"Enough," Rachel said. "We don't have time for this."
"Yeah, I can get you documents," the rebel replied after a glance at the woman. "But there's a problem. I've got three; Rach said you wanted four."
"How long to get four?" Charles asked.
"Why should we?" Mládek snapped. "For God's sake, I'll buy you a piece of ass when we get to Manticore; leave the bint."
"You know," Mullins replied mildly, not turning around. "I just need to get you to Givens alive. There's nothing saying I have to leave you the use of your legs." He cocked his head to the side and looked at the visitor. "We need four."
"Ain't gonna happen any time soon," the visitor replied, scratching his chest. "And eventually they will find you; they've got Mládek's DNA for sure and probably yours by now. They'll use chem-sniffers eventually."
"Rachel, you are not staying on this planet," Mullins said. "They are going to be looking for you this time." He paused and shrugged, looking at the floor. "We already drew straws. Just in case. I lost."
"He did," Charles replied sourly. "He really, really did. I was there."
"Well, that makes a hell of a lot of sense!" Rachel flared. "I go back to Manty space and you stay here? What, exactly, am I going to do in Manticore? And how are you going to survive here?"
"I can get by," Mullins said. "As soon as it's clear the admiral is gone, things will cool down. I can make it. As for you, the one more or less constant in Manticore these days is a labor shortage; you won't have to worry about finding a job and it won't be as a dancer, either."
"I've got nothing against being a dancer," she said narrowly.
"No, but I do," he replied. "When you get to Manticore, find another job. Okay?"
"Okay, I'm not staying," she said after a moment's glare. "Take the pictures. We'll retouch them as necessary for clothing; I'll have to get that later. Two male sets and one female."
"I can do those as well," the rebel said. "I've got a lovely set of three, by the way. You're Solarian business representatives."
"Good," John replied. "The Peeps bend over backwards for those."
"Rachel will be the head of the group," the bum continued, handing out briefing papers. "She's the CEO of Oberlon, Inc. and a really nasty individual. Unfortunately, the CEO of Oberlon is about ninety and looks it, so we'll have to age you a bit."
"I'll live," Rachel said as he took the first picture.
"You'll be her son," the rebel continued, handing Gonzalvez his packet. "You're the heir apparent, but the old biddy won't die. So you're stuck in an eternal 'momma's boy' routine."
"Joy," Gonzalvez said, smiling as stupidly as possible at the camera.
"That will look great," the visitor said. "You're the executive assistant, Admiral. You don't talk much, just open doors and make coffee."
"That I can handle," Mládek said, glowering at the camera.
"And one to grow on," the rebel continued, taking Mullins' picture.
"What in the hell was that for," he asked, suspiciously.
"If I come up with another identity in the next day or so, do you want it or not?"
"Want," Mullins admitted.
"So there you are," the visitor said, putting away his gear. "One big happy family."
"And already planning the murder," Gonzalvez said flipping through his briefing papers. They were remarkably professional for what appeared to be a completely amateur organization.
"You'd better get up pretty early in the day, sonny," Rachel quavered. "How do you think I took over the company from your father?"
"One big happy family, indeed," Mládek laughed.
CHAPTER 6
Cliché: Another Word for Inevitable
Charles waited until the rebel was gone, then smiled.
"Good news, the Manty team didn't get captured. The people who were picked up were all locals; they don't know what happened to the Manties."
"How do you know that?" Rachel asked.
"Between the Admiral and me, we managed to hack into the police databanks," Charles said with an impish grin.
"What?" Rachel shouted. "Are you crazy?!"
"Shh, keep your voice down," the admiral replied, gesturing at a dataport. "We were clean. We were already inside their physical security and their electronic security was laughable."
"Why take the risk?" she asked. "What if they tracked you internally?'
"Not much chance of that," Charles said, buffing his nails on his tunic. "I, am a genius."
"Well, genius, we're going to need to change locations," she snapped. "You have five minutes to make it look as if you were never here."
"Women," Charles said with a shake of his head. "Never satisfied."
"Men," Rachel replied. "Never paranoid enough."
Mullins smiled through the window as Rachel grounded a beat up air car in front of him.
"Hi, lady, can I get a ride to the Metropolitan Museum?"
She looked at him for a moment then shook her head. "We don't have a Metropolitan Museum; it got destroyed in the Peep War and never rebuilt. What did you do to your face?" He was much heavier looking with fat cheeks and dark hair in place of his natural aquiline blond look.
Mullins slid into the seat and worked his jaw. "Charles blackmailed our supply guy into giving him the latest and greatest ID kit. And it seemed like a good idea to change identities again."
Rachel had been unwilling to let them stay in the basement another minute and, realistically, they had already been in one place too long. She had led them back out through the sewers and tunnels to a temporary hide and told them to meet her in twenty minutes. That had been more than enough time for Charles to produce a few new local identities for all of them except the admiral. He had a new ID as well, but unfortunately the retina scan wouldn't match up.
"I've got another hide you can move to," Rachel said, pulling the car up and into traffic. Prague was no longer a rich world but the traffic was still fairly heavy, stacked up at least six levels. The ground level was relegated to hover-trucks with the next three levels dedicated to general traffic and the top two to "platoon" groups: cars moving under computer control over long distances. East–west streets were on interleaving sections with north and south so that only the ground level had to stop at intersections. This also created "dead zones" between lanes that the more aggressive drivers used for passing. "But it requires going up on the surface and with all the patrol activity..."
"How bad is it, lassie?" Charles asked as a patrol van passed overhead fast enough to rock the shuddering car. The van had been in the dead zone and at the intersection it quickly cut downward into a parallel lane then back up to pass the slower traffic.
"Lots of roadblocks, lots of random stops," she said. "StateSec is even more intrusive on the conquered planets than they are on Haven. I think we got you hidden just in time. It took them about a day to get organized and now they're all over the place. Oh, by the way, there's an all points bulletin out for Tommy Two-Time. A person of your general build was seen going into his shop but all the surveillance equipment was disabled or destroyed. You... wouldn't happen to know anything about that?"
"Tommy, he sleeps with the fishes," Mullins said. "God, I always wanted to use that line!"
"You are so weird," she snorted. "I think this is just about the time to have a car chase. It's always about this time in the movies. What do you think, Mister Super-Spy?"
"I've always managed to avoid them," Johnny admitted. "I hate flying, actually."