John Scalzi - The Android's Dream

Creek got Robin off the mall roof as the fire department and police converged from a distance. Creek took Robin's arm and guided her down the street from the mall to the Arlington Mall stop of the DC Metro. Creek had driven in and assumed whoever was hunting them knew that and would be looking at the parking garage, but not the Metro. Creek pulled out his credit card, paid fares for them both, and led Robin to the platform for trains inbound to DC. There was a stop at Foggy Bottom and from there a cab could take them to the State Department The train rolled into the station; Creek took Robin's arm again and led her into it.

Once inside the train Robin propped herself up against the side of the car and kicked the still-standing Creek in the gut. Creek blocked the kick; Robin burst into tears and collapsed onto the floor of the car. Everyone near Creek and Robin suddenly decided to check out the ambiance in the next train car over.

Creek knelt next to Robin. "What was that about?" Creek asked.

"The shoes don't work anymore," Robin said.

"No," Creek said. "We're too far away from the WallBall court. Sorry about that."

"Who are you?" Robin said. "Really, honestly, now. Just who the goddamn fucking hell are you and what just happened in there and why do people suddenly want to kill me and what the goddamn fuck is going on?"

The last part of that came out as a hysterical shriek; Creek reached over to her hand and patted it gently to calm her. "Take deep breaths," he said. "Take it easy."

Robin slapped his hand away. "Fuck you," she said. "Take it easy. Six men with guns just tried to fucking kill me. I just had to jump through a skylight to get away from them. And now you're taking me who the fuck knows where and I really just ought to scream at the top of my lungs and get people in here to tackle you and take you away. If you don't tell me who you really are and what's going on, right now, I swear I'm going to do it."

"I told you who I am and what"s going on in the mall," Creek said. "You seemed to accept it at the time."

"That's because I thought you were joking," Robin said.

"What?" Creek said.

"Well, Jesus, Harry," Robin said. "All of a sudden a guy shows up and tells me I'm in danger, and you tell me a story about a war. It had to be a joke. I figured maybe I was on a reality show or something. I was just going along to be a good sport. I was looking for the film crew. Either that or you were just some loser poking fun at me with a friend. In which case I was going to go to the mall security and have you arrested for harassing me. Either way, I wasn't thinking it was for real. You think I would have been joking about it if were real? Christ."

"I'm sorry, Robin," Creek said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet and gave it to Robin, and then reached in his jacket pocket and gave her his communicator. "All my ID is in the wallet," he said. "Look at everything in there. And then, like I said before, take my communicator, call up information and have them connect you to the State Department general line. Ask for Ben Javna. Tell him who you are. He'll verify I am who I say I am and everything I told you." Creek stood up.

"What are you doing?" Robin asked him.

"I'm going to go sit at the back of the car, away from you," Creek said. "If you don't feel safe around me, I don't want you worried about me being close to you. Now, go on. Look at my stuff and call Ben." Creek turned and went to the back of the car. A few minutes later, the train stopped to let passengers on and off; Creek noted that Robin had stayed on the train. He took that as a good sign.

"Hey, Harry," Robin said.

"Yeah?" Creek said.

"The guy you wanted me to call is Ben Javna, right?" Robin asked.

"That's right," Creek said.

"Your communicator says you just now got a text message from him," Robin said.

"What does it say?" Creek said.

"You want me to read your private messages?" Robin said.

"Just this once," Creek said. He saw Robin press the button and scan the message.

"What's it say?" Creek said again.

Robin got up and walked over to Creek. She handed him the communicator. Creek took it and read the message.

BIG TROUBLE, it read. DON'T CALL. GET LOST. STAY LOST. TAKE YOUR FRIEND WITH YOU.

Creek closed the communicator and looked at Robin. He opened his mouth, but she put her hand up.

"Don't, Harry," she said. "I believe you. I believe you're telling me the truth. Now just tell me one thing. Okay? Tell me I'm going to make it through all of this alive."

Through three terms as a UNE representative, a subsequent two terms as UNE senator, and now his appointment as Secretary of Defense, Bob Pope had developed a reputation as being strong on defense and tough on the Nidu. Pope wouldn't argue the first of these—it was a bedrock position that got him elected five times, appointed once, and earned him truly fantastic honoraria whenever he was between political gigs.

But the fact of the matter was he personally couldn't give a shit about the Nidu one way or another as a people. He'd met more than his share of Nidu in his time in Washington, of course, and they were decent enough as intelligent nonhumans go. They all had a pole up their reptilian ass about personal status, but that just made them like everyone else in Washington.

What he didn't like about them, ironically, was their status in the Common Confederation, and by consequence, the status of Earth, its colonies, and humans in general. As Pope saw it, the Nidu, for all their obsession about castes and status and class, were bottom feeders in the grand CC food chain. If the CC were the United Nations, the Nidu would be Burkina Faso, a tiny, shitty little country on a chronically backwards continent with no hope of ever doing anything but pounding dirt the long merry day.

The problem was that the Nidu were Earths closest allies in the Common Confederation. In politics as in high school, who you are is to a large extent defined by who you sit with at lunch, and there was no doubt about it, the Earth was sitting at the loser table. It was not, Bob Pope thought, the true destiny of the Earth in our universe to be counted among the diplomatic equivalent of the acne-ridden and the furtively masturbating.

A necessary step in escaping this fate was to turn Nidu from a nominally friendly ally to a vaguely hostile one. It wouldn't do to have the Nidu as a full-fledged enemy, of course; despite Pope's opinion of the Nidu's station in galactic diplomacy, Nidu was still significantly more powerful than Earth and her tiny colonies. Burkina Faso or not, she could still squash the Earth like a bug. But an edgy relationship made for better defense allocations. Better defense allocations made for better ships, better soldiers, and better weapons. Better weapons made for more diplomatic respect. More diplomatic respect meant a chance to trade up on allies.

Pope was aware there were other ways to get more diplomatic respect than bigger guns, of course. But while other diplomatic maneuvers sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, ultimately a big damn gun always commanded respect. It was a simple diplomatic equation, and Bob Pope was not one for unnecessarily complicating things.

However, if it was necessary to complicate things, Pope could live with that, especially if in doing so he got close to his own goals. But especially if he were complicating things for someone he didn't like. Like, say, that smug bastard Jim Heffer at the State Department.

Which is why, after Phipps had gotten him up to speed on the sheep issue, Pope made an executive decision. "We need to force State's hand," he said.

Phipps raised an eyebrow. "Why do we need to do that? They're already going to come up empty. Relations are already going to be damaged."