Steven Harper - Trickster

Which was why Gretchen had to show up with a wad of gum in her mouth and a toolbox in her hand.

Gretchen set the pad on the desk and pretended to click computer keys while the pad did its work. She was getting nervous. Vince Mays could walk over and check out what she was doing at any moment, and getting her ass off the farm would be problematic if she were discovered. Gretchen shot Mays a covert glance, but he seemed more interested in his own screen than in hers.

" Don't forget the copycat," Ben reminded her.

Swearing softly, Gretchen fished a flat, black box from her toolkit. Red lights skittered around the edge when she pressed the activation button. After a moment, a small screen displayed the message, Two hundred fifteen local frequencies detected, along with a list of numbers. Please indicate which frequency you wish to copy.

Gretchen ran a stylus down the entire list to select all of them. Working, the screen said. Gretchen set the copycat back in her toolbox and turned back to the computer pad. It was still breaking into the mainframe. Her hands were shaking now and she forced them back into steadiness. She peeked at Mays. He was looking directly at her. Gretchen's mouth went dry around the gum.

"What?" she asked.

"Just wondering what you're up to over there," Mays said with a smile. "Will it take long?"

"Shouldn't."

"Maybe I can help." He started to get to his feet. Gretchen's heart leaped into her throat. If he got a look at her screen, he'd see she hadn't even logged in yet and would know something was up.

"Nuh uh." She held up both hands, partly to indicate negation and partly to block his view of her screen. "Company policy. If I get help from someone who isn't a Compulink employee, the union will have conniptions."

"Funny," Mays frowned. "I've helped Compulink people before."

"New policy." Gretchen rolled her eyes. "You know how bureaucrats and bean counters get."

"Around here everyone's a bean counter," Mays said with a grin. At Gretchen's blank look, he added, "Cocoa beans?"

Gretchen forced a laugh, though she was ready to bolt for the door. "Guess I'm not very quick on the uptake today." She blew a gum bubble to cover the pounding of her heart. What the hell was taking Ben's program so long? "I better see what trouble I can get into on your network, then."

She turned back to her terminal, pretending to work but actually holding her breath. Mays didn't come up behind her. After a moment, she snuck another peek. His attention was back on his work.

At last-at last- the pad flashed. The holographic screen on the terminal flickered and Gretchen found she had root access.

"Got it," she murmured. "And next time you should be doing this, Benny-boy."

" I would have," Ben said in her ear, " except I'm the only one who knows how to tap the communication system and reroute Markovi's calls. Okay, here's what you do next."

As Ben spoke, printed instructions scrolled across the bottom of Gretchen's eye-her ocular implant at work. She did as instructed, accessing the section of the mainframe that oversaw the farm's automated equipment and uploading a single program. Then she downloaded several files of information and she reached into her toolbox to check the copycat.

"Both jobs are done," she muttered to Ben. "I'm on my way out."

" Great job, " he said. " I'll tell Kendi."

"You're all set," Gretchen announced to Mays and held her pad out to him. "Be a pal and thumb this service acknowledgment, would you? The company doesn't care who thumbs the thing, and I don't want to track down that guy Markovi again."

"Sure thing." Mays pressed his thumb to Gretchen's pad and his hand brushed hers. "It's about lunch time," he added, looking straight into her eyes. "You want to catch a bite or something?"

"Yeah, sure." Mays turned back to his computer with an air of "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and Gretchen let herself out of the room, heart pounding again. A few moments later, she was back in her groundcar and winding her way back to the entry gate. Slaves continued their work among the cacao trees, and Gretchen wondered if one of them was Bedj-ka. A grubby boy who was loading a gravity sled with seed pods paused in his labor long enough to wipe the sweat from his face. Gretchen found her appetite for chocolate had disappeared. At last she reached the entry gate.

The dashboard computer chimed and Gretchen jumped, certain she had been discovered.

"Thank you," chirped the computer, "for visiting Sunnytree Farms."

Gretchen slapped the screen to shut it off and sped back toward the city. Once she was a safe distance away, however, she pulled onto an empty side road and peeled the Compulink sign off both car doors. She tapped one corner of each sign, and both promptly erased themselves. This procedure she repeated with her Compulink holobadge. It vanished, leaving behind a blank chip. Then Gretchen skinned out of her jumpsuit, revealing ordinary shirt and trousers, and sprayed the cloth with the contents of a small flask. The jumpsuit disintegrated into dust which blew away in the slight breeze.

Safely anonymous and sure no one was following her, Gretchen drove into the city, returned the groundcar to the rental company, and took a bus back to the spaceport. But only when she was safely aboard the Poltergeist did she finally breathe a sigh of relief. Gretchen trotted into the galley-she felt she deserved a shot of something that would burn all the way down-and found Lucia working at one of the tables. A set of slave bands, one shackle for the wrist and one for the ankle, lay open on the table in front of her along with a set of microtools.

"Did you get the frequency?" Lucia asked.

Gretchen set the copycat on the table. "Got a couple hundred of them, along with the tracking files. It's your happy job to figure out which frequency the right one."

"Not a problem." She reached for the copycat with her scarred hands. "It'll take me a couple hours, but it's just tedious, not hard."

"Better you than me." Gretchen stretched. "When does everything go foom at Sunnyass?"

Lucia switched on the copycat. "Two days. Then the real fun begins."

"Your technician said this bug was fixed!" Markovi roared. "What the hell's wrong with your piece-of-shit company?"

Gretchen kept her head down and her cap pulled low as she and Lucia opened the back doors of the van. Ben had already exited from the driver's side. Markovi's face was beet-red beneath blond hair. Joe stood behind his boss, doing his best to loom threateningly and succeeding nicely.

"Don't worry, sir," Ben said placatingly as he shut the van door. It had a Compulink logo emblazoned on it, and the trio of "troubleshooters" all wore blue Compulink jumpsuits, caps, and holo-badges. Ben's little chip had rerouted Markovi's frantic call, allowing the Children to answer Sunnytree's summons in Compulink's place. "We'll track down the problem and fix it right away."

"You goddammed well better!" Markovi snarled. "I've got six dozen hands who can't work because the goddammed sprinkler system keeps spraying goddammed fertilizer every goddammed ten minutes."

"Are your hands all right?" Ben asked. "Raw fertilizer will cause burns after-"

"Don't you think I know that?" Markovi snapped. "My hands are all sitting goddammed idle in their goddammed quarters, and they'll have to stay there until the goddammed problem which your goddammed company said was goddammed fixed. I'm more worried about those cacao trees. They're goddammed delicate, and too much fertilizer will kill them, you understand me? Goddammed kill them. I'll sue Compulink for every goddammed credit you've got!"

Ben nodded, and Gretchen wondered if he was suppressing an urge to punch the man right in the middle of his goddammed face. God only knew Gretchen wanted to do it. Not only did the man enslave children and yell at people, he had permanently ruined her taste for chocolate. The last, in Gretchen's mind, justified capital punishment.