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"Well," I said, "That was informative."
Glancing away from the screen, Tanya asked, "It was?"
"Yup. Stealth mode didn't work quite as well as I expected. One of the lasers managed to stay with it."
Her gaze returned to the screen. "Oh. That's not good, is it? How did it do that?"
"Something noticed a variance in the beam when it shunted around the sim. Stealth mode alone wouldn't get us through the parking lot. Ever see one of those clips of a small animal running loose in a mall? With everybody avoiding or chasing it? I think a couple squirrels being chased by a dog would overwhelm that system."
Tanya shot me a big grin. I said, "Someone would arrive and the doors would open. We'd launch the critters and follow them inside."
"Before we do that, shouldn't we find out if there are similar sensors inside?"
"Done dunnit, ma'am. I sent probes through the building."
"Probes? What are they exactly?"
Sending a probe through the building's roof in stealth mode, I pointed at the moving outline on the screen and said, "That's a probe. They can be used to look for stuff or take samples and like that."
I flew the probe high and low throughout the building without triggering the monitoring systems. It traveled along the floors and ceilings at differing speeds, then through walls, and finally out through one of the windows.
That's when the monitor alarm went off. I had the probe's view look for radio waves, then run through the full spectrum of light. It found two bingoes only a few slight shades apart in the infrared range. Multiple sensors.
On our screen, an elongated dome appeared to encompass the building. Well, not quite. A long, narrow strip of the center of the flat roof was left unguarded. Deliberately, maybe? I checked monitoring hardware and ranges and found they could have been placed to cover the dead zone.
Incompetence, then? Miscalculation? An old adage says never to ascribe to hostility to that which can be attributed to stupidity, but even old adages have coverage limits.
Standard investigative probes are nearly intangible, unlike sims and people in stealth fields. Describing my thoughts to Tanya, I sent a foot-diameter probe into the building, then had it solidify an opaque shell within its stealth field. As it flew through the corridor at shoulder height, an alarm sounded.
I let the probe vanish. "Yup. Got 'em inside, too. Different settings for different targeting."
"But there's no laser. How did they know it was there?"
"Good question, ma'am. We might need a whole damned herd of squirrels for this trick."
She chuckled, but her gaze remained serious as she studied the screen. After a moment of staring at the scene and letting my mind wander a bit, I changed tactics.
"Maybe this is the wrong approach. You've visited Marie. So has Jessica. They'd probably even let me visit her. The problem with this plan is only getting her out, not getting us in."
When I sipped coffee and said no more, Tanya prompted with, "So? What are you thinking?"
"Can't treat her on US soil. Can't easily get her out of there to visit a clinic. Getting caught and tried might eventually get the laws repealed, but that could take years. But what if we could get a small piece of Marie, take it to a clinic and have it treated, and then get that piece back into her?"
Sitting straight with an 'are you serious?' look, Tanya asked, "How would you get a piece of her?"
"As painlessly as possible. I think a spot of living tissue from anywhere on or in her would be enough."
"How big a spot?"
Holding up a thumb and forefinger almost touching each other, I said, "Not very. A sliver would do."
"How would you keep it alive?"
"Stasis and artificial life support." I shrugged. "Wouldn't matter if it didn't survive, I think. The treatment within it could escape into her body once we put it back in her. Maybe it could even be a timed-release thing."
As I sipped again, Tanya canted her head and seemed thoughtful, then said, "They take blood samples twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays. But they chased us out of the room while they did that."
"Good thinking, but how would we get blood back into her? They'd watch our every move in there."
Making another screen, I had it display US laws regarding Amaran medical treatments of US citizens. The documents involved listed over eleven hundred printable display pages. I searched with the phrase 'treat US citizen' and found only a few exact matches. Plural variants turned up several more, all of which ended with 'on US soil' or similar words.
Letting the vast pile of legal crap disappear, I said, "Let's ask a pro," and had the screen contact the Guyana Robodoc clinic. When a woman answered, I asked to speak to Milla.
Tanya asked, "Who's Miller?"
"Not Miller. Milla. First name, not last. Maybe her only name, in fact."
"Okay. Who's Milla?"
"The Robodoc in Guyana. She's a sentient AI."
"You... you know her?! Really?"
"I took Joyce down there, remember?"
Milla took control of the link at her end and a woman who looked somewhat like Charlize Theron asked, "Yes, Ed? How may I help you?"
"Wow! Excellent choice for a persona, ma'am! The lady on my left is Tanya, who will be helping me with something. I know you're kind of busy down there, but I need to know whether you can do something. If I bring you a spot of live tissue, can you treat it as if it were a complete person?"
Her right eyebrow arched slightly and a moment of silence ensued, then she said, "Such a 'spot of tissue' would not legally qualify as a US citizen. Outside certain proscribed regions of this planet, I can treat any living thing I encounter for any manner of healing required. For obvious reasons, I would prefer not to know more than necessary about why you'd be in possession of someone else's tissue."
"You're as gorgeous as you are brilliant, milady. The patient has brain and skeletal damage and can't be moved. I'll edit some records and send them to you if you need them."
With a small smile, she replied, "Not necessary. I can install restorative DNA nanobots in your sample. If you can get them into the patient, they'll reconstruct damaged regions. Would that be sufficient for your purposes?"
"Absolutely sufficient, Milla. By God, I wish I could promote you or something, Ms. Miracleworker."
She laughed, "Also not necessary. I have enough responsibilities. Will there be anything else?"
"Not until I bring you the sample, ma'am. Thank you for your time. And for looking like that and everything else."
"You're welcome. Goodbye for now, Ed. Goodbye to you as well, Tanya." With that, she dropped the link.
I sipped coffee and said, "Now, about that sample. Where could we nip a little live stuff off Marie? Maybe some tissue from one of the damaged spots?"
Tanya shook her head. "No. Those... nanobots... will fix everything anyway, right? We'll take some good tissue, just to be sure."
"Sure of what? Damaged or not, it'll have her DNA."
Her gaze narrowed and she said firmly, "I don't care, damn it. We'll take a healthy sample."
"Give it some thought, then. Maybe we could go with hair follicles. Should be easy to get some and it wouldn't cause much pain. We could..."
Tanya looked at me as if I was nuts. "Hair follicles?!"
"Do you know of any other follicles on people?"
"Do you know how small those are?"
"Nanobots are smaller and we'd only need a few. The bots'll replicate themselves as necessary to do the job."
Sitting back, Tanya seemed to consider matters, then said, "Okay. If we can't think of something better."
"Thank you so much for your kind indulgence, milady. Let's not wait for Monday. Let's visit her tomorrow afternoon. We can practice with boards in the morning."
Giving me an odd look, Tanya asked, "Practice for what? If we're just going to walk in, get some hair, and walk out, why do we need to practice?"
"Because we have an audience. Remember what I said about magic needing an audience? We have to look as if we're preparing to do something dramatic, so the practice will have to seem equally dramatic. After watching us buzz around the woods all morning like fighter jocks, what'll they think when we land by the front doors to visit her in the afternoon?"
Rolling her eyes, Tanya exclaimed, "How the hell should I know what they'll think?! They'll probably think we're going to try to bust her out."
I just looked at her and grinned. She muttered flatly, "Oh, hell. They will, won't they?"
"Yeah, seems likely. They aren't really a trusting bunch."
"And you think that's a good thing?"
"Sure. Think about it. They'll watch us practice, then see us swoop in and hop off our boards out front. They'll be on high alert while we're there, then they'll go on a whole 'nother kind of alert when we leave. In short, they'll stay geared up to try to capture us in the act of snatching your mom and we'll be on our way to Guyana and back with a wad of hair."
Tanya sighed, "And when we get back, they'll arrest us."
"I really hadn't planned on that happening."
She replied drolly, "I'm not surprised to hear that."
"Well, 'scuse me for asking, but if we don't try to spring Marie, how would they bust us? On what grounds?"
With quite a bit of attitude, she snapped, "At that point, they'd find something! Or make something up, just to..."
Holding up a hand to stop her, I said, "Spare us more of the same. They'll need a viable case to make a decent political fuss. You just have some pre-mission jitters."
Goggling at me, Tanya yelped, "You're damned right I do! Don't you realize what we're up against here?! The whole goddamned US government!"
"Hah. Hardly. Just a few elements of it, and I have a feeling they're after the same thing we are; eventual repeal of the Amaran medical field bans."
"But you don't know that, do you? Not for absolutely sure. They could be looking for some examples to hang as a warning to others. In other words, us."
Shrugging, I said, "Moot point, ma'am. Capture works for either side, so the case would have to be air-tight. Both sides would love to catch us in the act and get this part of the election year game underway. Tell me something, milady; are you aware you were carefully issued the clues that guided you to contact me?"
Tanya froze in mid-sip and stared at me as she slowly set the juice pack on the table. By her expression I could almost see the gears turning in her head in a fairly obvious effort to refute my statement.
Shaking her head slightly, she softly said, "No."
"Think, ma'am. Will and Connie might have dropped by to validate Marie's accident, but they had no good reason at all to tell you a damned thing about your mom's spooky past. They definitely had no reason to mention me or anyone else of that era by name or even use their own real names during their visit. In fact, when I've investigated a few other deaths, I've been required to use fake credentials as a claim investigator. What made you special? That you were the daughter of an old team member? Uh-uh. Nope. Daughter or not, you wouldn't qualify to hear details about the Leipzig op under normal rules and procedures. Someone saw an opportunity to create a fuss and make it look like someone else's idea."
Her stare continued and narrowed to a glower, then Tanya asked, "Why didn't you mention any of that earlier?"
"Remember when you asked if I wanted to know you were for real? You were right, but long before you started stripping, I wanted to see if you were for real."
She growled, "What the hell does that mean?!"
"It means you told a good story, but parts of it didn't ring quite right. I wanted to know why, so I played along while I checked things out. Once I saw Marie's condition, I didn't care whether you were a user or a usee. The only goal became getting your mom fixed."
"You actually thought I might be using my own mother in some kind of political scheme?"
"I've encountered much worse than that along the line and I'd never so much as heard of you before. Tanya, my skin is fairly important to me. I wouldn't want it nailed to some asshole politician's office wall."
After a moment, she said, "They aren't all assholes."
"The ones who'd want my skin are. So are the ones who keep Robodocs out of the country. Even the least harmful politicians you can name couldn't survive and succeed in politics if they weren't devious and conniving weasels."
Chapter Twelve
Tanya abruptly stood up and put her juice pack in the fridge, then straightened up the sink area. She said nothing as she worked for a few minutes, then she turned around, leaned on the counter, and crossed her arms.
After regarding me for another few moments, she said, "I was going to tell you to come back in the morning, but I've changed my mind."
When she said nothing else for a time, I just nodded and said, "Thank you."
Another couple of moments passed, then she said, "I'll get you a towel. Anything else you need?"
"Can't think of anything."
With a small nod, she went to the hall closet and took a blue towel into the bathroom, then returned. After dithering by the table for a moment, she sat down and seemed not to know what to do with her hands. Putting them together, she examined them rather carefully.
"Tanya," I said, and when she looked up, I said quietly, "You don't look as if you feel very romantic. I could sleep on the couch. Or even go home."
She studied me briefly, then shook her head. "You're right. I'm not feeling romantic at all, Ed. Not in the kissy, huggy, snuggly sense. But having you around today woke up something else, so I decided to do something about it."
"Ah." I nodded in a politely enlightened manner.
"Do you have any rubbers with you?"
"Nope. I could run out and..."
She shook her head and held up a hand. "Let me see if there are any in the night stand."
Going to the bedroom and returning, she tossed three small packets on the table and said, "This is all there are."
Giving her a small grin, I replied, "You said that as if you think three might not be enough."
With a droll look at me, she moved to the fridge and opened the freezer. Taking out two glasses that had disappeared when the NIA had arrived, she set them on the table and said, "I don't remember which glass was yours or mine, but at least the drinks will be cold."
As she retrieved the gin from a cabinet and poured some in each glass, I chuckled, "That kiss on the dock sort of made which glass is mine a non-issue, ma'am."
Sipping her drink, Tanya said, "That kiss on the dock is why you're still here, so treat it with respect, okay?"
Hoisting my glass slightly, I solemnly agreed, "Oh, yes, ma'am. No disrespect intended, I promise."
She chuckled, "Good. You don't mind using rubbers?"
"Nope. Whatever makes you happy. But for your peace of mind, you ought to know that my own nanobots prevent diseases. Nothing gets past 'em."
"You have nanobots?"
"Yup. Got a dose on the big ship years ago. Not the thirty-day kind, either. Employees get the permanent ones. And PFMs prevent conception. That's one of the main reasons the preachers and right-wingers have been against them."
Canting her head, Tanya said, "I'd heard that, but I thought it was just religious propaganda."
I shook my head. "Nope. Not propaganda. PFMs provide protective fields. It was decided that until people stopped breeding indiscriminately, using PFMs would prevent fertility. Male and female fertility. Things start working again about a week after you take off a PFM."
Looking thoughtful, she asked, "What about boards? They use fields too, right?"
"Yeah, but people don't wear boards all the time. The protective field is only on when they're on the board."
Her eyes flicked to each of my forearms, then to my face and she said, "I don't see a PFM on you."
Tapping behind my left ear, I said, "Surgically implanted," then sent an emerald green tendril to pick up the gin bottle and 'hand' it to her. Tanya let the bottle hang there and instead touched the tendril with her fingertips.
"It's cool," she said, and I replied, "I always thought so."
"No," she said, "It's glowing, but it's cool to the touch."
Feigning disappointment, I sighed, "Oh."
Tanya giggled, "Oh, don't look so sad! It's cool in that sense, too. Why isn't it warm?"
With a shrug, I said, "It doesn't need to be, I guess. I haven't thought about it."
Looking from the tendril to me, she asked, "How can I get a PFM? I know they can't sell them."
"Sign on with 3rd World Products. Join one of the agencies that are allowed to issue them."
"Why do they have them if regular people can't?"
"Probably because they're safer than stun guns and Amaran stuff can't be used to injure or kill people. And because someone realized selling to cops would open the door for selling to the public." Pointing at the silver spot on her arm, I sent, rather than said, "Are you going to wear that to bed?"
Tanya reflexively glanced at it and then very apparently realized I hadn't spoken aloud. Her eyes locked on mine for a long moment, then returned to the silver spot.
She muttered, "Oh, my Gawwwd! We could each feel what the other feels, couldn't we?"
"Seems likely. Don't know yet. None of the others had the nerve to try using one that way."
Her head came up. "What others?"
"You aren't my first, ma'am. They were women who had scooterboards, but didn't have nerve enough to link during sex. You'd be the first."
Tanya's gaze narrowed. "Why wouldn't they?"
"One said she considered her sexual experiences too personal. Another said she'd be embarrassed to have anyone in her head during sex."
I sipped coffee and watched her expression turn from awed to wary. "What about you? Would you do it?"
Shrugging again, I said, "It's worth a try. We can turn it off anytime we want."
"You're saying you wouldn't be embarrassed?"
"Ha. I'll be all over your naked gorgeousness like a happy puppy, ma'am. Sniffing and licking and soaking up everything about you like a sponge. There's no reason to think you'd find anything different inside my head while I'm doing it."
