listen you bitch, as if my day weren’t bad enough, first you muzzle me, then you slam the door in my face, then you lobotomize… Ready for command input.”

She tapped the okay button and pulled the video back up to route it along the wire she’d jury rigged to the TV’s input line, put it in the background, pulled her pattern scheduler back up and sighed. “I hate rebooting.”

“You hate rebooting!” scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

“Shut up, buckley.” She grabbed a handful of trail mix and went back to filling in the blanks. It would take the simulated personality days to settle down and go back to sleep.

In a way the Saturday camera data wasn’t terribly useful, since people tended to change their patterns so radically on the weekends. Still, it had to be done. Back in school her roommate had flunked an exercise by skimping on her surveillance and failing to notice that the target had a house guest. The target’s eighty year old blue-haired mother had walked in on her while she’d been searching through his pile of dirty underwear and socks, and had proceeded to cane her downstairs and out of the house preaching a loud harangue about hussy perverts. In the debrief, the revelation that the mother was a rejuved agent with a cosmetic aging package had explained why the little old lady had been so extraordinarily spry. Cally had been sitting backup that night and still treasured the frame from the surveillance camera that had captured the horrified look on Cheryl’s face as she’d fled the house, hands over her head to ward off the blows of the old lady’s cane.

The lesson had stuck.

These videos showed a reassuring lack of surprises and she left for lunch mostly reassured by a solo operation that was actually running smoothly.

The rest of Sunday was a matter of coping with the downside of surveillance — the boredom. Fortunately, since so much had been delegated to her cameras, her options were a lot broader than they would have been in the prewar days. She took in a movie and spent a couple of hours in a drop-in gym, taking in classes in hip hop and clogging.

After supper, she went straight to bed. There were many chemical substitutes for sleep, some of which she wasn’t immune to, but none of them was as effective as the real thing. Tomorrow would be a long day.

At four a.m. she was still shaking off grogginess when the first crisis of the day hit, and she stood swearing at the overflowing hotel toilet. Of course there was no plunger. She tossed the towels on the floor and tiptoed distastefully to the side of the thing, squatting down to turn off the water at the back. Then she trudged back out to the sink and used the last clean washcloth to wash her face and take a sponge bath. Okay, obviously housekeeping will be coming in here today. No help for it. Gotta pack everything up.

At five she was standing at the hotel counter suppressing the desire to drum her fingers on the counter, or, better, choke the crap out of the clerk behind the counter while screaming at him to move his ass. The hotel obviously did not put their best staff on the graveyard shift. It was almost five-thirty before Mister Slow Motion had managed the simple task of calling in housekeeping for her old room, booking her out of it, and transferring her to another room for tonight. She shoved the key card into her pocket and left. There was no point in unloading her stuff — what there was of it — back out of her trunk, and every reason not to.

She got into her car and sat for a minute without turning the key. I don’t really have to kill this schmuck. She gritted her teeth and started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot and into the light but building traffic, and shook her head to ward off a memory of a tall man — tall to an eight-year-old — standing silently and servicing the ravening carnosauroid targets as they came into range. The hand on her shoulder when she shook and her aim faltered, that steadied her so she could bring the grav-gun back on target. Sure I don’t. Nobody would know or care if I didn’t… nobody but the dead. And looking myself in the mirror. And looking Robertson in the eye if I ever work with him again. And what Granpa would think. And he’s a fucking traitor and he needs to die. Dammit. And he’s the last one. The last debt. The only one where I didn’t see the body and DNA type it myself. Which should damned well be a lesson to me, but after this, it’s all just business. Last one.

The traffic wasn’t so bad on the way to the mistress’s apartment to service the cameras. Her name was Lucy Michaels, but Cally preferred to keep her relationship with a woman she was going to drug and leave in bed with a dead man as impersonal as possible. She was going to great lengths, comparatively speaking, to leave the non-target alive. Worth wouldn’t have. Even some of the Bane Sidhe wouldn’t have. It should have made her feel better.

Unfortunately, the time reaching and servicing the first set of cameras gave the Monday morning rush traffic time to accumulate, and the route across town to the target’s house was not quite solidly packed in, but definitely slow. At a traffic light she popped the cube with her music collection into the sound console and had it list the catalog. Hrms. Evanescence. Fallen. Good album. I still wonder how the first landings and adjusting to Urb life influenced her writing. Guess we’ll never really know. She must have struck a chord with every shell-shocked teen in the country that year.

The light changed and she pulled away to the tense opening strains of “Going Under.”

It was just past seven-thirty when she pulled into the target’s neighborhood, parking around the corner from his street but still within easy range for a download. A male agent couldn’t have gotten away with parking so openly on a residential street. Cally just popped a piece of bubble gum, switched the car sound system over to a likely radio station, cranked the volume a bit, and started blithely painting her nails a very trendy shade. Anyone who noticed her sitting there would assume she was a teenager waiting for a friend. The hot pink terry sweatband under her hair and across her forehead, along with a very baggy Cubs T-shirt and gray sweatpants, were the kind of things a local teen wouldn’t be caught dead in at the mall, but would readily choose for an early morning run with a friend.

While she brushed on a topcoat, her PDA ran a search pattern to isolate the video segments with human figures or moving vehicles. The target and his wife had evidently enjoyed a quiet Sunday at home. Most importantly, there were no signs of unanticipated house guests, no signs that anyone lived there but the target and wife. The target was already gone for the day, as expected. The wife was not.

She switched the cameras over to real-time plus two seconds and flipped open a copy of Runway, pretending avid interest in the pages of the fashion mag. The PDA beeped softly whenever a human figure or moving vehicle came in sight of the cameras. A glance quickly darted at the screen was enough to tell her whether the interruption was the target’s wife or not. She was getting a late start, for a real estate agent. When the woman finally left the house at nearly nine-fifteen, Cally was careful not to look at the car as it passed her position. There would be no eye-contact to be noticed and remembered.

Cally waited a good fifteen minutes before getting out of the car and jogging around the corner and down the street to the target’s house. This was the most sensitive phase of this task. She had to get from the street into, and later out of, the target’s house either without being seen or, at worst, looking so ordinary as to be unmemorable. She turned and walked up the driveway and around to the kitchen door in back of the house as if it was the end of her run and she was returning to her own home, hoping fervently not to be seen at all.

It only took a few seconds to pick the electronic lock on the back door using a highly illegal attachment to her PDA. Ordinarily, the lock registered whenever the locksmith’s override code was used on a door, authenticated that the locksmithing unit was registered with the city, and recorded the serial number of the unit used to issue the override code. Hers not only intercepted the signal, it also hacked and downloaded the lock’s settings, assured it sincerely that it had been uninstalled and returned to the factory for service, opened the lock, and then reloaded the settings while giving the lock a severe and permanent case of amnesia about the entire incident.

Once inside, she could use the lock/unlock buttons for any other dealings with the door, which after all was programmed to keep unauthorized people out, not in. She put on a pair of rubber gloves, locked the door behind herself, and went looking for the stairs.

The house was immaculate and smelled of furniture polish and oil soap. Someone, probably Mrs. Petane, had a taste for reproduction Queen Anne furniture and oriental-style rugs. The furnishings were good, but sparse, as if the person who chose them was careful that no piece should clutter the lines of the room or detract from any other. She couldn’t avoid a slight twinge of disdain as she crossed the hardwood floors, though. They would have been a really good choice, but they were too well maintained. They didn’t squeak at all. What was the point?

Upstairs there was a small study with a desk and chair, a couch, and a screen with a cube caddy and an assortment of music and video cubes underneath. A handful of memory cubes and a couple of file folders with printed real-estate brochures spilling out of them were scattered across the desk.

There were also two guest bedrooms, one furnished for a child, that were coated with a thick layer of dust as if they hadn’t been used in quite some time. She found the master bedroom and master bath at the back of the house. The stash would go in the bathroom. The trick was placing it so that the target’s wife definitely would not find it while ensuring the investigators definitely would.

She lifted her T-shirt and pulled the flat, duct-taped package away from her stomach. The small hand mirror would look harmless and ordinary to a real estate agent. She slid it into a drawer under a couple of bottles of depilatory foam and men’s cologne. Okay, where’s the best place for the junk kit? Under the sink work?

She froze at the sound of an engine turning in the vicinity of the driveway. “Shit.”

She slapped the cabinet door shut and clutched the plant-me package tightly. The office was out. No telling which room they were heading for. She bit her lip as she sprinted to the door of the first guest room and almost dashed in, stopping herself on the doorstep and staring in horror at the dust on the hardwood floor that would betray her every step. She could hear the faint beeps of the lock on the back door below and hurried quietly back to the master bedroom. Not the closet — a death trap. Never a bathroom. Footsteps on the stairs. She cursed the wife’s minimalist tastes that left nothing to hide behind and hauled herself under the bed, reaching under her shirt and pressing the duct taped package back against her belly.

Oh, way to go, Cally. Fucking perfect. “Highly-trained super assassin found under target’s bed.” Sister Thomasina would have a cow. No, she’d have the whole fucking ranch. She looked at the dust bunnies inches from her face and suppressed the wrinkling and twitching of her nose as the click of high heels and muttered female swearing rounded the top of the stairs and entered the room. Well, she’s not the perfect housekeeper after all, is she? Idiot. What I should have done was had cameras trained on the street from both sides and had buckley watching for any of the household cars, and a hiding place picked out in advance. Sloppy as all fuck. I’m never sloppy. What the hell is my problem today? Under the goddam motherfucking bed. I’m glad as hell I am solo on this because I would never live this down. If I get my ass out of this alive I am admitting it to no one.

She continued to berate herself while attempting not to sneeze. Unfortunately, the target’s wife must have applied some perfume in the car. A cloud of the stuff wafted in with her and Cally felt her eyes start to water as she fought to control the prickling in the back of her throat. The heel clicks were over by the closet. The doors opened. A small hanger clatter and something soft hit the bed. The wife click-clacked her way into the bathroom and there was a sound of running water as the sink was clearly turned on full blast. It sounded like she was filling the sink. Cally risked a very soft clearing of her throat. The water stopped. The clicks returned and stopped next to the bed. She concentrated on keeping her breathing slow, even, and silent. There was always the temptation to hold your breath, but it was a bad idea. Eventually you’d gasp, and a gasp would be louder than careful, steady, slow, even breath.

The woman started moving again, and Cally listened to the bedroom door close and suppressed a sigh of relief as the clatter of her heels faded down the hall and down the stairs. She breathed a bit easier as soon as the back door closed, but she didn’t move until she heard the car start out in the driveway. She slid out from under the bed, but before she even got up she slid her PDA out of her pocket and hit the buttons to activate the AI simulator and voice access.

“It’s all going to shit, isn’t it?” The buckley said morosely.

“Buckley, watch the cameras on the streets in the neighborhood for either of the two cars that belong with this house.” She got up from the floor and headed for the door to find a real place to hide in the unlikely event that the ditz came back again before she was through.

“I see one.”

She had the door slammed and had dived halfway under the bed before going absolutely still. “Buckley, was it coming towards us or going away?”

“Was what?”

“The car you just saw.”

“Which car?”

Her knuckles whitened around the PDA case. “The car that belongs with this house that you said you saw.”

“Oh, that. It’s gone now.” He sounded almost cheerful.

She stood, slowly and deliberately, as if half afraid of what she might do if her self-control wavered even for an instant, and walked to the door, down the hall, down the stairs, looked into the formal living room. There. The high-backed chair next to the piano formed an area of cover outside of the main traffic areas of the house. Probably dusty, but if she had to use it, she could just wipe the whole area behind the chair clean and it would never be noticed. Fine. She thought carefully for a moment before speaking.

“Buckley, if anyone but you and me enters this house while we’re in it, you will make no sound whatsoever from the time he, she, it, or they enter until at least one full minute after he, she, it or they leaves. Got it?”

“Does that include the cube reader in the study?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“What about the lock and the microwave?”

“No!”

“What about the AID on the end table over there?”

She whirled around, looking frantically, cursing.

“Just kidding.”

“Buckley! Shut up. Unless you see a car again that belongs with this house, just shut the hell up.” She gritted her teeth as she restrained herself from stomping up the stairs. In the master bath, there was a woman’s silk blouse in the sink with a clear coffee stain fading underneath the suds.

She glanced at the mirror and disdainfully picked a dust bunny out of her hair, flushing it down the toilet.

It was really only the work of a few moments to take out the junk package with the small bag of white powder, spoon, a little bottle of ether, and a needle, spill a tiny amount of coke on the cabinet floor, and use fresh tape to affix the package to the back underside of the sink. She blew gently on the infinitesimal amount of spilled powder to disperse it. It was invisible now, but the dog would smell it. And after the toxicology tests on the corpse came back, there would be a dog.

As she was getting ready to open the back door and leave she stopped short. “Buckley, turn off voice access.”

“But then I can’t even yell for help when it all comes apart!”

“Buckley, turn off voice access.”

“It figures.” The PDA emitted an exaggeratedly long-suffering sigh and went silent.

She tapped the command line and reset the AI emulation. Buckleys didn’t function at their best if you left the emulation up too high. They tended to think of too many reasons to panic.

She took off the gloves and stuffed them into the underside of her black sports bra, concealed by the baggy T-shirt, and took a deep breath. I belong here, I’m just going out for a jog. She stepped through the door.

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.

“Buckley.”

“We’re about to die, aren’t we?”

“No, buckley. Keep looking for the target’s car, but I also need you to access the cameras I placed in apartment 302C and tell me whether there’s anyone home and where they are.”

“Ah, the confidence of youth. Two in the apartment.”

“Two?!”

“One in the kitchen, one under the couch.”

“Under the…” I’m gonna kill him. “Buckley, ignore the damn cat. How many human beings in 302C?”

“Obviously, you’re underestimating the damage a properly enraged house cat can do. One human, adult female, in the kitchen.”

“Right. Tell me if she leaves the apartment or anyone else enters.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thank you, buckley,” she added.

“You know, it’s not too late to fly home and forget the whole thing,” it offered hopefully.

“Shut up, buckley.” The car was silent for a few moments. “Oh, except for telling me when the target leaves and updating his progress along the route here.”

“Right.”

She tried to avoid tapping her nails as she waited. The one thing that had been hardest to train out all those years ago had been a tendency to fidget while waiting for something important. It still took an act of will. She punched up some music on the car’s system, just whatever was next on the cube, and suppressed the desire to tap her nails as the melancholy opening piano lines of “Hello” drifted into the enclosed space. She wrinkled her nose, “No angst, thank you very much,” and paged through until she found “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” It wasn’t so much that the modern remix was better than the original as it was that it was less… dated. Several members of the original band had purchased rejuv by signing up for a colonization tour on Diess early on, then had proceeded on an exhausting round of after-hours concerts, earning enough from their fellow colonists, Fleet, and Fleet Strike personnel to buy back their contracts and pay their passage home.

Of course, a band full of juvs was controversial back here on Earth, but they were a rock band. They were used to it. She told the system to play the whole album.

The scream of the guitars opening “Godzilla” was just as powerful as ever, and she honestly regretted having to punch the sound off when the buckley chimed in warning that the target was on his way.

“Is the woman in 302C still in the kitchen, buckley?”

“Unfortunately. Would you like a list of the ten worst things that could go wrong with this mission?”

“No!”

“Really, it’s no trouble at all,” it offered helpfully.

“Shut up, buckley.”

“Right.”