59
D.C., outside the United States Senate, early afternoon-
"Senator!"
He paused in mid-stride and turned, an automatic smile crossing his thin, sallow face.
"Senator Stennis!"
Bounding athletically up the steps toward him, smiling as brightly as D.C.'s late summer sun, was a pretty young woman. Red- haired, she was, with a trim little figure swathed in black Prada and Hermes. Janet Priestly, a lobbyist and fundraiser from Sutfield, Georgia.
Hiding his impatience, for he was overdue to meet with one of his more talented underlings, the senator broadened his smile, extended a hand, and strode back down the marble steps to meet her.
"Janet!" He exclaimed warmly, almost as if he meant it, "so good to see you again, Darlin'!"
Very nearly as false as he was, the lobbyist accepted his handshake, and a brief, side-arm hug.
"Now, Senator! You'll turn my head!" And she feigned a shy little blush, cocking her head to one side like a mischievous squirrel.
"Call me 'Lamar', Honey. On Capitol Hill, I need all the friends I can get."
He was a new enough figure in the Senate to still be feeling his way, groping for alliances and power. Up and coming, though; and a man to watch.
Janet smiled, and this time, the expression was less faked. Her red hair floating a bit in the hot, gusty breeze, she handed him an expensive brochure.
"That's just the way business gets done up here, Lamar… friends helpin' friends. You know my boss, don't you…? Alexander Padgett? Of the Savannah Padgetts? 'Course you do, fine old family like yours!"
Senator Stennis nodded, waiting for the trap, as sharp eyed and wary as a deep-cover sniper.
"Indeed, I do, little lady. Went to school with his son, Ashton. Had us some times, I tell you whut."
Janet Priestly dimpled as charmingly as a young film star.
"You college boys! Always into mischief! Well…" They'd started up the steps, again, headed into the U.S. Senate's columned main entrance.
(Ordinarily, Stennis preferred side routes and back ways, but there'd been an important photo op with a Medal of Honor winner, and he deemed the potential face time too critical to pass up. Thus, the front door.)
Their path meandered and paused, for there was a steady pulse of political types to be greeted and glad-handed, names and hints to be dropped. Stennis worked his colleagues like a pro.
As green lawns, hot sun and blinding marble switched to buzzing security gates and the cool, shadowed interior, Janet went on with her pitch.
"Mr. Padgett's been workin' ever so hard, Lamar, just hustlin' night and day to build up support for the Wetlands Protection bill."
She placed a manicured hand on his sleeve, at once confiding and flirtatious.
"Everyone knows you never miss a vote, Lamar, and that you're a man of conscience, and honor. Your support on August twenty-eighth would mean so much to Mr. Padgett, and to Georgia, Sir. I do hope I can tell Mr. Padgett that he's got an old friend of the family in his corner, come vote time."
"Darlin'," Stennis quietly replied, "when you get right down to it, all we got's our reputations, and the Earth we all share. The good people of Texas thought enough of me to put me in office, and I aim to give 'em their money's worth. The health of our wetlands is as important to the Republic of Texas as it is to Georgia, little lady, and you can tell Mr. Alexander Padgett I said so."
This time, Janet's smile was absolutely genuine. Utterly taken in, she said,
"Thank you, Senator. I'll do just that. And, I'm sure Mr. Padgett would be most kindly disposed toward any future bills or amendments you might see fit to back, Sir."
Stennis returned the smile, looking terribly earnest and incorruptible in his dark suit and Texas lapel pin.
"Like you say, Janet; just friends helpin' friends." (And providing huge campaign contributions, though that part of the deal remained unspoken.)
Janet left him, satisfied that she'd swung another vote for the all-important Wetlands Protection Act.
So many people, all needing space to live in, and real food to eat…! All trapped in the soul-numbing, technological nightmare of modern 'life' (or, what passed for it).
Well, Senator Stennis intended to free his mired brethren, using the Red Path to destroy WorldGov and its guard dogs. There were obstacles, though. Major ones.
He strode further into the Senate building, passing over the 'lucky star' on the rotunda floor, and back toward his new office suite in the Rectangle.
The expression, a careful mask of compassionate humility, left Stennis' face the instant he stepped into his office and closed the door. Empty. Jewel's lunch hour would end soon, but he could buy himself a little more time for the real meeting of the day by ordering up a traffic accident, timed to intersect her route.
Plans and schemes… the senator had so many irons in the fire at the moment, some legitimate, others very much not, that matters were beginning to pile up. No secretary or file, and only one subordinate, could be entrusted with the slightest portion of what he did, and knew.
As Vargas wasn't due for another fifteen minutes, Lamar Stennis shrugged off his suit jacket and hung it up. Then, he sat down at his desk, pulled open the top right drawer, and removed a wrapped sandwich. Soy cheese and mustard on thick, white bread.
He flipped his red tie out of harm's way, peeled away the plastic wrap, then began to eat and think; very methodically, in both cases. He'd always been a careful man.
Freedom, for the world's teeming masses, meant a drastically lowered population, and the removal of their weak and ineffectual government. He'd already tried setting WorldGov against International Rescue, only to have the two powerful, sneaky organizations grow together like the severed halves of a slime mold. Before, there had at least been suspicion between the two. Now, thanks to IR's failure to act defensively, one-legged Lady Murasaki would have trusted the Thunderbirds to tuck her into bed at night.
Well, he might not be able to discredit International Rescue, but he could still hurt them, removing a major portion of WorldGov's protection. The first order of business was to ferret out a weak point, and that meant learning names and identities, then removing a few key players. Get rid of the capstone, after all, and the arch will crumble.
Stennis considered what he had, so far. The reporter, Cindy Taylor, was a known contact. He'd struck at her twice, already, just missing both times. There were certain possibilities in that direction, still. Most men would root up and hurl mountains to save a girl. Especially a pretty one (even if she was abrasive and mannish, with a mouth like a sewer).
Then, there was the swimmer; Gordon Tracy, Olympic gold medalist and recently adopted son (though this wasn't public knowledge) of Jeff Tracy. The red-haired young athlete had been spotted some eighteen months previous, at the scene of a dangerous rescue. He was an IR agent, currently based in Spain, and doubtless well guarded. Stennis had sent a team after this target, as well, only to fall short of acquisition after unexplained trouble on a Tahitian beach. A private site, owned by his multi-billionaire father. Interesting.
There was at least one other son, and this one could not be hidden, for he was an astronaut, as famous in his way as the Mercury 7 pilot he'd reputedly been named for.
Gordon and John… through Jeff Tracy… to NASA, Tracy Aerospace… and International Rescue. There could be a family connection. Plus, the billionaire industrialist's involvement would go far toward explaining IR's inexhaustible funding and technology. It seemed like a good bet… And Jeff Tracy might be a critical chess piece. If he led the Thunderbirds, then his removal would constitute the decapitating blow Stennis was looking for.
If not… well, the senator had no desire to open up another front in Red Path's war of purification. Not yet.
The multinationals… Tracy Aerospace, Pfizer, Monsanto, Omega Protein… would go down, when the time came. But, a forewarned enemy was doubly dangerous. Why tip his hand? A careful man measured twice, cut once.
There was a critical factor missing, yet, in the form of corroborating data from his 'hacker', Fielding. Once that was in… once Fielding (or Shr3ddr, as he preferred to style himself) provided conclusive proof of IR's leadership, the senator could act, once and for all.
The soy cheese was dry, nothing at all like the real thing. Stennis finished half his sandwich and a bottle of water, sitting at the smallish desk in his Spartan office, watching the shadow of a trapped wasp wander through a slim grid of sunlight squares. Outside, trees and sky and monuments; inside, plots and devices, thick as venom. Then, the door buzzed, and Vargas walked in, looking… satisfied.
Somewhere, Elsewhen-
"…-ted!" he snapped out, after a horrible, jolting shift. Not just 'where', but 'when' had changed, so violently that he was left to reel against the walls of the… bathroom stall…? Black plastic dividers, gashed and graffitied, cement floor, wire-caged bulb flickering away on a cracked and vandalized ceiling. Behind him, a broken toilet which he had no desire to investigate further.
Three things (that he knew where he was, that he had no idea how in hell he'd gotten there, and that panic and nausea were busy kicking each other's ass in the pit of his stomach) made it a long five minutes before he opened the stall door.
Upstate New York, Wharton Private Academy for Young Men-
Fermat Hackenbacker got Daniel's message in the middle of math class. It was short and pointed (dne Frmt- wts ur prblm?), with a background that swiftly changed from silver to deep, roiling red.
He glared at the slim phone, balanced on his lap beneath the slight overhang of the wooden desk and math book. Not the mechanism's fault, though, at the moment, he felt like pitching it across the hall to where Daniel was supposed to be studying medieval literature.
It was two PM, and rainy, the afternoon's luncheon of beef tips, rice pilaf and mandarin oranges warming his insides, while three feet away rain pattered and slid across the windows in long, silvery streaks. It was blurry outside, the sky like a sheet of lead, the soil soft and loamy-dark. Everything green was almost startlingly so, vivid in the moist half light.
Birds stalked the grounds for risen worms, or puddle-washed with quick little fluttering darts. Most were starlings; noisy and gregarious, and entirely too much for the old groundskeeper, who limped along, opening and closing his black umbrella in a vain attempt to shoo the birds. They'd lift, wheel boredly about for awhile, then settle again, like waves returning to shore.
The birds, the old man with his useless black umbrella, and the steady, weeping rain… somehow, it all added up to futility. As though, ultimately, the game was rigged. Like the groundskeeper, Fermat fought back, murmuring a scrap of Anglo-Saxon battle song in the very teeth of entropy,
"Thought shall be harder, heart the keener, courage the greater, as our might lessens. Battle of… Maldon. Take th- that, thermodynamics!"
Feeling better, Fermat glanced down at the text message, then cleared the screen with a swift key press. Mr. Carman was still holding forth about simple tensor calculus, rocking back and forth on his heels at the front of the wood-paneled room, hands behind his back, and head slightly bowed. He got that way, sometimes, almost trance-like; his deep, musical voice filling the room with fields and curves and vectored numbers in many dimensions. A gifted teacher, he wore shabby tweeds, a full beard, and always smelled faintly of cigar smoke and Old Spice. Nice guy, all in all; faculty advisor to Fermat, Daniel and Sam, plus a small handful of others. They liked him well enough, but in classes as basic as this one, found it difficult to stay focused. Thus, the messages.
In response to the snarky text, Fermat typed out,
(wrkng on it: go bck to 4 hrsmn, n lt me thnk!)
Good ol' 14th century- never a dull moment. Daniel's response, written in purely symbolic logic, explained in a few brief lines why the four horsemen of the apocalypse were now managing a drive-through ice cream stand in Kingsford, Nebraska, and why they didn't take checks.
Fermat chuckled aloud, causing the students nearest him (upperclassmen, all) to slump a bit lower in their seats. There wasn't a half-wit or dull blade in the entire room, but holding up all those aspiring doctors and engineers to Fermat was like comparing an advertising jingle to the collected works of James Joyce.
"Mr. Hackenbacker?" The math teacher inquired quietly, his bushy eyebrows lifting above the rims of his glasses. Hearing Fermat's chuckle, he'd paused in describing the metric tensor's relationship to light.
"Had you something to add, young man?"
Sam Nakamura, seated two rows away in the same room, quickly typed something out on his PDA. Fermat's screen flashed, helpfully,
(pnt of precdnc- Jckmn fll aslp in clss. Snrd. 5 dmrits. U only laughd. Lssr crim)
And Daniel's fault. But Fermat refused to blame his absent friend, or throw himself upon the mercy of the court, either. Inspiration struck, and the short, brown-haired boy stood up to address his teacher.
"Sir," he began, solemnly, "I w- was… just thinking that… that if people c- could… see energy fields, like… the M-T, if th- they could just…feel the numbers shifting around them… they'd be… delighted."
Carman's leonine head lifted, and he smiled fondly, saying,
"Or horrified, depending upon their perspectives. The Calculus, Mr. Hackenbacker, is not everyone's meat and drink. It is a tool for the wise, a ladder of the mind. Those fortunate enough to grasp the first rungs, will climb far. Resume your seat, young man. Now, to return to the field, in ten dimensions…"
Fermat paid better attention throughout the remainder of the afternoon session, even winning friends by allowing the senior boys beside him to glance at his work, for hints.
He got two more messages, but was unable to check either, not wishing to push his luck. Finally, a reverberating chime announced the end of the session, and of the academic day. Free at last!
Fermat closed his book, and squared away the papers (except for one, that he loaned to Breck Hollingsworth), placing the lot carefully away in his leather satchel. Sam, master of efficiency, was already packed. The class stood beside their desks until Mr. Carman dismissed them, then began leaving the room in small, relaxed groups.
A whole glorious, unscheduled hour stretched before them, the blissful free time between last session and dinner. After that would come chapel, then study hall or sports, followed by a further two hours of unstructured quiet, and a meeting in the steam tunnels.
Daniel joined Sam and Fermat in the big, echoing hallway. Gazed down upon by portraits of Wharton's illustrious alumni, students filed along, filling the wood and stone hall with laughter complaints and ringing footfalls. The school was over 200 years old. Nothing at all by European standards, as Gordon had scoffed, but quite impressive to an American.
Reaching his friends (Daniel Solomon never just 'walked', or 'approached'. He arrived; emphatically, and with a bow-wave of exasperated hurry), the other boy jolted to a halt. He gave his cell phone an incredulous stare, then snapped it shut.
"Bar Mitzvah?" he wondered aloud. "We're not even practicing Jews, and she wants to give me a Bar Mitzvah? I mean, what the… Hello, there, Miss Wilde!"
Daniel smoothed at his chaotic, dish-water hair, rumpled tie and half-tucked shirt. He was the archetypal distracted genius, and rather obviously adored the young history teacher. The boy's brown eyes fairly shone when she gave the top of his head an affectionate muss.
"Hello, Daniel," the pretty blonde replied, laughingly. "Famine, plague, pestilence and war still holding your attention?" (She taught the literature class, as well.)
"Yes, Ma'am. Absolutely. Looking forward to the Black Prince, and Crecy and Poitiers and Machiavelli and…"
Miss Wilde held up a hand, smiling at Daniel's enthusiastic confusion. He loved all the drama, but never seemed able to keep events in order.
"Whoa, there, sports fan!" Like young Mr. Solomon, she hailed from Pittsburgh, and a decidedly middleclass family. "Let's leave at least a few sacred cows un-tipped. Full frontal assault tomorrow, I promise."
Daniel's grin widened. It was her many non-sequiturs, her sheer, curve-ball unexpectedness, that so delighted him.
"Yes, Ma'am, Miss Wilde. I'll be there!"
(Like he had a choice, or could have been kept away by rampaging crusaders, if he had. Of course, Anne Wilde's misty-blonde, Renaissance princess looks didn't hurt.)
"…And Medieval literature will never be the same!"
Then, looking over at the other two, but mostly Fermat, she added hopefully,
"Anything more from your friends?" Meaning John Tracy and Roger Thorpe. The boys didn't know it, but the young teacher was keeping a scrapbook, and had taken to frame-grabbing and downloading every NASA press release that featured either astronaut. Her small room in Athena Hall had become a veritable shrine.
Fermat gave her a quick, chagrined smile, but decided not to mention the two messages until he'd played them back in private. There was no telling, really, who had phoned him, or what about.
"Nothing… y- yet, Miss Wilde," he told the disappointed historian, who wilted visibly. "But… you'll… you'll b- be the first to hear… when… anything n- new comes… up."
She sighed, brushing a strand of ash blonde hair from her porcelain face. By this time, the tide of departing students had ebbed, leaving just an occasional hurried senior to rush by, one hand at his satchel, the other out-thrust to stiff-arm the doors.
"Thank you, boys. For all the updates, that is. I'm considered quite the prophetess, now, over in Langley Center."
"Sh- sure."
"Anytime."
This coming from Sam and Fermat. Daniel was far too pixilated to drive the teacher away, despite the urgent need for a conference. At last, though, she hoisted her bag and wandered off, and they had the red-carpeted hall to themselves. In her glittering wake, Sam and Fermat traded glances, barely keeping the grins off their faces. Noting Daniel's rapt expression, they chorused,
"Awwwww….!"
"Shut up!" he whispered furiously, snapping out of it like he'd bitten down on tinfoil. "It's… it's purely professional! I'm an avid fan of historical fiction!"
"Or of history professors," Sam joked slyly. "Methinks the lad doth experience the fullness of hormones, and respondeth accordingly. Yea, even as the small number of his years doth bid him."
Fermat had never seen quite such an interesting blush; somewhere between aubergine and garnet, he thought. Partly to mollify his humiliated friend, he said,
"No… p- problem, Daniel. You… you'll get b- back to her, after the trap… with your shield, not… not on it. You'll stride out to v- victory, after… p- parting… with:
True, a new mistress now I chase,
the first foe in the field;
and with a stronger faith embrace,
a sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet, this inconstancy is such,
as thou, too, shalt adore;
I could not love you, Dear, so much,
loved I not Honour more."
And he closed with a big, sword-type flourish. (Oddly enough, Fermat could sing andspeak poetry without stumbling over words, and the Royalist poet Lovelace had long been a favorite source of on-the-spot quotation.)
Sam shook his head, but it worked. A weak smile diluted Daniel's angry flush, and the red drained away like bathwater.
"Well… maybe not all that. I'm writing computer scenarios, not fighting the good fight. But…" his usual rapid-fire energy surged to the fore again, as they shouldered their bags and headed through the doors of Blake Hall. Outside lay the rainy, nearly deserted quad.
"…just wait till you hear it! I scared myself. I'm serious! It's got everything; government conspiracies, escaped mental patients, world-wide disasters, a hostage crisis, cyber-punk hacking, everything! The Hood's this total, freaking psycho, and… what?"
Fermat had made a slight, impatient gesture. The Hood was dead, and, though Daniel wasn't aware of this fact, Five had to be. As the three boys picked their way down the rain-slicked granite steps, scattering starlings, he said,
"I don't kn- know, Daniel. It's… just th- that… the Hood's kind of… disappeared, r- remember? Maybe he's… he's dead, or something. How… how about a d- different… villain?"
Worth a try, anyway. Alan hadn't been altogether open about what had happened to the Hood, and no one with any sense would try to question Mr. Tracy, or Scott. His own father hadn't given him any juicy details, either, deeming Fermat too young for such knowledge. But John was another matter. The astronaut simply wasn't a very good liar. He either froze up, told a short and obvious falsehood, or made do with the truth. That time, he'd selected door number three, and a brief, matter-of-fact explanation.
"Laser beam, from orbit. No mess, no fuss, no body."
"Trust me," Daniel was saying, as they hustled across the quad, stomping through each puddle with boyish gusto, "It'll make sense when you hear it out. I couldn't sleep again, last night, so I stayed up till 3:30, writing it all down… Good afternoon, Sir!"
This last, the three friends chorused in unison, watching alertly as their white-haired chemistry teacher stalked past. He acknowledged their greeting with a distracted grunt, eyes on the time-slicked flagstones, mind in the past.
Some of his students hinted uncharitably that Mr. Miner had known Sir Isaac Newton personally. Fermat was inclined to doubt this, as Newton had been a confirmed recluse.
Pulling an ancient rain coat tighter 'round his angular frame (the rusty-black garment looked like the product of some bleak, single-digit century), the elderly chemist strode up a set of stairs and into the wrong building, again. Happened at least twice a week. Lemming-like, he walked the same number of steps, made the same exact turns, no matter which door he'd blundered out of. Fortunately, the campus was walled, or they'd have lost Mr. Miner ages ago.
The boys shrugged resignedly, and carried on. Someone else would have to rescue Mr. Miner from the laundry room, today. Fermat, Sam and Daniel were occupied.
Slowing just long enough to slap the marble pedestal upon which dripped Josiah Wharton's scowling bronze statue, the boys hurried on to Stanton Hall. The first tantalizing breaths of dinner were filling the air, mingling with the scents of wet stone, black earth and old-growth forest.
Ordinarily, Fermat would have paused to take it all in. Now, though, meal (and chapel!) stood between him, and Daniel's scenario, which he could begin rendering once the flash drive was handed over. Fermat groaned internally, jamming his hands in the pockets of his navy blazer. Three hours to go…! An eternity! Very much, he needed a distraction.
So, as they entered Stanton, sniffing appreciatively at the rich odors of baking bread and roasting meats, Fermat whipped out his phone and pressed the 'retrieve' key.
Madrid-
Anika didn't keep him waiting long, but it would have been worth twice the time, regardless. She looked, in a word, stunning. Gone were the leotard, hand wraps and loose chignon, traded for a pale pink dress and ballet flats. The bit… cloth, elastic, or whatever… holding her brown hair in its sleek knot was decorated with tiny white flowers. She might have had a touch of makeup on, though he couldn't be sure. At any rate, her long lashes seemed especially dark against those green eyes, and her cheeks and lips retained a faint, rosy blush. Natural or not, the effect was most charming.
Skipping lightly up to him across the gymnasium floor, she took both of Gordon's hands in her own, then asked,
"How do I look?"
Something… had someone else asked him nearly the same question…? Gordon gave himself a quick shake. Hardly mattered now, did it? Nevertheless, he stumbled over the words, as though the same response was not allowable.
"Beaut… lovely." And he meant it, especially when the lass bounced up and kissed his cheek (despite her coach's wrathful glower).
"Quite puts me in th' shade, anyhow."
For, Gordon still wore his athletic gear; jacket, t-shirt, shorts and trainers. Anika smiled at him, or rather, she brightened further.
"For the next time, you dress better," she chided playfully, adding, "this time, is wonderful enough that you are here, even in… in a pillow case."
"Thanks f'r th' permission," Gordon joked, putting an arm across her back, and steering her toward the street doors. "I'll be sure t' mind th' thread count, Ang… Anika."
'Angel', he'd almost called her, but stopped himself. It felt wrong, somehow; as though 'Angel' was someone else.
They headed outside, to an ox-like bellow of,
"Back by curfew! Or, no more boy, ever!"
Prince of a fellow, Bela Stepanovic. How he'd been left off the short list of Her Royal Highness' official suitors, Gordon couldn't imagine.
Outside, it was growing dark, the day's blazing heat mellowing to a pleasanter, caramel-y warmth. He turned to her, at the top of the stairs, meaning to cross check plans for the evening. She surprised him with a sudden, honeyed kiss, placing her hands upon his shoulders (the sunburn stung, but he hardly noticed), and tip-toeing up to brush her mouth against his.
As neither broke off immediately, it lasted awhile, and went deeper. For a moment, memory and desire, the fierce longing to enter into that tightest and most loving of embraces, took over, and he pulled the lass closer.
She smelled of something light and floral, and her body, made slim and muscular by gene-doping and hormone shots, trembled against his. With one hand, she stroked the back of his neck, with the other arm, she encircled his waist.
It felt wonderful to be wanted, but… Gordon broke off and held her away. Anika's confused, worried expression told him that she feared she'd been too 'forward'. It wasn't like that, though. Not at all.Only that, despite the attitudes of Alan, Royce, McMahon, and nearly everyone else he knew, Gordon didn't just want to get into her knickers. He wanted to find out who she was, not simply what she felt like. Stupid, no doubt, but he'd always been a bit thick where the lasses were concerned.
Anika must have read something in his hazel eyes (almost amber, now, in the fading sunlight), for she smiled again. The year before, in the heat and glory of the Olympics, she'd given the red-haired boy everything, only to lose him suddenly, without explanation. Now, he'd returned for her, and that was absolutely all that mattered.
Pinching the tip of her nose, Gordon put an arm across her back, then walked with Anika down the stairs.
"Dinner first, then?" he asked.
"Si, gracies," she replied, resting her head against his side. Together, they entered the fragrant, noisy evening, intent on a first real date. "That would sound very nice."
"Brilliant. I know a club where they serve… not English food, no one here's that thick… but American, anyhow, which isn't quite as dreadful as you've probably heard."
She giggled.
"In Portland…!"
"Well, no… that was none of the best, but it was made in bulk, f'r foreigners, and… Right. Never mind. American's out."
At the bottom of the stairs, they turned left, comparing notes on food, sport and the intervening year.
Eventually, they found a place, not-so-subtly modeled after a fast-food restaurant. (McDonald's, actually, though the arches were the wrong color, they served spirits, and the waiters wore roller-blades. Never spilt a thing, either. Impressive.) Inside, all was loud music, bright colors, and hungry folk jostling for a table, bribe money in hand.
The fact that both Gordon and Anika were gold medalists scored them a semi-private booth, and effusive service. In English.
Seated in their tucked-away spot (and 'theirs' it remained, for a long time afterward), Gordon pretended to study the special menu, while calling back everything he knew about Anika Peralta and food. She'd sat at his side, rather than across the table, yet avoided looking at the pictured comestibles. Not unlike his brother, John, she had some dining… issues. Not the same sort, though.
At length he said, to the (marvelously) King's English-speaking waiter,
"I'd like the hamburger sandwich with cheese, lettuce, tomato and…" brief hesitation, as he groped through the past, "mayonnaise…?"
At his side, Anika made a small gesture, brushing against him.
"Right, then. Mayonnaise. Also, fried potatoes, an orange soda and, afterward, a dish of vanilla…? Vanilla ice cream, please."
"Yes, Sir," the dark-haired waiter smiled, punching the order into his small keypad. He was about Gordon and Anika's age, attending university, probably, and doubtless close to broke.
"And, for the young lady, Sir?"
He quietly handed Gordon a slip of note paper, which the swimmer signed, after a brief glance at the fellow's name tag:
Thanks for everything, Juan, and best of luck in the future.
Gordon David Tracy
The paper was handed back, and pocketed, and dinner was suddenly on the house. For Anika, who seemed to be occupied with sorting the contents of her small handbag, he ordered,
"Glass of iced water for the lady, please, and an extra set of plates."
"Very good, Sir. It will be right out, and if there is anything else you need in the meantime, please signal, and one of us will come at once."
"Thanks, Juan." He startled the waiter by offering a handshake. "…and call me Gordon."
He was just a swimmer, after all, not the Pope. The menu vanished, together with a very pleased Juan, and Anika could talk, again. She told him of her village and family in rugged Catalonia; of how proud they'd been, when she medaled, to see their state's colors raised alongside the E.U. flag.
"My mother, she try to call me, after, but I was… I mean, we were…"
"Busy, yes."
Gordon couldn't help smiling at the memory.
"And distracted." What, with someone hammering away at the door, it was a wonder he'd got anything accomplished.
Anika bit her lip, laughing silently, and buried her face against his shoulder. (Sunburn, again, dammit!) He shifted her about a little, to relieve the sting, which led to another kiss, this one slower, more exploratory.
Then Juan arrived with the food and plates. Anika withdrew again, looking everywhere but at the table. Gordon thanked the departing waiter, then very carefully took up his silverware and cut the slenderest imaginable slice from the still-sizzling cheeseburger. Onto the second plate it went, together with three of the French fries. No… on better thought, he removed one of the fried potato pieces. Too much.
Putting some tomato ketchup onto the plate for her, from a bottle Juan had kindly provided, Gordon slid the food over to his companion. Daring to look over, Anika gazed at the manageably tiny portion like he'd offered her a sip from the Holy Grail. Then, slowly, almost guiltily, she began to eat.
Gordon snapped his food down without pausing to breathe, indeed, hardly seeming to chew. Needless to say, he finished before Anika, who was now dipping a fried potato in ketchup and delicately, one tiny bite at a time, consuming it.
She ate like someone who at once craved and dreaded food, someone enslaved to the locker room scale, and the implacable demands of her sport. Gordon had reserved a french fry, and quietly added it to her plate when the originals finally vanished. In this way, she got three down, plus the hamburger sliver, and a few sips of orange soda.
When the ice cream arrived, he gave her a small spoonful, then another. Just like the second time they'd eaten together, at the Olympic Village café. The fact that he understood, that he cared enough to accommodate her, meant an awful lot to the lass, who was deeply grateful.
Actually, his mum, toward the end, had lost most of her appetite. One-size-fits-all chemotherapy had seen to that. Gordon had done something similar, then, cutting her food into tiny bits, which he presented just one at a time. The hell of it was, he'd eased her way out, never realizing until too late that there was money available to heal her, in the account she'd secretly saved up for him.
He might have engaged physicians who actually had the time and resources to care… if only he'd known who he was, and what that meant. Instead, he took care of a pretty gymnast, promising himself that if matters ever became permanent between them, she'd want for nothing. Ever.
After dinner, they saw an extremely confusing film. Made in China, apparently, it was subtitled in very bad English,then dubbed in Spanish. The car crashes and gunfights spoke for themselves, of course, but the plot…?
They lost interest pretty quickly, and soon stopped watching altogether, distracted by other things. The credits rolled long before either of them wanted to leave, but there was curfew, and Bela, to think about. So, out they went; hair a little mussed, clothing a little un-tucked.
On their way back to her dorm, talk turned to Gordon, to why he'd dropped so completely from sight.
"I was thinking," she confessed sadly, "that you are not coming back. That you forget about me."
Time to face the scoreboard…
"Well…, I did have a bit of memory loss f'r a time, because… I got into a fight, as you might say."
Anika looked up at him, her green eyes wide in the glow of neon and street lamps. Music and drugged smoke swirled out of the dance clubs they passed, pulsing from the open windows of parked cars. As they cut through an outdoor café, she asked,
"Why youstart fight, Gordon?"
He said, the words coming slow and hard,
"Because I had to."
She held tight to his arm while they pushed along a crowded intersection. Then,
"But, you win the fight, yes?"
Gordon stopped walking for an instant. For him, just then, the crowd, the noise, the harsh-bright artificial glow seemed to disappear. Nothing remained but the lass, and a painful answer.
"No," he admitted, at last. "No, I didn't."
Anika did that female thing, the one lasses always seemed to excel at. She simply kissed him, firmly shutting the door on the past.
Washington, D.C., the bunker-
Success, of sorts. He'd gotten the idea, Shr3ddr had, of writing a few exploits and launching them against the FBI and WorldGov, under some of the internet handles he'd uncovered. The third name he tried, Anarchik, yielded interesting results.
After Shr3ddr's virus penetrated WorldGov security, triggering a massive power failure in Madrid, the feds started sniffing around. An hour later, maybe two, an email message zipped from Secaucus, New Jersey, to… somewhere else on the grid, far beyond Shr3ddr's ken. Fortunately, the sender was nervous enough to fire off a duplicate, which the hacker's packet-sniffing program intercepted at once. The message was short, and mysterious.
36: 911: A
The '911' was obvious enough, as was the 'A'. Anarchik, spooked by the rising heat, was calling for help. From whom, though? What, or who, was '36'?
Shr3ddr applied every twist, trick and Jeopardy skill he could think of, talking to himself, because no one else was around.
"36."
"What is… six squared? No. Too obvious…"
Leaning back in his work station chair, he lofted another sharpened pencil stub at the acoustic tiled ceiling, where it stuck, together with a forest of others. The graphite swords of Damocles.
"36."
"What is… the fourth multiple of 9? No. Too trivial…"
He had a headache, was beginning to see things in the black shadows around him.
"36."
"What is… theatomic numberfor… Krypton."
Krypton? Or, maybe, Kryptoni3n? Score! Though he couldn't follow up, at first, being unsure where the packet was headed. So, he waited, and he listened. Twenty minutes later, a response appeared, sliding along the data stream tagged to Anarchik's IP address. Another breakthrough, but so tightly encrypted that Shr3ddr could make no sense of it.
"What the hell…?"
He'd never seen or heard of such a coding language. Weird, almost without syntax, and utterly unique. The characters seemed to change meaning with every keystroke, following some bizarre pattern that Shr3ddr couldn't comprehend. Uncrackable, no matter what program he threw at it.
The only clue he had was the messages' relative timing. Anarchik responded almost immediately, her (?) three messages following within seconds of each hail. Kryptoni3n, though, took about 20 minutes to answer her. Indicating… what?
That he was far away? That he was really far away? Maybe even…
Shr3ddr thought back to the NASA updates he'd been casually following. Thought back to the twenty minute time delay they were constantly apologizing for, and laughed aloud, thirst and stress cracking his voice.
"Gotcha, you cagey little sonuvabitch."
Time to query the Mars Mission database, and play 'catch the Tiger'.