SG: Rad #100 (2/5): Like

[Gary W. Olson]

(continued from part one, preceding...)

                                 ***

     "--and it's completely dark, so I had to fly slow," said Esteban
Veracruz, making a pushing motion with his hands that Rumi Moroboshi
guessed indicated the level of slowness he had achieved.  "There were
all these ferns scattered around, palm trees... and I think I saw a
fondue pot and some strawberries.  Then I got to the bridge."
     Of the people at the table, only Tom McCavish-Laffalot seemed to
be paying close attention to Esteban's story.  Three similar-looking
brown-haired and light-complected eleven-year olds--two boys in
sportcoats and dress clothes they seemed to find uncomfortable, and
one girl in a lime-colored dress she did not seem to care for--
occupied themselves with what seemed to Rumi to be texting and
screwing around on the web on their cell phones.  Dr. Laura McCavish-
Laffalot, a wiry, black-haired, fortyish woman in a lime green gown,
seemed to be dividing her attention between listing to Esteban, asking
questions of her children, eating pieces of her veal, getting her
children to eat and getting her husband to eat.  Coco, the metallic
bronze-gold bonobo, was seated next to Esteban and seemed more
interested in who else was around.
     When Rumi landed near the table, Coco grinned, leapt from his
chair and flew to her.  She caught him and swung him around a couple
times.
     *Can you still hear me?* Rumi thought.  Again, as with Cendra,
she could not 'send' the thought, but let its sound play in her head.
     *Yes yes,* Coco replied, his telepathic voice still sounding as
if it belonged to a spaced-out pre-adolescent.  *Adventure tales are
being told.  Food is being consumed.  Triplets are being bored.  Where
have you been?*
     *Just got here,* Rumi thought back, which was technically true.
*Where can I sit?*
     *On your butt,* Coco thought, then widened his grin.  Rumi, who
had heard that and variations on that numerous times before,
particularly from her dad, gave a tolerant smile in return.  Esteban
looked up and saw her.
     "Oh, hey, Rumi!" he exclaimed.  "You made it!"
     Rumi sat in the chair previously occupied by Coco, while Coco
floated off in the direction of the bar.  "Cendra just gave me a short
run-down of what you saw in the ship last night.  How badly is it
damaged?"
     "Not as bad as you'd think," said Esteban, whose red dress shirt
and black slacks looked as if they had been purchased off the rack
that day.  "The deck and the inner quarters are pretty much intact.
The engines are a mess--I don't see how it'll ever fly again, or even
generate internal power--but the rest of the damage seems pretty
light."
     "It'll be quite a while before it can be fully evaluated," said
Tom.  "I was out there this morning with Karina, Guido, and the cows."
He tilted his head to indicate Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle, whose
negotiations with the bartender had evidently been successful, judging
from how they seemed to be enjoying--via straws--the bubbling orange
and chartreuse drinks before them.  "Bhossi seems to think internal
power might be restorable, to a limited extent.  Cla'rabhelle says
there's no way it can project a strong-enough aetheric field."
     "They were out in public?" Rumi asked.
     "Amazing, isn't it," said Laura.  "I was on staff with Harxxon in
Egypt at the time they were found in the tunnels beneath Giza.
Chalandra brought me in to examine them.  They were scared out of
their minds by what they'd gone through--an escape from Mu, out of the
aetheric dimension altogether, into the underground highways that I'm
now told link a bunch of subterranean civilizations... and now look at
'em."
     "They were staying out of sight to keep Capella and the Hidden
Empire from finding them," Esteban said.  "Now that they've been ou...
um... now that they know they're here, they feel like they don't have
to hide so much."
     He glanced at Rumi as he finished.  Rumi gave him a look she
hoped was sympathetic.
     "I wonder where... oh, hey, there's Eivandt!" Tom noted.  "Excuse
me, dear," he said to his wife, "I wanted to go ask him something."
     "Sure," Laura responded, giving him a quick kiss as he got up.
She then looked at Esteban and Rumi, started to say something, then
was interrupted when blorting sounds came from one of her boys's cell
phones.
     *How are you doing?* Rumi thought, while Laura was distracted.
Esteban did not respond, so Rumi thought it again, this time
attempting to push the thought out more, as she imagined telepaths
did.  This time, Esteban caught it.
     *Okay,* he thought.  *Cendra thinks I ought to just tell everyone
and get it over with.  She thinks Miguel will... she thinks he'll
surprise me.*
     *If anyone should know...*
     *It'd be me,* Esteban replied.  *I lived with him for a lot
longer than she has.  He listened to everything dad said, growing
up... got pretty good at repeating it, too.  He got approval for it.
I tried, but somehow, I think dad could tell I was faking.  Which only
made me try more.*
     *What about your mom?*
     *She was gone,* Esteban answered.  He looked up at her, eyebrows
raised.  A pleading look.
     Rumi thought of what Cendra had said--her implication that
getting answers out of Esteban would be difficult.  She wondered if
the real problem was not something else--Cendra's newness in his life,
plus her access--accidental or not--to thoughts he intended to stay
hidden.
     If that was the case, Rumi thought, what chance had she, who had
been in his life for maybe a day?
     "Hey, that guy talking to Uncle Templar," she said, aloud,
deliberately changing the subject.  "Isn't he... um... that guy?"
     Esteban, seeming relieved, looked over to the bar.  He considered
the grizzled and cheaply-suited man across from Templar Maccabee, who
was talking with Templar while his hands flitted here and there.  At a
guess, Rumi would have said he was telling a story involving either
driving on the freeway or choreographing inebriated bears.  Possibly
both.
     "That's... um..." Esteban started.
     "That's the Producer, Este," said a voice from behind Rumi.  "Or
was, back in the nineties.  Man, and I thought Mickey Rourke aged
badly."
     "Lem!" Esteban exclaimed, standing so fast he knocked his chair
over.  He rushed to Lemon Rydell, raising his arms.  He then twitched,
skidded to a stop, and brought his arms down, ending with one hand
out, palm flat.  Lemon slapped it and grinned.
     Rumi remembered seeing Esteban greet Lemon once before--forcibly
contain himself then, as well.  Even now, knowing the context, she
thought it strange.
     "Hey, Lemon," said Rumi, though she did not get up.
     The blond fifteen-year-old was wearing a full white tuxedo, well-
tailored to his lithe form.  Rumi wondered where he had gotten it on
such short notice.
     As if guessing her question, Lemon looked down at his suit.
"Riot, isn't it?  Dad had me out to a shop just today, and they got it
done just in time.  Tried telling him the dress code wasn't this
formal, but... okay, I didn't try *that* hard.  Esteban."
     Esteban relaxed the exaggerated look of skepticism he had
directed at Lemon, grinned, and resumed his seat.  Lemon remained
standing.
     "I'd love to chat," he said, "but I've got to see if I can get
the bartender to make me a martini."
     With that, he was off... but not far.  His head jerked back, and
his feet nearly flew out from under him.  After regaining his balance,
he turned and glared at someone behind Rumi.
     Rumi thought she could guess this one.  "Hi, Aunt Shadebeam," she
said without turning.
     "Hi, yourself, squirt," said Shadebeam Moroboshi.  "Sit your butt
down, Mister Rydell.  I promised your dad I'd keep you on a leash
until I got you back to Malaga and your mom, and I'm gonna do just
that."
     Lemon sighed, then dashed to take an open seat.  One of the
McCavish-Laffalot offspring--he of the still-blorting cell phone--was
in the seat to Esteban's right, and Rumi was at Esteban's left, so
Lemon took the seat to Rumi's left.
     "I always thought wearing a collar was supposed to be kinky,"
said Lemon, with his characteristic--i.e. nonexistent--restraint.
"Turns out it's just annoying."  He grinned, showing anything but
vexation.
     "Told you," said Shadebeam, as she took her seat.  "The spell was
not cast with your comfort in mind."  Her gold evening dress, while
not as insistently formfitting as Key's and Yury's, was nevertheless
slinky enough for an evening's adventuring.  "You're lucky your dad
was so understanding."
     "He likes you," Lemon replied.  "He says you smell like--"
     "Nip it, smart boy," Shadebeam interrupted.  Lemon, reluctantly,
nipped it.  "How you doing, guys?  You look none the worse for wear.
Unlike this one."
     "Doc says my arm's okay," Lemon said.  "Wasn't as bad as it
looked."
     "Same with me," Rumi replied.  "Just some nasty scratches."
     "Hmmm," hmmmd Lemon, as he ran his fingers along an arc of air
that Rumi guessed contained his invisible tether.  "Crackly."
     "All I needed," noted Shadebeam, "besides the words, was a few
ounces of wolfsbane, a dash of knotweed, and a picture of Bettie Page.
Got the theoretical workup for the spell in trade from a mage named
Anna Martel, at Burning M00se.  Same year I accidentally gestalted
with Eddy Izzard and a llama."  She sighed, then smiled.  "*Man,* that
was a good year."
     "Where's Slithis?" Esteban asked.
     "Should be... um... right, there he is."  Shadebeam pointed
toward a large knot of people on the other side of the restaurant.
Rumi saw a bit of movement beyond them, and a few flashes of light
that could have been the shifting magic-derived light coming from
Slithis's scales.  "Showing off again, I'm sure.  "Always says he
doesn't like the attention, but just let some pretty young things come
up to him and say they read about him in one of David Icke's books and
he'd better not try shapeshifting to look like Dick Cheney."
     Rumi, who understood progressively less of that sentence as it
went on, just nodded.  She recognized someone who was standing next to
Slithis, watching with a sour expression.  "Is that Chief Mysanga?"
she asked, remembering the Hottentottian engineer she had been briefly
harassed by at Burning M00se.
     "The one," replied Shadebeam.  "He's got Roog on a leash there."
Rumi looked down at Mysanga's feet and saw the pomeranian-sized
slavering hellbeast spin around and make yappy 'Tek!' noises at anyone
and everyone.  "What?" Shadebeam asked.  "I couldn't get a sitter.
Besides, it looks like people have learned not to look at him for too
long."  She gestured to a couple ashen people who were staggering
toward the bar.  "They should just be glad I didn't bring Mike
Polinski, too."
     "Would have been interesting," said Rumi.  "Up here, I mean."
     "Aaanyway," Shadebeam went on, "Lemon's not going to be able to
attend your post-party party, Esteban."
     Esteban's face fell.  Lemon glanced at Esteban, then gave
Shadebeam his best 'I'll be good' look.  Rumi wondered if his face
would get stuck like that if he held it that way too long.
     "Not in my hands," said Shadebeam.  "I can't stay all night...
well, I could, as I won't go slobbering coocoo for cocoa puffs due to
being away from Malaga right away.  But they're hooking the tesla
coils up to the Escher-tron tonight, and if I'm not supervising,
Burning M00se might turn into a mobius strip.  Again.  Also, I
promised your dad."
     "What post-party party?" Rumi asked.
     "Cendra's folks are hosting it," said Esteban, perking up a bit
as he told her.  "Not really a party, as such.  Me, Cendra, and Miguel
are going to be there, since we're crashing there for the unspecified
future.  A few others might come by for the dancing and the beer.
Um... what about you?"
     "I'd like to," she told him.  "Have to ask my folks, though."
     "Hey, Miss Moroboshi," Lemon said, "can we roam around a bit?
How much slack...?"
     "It has enough," Shadebeam replied.  "Right, go on.  The tether
should float over the other guests, so you won't have to worry about
getting it tangled.  Just don't try to leave this place... I'll
retract you back so fast you'll look like a pinball."
     "Cool!" Lemon exclaimed, his eyes lighting up.
     "You'd probably break things," Esteban noted.
     "Cool!"
     "Things inside you."
     "Co... oh."  Lemon frowned.  "Right.  That's bad."  He shook his
head, as if to clear it, then stood so fast his chair fell over.
"Let's see who's here!"
     Esteban and Rumi got up in time to take off after Lemon, who
plunged into the crowd with a whoop.  Rumi thought, as she flew, she
heard Shadebeam slap her palm to her forehead.

                                 ***

     The descent of the freight elevator was of much shorter duration
than that of the last ascent of the last elevator he had been on.
Barely a minute.  The Programmer estimated it stopped no more than
half a mile below the Earth's surface.  It was at that point he
wondered why he had been so keen to make the estimate in the first
place.
     The elevator's other bipedal occupant, Erasmus Fancy, did not
seem concerned about how far down they were going.  It was hard to
determine what he *did* seem--his gorilla-sized bonobo's body was
cloaked in a long brown trenchcoat, and his face obscured by the
shadow created by his wide-brimmed hat.  The Programmer thought of
asking, then decided against it.  If he held any hope of making it
back to the subterranean world he had glimpsed, let alone of
conquering it through his programming might, he would need Fancy's
assistance... and the allies he promised.
     Just getting the story of how Fancy had escaped from the battle
of the night before, with The Programmer slung over his shoulder like
a sack of potatoes, had been difficult.  After having passed out for a
while, The Programmer had awoke in a police car being driven by a man
in a brown trenchcoat who identified himself as 'Detective Sanders.'
The Programmer had panicked for a bit before realizing that Erasmus
Fancy, who was also in the vehicle, was in the passenger seat and not
wearing cuffs.  He also appeared to be taking driving directions from
Fancy.
     The directions had been to The Programmer's apartment--a location
The Programmer was not surprised Fancy knew, given how Dana and Fancy
had been using him for so long.  Fancy gave him fifteen minutes to
pack a suitcase, a task for which The Programmer needed only six.
There was little of his former life as 'Gary W. Olson' he wanted to
keep.  His two tan-and-black cats, Bailey and Sage, were however among
them, and when he emerged from his apartment building with a suitcase
and two cat-filled pet carriers, 'Detective Sanders' had been
displeased.  To The Programmer's surprise, Fancy sided with him (The
Programmer), and Sanders reluctantly allowed the animals into his car.
     The car ride was short.  The following plane ride was longer.
The car ride that followed that was even longer, and went into a
barely-inhabited area of northern Montana.  It ended when they reached
what The Programmer thought was one of the most-boxy looking hills he
had ever seen.  It was as if someone had crash-landed a massive
starship, nose-first, then decided they could disguise it just by
painting it to look like the mountains that loomed not too far away.
     Sanders--'Field Agent Sanders,' as Fancy now called him--escorted
them into the 'hill,' where The Programmer saw his suspicions
confirmed.  The interior was an unlit collection of rooms and crudely-
cut corridors, in which they would have become lost were it not that
Sanders apparently knew where he was going.
     "Say 'hi' to Heather for me," said Sanders, as The Programmer
shifted his suitcase into the elevator revealed by Sanders's
flashlight.  After The Programmer got the pet carriers in, the
elevator doors closed, and that was the last they saw of Sanders.
     Now here they were, less than twenty-four hours out of one
underground base, right into another.  The Programmer wondered what he
would see when the doors opened.  A lab filled with bubbling liquids
and scientific abominations?  Gleaming corridors filled with faceless
armored battle-bots?  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's day care center?
     What was revealed was a stuffy and book-filled study.  Were it
not for the lack of windows, and the computer monitor on the corner
desk, The Programmer would have guessed that Peter Cushing was
somewhere around, poised to inform surprised authorities that he
suspected that vampires were at large in the area.  He (The
Programmer, that is, not Peter Cushing) set the pet carriers down on a
nearby leather couch, set his suitcase next to it, then flopped down
on the leather cushions.  Fancy remained standing.  The elevator doors
closed, and all was silent.
     But not for long.  The room's only visible door--opposite the
elevator doors--opened, and two people emerged.  One was a tall,
elegant, and very pale woman with wispy long blonde hair and a sharp
demeanor.  The other was a sallow-complexioned old man in a wheelchair
that made *hmrrr-hmrrr* noises as it rolled him into the room.  Both
wore nearly identical black suits with white shirts and black ties.
     Bailey and Sage loudly hissed.  The man in the wheelchair
regarded the pet carriers with a look of singular distaste, before
apparently dismissing them from his regard.  The cats continued
hissing, until The Programmer turned their carriers around so they
could only see the back of the sofa.
     "Okay," said The Programmer, seeing as no one else was in an ice-
breaking mood.  "Which one of you is 'Heather?'"
     The woman raised an eyebrow.  "That would be me," she said.
"Secret Agent Heather Harlow.  I believe it was Field Agent Sanders
who brought you?"
     "Yeah.  He just said to say 'hi.'"
     "By any chance, did he pass along the fifty dollars he owes...
never mind.  Of course he didn't."
     As she spoke, The Programmer had an unaccountable feeling that
she looked familiar.  Like someone he might have seen on television,
long ago.
     "Where do I know you from?" he asked.
     Harlow's face grew immediately neutral.  "You don't," she
replied.  "I assure..."
     "I've got it," The Programmer interrupted.  "You were...
whatshername.  Mage-type.  Heck Kitty, or Her Kotty... Her Kooty?
No..."
     "Hecate," said Harlow, displeasure evident in her tone.  "Though
it has been a long time since I last used that name."
     "You were in the coverage from back when CalForce almost captured
Radian and Shadebeam," said The Programmer.  "Back in '94.  I've
studied everything I could find on CalForce, and this was part of it.
These two super-mages had captured Rad, and there was this exchange...
you were working for one of them."
     "I was compelled," Harlow icily replied.  "And, following the
battle, very beat up and suddenly bereft of my magical abilities.  But
I survived."  She looked to her left, at the old man in the
wheelchair.  "And thrived."
     "You may go, Agent," said the man.  His voice was rough and thin,
with sickly undertones.  "I wish to speak to our guests alone."
     Harlow hesitated, as if she wanted to argue.  She did not,
however, and left without a further word or look for anybody.  When
the door closed, the old man let out a sigh.
     "I am the Director," he said.  "Of the new and substantially
diminished Mega-Intelligence Bureau.  I imagine you must have many
questions."
     The statement, The Programmer observed, was directed at Erasmus
Fancy, who had remained silent through the earlier exchange.
     "Why 'secret' agent?" Fancy now asked.  "For that matter, why was
Dana a 'Secret Secret' agent, instead of a 'Special Special?'  It is
my understanding that 'Secret' and 'Secret Secret' were only used in
the official National Intelligence Bureau 'cover' credentials."
     "Times have changed," the Director replied, seeming unoffended by
Fancy's challenge.  "The N.I.B. cover was dismantled by the hearings
in '96--a fact Dana sometimes forgot in her dealings with official law
enforcement.  In this... reconstituted... Mega-Intelligence Bureau, we
have no official standing.  No line item on any budget, even the
'black budget' that we were part of from '52 to '96.  The use of
'Secret' over 'Special' is intended to remind us all of this fact."
     "Was Dana Wader really an agent of yours?" The Programmer asked.
     The Director regarded him as if he were an unmindful child.
"Yes," he answered, finally.  "When I found her... when I found her,
she had this resource.  This... ship of hers, that crash-landed here.
We're in it now.  What's left of it, anyway... modified to current
needs.  She had a crew, though its loyalty was suspect, and their
numbers dwindling.  And I... needed space.  To plan.  To gather the
pieces left over from all that had happened.  I made her an offer.
She accepted."
     "Even though she's a raving homicidal lunatic?"
     "Was she 'raving,' when she brought you in?" Fancy asked.
     "Um, no," replied The Programmer, thinking of how cool and
restrained Wader had seemed.
     "Through the years," said the Director, "I had opportunity to
refine her.  Give to her the discipline she lacked.  Indeed, during
the dark times of the Genocidal War, I could scarcely do anything
else.  Just huddle down here, wait, and work."  The old man paused,
and coughed.  "I was saddened to hear how swiftly her conditioning
unraveled under pressure."
     "I was told," said Fancy, "that she is being held in the latest
version of the so-called Really-Really-Hard-to-Get-Out-Of-Place--the
We're-Serious-This-is-a-Hard-to-Get-Out-Of-Place--pending her trial."
     "Hmm, yes," the Director answered.  "She is there.  I do not yet
know if I shall retrieve her.  Properly directed, she is a force to be
reckoned with, as you well know.  The problem is that direction, with
her, is difficult to achieve."
     "True," Fancy agreed.  "And speaking of direction... Director...
would you care to discuss your purpose in bringing us here?"
     The Director smiled.  His teeth were a noxious yellow, though
otherwise they seemed intact.  And sharp.
     "You're no fool, Fancy," he said.  "Why don't *you* tell *me* why
I had you brought here?  Instead of having you killed or whatever else
you might have expected."
     "Well, duh," The Programmer said.  "You had us brought here so
you could use my brilliance to re-create the work I did for Dana Wader
on the mind-control chips.  So you can, I dunno, do all kinds of
conspiracy voodoo on people.  Make them into assassins, or couriers,
or spies, or... I dunno, ninjas?  Can you do ninjas?  I can do
ninjas."
     The old man gave him another sour look.  But Fancy spoke before
he could.
     "That was the use that Dana Wader sought," said Fancy.  "One she
could understand, and work towards.  The true scope of the work is
larger.  To send through the nectarisite, and manipulate it through
our sendings... that was the goal I, and Capella, worked toward.  The
goal of our long efforts.  Which I believe that *you,* Mister
Director, already know."
     The Director waited.  The Programmer had a feeling he had been
waiting for this moment for quite a while.
     "You have brought me in," Fancy continued, "because you know who
I am and what I am truly capable of.  Moreso than anyone born in this
or the previous century ought.  Programmer..."
     The Programmer bit back his usual insistence on the definite
article.
     "Allow me to introduce the man who was once known as the Dweller
in the Shades, and the inspiration for the 'Dick Carter' dime novels.
My one-time mortal enemy... Richard Cartier."

(continued in part three, following...)
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson.  All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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