Standard issue disclaimer: This is not mine except for the original bits that are, and written purely for the enjoyment of myself and others. The thought that I'd make money of it is just laughable.

Those who are easily offended should refrain from reading. These characters talk, think and behave like adults.

RangeDay

chapter 10

"I have a problem," Tsuy said after a long silence.

Stephanie looked at her, wondering what kind of problem would cause Tsuy to come to her.

"Thomas asked me out."

She stopped in her tracks and stared at her friend. Tank had asked her out? She'd thought he seemed a little taken with Tsuy, but this was Tank - it wasn't easy to tell what he thought of anything, really. What she did know was that it had taken a lot longer for him to behave as open and animated around herself.

"Please tell me you didn't do that say-yes-because-you-didn't-want-to-offend thing."

"Well, I—"

She felt her heart plummet. Despite all the attention he received from the opposite sex, Tank didn't do a lot of dating. Stephanie had a hunch that for him to ask someone out, he was fairly serious about it. If Tsuy was going to disappoint him because she couldn't bring herself to refuse him outright...

"—I said yes because I didn't want to give him the idea I don't want to... get to know him better."

"You do?"

A small nod.

"Okay... so what's the problem?"

Tsuy sighed, and Stephanie realised that her friend found it difficult to talk about this. Probably wasn't used to girlfriend-type talk like she was.

"It's... it's too fast! I've only just met him. And he wants to take me to a restaurant. In my family, when you go to a restaurant as a couple you're practically engaged!"

Whoa. No wonder she sounded a little worried. The cultural gap was wider than she'd expected.

"So how would you get to know him if you couldn't go on a date?"

"We'd... I don't know, meet during the daytime, in public. Spend time together."

It was strange to be advising Tsuy for once, instead of the other way around. She didn't mind, but caution said that she shouldn't get in the middle of this. If anything was going to work out between Tank and Tsuy, they'd need to grow comfortable talking about this stuff.

"Okay. How about I slip him the hint to take it slow and keep it during the day. Then when you meet up, you sit down together and find a way to bridge this culture gap."

"If you could do that... I know you would be more direct, but I could not think of a way to introduce him to the idea of being considered a marriage candidate if he took me for dinner. Certainly not just after I met him for the first time."

Stephanie chuckled.
"A bit like saying 'I want our wedding in tints of blue, and I already know what I want to call our children' on a first date."

"Something like that. A Japanese man would know what to expect, but I thought the idea might…"

"Put him off?"

Tsuy nodded.

Maybe she was right, but then again maybe not. Stephanie could understand the idea though. In Tsuy's cultural circle you didn't date just for fun. Dates were for finding a partner with the purpose of marrying them. Okay, with most people it worked that way, but not quite as explicit as Tsuy put it. Did Tank understand this? Or would he back off the moment he realised what the expectations were if he kept seeing her?

On the way back to the office she wondered how on earth she was going to explain this to Tank. He hadn't mentioned anything about it - as if he would share that sort of thing with her - and she didn't want to give him the idea that she was going to intrude on whatever was going on between her friends.

As the RAV pulled up to the curb she tried to school her face into a neutral expression. It took three checks in the mirror before she found one she could hold.

"9:00 behind Tasty Pastry?" she confirmed with Tsuy before she stepped out.

"I'll ring your mobile when I'm there. And… thank you."

She threw a smile over her shoulder and headed into the building.

Stephanie spent the afternoon hiding in her cubicle, afraid that her manic happiness about RangeDay would show to the guys. Think about Joe, she told herself repeatedly. When that didn't work, think about funerals.

She was listening to the interview fragments that came with one of the file searches. The big earphones didn't do her hair any good, but it was better than having the whole office listen along and heckle. Especially since the interview was about the protests rallied against the opening of a sex shop. They were great guys, but they tended to be extremely… guy-ish.

"You look like you had a good lunch," Ranger remarked from the entrance of her cubicle. She jumped and shot him a glare. Easier not to look smug while she was glaring. Then again it wasn't easy to keep glaring because he was being Executive Board Ranger today, in a lightweight charcoal sweater with the sleeves pushed up. Mmm, tanned muscular forearms. There had to be something wrong with her that she could go droolly over a man's forearms. What was it he just said? Oh yeah.

"Pino's."

His lips twitched a little.

"How is that search on Clark coming along?"

"Just listening to the interviews now. Should have something by the end of the day."

He nodded in acknowledgement. Hey, while he was here she might as well tell him about tomorrow.

"Ranger, do you have anything important for me tomorrow?"

"Why?"

"Well… I need to make a little field trip."

His eyes searched her face for what seemed a long moment. She was sure he could tell she was happy about something.

"This mean you won't need any help?" with RangeDay, it went unspoken.

"Think so."

He seemed pleased.
"You have your day."

She suddenly became aware of how quiet it had grown in the room. No one spoke. The normal low-level hubbub of the control room was gone. Breathless silence. Uh-oh.

Ranger noticed as well, and grinned.
"Good luck."

It was a you're-going-to-need-it grin. He was probably right. Now the organisation was looking well, he'd feel no need to hold back from trying to pry her secrets from her. Nor would any of the others.

The next morning she dressed in jeans and a Rangeman T-shirt, a black fleece over it like a jacket. Neat enough, but not formal. From what she knew of the company they weren't suity people, but it didn't hurt to look vaguely professional.

She packed a change of clothes and some other things into a big shopper, locked up and left, whistling.

Mary Lou's house was the first stop of the day. It was a hectic moment at her friend's place, but Mary Lou was happy to help out.

"Hey Steph! I put the stuff you asked for on the table," she said as she made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with lightning speed. On the corner of the kitchen table lay an old cellphone. Stephanie took out her own Rangeman-issued phone and programmed it to divert calls to the number of Mary Lou's old pre-paid phone, but didn't activate that function yet. Then she got out the bag she always took to work, took the essentials out and put them in the shopper bag.

"Do you mind using my bag today?"

"Which one?"

She held the work-bag up for Mary Lou to see.
"That one's nice. Just for the day?"

She grinned.
"I'm putting my cellphone in it, and there's a slight chance you might be approached by some big guys looking for me. Give them a ditzy smile and pretend I forgot it and that you're hanging on to it until I come back."

"Sure thing. Most of those guys don't hurt the eye, anyway."

She put the Rangeman phone and keyset into the work bag and put it next to Mary Lou's bag. Then she helped the boys get ready to go to school.

At 8:45 Mary Lou's minivan stopped at Tasty Pastry and both women went in for coffee and donuts. Biting into a Boston Crème, Stephanie resisted the urge to look around herself constantly. No call to look as paranoid as she felt. She'd brought her bag with her and hoped they like looked they were gearing up for a day of serious sales-hunting.

Her cellphone rang at exactly 9 AM.

"Hi," said Tsuy. "I'm in position. It's the red monster."

"Hey good morning!" she thrilled for the benefit of the people in the shop. "We're just finished with coffee. Going to be at Macy's in half an hour."

"See you in a moment," Tsuy answered with a grin in her voice. Stephanie said goodbye and disconnected. Probably she was taking the whole spy-avoidance-thing a little over the top, but hell, if she was going to do it, she wanted to do it well.

She sat down to finish her coffee and activated the divert on her RangeMan phone, then dropped it into her work bag. Then she grabbed her shopper bag and told Mary Lou she'd be right back, and disappeared into the back of the shop. The toilets were here… and so was the back exit. Mary Lou knew she wouldn't come back and her friend would take her time with another cup of coffee, then leave. At this time of day hardly anyone sat down in the bakery, so hopefully that wouldn't attract any attention.

She walked down the back alley wondering what car would fit the description of 'red monster'. It turned out to be an aged 2-seater LandCruiser in scratched, mud-splattered maroon. It had all-terrain tires, a custom bullbar and a snorkel-type exhaust. It was not a polite car. It looked like it had been to Siberia and liked it there.

"Nice car," she said as she climbed into the passenger seat.

Tsuy was in jeans and a fitted blue polo over white longsleeves.
"If you're going to drive 4-wheeldrive, might as well drive a real workhorse," she said. "Beats all those shiny rounded shopping-SUVs that never go off the tarmac."

That made her grin. She hadn't figured her friend for someone with Opinions on cars. Didn't seem to fit with the whole serene/Zen/simple living thing. Then again, if you were going to put function before fashion, this car was definitely the way to go. The floormats were rubber with raised edges and there were a pair of calf-high combat boots behind the driver's seat. There was no radio. Stephanie discovered why as Tsuy pulled away from the curb. You wouldn't have been able to hear the radio anyway.

"You borrowed this off someone?" she called over the noise.

"My cousin!" Tsuy said. "It handles about as well as a combine harvester, but I figured it'd do better on the beach than the Mini."

The dogs were in a wire bench in the back. Miyo gave her a mournful look.

"Miyo," Stephanie greeted. "You look sad today, fellow!"

He gave a little whine and licked her fingers.

"We had a slight discussion this morning about whether or not it's acceptable to chase runners," Tsuy said. "He'll get over it."

"Must have been a good workout for that runner."

"And for me. I had to go after him, and I hate running."

"You do?" she heard the surprise in her own voice.

"Hurts my ankles. I swim to keep fit."

"Ranger insists that I run so I can keep up with my skips…" Or keep ahead of them. Then again she didn't actually do any skiptracing anymore. Now she thought of it like this, she kind of missed it. Maybe she could ask Ranger if he could move some more light fieldwork her way, so she got out of the office more often, and not just in a surveillance kind of way.

"There's a few things he and I don't agree on, but this isn't one of them," said Tsuy.

"Oh? What don't you agree on?"

"Guns." She paused a moment as she overtook another car. "He insists you carry one, I think that if you don't plan on using it you're better off without."

"I'm a lot better with my gun these days."

"That's good… Hey, how's life in the office? Found any bugs yet?"

"Haven't found any, but that doesn't mean much… I had to clear this out-of-office day, and I'm pretty sure everybody realised that it's for RangeDay."

"What about your phone?"

"I've borrowed an old handset to forward calls to. I'm not sure if they can actually trace calls or if there's just a tracker in the handset though."

Stephanie turned her head and tried to check out the traffic behind her. She couldn't see much with the bench in the way.

"Are we being followed?"

Tsuy had an amused look on her face.
"You think they'd do that?"

Ranger wouldn't follow her, would he? Hell yes he would. Certainly if he thought she might be succeeding in fooling him. He could be very fanatic.

"Absolutely."

"I don't know. How can you tell?"

"Err… I'll look. Can I use the right mirror?"

"Go for it. Not sure if the adjuster works though."

She ended up having to roll down the window and adjust the mirror by hand. Then she asked Tsuy to take a couple of turns and couldn't discover a tail.

"I'm not sure if this means there isn't one, or they're too good and I'm not seeing them."

"I should have watched some spy films first, to get in the right frame of mind for this stuff," Tsuy said with a small smile. "But I think… if they were trailing you in the first place, they would probably still sit at the bakery wondering what's taking you so long, wouldn't they?"

Heh. They probably wouldn't suspect anything until Mary Lou left on her own. They were always complaining that she took forever in the bathroom.

"True. Probably grousing about how long it takes me to touch up my make-up."

"Even if they connect me to your mission, I don't think this car will be recognised, because I hardly ever drive it. And if they are following us now, we'll see that soon enough when we get on the backroads—"

"Maybe you're right. I guess I get carried away with all that special forces stuff sometimes."

"—and then we could always use the rocket launcher," continued her friend blithely.

"You watch too much James Bond."

"…and in early May it would be best to have wetsuits for everybody. We could provide those if you let us know sizes."

"I may make use of that, though I think at least some of them have their own. I'll check on that."

Ella probably had sizes, and maybe she knew what kind of equipment the guys had themselves. Stephanie made a note on the sheet of paper they had prepared for her.

"Okay, next point. You can cater the complete day?"

Jake shuffled some papers until he found what he'd prepared on the subject. He was an attractive surfer-type-gone-business-school who hadn't found his place in the corporate world, and had now started this little company with a friend and his wife. She liked him; he seemed as excited about the plans as she was, and as determined to make it a success.
"We can. I understood we're looking at lunch, barbeque dinner and breakfast?"

"And lunch again. I expect it will be a late night, so I want to be able to take our time in the morning."

"Okay… my proposal: we're bringing in a cook for the barbeque, and the other meals will be sandwiches and whatever you want to prepare yourself, since you said you'll bring some little stoves and such. We'll arrange a tent to store the food, water tank and all the equipment."

"Okay… I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure we can bring our own sleeping tents."

Tsuy had followed the planning with silent interest. She had offered to wait in the car or take the dogs for a walk while Stephanie was in the meeting, but she had figured that Tsuy already knew the plans anyway, and that maybe a second pair of ears would come in useful. Now she saw from the corner of her eye how her friend sat up a little straighter. She turned to Tsuy, raising her eyebrows in question. Did she have something to say? The other woman smiled a little.

"Will the food not go off?"

Jake turned to Tsuy with a boyish grin, perhaps surprised that she spoke now. Apart from the introductions she hadn't said a word.
"The cook suggested a large self-contained cooler. It works on a battery. And she's bringing the food for the barbeque with her when she arrives around 5 PM."

Tsuy nodded in acknowledgement, and Stephanie continued with the list of practical issues. She hadn't thought it was possible, but this looked to be absolutely perfect. It was almost frightening.

"I can't believe I went from help-I'll-never-find anything to having a complete plan in under two days," Stephanie said when they were back in the car. It almost felt too good to be true. "I keep wanting to pinch myself, you know?"

Tsuy gave her a questioning look.

"Pinching myself… to check if I'm awake. Maybe I'm dreaming all this."

"Ah, that is what you mean. Well if that were so… we would be dreaming together. That would be quite a feat."

Tsuy turned the key and the car growled to life.
"Where to?"

"Let's check out these locations, see where we want to do this thing."

"This place is perfect. We'll have it practically to ourselves."

She turned around, looking in all directions. Tsuy was putting on the combat boots she'd brought.

The beach was wide and shielded by a row of dunes. Some trick in the offshore streams made the waves higher and the tidal difference greater than on the beaches around Point Pleasant and the popular shore resorts. It wasn't easy to get to, but that would work in their favour. The last few miles could only be tackled at low tide by four-wheel drive. Random sunbathers and recreants were unlikely to come by and crash the party.

Tsuy opened the back door of the car. When the dogs jumped out she grabbed Miyo by the collar before he could make off
"Don't roll in anything disgusting," she told the dog sternly. It looked chastised for about half a second and sprinted off as soon as she released it, barking at the waves.

"They do like that, don't they? Bob once found a rotting fish." Stephanie grimaced at the memory. Especially of the mess her bathroom had been after the whole event.

"You'd think with those fine noses they wouldn't like smelling awful."

"Maybe to them it's like perfume."

Both women shuddered at the thought of rotting-fish perfume.

Suddenly the borrowed cellphone rang, and Stephanie climbed back into the car and shut the doors before she answered it. No use going through all this trouble to be unfindable if she was going to let callers hear the ocean in the background.

"Yo."

"Hey Steph." Hawk sounded a bit surprised, as if he hadn't expected the phone to actually be answered. Were they watching Mary Lou, listening to hear her RangeMan phone ring from her work bag? "How are you?"

"Just fine, thanks," she answered, wondering what he wanted. She waited him out.

"I, um, I was wondering if you'd already started on the file that was on your desk." He sounded like he was making this up on the spot. She resisted a grin. Hawk was a great guy who simply could not lie. It wasn't in his nature, not in his culture and he was proud of it. She rather admired that staunch truthfulness, but it wasn't exactly an advantage in this line of business.

"Which file is it?"

She heard him shuffle some papers.
"Campbell."

That hadn't been in her in-tray when she left the day before, and it was unlikely that Hawk didn't know that, but she decided to let him get away with the excuse.

"Nope, haven't seen it yet."

"Ah, okay. Thanks. Bye." Dial tone.

She got out and laughed as Miyo immediately put his tennis ball at her feet. When she stepped over it he picked it up and followed her until she stood still near Tsuy, and then tried to put it on the toes of her boots. She finally gave in and threw it for him.
Tsuy was tossing a second ball to the other dog, apparently still trying to teach it to play. It was catching it and seemed to entertain the idea that this might be fun, so maybe she was making progress.

"Where do you want me to drop you off?"

They were nearing Trenton and this was a problem she hadn't considered before. If she was seen with Tsuy then immediately her lessons would be suspect, and there was a chance someone might try to push her friend for information. She didn't think Tank would do that, but the other guys… Not that she thought Tsuy would give up any information, but she'd been such a great help that it wasn't exactly nice to repay with harassment from curious RangeMen.

Wait a moment. Presumably they had no idea of her current whereabouts; if they were watching anyone, it would be Mary Lou and/or her house. She could arrange with Mary Lou to meet in the mall, just let Tsuy drop her off at an entrance and meet somewhere. Anyone watching Mare would just see her appear, not see how she'd gotten there.

"Hey Mare! How are you doing?"

"Steph! Well this was an exciting day, I can tell you! The boys were a bit hyperactive about all these spygames going on, so I brought them to my mother."

"Do you have time to come to the mall? I want to meet back up with you without anyone seeing me arrive."

"Sure, I've got an hour before I need to get started on dinner. Where do you want to meet?"

Stephanie thought about that for a moment.
"Go to Victoria's Secret… I'll meet you there."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes or so."

They hung up and she felt pretty pleased with herself. If they could beat Mary Lou there, anyone following her friend would be none the wiser by her sudden reappearance. Plus, Victoria's Secret was a hard place for any of the guys to lurk inconspicuously… not that it wouldn't be fun to see them try.

"Thank you so much," she said to Tsuy when the LandCruiser stopped at the back entrance of the mall.

"It was my pleasure. I will see you in the dojo tomorrow."

"We'll have to act like we haven't spent today together," she grinned. Tsuy nodded in acknowledgement, and Stephanie went inside. Time for the last part of her plan.

She'd just selected some comfy sport undies from the bargain bin when Mary Lou ran into the shop. They simultaneously caught up on the events of Mare's day and browsed the racks. Finally Stephanie was satisfied that at least some of the Merry Men now knew more about the daily activities of a Burg housewife than they ever wished to know… and that it was unlikely that anyone was the wiser about how she had spent the day.

She received her own bag back and turned off the cellphone divert. Then they paid for their selections and walked out of the shop.

"I have one thing more to do… want to come with me?" she said.

Mary Lou grinned.
"I'm in. Today was a total thrill!"

Stephanie tried to gauge if there were any RangeMen watching, but didn't want to look too aware. She'd just have to hope there were. She led the way to the Build-A-Bear shop.

"Thanks so much for helping me, Mare. I promise I'll tell you all about it in a couple of weeks."

"No Steph, thank you! I had so much fun today, you just have to let me know if you ever need another diversion. And I'm jealous that you get to work with so many hunks. That Lester Santos… mm-MM!"

Stephanie laughed and left her friend to her spy-adventure fantasies.

The moment she shut the door of the black RangeMan Explorer her phone began to ring the batman tune.

"Yo."

"Yo Babe. Good day?"

"Yeah, there were some good sales at the mall," she said. Hey, if he wanted information he'd have to work for it just like everybody else.

"This day will go into RangeMan history as most unproductive day ever—"

Oops. Had the guys really been after her all day?

"—and as the most entertaining."

Well that sounded as if he wasn't angry about it. Or at least, like he wasn't blaming her.

"Hey, I can't help it if the guys can't concentrate on their work…" she protested with a smile.

He chuckled. "Tank has a load of new material for his 'best of security cam' reel."

"Promising. Maybe I'll no longer be the only one in there."

He boomed with laughter and disconnected.

To be continued. Feedback will be doted upon.

Note: you'll have noticed that I took the creative licence to create the kind of beach needed for this story. Yeah, it doesn't exist within driving distance from Trenton. Maybe there exists a strange warp in the time-space continuum that allows those In The Know to end up on a beach in the Netherlands. You're going to have to suspend your disbelief on that account. Sorry!