John Ringo - Cally's War

“But you’re never gonna meet him in some bar,” Wendy broke in, handing her a juice pack. “Look, I can understand if you’re not keen on the BS organization’s matchmaking program. Hey, that would creep me out a bit, too. But between Tommy and Papa, they’ve gotta know at least half a dozen decent guys who would love to have a wife who didn’t have to be kept quite so much in the dark. I mean, geez, what’s the harm in letting them fix you up with a date or two?”

“What’s the harm?” Cally asked flatly, her eyes suddenly dead. “Just that having an emotional tie to someone who ends up on the same mission could get me or him captured or killed. Not to mention his side of it. Who wants a wife who faces the odds I face, or does the things I have to do? I’m good, but it’s sheer dumb luck I’ve only died once so far, and that not permanently. The only thing worse than the odds of death for a female assassin are the odds of a successful marriage.”

Shari winced and clapped her hands over Annie’s ears. “You never talk about that!” she whispered.

“Get my point?” She pulled out a mug and a flask, squeezing the juice pack into the cup and pouring an ounce or so of clear liquid on top. “You want?” She extended it to Shari.

Shari’s hand went to her stomach. “No, I… can’t.”

Cally broke into a grin. “You dog! No wonder you’re trying to get me married off and pregnant, misery loves company!” she joked, then smiled. “Congratulations!”

“Are you really?” Wendy laid her hand on her best friend’s knee. “You wouldn’t kid between girlfriends? Congratulations! Oh, this is so great. We will eat ice cream and go off the curve together! Have a juice pack.”

“There, see what you’re missing?” She turned back to Cally. “Will you just promise me you’ll consider letting Tommy fix you up on a date? Just one teeny weenie little date? If you want, you don’t even need to see him alone — we could double.”

“Oop. Now you’ve gotta do it, Cally. I’ll baby-sit. She and Tommy haven’t been out on a date in ages , it’s your positive duty to your best girlfriends in the world.”

“My only girlfriends in the world.” Cally grimaced. “Not that I don’t appreciate you two — that is, when you’re not trying to fix me up with Tommy’s or Granpa’s fishing buddies.” She caved when the two of them glared at her. “Okay, okay, I’ll think about it. After I get back from this next mission.”

“A short one, I hope?” Shari asked.

“You know I can’t say. But, I wouldn’t get your hopes up on it.” She used the juice pack straw as a swizzle stick to stir her drink and took a sip before checking her PDA. “Everything’s fine. Still up, still scanning, no signs.”

The rest of the afternoon was practically idyllic. They washed down the crab salad sandwiches with juice and sodas — well, Cally had a beer. It didn’t matter that she had Postie watch since she’d been immune to the effects of alcohol her entire adult life. The kids didn’t eat many of the cheese curls — it was more fun feeding them to the gulls and the dog. Since Sandy loved cheese curls and chasing gulls, she usually won the race to each freshly tossed treat.

Duncan and James loved passing practice with Cally, as she generally caught the ball even when their throws went a bit wide, and they generally caught the ball because she could land it right in their hands from twenty-five yards down the beach. Cally reflected that the boys, who had had very little social contact with adult females who were not fully upgraded, were going to have a rude awakening some day. She could have landed it in their hands at twice that distance, but the display would have been bad tradecraft. As it was, she never would have done this much if there’d been outsiders on the beach.

That afternoon, she carried a sleeping Annie up the stairs for Wendy and got her strapped into her booster seat in the station wagon, while the older boys stowed the folded chairs and gear in the back. A few seconds after Mike climbed into the seat beside his little sister his sneakers, obviously sensing that their wearer was no longer standing or walking, shut off the holograms.

“Those are really cute shoes,” Cally said as she walked around to the back of the car where her friends were waiting to say good-bye, “but I was a little surprised the battles were silent. They had neat weapons sound effects even when we were kids.”

“Shhhh.” Wendy held a finger over her lips, obviously smothering laughter. “Tommy turned that off the first night.”

Cally’s mouth rounded in a silent “oh” of understanding. She felt a small scrap of paper being pressed into her palm and looked at Shari enquiringly.

“It’s a time and number for your grandpa. Call him,” she said.

“What? Over the phone ?” She patted her bikini lightly. Still damp. She’d be riding home on a towel. Her mind snapped back into gear and she looked at Shari in bewilderment. “ Phone? Why the phone?”

“It’s what we outside the ops world call a personal call , Cally.” Shari patted her on the back with an exaggerated pitying air, then, more seriously, “He just wants to talk to you. Not shop talk, not mission talk, just a visit. Okay, obviously you’re going to use a pay phone somewhere, but… just call your grandfather, okay?”

“Okay, sure.” She hugged both of them a little awkwardly. “Okay, then, well, I guess it’s goodbye until next time.”

“We’ll wait while you get your sensors back down,” Wendy said, climbing into the driver’s seat and watching her pull the small boxes down the flagpoles and put them back in her car.

A bank of clouds was rolling in and Cally could smell the rain on the air as she pulled onto the road behind the blue minivan for the drive back to town.

Back at her apartment, she carefully put the dull orange and somewhat battered seashell that Annie had proudly “found” for her on her bedside table next to a small potted cactus and went to shower off all the sticky salt and sand. She’d need another once she decided who she needed to be on vacation, but she’d worry about that after she was clean.

As she dropped the red bikini onto the bath mat she could hear the thunder and the first drops of rain beating against the small bathroom window.

A few minutes later, hair in a towel, wrapped in a big fluffy blue bathrobe, she emerged from the bathroom and thumbed open the bottom drawer of her dresser, this time pulling it all the way open and reaching in the back for a battered black shoe box. In here were her five specials, identities even the Bane Sidhe knew nothing about. At least, not as far as she knew. As Granpa had beaten into her head back during the Postie war, always have a go-to-hell plan. Hrms. These two are out, they need updating. I’d never pass for my thirties at close range without more cosmetic work than I can do. Okay. This one. Marilyn Grant from Toledo Urb. Good thing I picked her the night before. I’m gonna need a perm, and color that won’t wash out the next time I shower. Oop. Hobbies include acoustic guitar, nineteen sixties folk music. There go the nails.

A few hours later she stood in the three-way mirror, wrinkling her nose slightly at the chemical smell that now pervaded her bedroom, and checked the changes. Warm brown eyes stared back at her, courtesy of good old-fashioned zero-prescription extended-wear contacts. Not-quite chestnut curls stopped around her shoulders. She hadn’t had to take off much, with the curls to shrink the length up some. Her skin tone was not exactly tanned, just more medium than fair. Short nails on her left hand and slightly longer ones on the right were painted one of the rose shades more flattering to brunettes. The toenails were a different shade of rose. Both had small mistakes around the cuticles, both would be allowed to chip and be inexpertly repaired over the next few days.