Of course he couldn’t do it the normal way. The hologram of the traitor blew up in a welter of gore that faded into a really spectacular sunset. She pulled the cube out and walked to the kitchen to destroy it, heedless of the water dripping into her carpet.
“Well, they wanted me to go on vacation. Okay. So I’ll go on vacation.” Her mouth was a grim line as she thawed a salad in the nuker and rinsed the crisper gel off the lettuce into the sink, then dumped a packet of crab chunks on top and covered it in horseradish sauce. It was a poor substitute for Herman’s crab cakes, but she hardly tasted it anyway.
After doing her hair and grabbing a black off-the-shoulder cotton shirt and faded jean shorts, she pulled up a list of acts on the web, twisting the bangles on her left wrist absently. Justine preferred ultra-modern Cleveland-crash style music. A group called Anger Management was playing at The Riverside Dive. That sounds like something I could use right about now. I hope their pub grub isn’t too obnoxious.
Cally came home in the wee hours of the morning, alone. Music tonight, yes. Company, no. If I got another anti-juv bigot pup like last night, I just might forget it’s not my job to kill them. The cleanup crew would not be pleased, and the paperwork’s a bitch. She grinned and kicked off her heels, swinging them by the straps as she hummed her way to her room.
Makeup off, check. Fresh washcloth, check. ID’s put away, check. She stripped off Justine’s clothes and tossed them in the basket, frowning. “Laundry tomorrow morning.”
She dialed up some Creed onto the vidscreen’s audio for the night, turned on countermeasures, set the alarm for eight, and snuggled into her pillow.
Bhutan. A banker who got on too well with nonhuman bankers. He had a taste for street whores, but didn’t treat them well. One of them had been happy to retire in the South Pacific after his heart attack. The nannite poison had been untraceable even with Galactic equipment. In the closet, watching. Checking the body and injecting the now hysterical whore with a merciful tranquilizer before getting her onto her shuttle. Death was so different up close.
Rabun Gap, she puts the front sight on the assassin and squeezes, gently, and the red splash and the death smells. Efficient men in white, cleaning, and then the Posties are coming and the men in black are so silent, and so efficient at killing. Rosary calluses on his hand. And in school the nuns won’t tell her anything and then there’s Father O’Reilly. Team Conyers is gone. Gone, all gone Father? Our Father, who art…
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. How long? Nineteen years, two months, three days. Father, it’s a long list. There was a prostitute specializing in industrial nano-researchers. Two of them died after she made her report. I had to… Father? Father? In a rage she smashes the screen and glares at the empty seat and there is no door, and no door she came in through. There had to have been a door, wasn’t there? And no ceiling, just the walls going up and up.
The Keys and she’s back on the boat with Dad, and he’s proud because she just caught a really big one and she’s washed the salt from the wind out of her hair and is sitting on the edge of the dock watching the sunset as Mom combs the tangles out. Michelle is in the water swimming with Dad, and a dolphin is chittering to her as she strokes under its chin. And Mom’s brought her a nice, cold limeade and a plate…
The alarm shrilled at her and she slapped it and the system off, reflexively grabbing the washcloth to dry her face. Mmmm. I’ve always loved the beach. Maybe next time I get a real vacation I’ll finally go back for that visit I’ve been promising myself. I guess after forty years it’s probably changed a bit. Gotta be Cally today. Let’s see, Cally’s very casual, got a smart mouth, wears a lot of olive drab but also likes red.
She tossed the used washcloth in the basket and carried it into the kitchen, sticking out her tongue at the empty coffee maker she had forgotten to set last night and hitting its button with an elbow on her way past. Just off the kitchen she opened the door and raised the lid of the laundry machine, dropping in the clothes and a packet of fragrance-free fabric saver before closing the lid. The machine detected the added weight, analyzed the contents, and she heard it filling as she shut the door behind her.
She rummaged through the freezer until she found a bar of chocolate-cheesecake breakfast ice cream and pulled up the news, glaring again at the offending coffee machine that still hadn’t finished brewing.
The House and Senate are still debating what Posleen-free means for purposes of reconstruction to Statehood? Yeah, the Urbies really don’t like the difficulties they already have with the Senate over food subsidies. And their internal media makes sure they get a full report on every feral Posleen attack in CONUS, so they’re not bloody likely to poke a nose out and take a look. Some days nonexistence beats the crap out of citizenship.
“Ah, it’s done.” She grabbed her mug and filled it with coffee, adding a sugar cube, and took a look at the weather and ferals report before going to get dressed. Looks good enough for me.
In the bedroom she pulled on a red bikini with a T-shirt and jeans over it, pulled on an old pair of sneakers, threw some clean underwear and a towel in a beat-up khaki backpack and pulled her hair back in a neat braid. She sorted through the rows of wallets in the bottom drawer until she came to a battered khaki and Velcro one that had very sincere identification and bank cards in the name of Cally Neilsen. The wallet was a bit old fashioned. It was the one used least often, and least hazarded, so it was least often in need of replacement. All the wallets had artful wear and tear. This one had acquired them the old-fashioned way, although the contents had to be as frequently updated as the others to stay current, and the last name, like those of the others, had varied over time. Fortunately, the Darhel were no more interested in U.S. computer identification procedures being truly secure than the Bane Sidhe were.
As she loaded the Colt .45 and extra magazines into the front of her car, she wished she’d picked up at least something beyond a small cooler of beer to add to the picnic. She had her go-to-ground supplies — never left the Wall without them — but they weren’t exactly your recreational sort of refreshments. Her eyes lit on Justine’s bag of cheese curls. Just the thing. Wendy’s kids would love them.
She drove to the James River exit, partly because it was close, but mostly because the simple sliding gate of heavy steel, combined with the drawbridge, was easier to navigate than some of the other gates. It just took a few minutes to get through the checkpoint. The .45 and three spare magazines, along with her range certification card, were enough to exempt her from the municipal convoy requirement and fee. Even in the postwar world, liability was a bitch. Charleston’s city government, elected from a population of many of the first Southerners who had returned from the Urbs and the heartland, along with the local militia and the Fleet Strike cadets, had chosen a uniquely Southern solution. Since tourists from the Urbs were generally a braver sort to start with and sensible enough to travel with the convoys, it worked rather well. The few who weren’t might gripe about the fee, but the people of Charleston firmly believed that the best way to keep the local population of Postie ferals low was to avoid feeding them.