A gun? How retro

The plants were going insane.

Fargo pulled his car to a stop outside his house, but didn't get out. He hadn't noticed earlier, but had his grass really been a foot high when he left for work?

His house was a shabby little bungalow on the outskirts of town, with forest on one side, fields on the other, and a tiny yard in front. It didn't really fit his image as Director of Research at GD, and he'd thought about moving, but it was comfortable and familiar and he just hadn't gotten around to it. But maybe he hadn't been paying enough attention to it. Had the trees on the forest edge really been so close before? And the shrubs out front – they had grown to reach almost the top of the long porch railing that extended the length of the house. When had they gotten so big?

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "Tabby, was the grass this high this morning?"

"The grass?" Tabitha, Fargo's smart car, asked. "I'm afraid that recording the length of vegetation isn't part of my observational parameters, Douglas. Would you like me to add it for the future?"

"No, that's okay." Fargo frowned.

Today had already been a long day: he and Zane had been called into an emergency consultation with the head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the director of the NSA. There had been some major security breach with the AES ciphers, the mandatory encryption standard for the federal government.* The director was unwilling to share the details, but they were considering expediting the review process for a new encryption standard, and wanted to learn more about the algorithm Zane had developed.

You don't say no to the director of the NSA when you work for the DoD, but for Zane, it meant missing Jo's latest check-up, one where they might finally learn the sexes of the babies. And trying to make an annoyed Zane behave respectfully in front of the bigwigs – well, Fargo had been wracking his brain trying to imagine what Stark would do. For once, it hadn't been helpful. If Stark had told Zane to shut up and behave, Zane might, just possibly, have listened. Fargo didn't have the same power.

He'd been on his way home before he realized that he'd taken totally the wrong tack: Stark wouldn't have tried to make Zane behave, he would have told the bigwigs that with genius came privilege and if they wanted the algorithm, they'd put up with the attitude. Remembering it now, he sighed. Well, he'd know what to do next time.

But could the plants around his house have responded to his frustration from miles away? That would be a new level to his plant problem and not one that he'd be happy about. He didn't have time to mow the lawn every other day. Getting out of the car, he said an absent-minded farewell to Tabitha and headed up his walkway, eying the plants as he went.

It didn't make sense, he was thinking as he unlocked the door. He'd spent a lot of time with the biologists over the past few months tracing out plant responses to his physiological cues. Epinephrine** and endorphins caused surges in plant growth: well, not those hormones specifically, but whatever polyphenolic compound he gave off when those hormones raced through his system. And he'd been frustrated earlier, sure, but frustration – or rather, the excess cortisol it caused – usually resulted in drooping leaves. If the plants were responding to his mood, his yard should have yellowed. But either way, how could they respond to a chemical signal from miles away? It just didn't…

"Where the hell is my money?"

There was a gun pointed at his chest. Fargo put his hands up defensively. A gun? How retro.

Ivy's hair was red. He liked it better this way, Fargo noted automatically. And she wasn't dressed in a professional, dress-to-impress power suit, but a V-necked black sweater and black pants. He liked those better, too. Despite the gun, she looked softer. Less scary.

Except she also looked really, really pissed.

"Ah, no idea what you're talking about," he answered, taking a couple of steps farther into the room.

"Don't bullshit me," she snapped.

"Really, no idea what you're talking about." Fargo was trying to imagine what Dr. Stark would do in this situation. Coming home to a woman with a gun waiting in his living room? He would have had a snappy response, Fargo was sure. Unfortunately, Fargo was just Fargo. It'd be just like earlier – he'd think of the right response three hours later.

"I'm not an idiot." The click as she snapped off the safety on the gun resonated. Fargo swallowed hard. This wasn't how he'd pictured meeting her again.

"Seriously, what money are we talking about?"

"My money! I set up a perfectly nice little program to funnel money out of GD and into a Caymans bank account, and you fucked with it."

"Ah, nope, not me." Fargo felt like there was a light sheen of sweat covering his face, but at least he wasn't looking guilty. Embezzling? No, that hadn't even been on his top ten list of what Ivy might have been up to. His best guesses of her motives had all revolved around her grandfather: that she wanted to find out what had happened to him, or more about him, or simply see the place he had so much responsibility for creating. As a motive, money had never occurred to him.

"Then it was that idiot Donovan. Nobody else is good enough."

"Zane?" Fargo shook his head. "He's got a lot going on these days. I don't think he's stealing from the government."

"Stealing. That's such an ugly way to put it. I see myself as more of a one-woman appropriations committee." Ivy tossed her head and the red curls bounced.

"That sounds as if you've done this before," Fargo said, a little tentatively, adding a questioning tone. He supposed he ought to be asking what she was doing in his living room with a gun, but curiosity had always been his besetting sin. And he was very, very curious about Ivy Kuna.

"Our government has spent over a trillion dollars on war in the past decade so, yeah, I decided a while ago that some of that money could be put to better use,"*** Ivy's tone was defiant, until she added, with a twist of her mouth,"I should have realized that this place would be riskier than Iraq. How did you know?"

Fargo shrugged. "I didn't know anything."

She glared at him. "Don't play a player, Dr. Fargo. You told me to hack the email system: why would you think I could do that? You should have thought I was just a number-cruncher."

"Osbourne screwed up big-time, but he's not an idiot. He had to have encrypted his files, which means you'd already broken his encryption. If you could do that, the email system wouldn't have been all that hard." Fargo took a few more steps into the living room and Ivy's gun swiveled to follow him.

"I thought that had to be it, but – " Ivy shook her head. "Damn it. One little slip. Well, the risk seemed worth it at the time." Her chin firmed with determination. "But now you have to get me into GD."

"Into GD?" Fargo rubbed the back of his neck. If he was going to get shot, he'd almost rather get it over with in his living room. It had been a long day, and he didn't want to go back to work.

"I just need access to the computers. Two hours in your office to figure out what went wrong and get rid of any traces, and then we walk out. We come back here, I lock you up, and with a little head-start, I'll be long gone by the time anyone starts looking for me. No one needs to get hurt."

Fargo wondered if he should tell her that it wouldn't happen that way. If she walked through security at GD carrying a gun, she'd be in handcuffs within minutes. And if she didn't bring the gun – well, every botanist working on the plant problem wanted access to the other potential victim. Once the security system identified her, and it would, she'd be a government lab rat before she could blink.

But…he was the head of GD. If he told her that she couldn't get into GD safely, he'd be aiding a criminal.

"Why did you kiss me?" he asked abruptly.

"I – which time?" Ivy looked away from him, then back, and her full lips curved up in a flirtatious smile that didn't match the look in her eyes.

"Both."

Voice sultry, Ivy started, "Why, Dr. Fargo, I was just overcome by your…" Outside the window, Fargo could see leaves climbing up the glass.

"What's the point of trying to play me?" Fargo interrupted her.

Ivy dropped the smile. "Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts."

"Okay," said Fargo patiently, "But you're holding a gun on me, which means you win." He shrugged. "So why not tell me the truth? I thought it was spores from one of Osbourne's plants, but he claimed that there was no necrosomnia violacia in his lab."

Ivy looked at him steadily, then shrugged, and said impatiently, "Fine, I kissed you because I was trying to play you. And the point was to distract you from the hacking. Happy now?"

Fargo couldn't tell what his face would reveal to her, but happy wasn't quite the word he would have chosen. Still, she'd answered him. He gave her a slight nod, and said, "So, let's go to GD and let you get your hacking over with."

Turning, he reached for the door.

"The second time, anyway," Ivy said from behind him, her words almost reluctant. "The first was because I was grateful. You really were very brave."

He paused, hand on the doorknob. His decision had just gotten harder.

*That is the encryption standard, but as far as I know, it's actually rock-solid. I'm just breaking it for my own convenience.

**I actually feel suspicious of Wikipedia on this one, but apparently medical professionals in the United States no longer refer to adrenaline: it's called epinephrine here. But if you're British, you can still think of this hormone as adrenaline.

***A trillion plus. The numbers are so big, they're hard to imagine, but for some perspective, 5% of that money ($50 billion) could have bought a new house for every single home lost in Katrina. Less than 1% ($8 billion) could have gotten 10 years of clean water for every human being on earth who lacks it.