John Ringo: Sister Time

“Please give me credit for some sense. I came in behind that pile of rubble.” Michelle gestured at the crumbling remains of some cinderblock structure or other. “I only walked down when I saw you. So it seems I am finally at a beach with you.”

“Yeah,” Cally said. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Before we get into the mission, real quick, can I ask you a question about nanogenerator code keys?”

“Your employers do not have the capability to make use of the keys you stole.” It wasn’t a question.

“Right. Our people say they’re level fours and would be difficult to fence,” Cally said.

“The current price of six level four code keys would be sixty thousand seven hundred and forty-eight point zero nine seven FedCreds as of close of business at the Chicago Trade Consortium. I would be willing to pay that amount for the keys you took from the Darhel last night. Do you agree to carry my offer to your employers? It would be an arrangement of benefit to Clan O’Neal.” If possible, Michelle’s voice was even more expressionless, and she stood still in her mentat robes. They should have been blowing in the wind, but weren’t. The wind wasn’t allowed to so much as ruffle her hem, and Cally was suddenly aware of the sand in her own shoes and the blowing wisps of ultra-pale blonde hair that had escaped from her ponytail.

Michelle had clearly inherited her height from their father and Granpa. Her petite five foot nothing had an almost boyish slimness that made her sister feel awkward in her own tall frame. If she could have seen herself through the eyes of others, the unlikely assassin would have realized her comparatively small waist and Scandinavian features made her look more like a nineteen-nineties calendar girl than the chubby teenager she imagined. If Captain Sinda Makepeace had been anything, she’d been strikingly attractive. Cally’s physical appeal had not suffered from being stuck in the other woman’s semblance when the Indowy and Tchpth yanked the slab off Earth. Unconsciously, she arched her back and stood straighter in a seven-year habit designed to minimize her imagined defects.

“Okay, we’ll sell you the keys. My bosses will probably be thrilled I found a safe buyer. Now, what couldn’t you tell me last night?” Cally asked.

“I could have told you all of it. But you seemed rushed.” Michelle said. Cally looked for any sign that she was making a joke, but couldn’t see one. Perhaps Indowy-raised mentats didn’t have anything as mundane as a sense of humor.

“First, you need a way to reach me with questions about the mission. There must be some kind of indicator you can set somewhere for me to see. I can not watch you every minute of every day — I have work I must do. I would prefer a day’s notice in advance of a meeting, if possible. This is your specialty, is it not? Do you have any suggestions?”

“Um… lemme think. There are several message boards on the Perfect Match singles site on the web. When I need to meet you, I’ll place a message on the pre-date board. The message should be from MargarethaZ, capitol ‘M,’ capitol ‘Z,’ no spaces. It should go to whoever you are. Say… Apollo555. I’ll post it the day before I need you, or include the word ‘diamond’ if it’s an emergency and I need you sooner. You can find me, right? And check that I’m alone? If we don’t have to set up a code for meeting time and place, it makes it a lot less complicated and a lot harder for anyone else to twig to.”

“Do I need to know what a singles’ site is? Never mind, I am sure it will be clear enough. MargarethaZ, Apollo555, and diamond. I will remember.” Michelle nodded. “Here is a broad outline of the mission. I have a colleague, a fellow mentat, who has recently acquired an obscure piece of very old technology and developed it into a problematic device. It is a device which should not remain in his keeping. I wish to hire your team to obtain the device and deliver it to me so that I can arrange safe storage for it. The priority is, however, on removing the device from the possession of this colleague. If a choice comes between damaging the device or failing to remove it, it is the removal which absolutely must be done to complete the contract.”

“Okay. Are we supposed to just waltz in and take whatever this is?” Cally asked, her brow furrowing. “I presume you have a full description, location information, some background. Any recon data you have would be nice. Come on, I’m going to need the most complete information you can possibly give me for us to plan and execute this mission. First of all, what the hell is this device? What does it do, and what does it look like?” Cally glanced quickly up to where the candlelight was silhouetting the girls, glad that Morgan appeared to be putting their dinner things back in the packs.

“It is a discontinuous, partially automated, multichanneled, medium-range harmonic resonance inductor. I have a datacube for you with full external specifications, a very abbreviated overview of its known and theorized capabilities, and the location of the facility where it is being used.” Michelle said, “Of course, you must absolutely avoid any direct confrontation with—”

“Whoa. Back up a second. It’s a discon-what? What does it do, in plain English, please.”

“I was speaking plain English. The best way I can describe the action is that it affects the brain, in this case of human subjects, stimulating and analyzing the internal signals for report and, if desired, overriding the internal voluntary muscle commands and other processes with replacement sequences of the operator’s choosing.”

“What, like reading minds? You’re shitting me.”

“Excuse me? What does excrem — nevermind. In a very nontechnical and imprecise sense, that is probably a workable functional estimate. Although it would be a mistake to overlook the capacity for control.”

“It’s a mind-raper.”

“The process is reported to be quite unpleasant for the subject, yes.”

“You’re telling me this monstrosity really exists? Yuck!” Cally shuddered. “That’s vile. That’s really, really vile.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hugging herself. She almost thought she could feel the goosebumps.

“That is an adequate nontechnical description of the device’s function. One reason I chose to hire your team for this mission is convenience of location. The research facility where the device is located is outside the Great Lakes Fleet Base. Obviously, they will have some sort of human security arrangements in addition to the automated systems. Your people are going to have to determine what those are and be prepared to deal with them. You must avoid any direct confrontation with the other mentat, Erick Winchon. You will need to use a time when Erick Winchon is absent. He has periodic absences from the facility, you’ll need to determine his schedule and use one of them.” Michelle paused, taking a deep breath. “The deadline for this job is January 15 of 2055, Earth time. By that date, I must have in my possession either the device itself or conclusive proof that it has been destroyed. The proof must be sufficient to pass a rigorous inspection by a Galactic Contract Court.”

“What can you tell me about how the device is protected and guarded? I’ll need the blueprints of the facility.”

“Much of that you will have to determine yourselves. It is what your team does, is it not? I will, of course, get you any information I can without exposing my actions.”

Cally rubbed her chin, thinking. “One of the classic ways of working this kind of mission involves a switch of a replica for the target item to postpone discovery of the theft. I need not only the external specifications of the device but everything you can tell me about the device itself and how it’s used and when and by whom so that I can get a convincing replica made, if that’s even possible. We’ll do our research thoroughly, but the more you can tell us about the device, the better chance we have at constructing a convincing replica. The other solutions I can think of are all more complicated. That would mean more expensive, with more chances for something to go wrong.”