John Ringo - Cally's War

“Oh, that. It’s gone now.” He sounded almost cheerful.

She stood, slowly and deliberately, as if half afraid of what she might do if her self-control wavered even for an instant, and walked to the door, down the hall, down the stairs, looked into the formal living room. There. The high-backed chair next to the piano formed an area of cover outside of the main traffic areas of the house. Probably dusty, but if she had to use it, she could just wipe the whole area behind the chair clean and it would never be noticed. Fine. She thought carefully for a moment before speaking.

“Buckley, if anyone but you and me enters this house while we’re in it, you will make no sound whatsoever from the time he, she, it, or they enter until at least one full minute after he, she, it or they leaves. Got it?”

“Does that include the cube reader in the study?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“What about the lock and the microwave?”

“No!”

“What about the AID on the end table over there?”

She whirled around, looking frantically, cursing.

“Just kidding.”

“Buckley! Shut up. Unless you see a car again that belongs with this house, just shut the hell up.” She gritted her teeth as she restrained herself from stomping up the stairs. In the master bath, there was a woman’s silk blouse in the sink with a clear coffee stain fading underneath the suds.

She glanced at the mirror and disdainfully picked a dust bunny out of her hair, flushing it down the toilet.

It was really only the work of a few moments to take out the junk package with the small bag of white powder, spoon, a little bottle of ether, and a needle, spill a tiny amount of coke on the cabinet floor, and use fresh tape to affix the package to the back underside of the sink. She blew gently on the infinitesimal amount of spilled powder to disperse it. It was invisible now, but the dog would smell it. And after the toxicology tests on the corpse came back, there would be a dog.

As she was getting ready to open the back door and leave she stopped short. “Buckley, turn off voice access.”

“But then I can’t even yell for help when it all comes apart!”

“Buckley, turn off voice access.”

“It figures.” The PDA emitted an exaggeratedly long-suffering sigh and went silent.

She tapped the command line and reset the AI emulation. Buckleys didn’t function at their best if you left the emulation up too high. They tended to think of too many reasons to panic.

She took off the gloves and stuffed them into the underside of her black sports bra, concealed by the baggy T-shirt, and took a deep breath. I belong here, I’m just going out for a jog. She stepped through the door.

As she walked around the side of the house, she bit back a curse. She had been seen. She had been seen by a small blond-haired boy of perhaps four who was very quietly trying to tie a very patient-looking golden retriever to a small green wagon. The boy looked at her gravely and put a finger over his lips, “Shhh…” Stifling what might have otherwise come out as a slightly strained giggle, Cally put a finger to her own lips and walked down the driveway to the street, and resumed the jog around the block to her car. She didn’t look back. It was shaping up to be one of those days.

Three different stores yielded several pairs of pantyhose, plastic ties, and a pack of cheap bandannas. Then she went to a mall near the mistress’s apartment to window shop until lunch. It was one of the aspects of the job you never got used to. Or, at least, she never had. Hours and hours of hurry up and wait interspersed with brief periods of pure adrenaline. Of course, her body’s response to adrenaline was atypical, in the same way as every other member of the special class at school had been. If not at the beginning, then certainly after training and who knew what tinkering. Adrenaline triggered time dilation, focused concentration, and emotional flattening, as well as adding a certain edge to physical performance. But Cally had reason to believe her own atypical adrenaline response was purely natural, for the simple reason that she’d had it years before ever reporting to school. It seemed to run in the family.

Didn’t do crap for the boredom, though. Every agent had their own way of coping with that. Some read. Some played games on their PDAs. Some collected the most fiendishly difficult crossword puzzles they could find. Cally shopped. Oh, not if there was some strategic advantage to lying low, of course. She kept a backup supply of about a gazillion color catalogs just in case. But mostly she watched the people, tried on clothes or shoes, looked at the latest gizmos and gadgets. She’d been told it was a reaction to the privations of her childhood. Personally, she thought the shrinks were full of shit. For a young, attractive female, there was no place that was more completely anonymous and unremarkable than a shopping mall. She was seen by at least one hundred people in a given hour, and remembered by none of them. She made sure never to buy enough to give a salesgirl a memorable commission, she never responded to any boys or men with eye contact or more than a totally impersonal, casual social smile. It was the next best thing to being invisible, and the walking worked off some of the pre-mission nervous energy. Besides, sometimes she found a really good bargain. Today there was a lovely boat-necked coral blouse on clearance. It would look great under the oatmeal slacks and blazer she was planning to wear tonight. The reason it was marked so low was a snag in the back that would be obvious the minute she took the blazer off. It was perfect, since she was only going to wear it once.

By mid-afternoon, the mall restroom was empty enough that she could change clothes and do her makeup without drawing a lot of attention. The dark, permed curls didn’t need more than a quick brushing.

A bit before four, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot near the apartment complex. She tapped the buttons to wake up the AI simulator. “Hey, buckley.”

“It’s all coming apart, now, isn’t it?”

“No, buckley. I just want you to plot the three most probable routes, based on the target’s pattern information from the cameras, from the Fleet Strike Tower area to the apartment complex at 2256 Lucky Avenue.”

“That’s all you know. Can’t do it.”

“What do you mean you can’t do it? Buckley, just plot the routes, okay?”

“Sorry, no can do.”

“Buckley, I’m really not in the mood for this.”

“Nobody ever cares about my mood. Here we are, mission falling apart around our ears, about to be overrun by the Posleen, no doubt, or have a nuke dropped on us, or have a C-Dec fall on our heads, or a building col—”

“Enough, buckley.” She clenched her fists in exasperation. “Why can’t you plot a probable route for the subject from the Tower to the apartment complex?”

“Who said I couldn’t? I never said I couldn’t,” it sounded infernally smug.

She counted to ten very slowly. “Buckley, plot the most probable route, based on the target’s pattern, from the Tower to the apartment complex. Display on screen.”

“Okay.” A section of Chicago street map appeared on the screen with a route outlined in red. It looked like the one she remembered from Friday, but it paid to make sure.

“Now, without erasing the current map and plot, add to it the plot of the second most probable route for the target to take from the Tower to the apartment complex.”

“Why do I always get saddled with the idiots? Can’t do it.” It sounded rather pleased about it.

“Why can’t you follow that last command, buckley?” she asked between gritted teeth.