3rd World Products, Book 17 Page 16

  “It sure as hell seemed necessary to me. Apparently your opinion of me matters to me for some reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”

  Clearing the screen, I pinged Myra.

  She answered with, “Hi, Ed, I…” then saw Marie and said, “I thought you’d be alone. Hello, Tanya.”

  Marie replied, “I’m not Tanya. I’m her mother.”

  I said, “Yup. Myra Berens, Marie Connor. Vice, meet versa.”

  Myra gave her an incredulous look, then blurted softly, “You’re Tanya’s mother?! You can’t be!” Recovering a bit, she added, “Uh, well, I mean… I guess you can be, but…” Her gaze switched to me as she asked, “What the hell?! I thought you just fixed her!”

  Buffing my nails on my shirt, I grinned smugly and replied, “And I did a damned fine job of it, too, even if I do seem to have to say so myself.”

  Marie rather smartly backhanded my arm and snapped, “Hey! I don’t know this person, but she knows about me. How many others know about me and why do they know about me?”

  Rubbing my arm, I said, “Relax. She’s a fed, ma’am. NSA. In case you forgot, they’re kinda part of Homeland now. And if you’ll further recall, Homeland was very unhappy about me pulling an end run around the medical field laws to get you fixed.”

  Looking at Myra, I asked, “What about it? Still got a copy of the arrest warrant?”

  She laughed, “Oh, sure. I was going to have it framed.”

  Looking back at Marie, I sighed, “Good thing there wasn’t a bounty; she’d prob’ly have it by now.”

  Sitting back in her office chair, Myra asked, “So you’re the great Marie? I thought you’d be a lot taller. Like eight feet or so.”

  Glancing narrowly at me, Marie coolly asked, “Really? What did he tell you about me?”

  Myra grinned and replied, “Nothing. I was going by what I read in your case files.” She laughed, “It was like having two days off with a good book. My kind of stuff, and it was real. My boss would probably offer you a job on the spot.”

  Holding up a hand, I said, “Check into that, ma’am. She’s back on her feet and as sharp as ever, as far as I can tell.”

  “You’re serious? I mean, about the job?”

  “That’s up to her and Angie already has her scheduled for an interview. Y’might wanna wait and see how that works out.”

  The doors behind us opened and I said, “Hold one,” as I shrank the screen to resemble a common datapad. A couple with children ambled past us to the parking lot and I called up my board. Marie called up hers and we quickly lifted a few hundred feet.

  Re-expanding the screen, I said, “That’s better. Less traffic up here.”

  Eyeing Marie, Myra asked, “She has her own board?”

  “Yup. Bought and paid for, ma’am.”

  “She seems steady enough on it.” A tiny light flashed in her eyes and she glanced left, then said, “I have to take this. Marie, I’m pretty sure we’d be interested. If things don’t work out with 3rd World, call me. Ed, call me back when you’re alone. G’bye, all.”

  She dropped the link and the screen vanished with it. Marie just stood looking at me for a moment, then said, “I’d like to see those case files she mentioned.”

  “She’d prob’ly show ‘em to you.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Tanya told me things that make me think you could show them to me.”

  Hm. Okay. I’d set her up with the files and go have a word with Myra. I nodded. “Yeah. I can do that. Let’s go.”

  Back at the house a few minutes later, I installed Marie at the kitchen table with a field screen. After locating Myra’s info about Marie, I composed a database containing only those files, made a fresh coffee, and left Marie to her reading.

  Comfortably seated on Galatea, I pinged Myra and she answered immediately with, “Hi, Ed. No Marie this time?”

  “Nope. You’re at the office rather late, ma’am. On a Saturday, no less. And since the NSA is sort of a nine to five operation these days, I find that fairly impressive.”

  She laughed, “Nine to five? Yeah, sure it is. You bet. Ed, are you aware that some satellites are moving in unusual ways lately?”

  “Yup. Angie already asked me about it. They seem to be clumping together along with all kinds of other loose junk. Like there was some kind of cleanup effort going on.”

  That gave her pause. She nodded slowly and said, “Yes. Exactly. Defunct satellites and assorted debris. Well, now I guess I don’t have to ask whether 3rd World’s doing it.”

  “Nope. Angie’s high enough in their food chain there’d be no reason for her not to know about it.”

  Tapping her pen on the desk, Myra asked, “What about the AIs? Didn’t Stephanie shoot at orbital debris when she was your flitter?”

  “That was over ten years ago. But it could be somebody’s project, I guess. I could ask around.”

  “Yes, please. See what you can find out.” Tapping her pen again, Myra asked, “How’s Marie really, Ed?”

  “About the same as I remember her, Myra. Literally, in fact. The nanobots had to renovate her interior as well as her exterior. Her new physical age is about thirty-five or forty, I’d say.”

  Studying me, Myra asked, “Don’t you have the same nanobots? Why don’t you look forty or less?”

  “I have some nanobots, but apparently not the same type. And they haven’t had to reconstruct my skull from genetic blueprints. No arthritis to cure, either, so no bone and joint work. No years of bed rest, med residues, and related toxins to clean out.”

  Sipping from a plain white coffee cup, Myra set the cup down in a precise manner and shook her head slowly. “I can’t understand for the life of me why Amaran medical techniques are illegal, Ed. It just seems so bizarre.”

  “Plain ol’ greed and power, ma’am. Control of services and prices. As ever, just follow the money to certain political pockets.” With a shrug, I added, “And more. Societies are constructed around the human life span and all it requires from birth to death. But you know that; you were in Linda’s office back when we discussed the likely effects of PFMs on the world.”

  She nodded. “It was all abstract to me then. Just a mental exercise in the middle of several others. But seeing Marie brought it all into sharp focus for the first time, I think. My God, I actually thought she was Tanya.”

  Sipping again, she looked thoughtful, then almost tentatively asked, “How’s her… uhm… her mind, Ed? How’d she hold up through all she endured?”

  I shrugged. “Seems about the same. No point in guessing; if your outfit gets the chance, they’ll test her ragged. After that, it’s watch and wait, just like it is for everyone else there.”

  Her eyes flared slightly. Irritation? Startlement?

  She asked, “Watch and wait? Everyone else?”

  “It wasn’t meant to be taken personally, Miz Myra. The NSA, FBI, CIA, and all the other acronym outfits don’t really trust anybody, not even their own people. Nobody’s above suspicion. Everybody takes polygraphs and gets investigated and ‘interviewed’ in a rather hostile manner periodically. ‘Updates’, they call them. What are you into these days? What are you up to lately? Explain this purchase. Are you now or have you ever been, etc… Just fill in the blank with the current buzzword-bingo bugaboo term or PC-pariah label.”

  Myra blinked once, I think, before she snorted a laugh and said, “Well, I can’t argue with that. You just described the process pretty damned well.” She leaned back again and seemed to be evaluating me for a brief time, then asked, “Are you and Marie an item?”

  “Nope.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yup.”

  “If I said I had a week off, what would you do?”

  “I’d fly to you instantly, milady. Should I change the sheets in the guest room?”

  She sighed, “No, not just yet. I have more than enough leave time, but we’ve been real busy this month. And now ther
e’s this satellite thing you want me to believe you don’t know anything about.”

  “Well, damn. See? That’s what you get for taking your job too seriously. They start depending on you and stuff like that.”

  Myra laughed, “Yeah, stuff like that. Hey, back to the satellites for a minute. Are you the one doing it? And if so, how?”

  “Would I admit something like that to a fed, ma’am?”

  “Why not? You don’t seem to be hurting anyone and there’s already a lot less junk in orbit.”

  “You sound like you already think I’m involved with it.”

  Nodding once firmly, Myra grinningly stated, “Yeah, that’s my opinion.”

  “Uh, huh. Well, opinions are still free, ma’am, but sometimes that’s all they’re worth.”

  “Are you saying you aren’t behind what’s happening?”

  I laughed, “Why bother? How the hell would I prove it?”

  Myra was enjoying the exchange. Her grin widened and she laughed softly, “Hmm. That’s actually a very good point.”

  There was a double-tap at Myra’s office door and she glanced at it before saying, “Ed, I’ll keep you posted about that leave time. That’s the best I can do until things slow down here.”

  I nodded. “Good enough, I guess. But don’t overlook weekends, milady. I’d make the long, cold journey north for you. How does next Saturday look?”

  Reaching under the desk to buzz the door lock, she said, “Sorry. My sister already has it. She’s planning her wedding.”

  “Well, damn. Uhm… Not about the wedding, of course.”

  She chuckled, “Yeah, I know what you meant.”

  From the footsteps, a guy had entered her office. I heard him take a seat by Myra’s desk as she said, “Okay, Ed. I guess we’ll talk later. Got anything to add?”

  “Only that you’re a gorgeous goddess, milady.”

  Rolling her eyes, she replied, “Thank you. Bye, Ed.”

  “Bye, Miz Myra.”

  She dropped the pad link. I transformed the link into a probe and made it hover on her left.

  The guy watched her put her datapad in her briefcase and asked, “Well?”

  Myra said, “He said Angela Horn asked him about them, too.”

  “So 3rd isn’t involved?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Is he?”

  Her expression turned wry. She chuckled, “He didn’t say.”

  Poking a button on her desk phone made it play back our conversation.

  The guy listened, then asked, “So… what now?”

  Myra shook her head. “We wait. The Russians are going to raise all kinds of hell the first time he grabs a RORSAT.”

  “A what?”

  “Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite. They flew too low to use solar panels, so they’re powered by reactors. U-235 for fuel.”

  Sitting back with her coffee, Myra gave him a little moue-shrug.

  “Not our problem and getting rid of those nuclear monsters would be a good thing for everyone. A great thing, in fact. We don’t need another Kosmos 954. It rained a four hundred mile trail of radioactive crap across Canada.”

  The guy nodded. “954. I read about that one when Blake sent the list. It dribbled all the way from Great Slave Lake to Baker Lake. I noticed the names because I’ve been there. Cleanup cost six million and change. The Russians only paid half.”

  He got up and went to the coffee service near the door. As he poured a cup, he said, “So far he’s only taking dead satellites. If that’s all he wants, why not let him have them?”

  “That’s not how power people think. You know that.”

  “He’s doing something about a problem they can’t handle.”

  “That’s the main reason they object. As they see it, if he isn’t working for them, he’s making them look bad.”

  The guy sat down again and asked, “So they’ll ask him to stop. What if he won’t?”

  Shaking her head slightly and sipping, Myra said, “No, they don’t ‘ask’ people to do anything. They’ll order him to stop. And I know Ed; that’s not the way to approach him.”

  “What’ll he do?”

  “No idea, but how do you stop someone who can herd satellites? And — truth be told — we can’t be absolutely sure he’s doing it. There’s no evidence whatsoever. Not a shred, Frank.”

  Ah-ha, the guy had a name after all. Frank sipped coffee and stared into his cup for a time before he asked, “Were you serious about… uhm… visiting with him?”

  Myra’s demeanor instantly changed slightly; it gained an edge of sorts. She stated flatly, “He’s an old friend and that question’s way over the line, Frank.”

  Frank stiffened and sat a little straighter, then said, “Sorry. I just…” he paused and got to his feet, then said, “Sorry, that’s all. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Relax, Frank. I didn’t tell you to leave and I won’t call HR over it. I just let you know where your ‘do not cross’ line is. Sit down and drink your coffee.”

  After a moment, Frank sat. He set his coffee on the corner of her desk, leaned his elbows on his knees, and seemed to regard the floor for a time. When he spoke again, it was almost a sigh.

  “Myra, I need to be able to speak freely for a minute. Can I do that without going through PC hell for it later?”

  Eyeing him, Myra replied, “That would depend on what you’re going to say, Frank.”

  Sitting straight, Frank took his time about it. Several seconds passed before he cleared his throat and spoke again.

  “Myra, I’ve worked with you off and on for three months and I have nothing but good to say about that. About you. But when I heard him talk about changing sheets… and he called you a ‘gorgeous goddess’… well, it bugged the hell out of me. I don’t know how else to say it. It just bugged the hell out of me.”

  Hm. Did Frank have a workplace crush going? Some guys can handle those. Some can’t, or they handle them poorly. I waited to see how Myra would handle it.

  Myra regarded him over her cup for a moment, then said, “I’m seven years older than you and two grades higher, Frank. I never play where I work. That’s never, and working with or for me is all you’d ever have with me, just like a younger brother.”

  Sipping coffee, she asked, “Will that be enough for you, or will your feelings get in the way? Say yes and I’ll get you on another team this week. Say no and you’d better be right. And you’d best answer honestly, because Ed was right about periodic polygraphs and your feelings about me will be on your next one.”

  That last line hit him; Frank developed a somewhat stricken and betrayed look, though he managed to wrangle it back to a semblance of his normal expression.

  Myra nodded. “Thought so. I’ll swap you this week. Don’t feel bad, Frank. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. I’ve had to swap out other guys for the same reason.”

  She set her coffee down, stood up, and held out her hand as she said, “And now I’ll see you to the door as a friend, if that’s all right with you.”

  What was he gonna do? Not shake her hand?

  When he took her hand, her other hand closed around their grip and she said intently, “I mean it, Frank. No backstabbing office games. You’ve done a good job and you’ll get a good review.”

  Looking up from their handclasp, Frank said, “They’ll want to know why you’re transferring me.”

  “For the same reason that brought you here. Back then I needed a crypto, so Stevens sent you. Corbin needs one for his project, so you’ll probably go there. Right now I need someone who knows space. This satellite thing will probably land on my desk this week.”

  With a somewhat jaundiced expression, Frank asked, “Because you know that guy?”

  She chuckled, “Partly, I’m sure, but also because I spent some time with SATCOM. I was monitoring some of those commo satellites fifteen years ago.”

  Myra guided Frank to the door and reassured him again as she ushered him out. After r
etrieving her cup and pouring another coffee, she went to her desk and poked a few numbers on her phone.

  When the after-hours machine answered, Myra said, “Allen, this is Myra. Do you have anybody who really ought to be working at NASA? It’s about satellites and I’m trading in a crypto.”

  There was a click and a man said, “Hi, Myra. There’s a guy who actually belongs to a rocket club in Greenbelt. I’ll see if he’s available. Good enough?”

  Sipping coffee, Myra leaned her butt against her desk and said, “Only if he’s available. I expect something to land on my desk this week. I’ll send my crypto down Monday morning.”

  “Frank Lewis. I remember him. How’d he work out?”

  “Hand him anything coded and he’ll get it done. If he had an idea or a reservation, he wasn’t afraid to share it. And if he knew anything at all about what’s in near Earth orbit I might keep him, but I’ll need someone who knows that stuff now, not a week from now.”

  Marty said, “Yeah, I hear ya. Okay, I’m on it. Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it. What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

  “Taking up slack. Half my staff is packing for Utah.”

  “Ow. Are you going?”

  “Not if I can help it. How about you?”

  She chuckled, “Not if I can help it. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. Gotta go, Myra. Later.”

  “Okay. Later, Marty.”

  Poking her phone off, Myra looked around the desk once, then reached through the probe for something. Her arm withdrew and her hand held a piece of yellow paper. Putting it in her blouse pocket, she set her coffee down and slipped on her jacket, then finished her coffee and set both used cups by the service.

  Letting the probe vanish, I headed back down to the house. As I entered, Marie glanced up and said, “Hi,” then returned to reading.

  Someone else might have asked how things had gone with Myra, but Marie had always been pretty single-minded. She’d finish what was in front of her first.

  Taking a seat on the couch, I linked to my orbital core for a look at progress with the space cleanup project. Hm. The two clumps of debris were beginning to look sort of shaggy with all the odds and ends adhering to their surfaces. A shining basketball-sized sphere drifted into one of the clumps and stuck to it. Several long antennae crumpled like heated cellophane and wadded up against the sphere.