“Let me take a second and relay all files to Agent Reynolds’s computer,” Arnie said, typing.
“So,” Edwards said, “between Daybreak and il’Alb il-Jihado, we’ve got cooperation both ways. Daybreak operatives took down assets that we’d need for coping with the hijacking, and they were provided with information that let them carry out Daybreak-type sabotage because they knew our military would be highly active at certain bases.”
“That’s right,” Arnie said. “Most Daybreakers didn’t know that was going on, but then I suspect most il’Albis didn’t either. The great majority of messages from Daybreakers still online are screaming that the whole Air Force Two business was completely contrary to the principles of Daybreak.”
Edwards looked up. “Sorry that it’s a world full of interruptions, but it is. Mr. Reynolds, I’ve got an e-mail from the Director; she has just authorized you to create a task force to round up the Aaron Group.”
“Dr. Yang, will there be more about the Aaron Group?” Reynolds asked Arnie.
“You’ve got all I had. Good hunting, and let me know where to keep you posted.”
Reynolds was out the door in a blur. FBI Agent perspective: Nothing is really wrong as long as there’s someone specific out there for me to bring in, Heather thought.
She said, “Well, now that the people who needed to get moving are moving, Arnie, give it to us, short and sweet. I’ll even let you say the words ‘system artifact,’ and hardly twitch at all—or now that you’ve got such a clear command structure in the analysis, is ‘system artifact’ even relevant?”
“Well,” Arnie said, “the basic idea is that—”
Reynolds stuck his head in the door. “Here’s an update: Ysabel Roth has been captured.”
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PUERTO PENASCO. MEXICO. 8:25 P.M. MDT. MONDAY. OCTOBER 28.
I am one shitty spy and an embarrassingly bad terrorist. Even if Ysabel allowed herself a couple points for having carried out the mission and getting out of Yuma before anyone really started looking for her, she was doing one shitty job now.
Because the bed-and-breakfast in Puerto Penasco was overbooked, they’d given her the “automatic overbook upgrade” and moved her into the Plaztatic Palace, as she mentally dubbed the Puerto Penasco Sheraton, and saddled her with a roommate—none other than Little Miss Scared Of Foreign Places.
At least they’d given her a coupon good for a meal, but she hadn’t even thought of using that as an excuse to escape her unwanted roomie; instead, somehow, the earth-and-peasant-loving terrorist, scourge of the Big System, was now sitting over some bland noodle-veggie dish, trapped under the fake chandeliers in a plaztatic hotel restaurant, making polite conversation with Miss North Texas Loser Geek Girl.
If Ysabel had just thought of a good excuse to bring her bag down here, just act like it wasn’t safe to leave my bag in the room, then fake one little interruption and scoot out the door with it, and I’d’ve been fine. So why didn’t I have this thought forty minutes ago?
Back in the room exactly like the one you’d find in Cleveland or Tulsa, Ysabel said, “I saw more dirt in a day when I was three than this place sees in a year. Not exactly roughing it.”
Nerd Chickie said, “I wish I had a tenth of your nerve, to just travel the way you do, and be right in there with the stuff. For me it’s—even when it’s just, like, Aspen, like, everywhere except home’s an exhibit, behind a glass wall.”
Oh, fuckin’ gag me with a donkey dick, right now. “You need to get out more.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” Completely unironically, Nerdette turned on the TV and voice-commanded it: “American news.” She asked, “Were you going to do any of those organized activities tomorrow?”
Inspiration! Ysabel said, “I’m planning to be up early and go out into town; more fun than ‘activities’ with a bunch of people I could have stayed home and found at the Senior Center.”
The girl laughed and shoved her horn-rimmed glasses up her freckly nose. “We do seem to be the youth in the crowd, don’t we?”
If she looked any more wholesome and innocent, Ysabel thought, I’d just sell her to a pimp for resale to a Japanese tourist with a rape-a-librarian fetish. Dammit, where’s a good pimp when you need one?
But she said, “Yeah. So I’m going to turn in now and get up at dawn. It won’t be scary or dangerous or anything if you’d like to come along.”
“That would be so awesome.”
“Okay, so,” Ysabel said, “why don’t you grab first showers?”
“Eahh, I kind of want to catch the news. You can.”
It would look too weird to insist, so Ysabel shrugged. Anyway, it might be her last shower ever with unlimited hot water. She’d dress and take off while Little Miss Forgettable was in the shower. Nothing easier.
Ysabel was just toweling off when she saw the doorknob start to turn slowly, soundlessly, most of the way around and then return to its normal position. She reached for the little lock button. The door slapped her arm back and the base of a lamp caught her under the jaw.
Room spinning. Skull screaming like a bad smoke detector. What? She was—
The girl jammed the lamp into Ysabel’s naked belly, knocking the wind out of her, and let it crash to the floor, slamming Ysabel’s foot. She grabbed Ysabel’s long hair, wrapped it in a fist that pressed against her neck, and forced her head back and down, dragging her backward by the hair into the main room.
Ysabel’s feet slid and wobbled till she lost her balance completely and fell sideways on her ass on the hotel-room carpet.
The girl punched her, hard, in the cheek. “Roll over.”
She did. As she realized that the girl was tying her hands behind her back, she caught phrases from the American TV news: “believed to be,” “wanted for questioning,” and “Yuma.”
Oh, crap, and because they were in this big American Plaztatic Tower of a hotel, there would be someone with good English at the front desk, who would take “I need the police right away” seriously.
The carpet ground against her face, everything hurt, and the girl said, “Hey, is this one of those adventures you’re so patronizing about having had? You’re right, they’re fun.”
ABOUT TEN MINUTES LATER. WASHINGTON. DC. 10:36 P.M. EST. MONDAY. OCTOBER 28.
After all the excitement, Arnie was stuck, as ever, with giving his presentation at a time when it had to be an anticlimax. “Let’s start with what I usually do, okay? So you’ll see why it was I found what I found.
“Semiotics is the study of how signs mean—how one thing stands for another or how a message connects to its meaning. Like an oncoming car flashes its lights at you on the highway, what do you know? Something wrong ahead, cop or accident or animals on the road, so you slow down and pay attention. Statistical semiotics is about how populations of signs function as signs. Like it’s close to night, or you’re close to a tunnel, and in the other lane you see ten cars in a row with their lights on, so you know it’s dark ahead, and you turn your lights on—and if other people do that, it becomes a message to other oncoming drivers.”