Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc (33 page)

I laughed. “That only means that whatever they found wouldn't interfere with getting the job done. They're like that at 3rd World."

She nodded and said, “Glad to hear it. Tell me something, Ed. In the office, you raved about Stephanie's figure, but when I caught you looking at my legs a while ago, you only apologized. I was wondering why?"

Whoops! Shields up! Trick questions ahead!

"You want a straight answer, no games or bullshit, right?"

Barbara's gaze narrowed slightly as she said, “Yes, a straight answer would be nice."

I glanced at Steph and said, “We know you're a lesbian, Barb. I thought you might be offended if I said anything about your legs, even as nice as they are."

She looked pretty startled. Actually, she was kind of pretty, anyway.

"But ... But I only told Linda just this morning. How did you know?"

Uh, oh. Quick. Find an answer that works without involving Linda.

"Remember when you met Steph in your office, Barbara? Your pupils widened the way mens’ pupils widen when they see her. Instant appreciation and desire."

Barb peered at me sharply and asked, “You're serious?"

"Tell me I'm wrong, ma'am. You don't look at me that way, you didn't look that way at any man today, and I'll bet money that you took a good, long look at Linda."

She gaped at me for a moment, then said, “I ... Yes, well, I think I'll invest in some sunglasses very soon. Thank you for telling me. And thanks for ... Well, just thanks, okay? I'm an MD. I should have realized..."

"Doctors frequently forget that they're human, too. No sweat."

Barbara gave a startled little snort of a chuckle and asked, “Oh, you think you know about doctors, too?"

"Sure. Used to be an Army medic. I met lots of doctors back then. They all tended to be humble servant types or egomaniacs. The men, anyway. There weren't many women doctors where I was."

"Where was that?"

"War zones. And when women did show up around a base, the officers grabbed ‘em as soon as they got there."

"I know what you mean,” she said, “I was in the Army, too. As a doctor
and
a woman."

"Yeah, I know. I scanned your basic info on the way to your office."

She didn't seem thrilled by that revelation.

"Tell you what,” I said, “I'll trade you. You can read some of mine on the way in. Steph, how about putting the stuff she's classed for on a screen?"

Steph already had a screen in the air near us when Barbara said, “No, that won't be necessary, Ed. I know it was just part of the recruiting job."

"Rats,” I said. “You're missing a chance to be really impressed, lady. You sure you don't want just a quick peek?"

Barb laughed and shook her head. “Maybe another time. Ed, why is it you seem to make me laugh so often?"

"Truth again?” I asked. “No bullshit?"

She sighed and said, “Sure. No bullshit. Go ahead."

"I like pleasing women. It feels good."

Barbara blinked at me once and seemed to step back a pace inside herself without moving or changing her expression.

"Relax,” I said. “That wasn't a pass, Dr. Legs."

"You read minds, too?"

"No, he doesn't,” said Steph.

"Sure he does,” I said. “Body language, anyway. Whatever works, I say. Just don't get spooky on me, okay, Barbara? You asked and I told you and we can leave it at that. Recognize those buildings down there?"

I pointed down and ahead of us.

"The campus!” she blurted.

"Yup. Want off at your office or at your car?"

"I called in earlier, but I should probably check in, too. Joey will be in a panic."

"Yeah, he seemed capable of that. Want me to come in with you in case anybody gives you a hard time about being late by a few hours?"

She looked at me for a moment, then said, “Actually, yes, since I can't conveniently tell them where I've been all day. Come in for a coffee, both of you. And maybe you could leave this flitter parked right outside the front doors?"

Steph said, “No problem. If it's a no-parking zone, I'll make the flitter hover ten feet off the ground."

"Fifteen, Steph. They have a basketball team here. Make ‘em work for it."

Barbara grinned at me and said, “You weren't kidding, were you?"

I shrugged. “Nope. Gimme a giggle and I'm set for a while."

She giggled, then said she couldn't remember the last time she'd done that. As we entered the building, I suggested that Steph make herself only semi-tangible so the guard would have trouble pinning a badge on her. Barbara rolled her eyes and shook her head, then led the way to the guard station. The guard clipped a visitor's badge on each of us, even though Steph didn't have any ID to show him.

He said, “She's with you, Dr. Breen. That's good enough, but you're responsible for her."

Barbara thanked him and led us to her office. The door was locked, so she used her key to let us in. Ol’ Joey was asleep with his head on his desk. When the door closed and latched, his head came up quickly and he tried to focus on us.

Apparently Steph and I registered before Barbara's raised hands and “Hello, Joey,” greeting. Joey screeched like a schoolgirl and almost fell over trying to get out of his chair. I readied my stunner on general principles, but Barb calmed him enough after a few moments that he was able to relate the day's events in the office.

"Joey,” she said, “You have to look for another job, sweetie. I'll give you a good reference and talk to some people for you, but I'm leaving in a few weeks."

Joey's hysterical reaction to that news caused me to give him a quarter stun to quiet him. He seemed almost like a normal person as they discussed his immediate future. When something she said made him start toward hysteria again, I zapped him again lightly. A few minutes later, he was calmly heading out of the office with a calm that would last maybe fifteen minutes or so.

"I think I'd like one of those things,” said Barbara. “It would be a great classroom tool."

I said, “Unless you want to be here when he comes screaming back down the hall in fifteen minutes, you might want to grab your stuff and get moving. If you aren't here, he'll have all night to think about things."

"Good point,” she said. “I'll fax these things to Linda when I get home."

She grabbed some papers and books and tossed them into a briefcase and a cloth bag, then led us out of there. The guard made some mildly-amazed comment about Joey as we passed. It seemed that he'd never seen Joey so composed. He even wondered aloud if Joey was maybe on tranquilizers. Barb said she didn't think so as we turned in our badges, but the guard still seemed dubious.

If someone can park close to a building on a campus, they're usually a somebody on that campus. Barbara's car was only a few slots from the end on the first row. That, to me, meant that she was giving up something at the college in order to join 3rd World. I was somewhat impressed that she'd been able to make the decision during her discussion with Linda that morning, but then I remembered that 3rd World Products, Inc. has a tendency to pay people very well, indeed, and not just in dollars per month.

Barbara hesitated before getting into her car, then she surprised me completely with a hug instead of a handshake.

"Thanks,” she said. “It was the kind of day I'll remember forever. We don't get enough of the good kinds of days like that, and this was one of those."

"Anytime,” I said. “Linda has my number."

"I probably won't risk it,” said Barb. “I've been pretty happy as a lesbian."

I gave her a
'one that got away'
snap of the fingers and looked disappointed. She chuckled skeptically and got in her car. Just to tweak her a little, I locked my eyes on her legs as she got into the car and said, “Great legs, Doc."

She gave me an odd look, then a grin, and said, “Uh, huh. Thanks, Ed. Bye."

Ten minutes or so later Steph and I were descending toward my house in Spring Hill. Another fifteen minutes passed before I had a fresh coffee, Monday's mail, a seat on the couch, and Tiger on my lap. About the time I was trashing the last high-interest home loan offer with a local car lot's offer to give me
'$4000 in trade, no matter what I currently drove'
, Steph fielded a call from Linda and patched it into my implant.

"Hi, Linda. Is the sailor running for the hills yet? I told him a few things about you."

"No, he isn't, and I've told him a few things about you, too. He's currently rooting through your file, in fact."

"Damn. I'll have to remind him not to salute, now."

Linda said, “Sure, mister. I'd pay to see that happen. Well, Ed, you just received a glowing review from a confirmed lesbian. That's something that a man can almost take to a bank, you know. I think I may actually be impressed."

"Just impressed? Not jealous? Rats. Oh, well, you
ordered
me to behave myself, ma'am. I guess I owe it all to you."

"Yeah, right. Here's an update on One Earth, Ed; the cops and a big bunch of feds in Grand Forks
think
they've found a warehouse where the virus has been manufactured. They're ramping up for a raid."

"Kewl. Estimated casualties if the virus is still there and it gets loose?"

She sighed. “Based on the sample Stephie retrieved, we're guessing big numbers, Ed.
Big
numbers. Containment could be a big problem, too, especially if the place is rigged to blow, and the cops seem to think it could be."

"What do we know about the virus, Linda?"

"It kills in about four hours, Ed. It's an Ebola mutation."

"How the hell does anyone know it kills in four hours? We haven't had the sample that long ... Oh, hell, that's just some lab rat's best guess, right?"

"Right, but a guess backed by some tests."

"Fast or slow, same ending. How big a building is it, Linda?"

"It isn't the whole building that we're concerned with,” she said, “Just the Western corner of the top floor. We
think.
Actually,
they
think. I'm not trusting the intel on this one, Ed. It's all hearsay. Nobody has anyone solid on the inside."

"I need to know how big an area we're talking about, Linda."

Puzzlement was strong in her voice. “Why, Ed?"

"Just a minute and I'll tell you what I've got in mind. Steph and Elkor, at normal air pressure, how much area can our diving field handle?"

Linda asked, “
Diving
field? Oh, hell. Why not? There's one for everything else."

Elkor said, “Presuming that you wish to contain and eliminate nothing larger than a virus in an urban environment and using reference measurements that will be immediately understandable by all persons involved, my field could safely contain up to four city blocks, Ed. That would include all buildings of four stories or less in height."

"Wow. Damn fine. Thanks, Elkor. Did you patch that info to Linda?"

Linda said, “He did, Ed. Wow, indeed. What the
hell
have you people been doing that requires a field this size?"

"It isn't quite that big when it's at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The water scrunches it down some."

"I suppose it would. Still, that's a hell of a field, isn't it?"

"Just like Elkor's flitters. Better than they have to be. I can zip in and set the generator up on top of the warehouse. We can shape the field a bit and enclose only that building. Sound good so far?"

"It sounds wonderful! Will it stop people, too, or just germs?"

I asked, “Elkor? What about that?"

"No, Ed. At that density, it will stop only the virus and atmospheric exchange. It wouldn't contain an explosion of any magnitude or stop people from escaping the area, but it would hinder their motions greatly and at a base thickness of twelve feet, there would be some danger of suffocation while they were passing through the field."

"The cops can drag them out if necessary.
How
greatly would it hinder their motions, Elkor? I'm trying to figure out something."

He gave me a field density measurement that didn't mean a damned thing to me. I asked for clarification using consistencies that I'd recognize. We came up with a resistance similar to slogging through chest-deep water, and maybe a little worse than that. Linda asked if my personal field would be effective against a virus and Elkor reassured her that it would be.

Linda asked, “What's a delivery time on your generator, Elkor? How soon can it be in Grand Forks?"

"That information, in conjunction with other such data, could compromise my location. Instead, you must tell me when to deliver the generator to Grand Forks or to coordinate with Ed and Stephanie."

"Sorry, I forgot about the hidden location thing. Okay, Elkor. Ed, you coordinate things. How soon?"

I asked, “Steph, how far is Grand Forks, to the nearest hundred miles?"

"Eighteen hundred and twenty-six miles, Ed. That's as imprecise as I care to be."

I said, “Eighteen hundred miles is about half an hour at max warp, Linda. I want to grab a couple of things on the way, so make it about an hour. That gives you time to warn the locals, too.
Don't
trust to their common sense or procedures and tell them to stay the hell off their phones and radios about all this. No cell phones, either."

In a cool tone, Linda asked, “Are you giving the orders now?"

"I'm going in with the hardware and I'm a quiet ops type to the core, ma'am. My five suit's tuned to me, so I can't lend it out. We do it my way or someone else goes on the roof some other way. Who else can you afford to risk?"

"Don't talk like that, damn it. Are the
'couple of things'
you mentioned going to obviate the need for a search warrant?"

"Damn, you're smart, lady. I should have married you before you met that brass-hat sailor. Tell the fire department to wait for word that there's a barbeque grill out of control on the roof of the warehouse. If somebody
happens
to have a bear in the air at the time, the chopper can spot the fire and call it in. There will also be shots fired, if you bring me an untraceable pistol. Oh, yeah, and just to make things look right to the press later, get me some burgers, dogs, buns, and stuff like that to drop with the grill. Charcoal and fluid, too. You're a lot closer than I am, so you'll have time to stop somewhere for that stuff. We'll make it look as if one of their own blew their cover with a cooking accident. If we're wrong about the place, we can just tell whomever not to allow cooking on the roof anymore."