03 Cherchez La Femme


"So what did you do?"

"Remember Liv, earlier?"

"You checked."

"Yep. Same results. She was messing with me. She pouted when she realized I wasn't taking the bait. Then we got in the unmarked DMA SUV and went out on the town."

-/-

Seeing the sights and souds of Silver City, by Floyd Clapton.

Ingredients: One alien space not-princess, two bodyguards, and one interdimensional refugee.

Simmer in a walking tour of downtown Silver.

Add frozen yogurt.

Add watchful paranoia.

Heat at 30 C for an hour.

Realize the metaphor has escaped you.

She drew me out.

I mean, I'm not exactly the most chatty guy. But her metaphorical flail wound its way around my metaphorical shield, and next thing I knew, I was opening up about my...situation.

We were sitting on some benches meant to provide a nice view of an abstract sculpture fountain for folks on their lunch breaks to snarf their triple non-fat venti mocha Keurig espressos. The bodyguards were...somewhere nearby.

"Three, two, one, omnomnom," I said, and brought the spoonful of frozen yogurt to my mouth. Princess did the same with her spoonful of...pistachio? Mint?

Many men would've seen the highly inefficient way she sucked it off the spoon and started having Rather Naughty Thoughts. My response was mild irritation at the lack of subtlety and a thought of Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?

In return, I learned that she was 13.413726th in line for the throne, and their ship was really tiny, a shard of artificial space not-diamond.

"It's amazing what you can do with a waveform," she said, around a spoonful of frozen fat-free yogurt.

She was uncertain about what to do with her life, hence the partying, as well as the string of lovers. Male, female, "I don't think even Tumblr has words for that", she wasn't particularly discriminating, like most young adults of her species. Heck, even the female body she currently wore was more of a convenience than anything, supplemented by a hologram projector even the ring couldn't break into.

This information pretty much poured sand on the fires of my ardor.

By which I mean that a small but insistent voice at the back of my head was going "think of all the possibilities! That thing with the Albino Ice Phoenix-"

The primer the Department had gave me said nothing about potential liaisons with Princess, but I was strongly against it. Not just on religious grounds, but it just seemed like a bad idea. There'd be a massive power imbalance, and even if we did have something more permanent, I wasn't cut out for the life of a consort. There were only so many hospital ribbons I could cut before I turned the space-shears on my own wrist.

Which would make them rather difficult to operate.

Speaking of which, Princess told me that she was trying to find a job. Time to smoothly pick up the thread.

"So, post-graduation blues are apparently universal."

"Mmm. I'm extroverted, while you're introverted. I go out to parties, and you sit at home and argue with people online."

"I also write fanfiction," I deadpanned. "But seriously, I help people. At the hospital."

"Clapton, listen to me." She walked in front of me, put her hands on my shoulders, made eye contact. Standard persuasion tactics.

She had nice eyes. My complements to her designer.

"You're capable of much, much more. You said that you had an art degree. Have you drawn anything since arriving in this dimension?"

My eyes narrowed. It's harder to deny that you're angry when you have a magic space ring that can feel it building. "What do you know about my life?"

"I'm good with people." A winsome head-tilt. "Bit of a job requirement."

I stared at her. My throat felt tight and narrow. But my only cogent thought was guuurl, why u so charming?

"Why the British accent?"

"We searched for English-language associations with the term 'Princess', which is the closest translation of my title. It turned up a meme based on a interactive electronic entertainment series, an animated equine, several heavily marketed human animated princesses, and -"

"No, wait, let me guess. Ring, out loud."

"Designate 'Princess' has an accent with a 63.7 match to Patricia Lurington, Duchess of Lancashire, Princess Consort of Albert, Prince of Wales."

"What's the rest of it?"

"The other 36.3 percent appears to be Lara Croft."

"Which one?"

"All of them," Her Majesty said.

"Cute," I said. "If you were really British, you'd have bad teeth and poor taste in food."

Her eyes lit up. "Oooh! Dinner!"

"Switzerland?" I ask.

We're found a decent restaurant. Four Yelp stars. Again, Misters White and Black are lurking just out of view. They've taken seats with views of the entire place, as I suppose good bodyguards do.

"Switzerland." She gestures with her fork, then bites the salmon off the end. "Neutral in conflicts, heavily armed, well-trained, rich."

"And you still have a nobility and royalty."

"Not exactly. It doesn't really translate to English. Or French. Or any other human language. Or four dimensions." She grimaced. "Unfortunately, my little Star Nation has accidentally become the buffer zone between 2.314 warring states."

I took a sip of my apple juice. "How are you menaced by a fraction of a faction?"

"Accidentally. Pay attention. Most of their shipping comes through us, so they can't piss us off or risk buggering their economy."

"What do your parents expect you to-"

Activating environmental shield. Threat detected.

Way to bury the le-

I was on the ground. My ears hurt, but they weren't - no, they weren't bleeding. Sadie?

The front of the restauraunt exploded. Armed assailants are ingressing.

I sat up. Wait, this wasn't where I was sitting. Did I get thrown across the restaurant?

Affirmative.

I staggered to my feet, and towards the table where I had been sitting. Scan, green.

Emission spikes indicate that Princess is attempting to use non-human abilities. Attempts appear unsuccessful.

Any idea why?

When the assailants' van opened, I noticed their weapons and an unusual device.

And then you sounded the alarm.

Something moved, and I looked left. White reached into his coat and pulled out something non-Euclidian. Before he could fire it, the bullets took him in the lower chest, and he fell.

When did I pick up these plates?

Doesn't matter. Sadie, you need to throw these at the bad guys as hard as I can.

Roger.

My right arm cocked itself back, and hurled the china directly at the mook's head. Followed by another mook. Followed by a hail of 7.62mm suppressing fire.

Unfortunately, it was coming in my direction.

By the time it was safe for me to poke my head out, their van had sped off with the Princess, leaving me in a ruined restaurant that would almost certainly not be serving desert..

I stood. "Everyone all right?"

"Could be better," White murmured.

"Is everyone important alright?"

"Heh."

Mr. Black was by his side, looking concerned. "Can you fix it?"

Light leaked between his fingers.

"I hope so."

Insufficient hope.

Oh, come on! Why?

Hope needed to scan pseudobody.

Oh, for - scan with green, or yellow, or anything else, and then try to heal him! In fact, I want you to scan and fix him, and hope you'll be able to.

Healing.

The flesh knit itself back together over the light...as did the suit. Ew.

Light applause from the crowd.

I stood up. "Anyone else?"

"I think I saw the guy who takes reservations run out the back," someone said.

I shared a Look with the two guards.

"Oh, really?"

When I dumped the desk guy on the ground, he's quaking in his flex-cuffs, staring at the shadows in the corners. "Found him in his car."

"What did you do to him?" Mr. White said.

"Just some scare tactics. He helped attack a restaurant full of innocent people, I'm not exactly concerned about his fee-fees."

"Can he tell us anything?" said Mr. Black.

"Not for another hour or so. I went a little hard." I hold his phone. "This, however... Fingerprint lock. Cute. Ring?"

You might think I used the Spectrum to scan it on a molecular level. Nah. The moron left his data plan open, and Sadie cracked it that way.

"Got no trace," I announced. "The phone he texted is non-responsive. Buuut if I check the towers it pinged, I can ballpark it."

"Freeze!" said someone very official-sounding.

We all raised our hands. "It's okay!" I said. "We have diplomatic immunity!"

"So what you're saying," said the police-DMA liason, "is that these jokers are in contact with an advanced civilization."

We were sitting at a table that hadn't been broken.

"Probably, ma'am," I replied. "Its the only way I can think of for them to have a suppressor. Good part is, they all appear to be baseline human."

"How do you know?"

"Misters White and Black scanned them during the attack."

"Is White going to be okay?"

"He says he's be combat ready in about ten minutes."

"I don't have to tell you how much trouble this might cause."

"Actually, Lieutenant Tritter, I have to tell you. Over dinner, the Princess said she has the codes to her ship. Which, in turn, is equipped with the control codes to her Star Nation's defense net. Now, normal 'enhanced interrogation' probably won't work, and the ship access codes probably have to be inputted in gamma ray pulses or something anyway."

"And what are the odds that whoever these guys are working for won't have the ability to get the codes out of her and keep her captive?" The LT buries her face in her hands and groans. "And if something happens to her, guess which planet her folks are going to blame?"

"You sound like this is news to you. Didn't Jackson send you a memo or something?"

"Who?"

"Jackson. The DMA contact who...who..."

She raised her head. "There's no Jackson in the local office who'd be trusted with something on this level."

"Maybe they just transfered in?"

"Describe them to me. Man or woman?"

"They...uh..."

"Race? Height? What clothes they wore?"

"Sadie, do you remember anything?"
(confusion)
"Record not found."

The cop reached over and patted me on the shoulder. "Looks like you got hit by an anti-meme."

"What's that-no, I can guess."

"Magic, usually. As far as we can tell, there needs to be something real to 'anchor' the effect." She shrugs. "Or maybe those are just the ones we can remember."

"So what you're saying is that we're possibly facing a magic user of unknown capability who may be able to erase my memory of meeting him...or her...or it, on top of mercenaries with alien tech, all of them with largely unknown motives and plans. Great. Just fantastic."

She gave me a thin-lipped smile. "Welcome to the superhero biz, kid."

"And with that, I think I'll get a drink." I got up and walked behind the bar. "Ring, how much malt do I need to take the edge off?"

"You strike me as more of a beer man."

"I'm not much of an anything man. But without it I am five minutes away from fear-spewing something disgusting from one of two orifices, and I'm not a fan of either one."

"The orifices?"

"The spewing." The bottle jittered against the rim of the glass as I tipped it out.

"Are you going to pay for that?"

I stared at her. "Fu - bill me."

"So then what?"

"We scouted the area. We got a rough fix on the room the Princess was in, and FLIR got the other people."

"Why a 'rough fix'?"

"The 'guards recognized the energy signature of the jammer, so we figured she had to be nearby. With Sadie's help, I echolocated the main jammer and the Princess."

"Your ring can do that?"

"...Apparently?"

"What was the plan?"

"We didn't know if we had enough manpower to neutralize the guards, especially since we didn't know what they were armed with."

"And then there was Jackson."

"And then there was Jackson. Maybe. The plan was not to get Princess away from the jammer-"

"-But to get the jammer away from the Princess."

It wasn't exactly a cheery sort of room, what with the detritus and dust and poor lighting. The chair wasn't Ikea-grade. The ostensible young woman tied to it was as out of place as a pearl in a Portajohn.

The large, industrial-looking device in front of her - and the smaller one behind her chair - fit right in.

She noticed the yellow filament extending from the ground behind her guard, and didn't move, didn't blink, didn't say anything. Just watched as the guard blinked, and then started to shake. He pointed his gun at thin air, started to hyperventilate-

"Now," she said.

And White's fraktalweapon erupted under the guard's feet.

After he fell through the hole, there were a bunch of meaty, organic sounds, then it went quiet. Another hole opened up under the primary jammer, and it vanished. The Princess felt the lessening of pressure, but couldn't change, not yet.

A pair of brown hands grasped the edge of the hole and pulled her very favorite light-thief up.

I stand up, dusted myself off, and hold out my hand.

"Come with me if you want to live."

She gives me a bland look, and counters with; "Aren't you a little tall for a Stormtrooper?"

"Ah-ha-ha-hah." I hated the backup jammer and spit. It obligingly dissolved.

"Ah. Thank you."

"You're welc-mmph!"

Oh. So that's what that was like. Well, I could certainly see the appeal.

"You know," said the Princess, after she released me, "most men can figure out what to do with their hands at this point."

Um, okay.

Suddenly, I was sitting on the floor, my legs feeling strange, while she bent down and patted me on the cheek. "Rest now. I'll take care of it."

You know that feeling just a few minutes before the concert starts? The tingle in your skin before the rain falls? That moment when you're waiting to see if your broke-up old car is going to turn over and get you to work on time? That pause between anticipation and event?

That was what she felt like, unleashed.

I didn't see what she looked like, mind. Well, I did, it's just incomprehensible to my boring human eyes, unless I was really seeing the smell of purple. There was a sound like a thunderclap turned inside out, and the Princess vanished.

Yeah, staying put seemed like a good idea, as the shouting and shooting started.

"So, the police arrested everyone, we drove her back to the hotel, and dropped them off.

"Just like that? She didn't give you any reward?"

I am not telling him about the kiss.

"Oh, right, she left me this."

I find a clear spot in the paperwork, and place the holo-thingy on the Aldrins' kitchen table.

"And Jackson wasn't one of the hostage-takers?"

"Yeah, about that."

"Evening," someone said.

I turned, as the squad car drove off.

There's a certain type of exercise, for artists, where you draw the negative space around an object. This was the 3D equivalent of that. I couldn't tell who was there, but I could tell what was going on around them.

"Good job with the Princess," said Jackson, in a remarkably unremarkable voice. I literally can't remember anything about it except what it was saying. Accent, timbre, cadence, zilch. If there's any Emotional Spectrum content, I'm not getting it.

As far as I knew.

"Was this a test?" I said.

"Yes! And you passed!" The sound of clapping. "Good for you!"

I am determined to scan this guy. Aaand that's a wash. Everything it gets keeps deleting itself. Or...not really registering in the first place.

"See anything you like?"

How did-

"Your ring turned green. You really need to work on that. Don't want a tell for what's coming."

"So what's coming?"

"All in good time."

And then I'm looking at an empty spot on the road.

"He was right outside my house?"

Mr. Aldrin is still fighting fit, even though his globetrotting days are behind him and there's some grey at his temples. He's a darker shade of brown than I am, if shorter, and taught Olivia everything she knows. I can see the muscles in his neck tensing.

"Yeah," I respond. "But that's not what I'm here for. You teach cops, right?"

"...Yes."

"I need to get in touch with them. It occurs to me that I am woefully underlevelled. I know slightly more than jack about guns or hand-to-hand, and have no practical experience."

I tap the table thoughtfully.

"Also, what do you have to do to get a Private Investigator's license in California?"

-PR-

Original title for this chapter was "Excuse me, Princess".

The anti-meme concept is shamelessly stolen from Sam Hughes' (Things of Interest) SCP Foundation stories. Though I saw a similar concept in Wildbow's "Pact" before I discovered Hughes' stories, Hughes' actually did it first.

So, how would you have handled the hostage situation? Also, has anyone here worked for any significant amount of time at a container port?