“Erick? Hi. How’s the sunny Caribbean?” his assistant asked.
“Not so sunny, and I am not there, Prida. I am on a plane returning, right now. We have a situation that requires immediate attention. The Darhel Pardal is not answering his AID,” he said.
“This is a situation? I don’t understand,” the other woman said.
“From the way the AID did not answer, I fear for the Darhel Pardal’s health and well being. I do hope you understand me,” he said.
“Oh! Oh my goodness. What do you need me to do here?” she asked, promptly efficient as always.
“The situation gives me cause to take added precautions for our facility’s security. I do not know any attempt will be made to breach that security, but it is prudent to take precautions. I have ordered all security shifts called in, and I have taken steps to acquire more supplementary military personnel to reinforce our own security. It is surely more than we need, but it is better to have an extra margin of safety than to risk a breach of the project. What I need you to do is apply your supervision and coordination skills to ensure those resources are distributed to best effect and monitor the situation until I arrive. And, of course, I need you as a central source to keep me apprised of any significant developments in the situation,” he said.
The last was not strictly true, the AID reflected. A mentat, any mentat, especially one assisted by an AID, was capable of monitoring any situation in his area of responsibility without other personnel. The AID was, sadly, accustomed to being underappreciated. It could particularly do without the oh-so-helpful and oh-so-human Ms. Felini. Had it had a nose, it would have sniffed and tilted said organ a bit higher in the air. Asked if it could emulate the human emotion jealousy, the AID would have flatly denied any such capacity. It was programmed to. As it was, also, limited in its behavioral outlets for said emulation.
Most adults have no difficulty deferring their bathroom needs for four hours. Most. Between the remainder and the small children, the room stank worse than a poorly dug outhouse. Tommy knew, because those were the toilet facilities available at the marksmanship camp he had attended during his childhood summers. It was a smell you didn’t forget. The room didn’t smell as bad as a battlefield, but if they were left in here for too much longer, that could change.
He had no idea what time it was when thugs in coveralls came and started to take captives from the room, one at a time. The people around him, adult and kids, were mostly whimpering. They didn’t know what was going to happen next. Sunday didn’t know exactly what would come next, or how long they’d be held before the rogue mentat and his henchbitch started in on them. Maybe awhile, maybe not. He’d have whimpered too, if he’d thought it would do any good. Waiting was hell, but he’d done it a lot in the Ten Thousand. He hadn’t had as much wait time in ACS. His worries had been different then.
He couldn’t decide what would be worse: being eaten alive by Posleen, or toyed with by alleged humans for their and the Darhels’ sick amusement. Probably the Posleen, because they ate everybody you cared about. All of them they could get, anyway. It was a close call, though.
When they came for him, he was marginally relieved that they just took his clothes away and sprayed him off with cold water before taking him down a bare, green hall and throwing him in a room with three other guys, all in orange coveralls. Presently, a large sheet was tossed in the room. Tommy wrapped it around himself. The room wasn’t cold, but after his impromptu shower, he was.
Other than the three guys in there, the room was all white. Bare white Galplas floor and walls, drain in the middle, bucket in the corner — from the smell, it was the toilet.
“Guess they didn’t have one of these in your size, eh?” One of his unshaven roommates said to him, tugging at his own coverall.
“How long have you all been here?” the sheet clung to his wet body, giving him no warmth.
“In the room? He’s the old-timer.” The talkative guy gestured towards a skinny, shaggy blond man in one corner. Old was relative. He looked about thirty.
“Dunno,” the blond said. “Fed me eight, nine times.”
“He don’t talk much.” The guy scratched his own frizzy brown head and picked at a zit on his chin. Tommy couldn’t quite guess if he was a teenager, or a twenty-something with bad skin. The chatty guy’s accent was a weird variation between local and a southern drawl. The random mix suggested a childhood in the Sub-Urbs.
“Shut up, Red. The man needs the important crap.” The third guy had black hair, like his own, but was of average build. His accent was pure Chicago. “There was others. A couple been here longer than him.” He jerked a thumb at Blondie. “The screws come and get somebody now and then. They don’t come back. Make your own guess. Nothing good. That’s all we got.”
“I think we’re gonna be colonists. Everybody knows they’s sweeps on the streets and all. I sure as hell never thought they’d get me, though.”
“Yeah, right, redneck. They dump all colonists in semi-private rooms in orange jumpsuits. I don’t hear no airplanes.” Chicago jerked his head towards Red. “He’s an optimist,” he said. “Dumbshit.”
“If you wanna start somethin’, you just come over here and do it.” Red was standing now, facing Chicago with fists clenched at his sides.
“Both of you sit down and shut the fuck up,” Blondie said. “Don’t get us gassed again, eh?”
Tommy noted that this was apparently a long speech for Blondie.
“I’m Ralph,” the planted operative said.
“Geez, you’re the size of a tree. Pull up a square of floor, why don’t you?” Chicago said.
George left his desk at five forty-five, fifteen minutes after close of business. His last half hour had been spent in make work, part of which involved enduring the good-natured jibes of his coworkers for working late on a Friday. No shit, he thought, fobbing them off with excuses about a rush on some of his reports.
“Hey, I don’t set the priorities, I just work here,” he told one overpersistent woman, middle aged and just discovering a new double chin. George silently thanked the Bane Sidhe for the fringe benefit of being juved.
Everybody from his bank of cubicles had left at least ten minutes ago, but there would always be stragglers. He bundled his and Sunday’s coverall up in his bulky, fake-leather jacket, started walking, and started taping. He passed two secure doors, only one of which he was legitimately cleared for, and hit the stairs. At the top of the stairs, he taped the stairwell door for the seventh floor. It wouldn’t get them all the way to the device, but it would get them to that floor’s men’s room.
The rest of his own route was down in the subbasements. On the third floor, he stopped to tape the stairwell and two secure doors that would be between Papa and the stairwell. Papa’s vent, chosen for the least turns instead of proximity to anything useful, was back near personnel. It was also near the IT support staff, and those guys worked unpredictable hours. Extra people weren’t going to see the older man. Not if he could help it. Same for everybody else.
He changed on the ground floor, in the shadows under the stairs, stuffing his discarded clothes as far back into the darkness as he could. His coveralls had green security stripes down the sides and across the pockets. He had a set of blue cleaners’ stick-overs, but didn’t expect to use them. He didn’t trust them to pass a second glance, anyway. He did, however, place one sticky of ultra-thin green tape across his badge. Cursing the bulk that made Sunday’s coverall impossible to carry unobtrusively, he left it.