Cally had really hated having to tell Granpa that “our” meeting with Michelle was really her meeting with Michelle. She’d felt like she’d just taken away a kid’s Christmas candy. He hadn’t said much, then or since. She’d passed on Michelle’s excuse, and cringed when he’d tried to wave it away as “no bother” to him as Clan Head. From the way Michelle had sounded, it hadn’t seemed like she’d show unless Cally was alone. Granpa didn’t understand, of course. She didn’t, either, but she wasn’t the one being left out. Telling him had been just awful.
Soon they’d gotten the netting down, which was more to stop the blowing sand than anything, all sensible mosquitos having decided to stay out of the cold, or whatever it was mosquitos did. She looked at her watch and threw a side-glance at Granpa. Neither one met the other’s eyes. She looked up at Shari, whose eyes plainly said she didn’t want to be involved.
“I guess it’s about that time. I’ll be back in a bit,” Cally said. Granpa just grunted in reply. Not gonna be a real relaxed dinner, is it?
Cally picked her way through the tall grass to a set of ancient railroad-tie stairs and started down onto the beach. She looked out at the waves hitting the shore and sighed, futilely trying to tuck her hair behind her ears. The wind insisted on blowing it right into her face. She dug an elastic band out of her jeans and pulled it back in a ponytail. It made her look about sixteen. Twelve, if it hadn’t been for the boobs, which she still considered overwhelming. She sighed, but it wasn’t like anyone but family was here to see her. The impression of adolescence was complete as she walked down the beach, scuffing her feet in the sand.
“Where are you going?” The voice came from behind her and Cally jumped, spinning around in a crouch.
“Ack! Don’t do that!” Cally clutched a hand to her chest and looked back up toward the girls, letting a breath of relief out that they were still sitting at the table and maybe hadn’t noticed anything unusual. “You didn’t just appear out of nowhere, did you?”
“Please give me credit for some sense. I came in behind that pile of rubble.” Michelle gestured at the crumbling remains of some cinderblock structure or other. “I only walked down when I saw you. So it seems I am finally at a beach with you.”
“Yeah,” Cally said. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Before we get into the mission, real quick, can I ask you a question about nanogenerator code keys?”
“Your employers do not have the capability to make use of the keys you stole.” It wasn’t a question.
“Right. Our people say they’re level fours and would be difficult to fence,” Cally said.
“The current price of six level four code keys would be sixty thousand seven hundred and forty-eight point zero nine seven FedCreds as of close of business at the Chicago Trade Consortium. I would be willing to pay that amount for the keys you took from the Darhel last night. Do you agree to carry my offer to your employers? It would be an arrangement of benefit to Clan O’Neal.” If possible, Michelle’s voice was even more expressionless, and she stood still in her mentat robes. They should have been blowing in the wind, but weren’t. The wind wasn’t allowed to so much as ruffle her hem, and Cally was suddenly aware of the sand in her own shoes and the blowing wisps of ultra-pale blonde hair that had escaped from her ponytail.
Michelle had clearly inherited her height from their father and Granpa. Her petite five foot nothing had an almost boyish slimness that made her sister feel awkward in her own tall frame. If she could have seen herself through the eyes of others, the unlikely assassin would have realized her comparatively small waist and Scandinavian features made her look more like a nineteen-nineties calendar girl than the chubby teenager she imagined. If Captain Sinda Makepeace had been anything, she’d been strikingly attractive. Cally’s physical appeal had not suffered from being stuck in the other woman’s semblance when the Indowy and Tchpth yanked the slab off Earth. Unconsciously, she arched her back and stood straighter in a seven-year habit designed to minimize her imagined defects.
“Okay, we’ll sell you the keys. My bosses will probably be thrilled I found a safe buyer. Now, what couldn’t you tell me last night?” Cally asked.
“I could have told you all of it. But you seemed rushed.” Michelle said. Cally looked for any sign that she was making a joke, but couldn’t see one. Perhaps Indowy-raised mentats didn’t have anything as mundane as a sense of humor.
“First, you need a way to reach me with questions about the mission. There must be some kind of indicator you can set somewhere for me to see. I can not watch you every minute of every day — I have work I must do. I would prefer a day’s notice in advance of a meeting, if possible. This is your specialty, is it not? Do you have any suggestions?”
“Um… lemme think. There are several message boards on the Perfect Match singles site on the web. When I need to meet you, I’ll place a message on the pre-date board. The message should be from MargarethaZ, capitol ‘M,’ capitol ‘Z,’ no spaces. It should go to whoever you are. Say… Apollo555. I’ll post it the day before I need you, or include the word ‘diamond’ if it’s an emergency and I need you sooner. You can find me, right? And check that I’m alone? If we don’t have to set up a code for meeting time and place, it makes it a lot less complicated and a lot harder for anyone else to twig to.”
“Do I need to know what a singles’ site is? Never mind, I am sure it will be clear enough. MargarethaZ, Apollo555, and diamond. I will remember.” Michelle nodded. “Here is a broad outline of the mission. I have a colleague, a fellow mentat, who has recently acquired an obscure piece of very old technology and developed it into a problematic device. It is a device which should not remain in his keeping. I wish to hire your team to obtain the device and deliver it to me so that I can arrange safe storage for it. The priority is, however, on removing the device from the possession of this colleague. If a choice comes between damaging the device or failing to remove it, it is the removal which absolutely must be done to complete the contract.”
“Okay. Are we supposed to just waltz in and take whatever this is?” Cally asked, her brow furrowing. “I presume you have a full description, location information, some background. Any recon data you have would be nice. Come on, I’m going to need the most complete information you can possibly give me for us to plan and execute this mission. First of all, what the hell is this device? What does it do, and what does it look like?” Cally glanced quickly up to where the candlelight was silhouetting the girls, glad that Morgan appeared to be putting their dinner things back in the packs.
“It is a discontinuous, partially automated, multichanneled, medium-range harmonic resonance inductor. I have a datacube for you with full external specifications, a very abbreviated overview of its known and theorized capabilities, and the location of the facility where it is being used.” Michelle said, “Of course, you must absolutely avoid any direct confrontation with—”
“Whoa. Back up a second. It’s a discon-what? What does it do, in plain English, please.”
“I was speaking plain English. The best way I can describe the action is that it affects the brain, in this case of human subjects, stimulating and analyzing the internal signals for report and, if desired, overriding the internal voluntary muscle commands and other processes with replacement sequences of the operator’s choosing.”