66: Deal

Somewhere-

"…ohn? …h…ar me?"

Yes.

"Are y… quite al… ri…t?"

No.

"Do y… kn… who… am?"

Linda?

From somewhere that might have been part of him came a brief, tingling impact. A slap? He understood, then: something had gone wrong. More questions and, later,a sense of movement.

"John, listen t… me! Y… must cea… fighting contr... It is… ting attention. John! This way!"

Time and activity, but no choices; not his hands that were bound, but his thoughts. Despite the commands, he continued struggling for control.

The universe that began coming into focus was dark; silvery drops trailing along a sheet of glass in slow, endless ribbons. Female voice again, still angry…

"John… extremel… impor… that y…"

Another push brought further sounds, splashing inside of his head like hotly-colored explosions on black-and-white tile. A long, orange horn-blast… green and blue tumbling sirens and brown-velvet engine noise below staccato violet rainfall.

Driving someplace. Not the Moon.

He found himself shaking. Sick? No… drugged. He remembered a mask, and sharp-smelling fumes. Shards of an AWOL universe came sidling back to him.

A… plastic bottle with something (water?) inside. It grew larger, which startled him, but next there followed a sensation of trickling coolness. Drinking: he'd taken a drink from the water bottle, which he could now feel, smooth and wet against the palm of his hand.

Afterward, he reclaimed up and down, and the feel of a seatbelt shoulder strap. More sorted-out awareness: sounds lost their color, and the rain-watery light streaming through tinted windows stopped tasting like blended everclear.

He seemed to be sitting in the back of a moving sedan; late model, tan leather interior, fairly luxurious. There was gravity, a taxi-type privacy shield blocking the driver's compartment, and Penny close beside him. She had on a blue wool coat-dress, pearl-buttoned and curve-hugging. Her upswept hair was dyed red this time, and her eyes altered by green contacts. More than that, she had an actress's trick of holding herself differently; projecting another persona at a moment's thought. Fooled most people that way, but never him.

"How are you getting on, dear?" She asked. "Quite yourself again, after having very nearly ruined us both?"

After a moment, when he'd decided what the hell she was talking about, John shook his head. Speech came harder than listening, but…

"Didn't say anything about drugging me… in your message… and anyway, couldn't be sure it was you… so I hedged my bet. Breathed shallow."

It was growing dark outside. Speeding along a guarded, 'no stopping' lane, they soon passed beyond the official borders of some crowded American megalopolis, and entered its sodden grey slums. Signs flashed by, but he was having trouble reading, just then.

She said, plucking at a pearl-and-gold hair ornament,

"Yes; well, placed me in rather a bind, didn't it? You were meant to remain under control and inconspicuous for several hours yet. Now I am faced with an inconveniently conscious, as well as mobile, mark. Why must you make each little thing so damnably complex?"

He responded, not very sympathetically,

"My head hurts. I'm hungry and I feel like shit. My wife is probably going to divorce me for leaving, like that… You want to un-complicate things? Tell me who hired you and 'Stirling'. I'll take care of the rest."

Penny shrugged, reaching for her Louis Vuitton handbag.

"Truthfully, darling, I've no idea who has engaged my services. The contact was a 'Mr. Black', renowned in certain circles as one who pays well… and revenges himself equally so. His employer, I haven't yet been able to ferret out… although the trail does lead to…"

"D.C.?" John cut in, accepting the aspirin she'd fished from her bag. Beside him on the car seat, Lady Penelope blinked.

"And how, pray tell, were you able to discern this from a spaceship?" (It had taken her several contracts and many long months of delicate spadework to come so close to Mr. Black.)

The aspirin helped, though it (and the water) tasted funny; two years in space had seriously screwed up his perception of flavor and smell. Setting aside the plastic bottle, John explained,

"I tracked the IP address of a suspect attack box. D.C. came up… and files containing the names 'Black', 'Stirling' and 'Genovese', plus a few other details… but D.C. as headquarters was unsubstantiated, until now."

Having established a location, he fumbled for his wrist comm. Penny slapped the hand aside, hissing,

"Don't you dare to use that contraption in a monitored vehicle! Are you mad? I've blocked all internal bugs and ID chips, but if an unauthorized transmission is detected originating from my transport, this little 'outing' will come to a distressingly permanent end. By laser-fire, most likely. Much you care."

Weird. She seemed to be recreating a time long before, when she'd kidnapped him from the Kennedy Space Center. (Then, too, a memorable journey.)

The song of road and rain and tire… of cold winds sifting amid crumbling buildings and graffiti-ed overpasses… mingled subtly with her quiet voice and downcast eyes.

"Not that you've ever cared..."

John glanced anew at his own clothing. The battered hard suit and liner were gone. In their place: an extremely sharp, high-endbusiness suit, tailored white shirt and grey silk tie. His hair had been trimmed, and he wore a pair of imported Italian shoes that matched a nearby laptop case.

"Who managed the clean-up and disguise?" He asked, changing the subject.

"I did. I had need to alter your semblance for safe transport, John, and it seemed most expedient to have you travel as a wealthy and jet-lagged young executive. But you became troublesome in LaGuardia, fighting the drug and drawing attention to yourself. I had to convince them all that you were merely an obnoxious drunk, who must be got home before he collapsed in mid-terminal."

And then, shifting about so that her silk-stockinged knees brushed his left leg,

"This is quite a lawless section of Philadelphia, John. You might easily 'overpower' me, have your way, stop the car and then slip off through a back alley, to safety."

Interesting offer… but John shook his head. (Appreciated the sentiment, though.)

"I need to get as close as possible to 'Mr. Black' and whoever's pulling his strings, Penny. I…"

"No." She told him, very firmly. "You have a confirmed location now, and the opportunity to escape with your life, John. Much may come of small beginnings. Accept the offer."

Okay. The truth, then; part of it, anyhow.

"I can't. There's… um… another prisoner. A girl. I have to free her, if she's still alive. But to do that I need a way in. According to your file, you were supposed to apprehend me for questioning. So, do your job; take me to Mr. Black."

There was a very odd look on Penelope's face as she said,

"And what leads you to suppose that the 'questioning' has not already taken place? That under drug and a trusted interrogator, you have not already revealed everything of note?"

Again, she reached into her handbag, pulling forth a flashdrive, this time. John made a slight motion; more the swift tensing that presaged action than a true lunge… but something burned at the back of his wrist, like a warning. Perhaps the ID chips were not so well blocked as she'd thought, nor his answers quite soreliable. At any rate, John sat warily back, awaiting whatever came next.

Penelope continued urgently,

"For all you know, rather than reaching Mr. Black, John, you are being escorted to a secluded construction site for execution and disposal."

Shit. Now what?

Her eyes were very wide, and she placed a warm, kneading hand on his thigh. Squares and bars of golden street light slid across them both.

The flashdrive lay clutched in her other hand; most clearly, an offering. An opportunity for trade. Again, came that brief pulse of heat from his ID chip. He thought of the hallucinated AI (the pretty thing conjured up on Mars by cave-in, pain and hypoxia) and the chip flared anew. Meaning what…? Go along? Stall for time?

John placed his hand over Penny's for just a moment, stilling it, and then very gently removed her hand from his leg.

"Have you spoken with your contact, yet?" he asked.

"No," Penelope whispered. "Else I should already have uploaded the interrogation, and my offer would prove untenable. John, please, you must listen to reason! Together, we can still come off well. Haven't we always done, no matter the situation? Remember Malta? And… and Macedonia? You and I are fellow cons…"

But he wasn't listening. Not really.

"Wait. What if you weren't able to get many straight answers out of me, because the drug showed some… I dunno… space-related side-effects? Would he need to set something up closer to home then? Maybe oversee the interrogation himself?"

John wasn't upset with her; Penelope had long been a freelance operative. A professional. She did what she had to… and she'd offered him at least the courtesy of a fighting chance. But he had what might prove to be a hidden advantage, and something else to offer 'Mr. Black':

"You could tell him that I revealed a way to double or triple whatever he's got in his foreign bank accounts. That ought to get his attention."

Sudden decision.

"Listen: here's the deal, Penny. Wipe that flashdrive, tell him the drug glitched, and that (left conscious) I can Xerox whatever amount of money he wants… and bring me in. In return, I'll buy out all the rest of your contracts and set you up in the top strata, financially."

"And…?" She took a deep breath, lifting a manicured hand to the face of her extraordinarily handsome captive/ partner. "You ask me to risk my own life, as well as yours, darling. Not to sound crude or pushy… but what else am I deriving from this barking-mad 'deal'?"

He needed to find and stop the leader of Red Path. And to save Drew (though it seemed smarter not to bring this up, again). His ID chip was sending what felt like bolts of flame up his left arm… and he honestly didn't expect to survive his self-imposed suicide mission. Crucially, though, his family and crewmates… Linda and Janey… would.

But only if he could wrangle assistance from Lady Penelope. Only if he could get to the center of this web, and destroy whatever he found there.

"What else do you want?" John replied.