The Aztec room was large and dimly lit. An orchestra on one side played something slow and quiet. There was a large dance floor in front of the orchestra. No one was dancing at the moment. They were escorted to a table near the windows overlooking the now dark beach. Paintings and mosaics with Aztec designs and settings lined the wall. Anton held her chair out for her as she sat down, then joined on the opposite side of the table. No one had ever held her chair for her. It make her nervous because she expected the chair to be yanked out from under her at any minute.
Their waiter showed up a moment later and Anton ordered wine without bothering to ask what she wanted. The waiter had left tall glasses of ice water. Kim decided that would be good enough. When the wine arrived Anton made a deal of inspecting the cork from the bottle before allowing the waiter - or was that the wine steward? - to pour. Anton proposed another toast, and she sipped at the wine. It was a good vintage but rehab had left her with little taste for booze. They had dosed her up pretty heavily during the four months she was there with drugs that would make her sick if she drank any alcohol. And she had gotten so sick so many times that she, even two year out of rehab, two years without the pills, remained shy about drinking.
Another waiter came along with a basket of small loaves and the menus. Kim was eager to look through her's when Anton handed them back unopened. He ordered a salad and squab for her, whiskey and a lobster for himself.
And that was when the romance was over.
No matter how good looking, or suave, or well endowed he might be, no one, and she meant no one, ordered food for her. No one treated her like a toy with no volition of her own, no will, no interests, no tastes. After seeing the moppets wolfing down their steaks she was dying to have one herself. And not some tiny bird that looked like a pigeon, the vermin of the skies.
But this wasn't a date. This was business, not pleasure, so she kept a smile plastered on her face, and kept the conversation rolling. It was a lot easier, now with the anger growing inside to turn the conversation from her to him. What was he doing in Cancun? Did he live here? Was this really the best location to conduct "Big Science", shouldn't one do that at one of the larger universities of the world.
Anton Koswalski was happy to talk about himself. He told of his time as captain of his university rowing team. Kim had to stifle a laugh because the dossier the Guild had given on him never mentioned him participating in any sports and, in fact, it had mentioned that classmates had found him impossible to work with. He talked about his early days in business and his struggles to turn a small tech company into the giant it had become, never mentioning that he had done it as a patent troll.
When she asked him what got him interested in science his eyes light up and he chuckled to some untold joke.
"I could give you the Miss America answer - that I want to help humanity, end hungry, bring about world peace but those are silly answers.
"Silly?" Kim repeated, confused.
"Silly, because problems like those are really easy to solve. Take world hunger. That's caused not by a lack of resources but by an excess of demand. The easiest way to solver hunger is to decimate the Earth's population. Wipe-out two-thirds of humanity and there will be plenty of food to feed the remaining third. It's really quite simple but no one ever wants to consider that possibility. Science - Big Science - is all about asking the hard questions and looking for the simply answers that lies inside." He laughed as if to say I'm just kidding but the smile that flittered across his face seemed to say, "no, I'm not."
"But of course that would be unthinkable," he said after a beat, "so we have to think of harder ways to solve these problems."
The orchestra struck a waltz.
"Perhaps a dance while we wait for our food?" he suggested. She let him lead her out to the dance floor. Ballroom dancing wasn't her style, pogoing at raves was more like it, but she knew the steps at least. Koswalski held himself very posed and moved with a mechanical intensity that Kim guessed counted for something. She was surprised that he placed his arm around her waist and did not try to move it down as the music played on, like so many of her other dance partners had done. As long as he didn't step on her feet he was alright.
He swept her into a second dance and seemed to be enjoying himself more. His steps got smoother. He pulled her closer as they circled the dance floor. Then, saying that he didn't want their food to get cold he lead her back to their table. As soon as they sat down their waiter was at their side laying out their plates.
They ate in silence for a time, but as the meal as winding down Koswalski began asking her questions about her life as an au pair. Kim wasn't sure that he really cared but she had prepared stories for just this situation. Most were tales from her days as a high school babysitter, which was brief, mixed in with babysitting stories from her friends. She even retailed a bit from a popular movie, suspecting the Koswalski had never seen the teen comedy.
After a while she turned tables on him and asked him about his current researches. He demurred at first, explaining that it was all too complicated. He was probably right about that. Kim's knowledge of science began and ended with one semester of high school chemistry. She knew that pouring concentrated sulfuric acid on sugar produced a spectacular result but she couldn't tell you why.
Of course it only took an second prompt to get him started.
"I got interested in gravity during my under-graduate studies in physics. We were taught that there are only five forces in the universe, electricity, magnetism, the strong and the weak nuclear forces and gravity. And of these gravity was by far the weakest. Back in the Nineteenth Century James Maxwell demonstrated that electricity and magnetism were two side of the same force. electromagnetism. In the Twentieth Century the weak and strong nuclear forces - they are involved in the decay of sub-atomic particles - were also related to electromagnetism. But here we are in the Twenty-first century and physicists are no closer to unifying gravity with the other four forces. I felt that to be my calling. To solve the last unsolvable question of physics. Maybe," he paused here to chuckle, "it also had something to do with my early love for Gulliver's Travels."
"The story about Lilliput?" Kim asked, confused. What did an island of tiny people have to do with gravity?
"Oh, it's so much more than that. You should read it to your charges. I assure you they will love it. It is full of travels to magical lands, exciting adventures, eye-opening speculation about the nature of society. Gulliver travels not just to the island to Lilliput, but to Brobdingnag where the people there are tall as the Lilliputians were small. He also visits the land of the Houyhnhnms, where the horses are intelligent and its humans who are the dumb animals, but the story I always liked best was his visit to Laputa, the flying island. What a wonderful concept. One would never have to suffer the travails of travel when one could bring one's home along with them! Since that day I have dreamed of having my own flying island. So my fascinating with gravity was not strange after all.
"I spent the next twenty years of my life proving what gravity isn't, then for the last ten I have been discovering what gravity is."
Kim inadvertently frowned. Twenty years on this, ten years on that added up to thirty years and she was pretty sure one didn't graduate from college much before their mid-twenties. That meant Koswalski was in his late-fifties! He didn't look older than the late thirties. She was on a date with a "senior citizen!"
"So, do you have your flying island?" she asked, covering up for her momentary frown.
"Soon, soon. Electricity, magnetism, and the nuclear forces are all mediated by particles. That is, the force is exerted through an exchange of particles. But there is no particle of gravity. At most it can be described as a distortion of the space-time continuum, but what does that mean, exactly, right?"
Kim nodded, not knowing what else to do. She wished she was recording this in hopes that someday she might find someone who would be able to explain all this to her.
"What I determined is that gravity is a residual force, an imbalance between the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. Hence the weak nature of gravity."
"Weak? The last time I fell down skiing gravity didn't seem 'weak,' "
"Compared to the electromagnetic force, yes, gravity is.
"Once I identified gravity as a off-shot of electricity it has been child's place to develop an anti-gravity generator. "
"What a boon to humanity," Kim said, wondering why the Guild of Calamitous Intent was so opposed to this development, thinking about airplanes that wouldn't have to squeeze people in like so many sardines. Freight trains flying as the speed of sound. Travel to distant planets...
He came back with dreams of whole flying islands, aerial factories flying to anywhere in the world where wages are cheapest. Battleships of the sky so enormous that cities could be conquered overnight.
Where she thought of the things his invention could do for civilization, Koswalski thought only about the power such a device could give to its sole inventor. No wonder The Guild's dossier had concluded that the disruptions practical anti-gravity would make to the world economy would seriously jeopardize the balance of power between super-scientists and super-villains. She thought it was odd that the Guild of Calamitous Intend should worry about the fate of super-scientists. Weren't super-villains out to kill super-scientists? Why should they care how that happened. Then again if the world was going to be so messed up there there would be no Bloomingdales or Lord and Taylor to shop at... That alone was a good enough reason as any to take a whack at this guy.
When the waiter came by to see how they were doing Koswalski ordered dessert for the two of them. He ordered a light custard for her and a chocolate soaked torte for himself. Kim was about to correct the order then remembered that she was there to keep Koswalski preoccupied. She let the order stand instead of risking an argument and him storming off in disgust.
While waiting for their desserts Anton had frozen, his coat vibrating. "My apologizes," he said. "I must have forgotten to turn this thing off." He pulled out a cellphone and looked at the screen for a moment, then stabbed an annoyed finger at one of its buttons, ending the phone's quiet buzzing. He tapped his large onyx ring for a moment. "They can wait," he said, putting the phone away. She wondered for a moment who had called and what the call had been about but since Koswalski seemed to have put the matter out of mind she decided that the call didn't matter.
Nothing says a date is over like looking at one's watch but Kim was desperate to know if the boys had had time enough to search Koswalski's room. She was forced to glance at the wristwatch on the waiter as he delivered their desserts. They'd been out of the room for only about 90 minutes. Kim had promised them at least two hours so she took her time eating the custard, which admittedly was very good, but she envied even more the chocolate drenched morsels Anton was shoveling into his mouth.
After the dessert's were finished, they danced some more. Anton holding her a little closer this time around. Kim wondered what would happen if the orchestra broken into some modern music, Techno, perhaps. She loved the wild chaotic dancing. Dancing wasn't dancing if it didn't get the blood circulating, put a little sweat on the brow. It wasn't lady-like but then Kim had never been a lady. How would Koswalski react? Would he get in the spirit and wave his hands around like he just didn't care. Or would he stalk off the floor? Did he ever dance just to dance or was it all part of a pattern for seduction?
After a couple waltzes Kim pleaded the heat and asked to step out on the promenade. Anton readily agreed. Kim hoped that groping one's date's breasts in public was not part of any tradition in this part of Mexico.
The moon, a thin sliver, was following the sun below the horizon. It shed a faint glow on the waters of the bay. Lazy combers brought in a cooling, almost chilly breeze. They walked the length of the promenade a couple times before Koswalski leaned against the railing. "I don't get ashore as often as I'd like. I don't realize how much I enjoy these quiet moments. This is very nice."
"Ashore," Kim echoed. The dossier hadn't said anything about him living on a boat.
"Oh, you can't see it from here but roughly that way-" he point off slightly south by west '- fifty kilometers out is a small island I own. It's where I do my researches. Away from all the distractions of modern life."
"You own your own island?" Kim didn't have to fake the awe in her voice. She's never known someone who actually owned an entire island.
"It's not much, only about 15 hectares but it suits my needs." Kim was busy trying to convert hectares into acres. She was sure they had taught that stuff in school but since she couldn't think of a reason to know anything about hectares, kilometers and stuff she'd never learned it. It came to her that 15 hectares was maybe fifty acres. How big was an acre? she wondered.
She shivered as a gust of cool air blew past them. Anton saw her shiver and wrapped his arms around her. "Perhaps we could adjourn to my room for another drink or two. I can light the fireplace, warm you up nice and toasty."
"No, thank you," Kim demurred. "I should look back in on the boys. Sometimes they do wake up in the middle of the night. Still I want to thank you for dinner, it was excellent. And I really enjoyed the dancing. It was so different from the clubs I go to back in New York." She hoped he wouldn't ask her which clubs she referred to. She'd never been to New York. She was a west coast girl.
"Perhaps another night?" Anton asked hopefully.
"That would be nice." Actually if the boys had done their work properly they would gone by morning but it never hurt to pretend to agree.
As they turned back towards the hotel Kim tapped her earring three times.
][
Stepping off the elevator on the fifth floor Kim's spirits started rising with each step towards her suite. She had survived her date with the target and had not had to have sex with him either. Every step took her away from the playing acting and back to her normal self. Every step seemed a step towards freedom.
She stepped onto the room and froze. Kevin and Tim-Tom were seated on the couch angrily jamming their knifes into the exquisitely carved coffee table.
"Hey, we gotta to pay for that?" she snapped, grabbing the knife out of Kevin's hand. "Cutting up stuff like that will lead people to us. Before we check out make sure that table is in some other room."
"Not happy, mum!" Tim-Tom explained, jabbing his knife into the table forcefully.
"Couldn't find the papers, mum," Kevin explained.
Kim sank down on the couch next to the two midgets. "You couldn't find them? Did you look everywhere?"
"Of course we did," Tim-Tom growled. "We've been doing this since before you were in nappies. We know what we're doing."
"In the toilet tank? taped to the bottom of a drawer? Slipped under the carpet?"
"Yes, yes, and yes! We know what we're doing."
"But it had to be in the room!" She slammed Kevin's switchblade down on the table. It's blade caught in the wood and twisted under her hand, snapping the blade off near the hinge. "Damn!," she hissed, sucking at the scrape along the side of his hand.
"Hey, that was my best knife!" Kevin complained.
"What are we going to do next? Take a bunk? Find some other location to search?" Tim-Tom asked all businesslike.
"We'll have to play him along for a while longer while we figure where else the papers might be," Kim said. She felt drained, deflated by the failure of their mission. It was suddenly hard to think.
"We could hire some local muscle and stage an armed robbery. Maybe he had the papers with him all along."
"He was pressing up against me a lot tonight if he had any bundle on papers on him I think I would have felt them."
Tim-Tom licked his lips salaciously.
"It wouldn't hurt to make arrangements." Kevin suggested.
"Or we could just cut him up a bit," Tim-Tom smiled deliciously. "Put him in the hospital for a few months. Maybe cut his hamstring and force him to have reconstructive surgery. That'd put his research off for several months. I'm sure the Guild would like that just as well."
"I want that money," Kim said. "We're always going to be scrapping for money until we can lay our hands on his millions. I don't want to have to spend a life-time staging petty bank robberies to keep afloat."
"I like living in the lap of luxury," Kevin mused.
"We can still do the cutting if worse comes to worse," Tim-Tom reflected.
"Remember that guy we knife back in Baltimore?"
"Oh, year, he was squealing like a piggy as the blade went in. Not so much as it came out."
"Knock it off, you two!" Kim ordered. She wasn't happy about killing people - aside from Hank Venture, of course - and didn't like the way the moppets salivated when they talked about killing people. They loved talking about killing people. You'd think they were psychopaths or something.
They sat there in silent misery for a couple minutes then the hotel telephone buzzed. They looked at each other in surprise. Who would be calling them at this hour - or any hour?
Kim picked up the phone, "Hello?" she said warily.
"Ah, my dear Claudia, I am so happy that you are still up."
"Anton?" The moppets looked up interestedly. The scrambled over the couch to get next to the phone. She held a receiver an inch from her ear so they could hear both sides of the conversation.
"It is I. I had a wonderful thought while on the way up to my suite. Why don't you and your darling changes come out to my island for the day tomorrow? The motorboat leaves at dawn and could get you back well before nightfall. Your charges will enjoy it there. My island was a small but very well tended beach, there a reef where we can do some snorkeling. And there is a wonderful trail along the cliff. It will be very entertaining I assure you and we'll have a better chance to get to know each other. What do you say? Please say yes."
"Well, ah-" Kim stammered. She looked at the boys. They looked as doubtful as she felt. "Why, that sounds like a wonderful idea," she heard herself saying. "Wow, one's own private beach! That has to be awesome."
"Wonderful," Koswalski said in his suave voice. "Anytime after seven in the morning. I'll leave directions to find my slip with the concierge."
"Great. This will be so wonderful. I can't wait." She hung up.
"That was convenient," she said, confused.
"Too convenient," Kevin said
"We get a second go at him," she said justifying her decision.
"It's a trap," Tim-Tom declared.
"How could he suspect us?" Kim said. "In any case we can't afford to turn this down. If we bail on this mission I'm sure the Guild will be every bit as pissed as Koswalski would be if he knew we were trying to rob him."
"Well, I feel like we're being asked to stick our head into a wood chipper." Kevin said.
"Or into a lion's mouth." Tim-Tom agreed.
"Or he's just desperate to screw me," Kim said. "Let's sleep on it and see how it all sounds in the morning. Set your alarms for 6 am."
Chapters 2 and 3 were originally one long chapter which I decided ought to be broken into two. I hope you didn't found chapter two too static or chapter three too expository, but sometimes you have to take time to explain what's going on.
I spend a lot of time in this chapter remarking on the things that Kim doesn't know. I'm not trying to make she come off sounding dumb but pointing out that she is, after all, only 19, and not some 63 year old nerd with a life-long interest in trivia and Internet access (that would be me). There are a lot of things that Kim does know (like tens ways to break a neck without leaving a mark - from her Blackheart's training.) But not the cultural references of a previous generation.
Concentrated sulfuric acid dehydrates the sugar creating a lot of heat and leaving behind mostly carbon, which will foam up in a beaker.
Koswalski's physics lesson is mostly true. Scientists haven't given up on finding a particle that transfers the gravitation force or come up with an alternatively explanation.