Greg Bear - Mariposa

Coffee.

She opened one eye.

A black hotel mug floated back and forth in front of her face. Not alone. Her body tensed, then relaxed again.

Captain Peter Periglas took shape beyond the mug.

"Good morning," he said.

The relaxed feeling came from having someone beside her all night. She pushed her mouth off the pillow, then wiped the corner of her lips to make sure it was dry.

"Morning. Late."

"No, we have indulged wonderfully, but we are not teenagers. We got a good night's sleep and it is now seven-thirty."

"I feel too good," Rebecca said, sitting up and taking the mug.

"Blame me," Periglas said. He was wearing a hotel bathrobe, open to reveal his slender chest, not quite Apollonian-a thin patch of graying hair.

"I will," Rebecca promised.

"Fake cream, sugar?"

"No thanks." She looked at him accusingly over the mug. "You got up first to make sure I wasn't drooling."

"I did not, but you certainly were. We are both droolers."

"Oh my."

The first couple of sips of hot black liquid were equally wonderful. She couldn't remember feeling so happy in years-maybe ten years. Since…

But no need to let the past cloud things.

Two room service trays still rested on the dresser, stacked steel covers, napkins, water glasses, tilting wine glasses.

Two empty bottles of red wine and she didn't feel even a touch hung over.

"Are you sure we're not teenagers?" she asked, lowering the mug to her naked breasts. She rolled the smooth heat on her skin, holding his gaze as a challenge, don't look down.

Periglas failed and let out a long sigh.

"Damn," he said, and untied his robe.

Los Angeles, California

The winter sky over downtown Los Angeles had a blued-steel sheen like the glint off an old revolver.

Inside the stark white western atrium of the convention center, under high panes of bathwater green glass, all was clearly illuminated as if by a cool, distant star. Nothing and no one cast shadows.

Rebecca ascended a wide flight of steps, counting ten, eleven, twelve. Her thoughts jostled in a caffeinated queue. She was enjoying lovely aches: aches from the night's activities, plus half an hour of exercise at the hotel gym, plus the soft, professional embrace of new pumps.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

Day two of impressing the troops, promoting her new prospective employer, and hanging with people who understood the life, yet knew nothing of why she was here and not back in Quantico or Washington. That was one story she would not be sharing at the ninth annual Consumer Protection and Education Symposium: COPES.

Four thousand salesmen, entrepreneurs, and professional security and law enforcement types, educated, entertained, fed, and watered each evening while hovered over by honchos from Homeland Security, the Bureau, the FDA, ATF, and a dozen other three-letter acronyms from a government that somehow managed to grow great bushy branches despite a crushing load of debt and the worst recession in over eighty years.

Which was the same as not calling it a depression.

She glanced up at the snowy horizontal pipes and beams that transported the building's stresses. They made sure the heaviest lifting was handed over to parts that could stand the pressure, a lot like people passing the buck.

At least you've got the prospect of real work, six months out from the rocky coast of the FBI.

Under her breath, forty-one, forty-two…

Two years after Mecca. A year after almost going under. Count your blessings. You're alive, you've just met a nice man; maybe you'll even have a daughter.

People to live with and actually love.

As she approached the level of the main exhibition hall, a vague sense of bulk shifted her attention left and she saw a brush of ginger hair, a gray overcoat, a convention badge, and hovering vaguely above them a shy, almost boyish smile in a broad face otherwise made for radio.

Instinct.

Her attention focused. The man stepped forward. She felt her neck muscles tense into cords.

"Ms. Rose. Looking forward to your presentation."

Rebecca paused, refusing to give ground despite the man's odd penetration of her space. Her spex outlined his face with a red circle. In the lower right corner, a cursor blinked: the spex data monkey said he was in her personal facial database. No name came up. She had been getting so many of these notices at the convention she had switched off automatic identification.

She lifted one ankle to adjust her shoe. The face was memorable-small scars around his mouth and under his eyes, a broader beardless pink patch on the left temple from hairline to cheekbone; one eye slightly skewed. Still pleasant enough-but more rugged than she liked. Not actually threatening but not dressed very well-not one of the federal honchos or minions and probably not a cop, with that unkempt hair.

His badge had flipped on its lanyard. She couldn't read his name.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

The man's smile flashed to ten. "Nathaniel Trace. Old FBI, ma'am, seconded to Food and Drug. A great admirer. We were on a panel together in Orlando-International Association of Food Protectors."

Rebecca had indeed served on such a panel, just before her furlough went through. Odd she did not remember. "Good to see you, Agent Trace."

"I've retired," he said. "Actually, they booted me."

"Ah."

"I cooperated. Like you, I assume. The Rout."

She hated that word. "No, Mr. Trace, I did not cooperate and I was not booted."

"Well, it's all history. Pardon my intrusion, Ms. Rose, but we should talk, sooner rather than later." He had a look she could not define: not crazy, but not all in one place, like a man divided and then punched back together again. "Sorry to impede the flow. Let's trade."

He pulled back his sleeve and revealed a dattoo.

"You can get back to me if you we need to talk."

"Fine," Rebecca said, eager to move on.

Does the word buzz kill mean anything to you, Agent Trace?

She held her arm down but splayed her fingers like knives. No harm-dattoos couldn't mess with each other, simply exchange data. They crossed arms, not actually touching. She felt her skin briefly warm-as if he had just downloaded a lot more than his name and associations.

Trace broke the touch.

Now she was sure he was lying about where they had met, but he did not exhibit the tells of a liar. In that odd mental realm where instinct was indistinguishable from fantasy, where her expertise trapped passing impressions and examined them over and over, before they became actual theories, she wondered if he could convince himself to believe anything he said.

"I've got to be in the hall in twenty seconds," she told him by way of warning. "Four thousand stalwarts to feed and entertain, and we still get to rub elbows with heroes."

The ginger-haired man had the gall to keep pace with her as she moved along. Rebecca felt her neck hairs rise. She did not like this one bit.

"You should be listening closely," he said and put on an intense look, accompanied by a rictus of effort. "You should come away from here… with me. I mean it. I don't think it's safe. I've got lots of money stashed away. You're important… to somebody who knows. You could be safe-away from here. Let's go outside and get some lunch or dinner and talk about things."

After the night with her captain, and with a busy day coming up, this was the one thing she did not need, would not put up with, here of all places: a crazy former cop or some sadsack salesman, playing the dattoo card and then hitting on her.

Rebecca got up into his face-he was about an inch taller-and tapped his chest firmly with her finger, emphasizing, "Stay…the fuck…away from me."