Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (20 page)

“Well, two ways. Since your little
speech to our students aired, downloads of applications to this university have
soared. I’d like you to be a guest speaker at a few of our seminars to chum the
waters even more.”

“Sure. I’ll look at the course
listing over lunch,” Stu said.

“That’s the second thing, boy. A
man in your position can’t be seen with a girl in public. Catering will deliver
to your room. Ask for Javier. He knows the drill.”

“Position?” asked Joan.

“Stewart hasn’t told you? It’s all
over the web now. Your lady friend in Rome spilled the beans when the media
caught her doing her pre-wedding shopping. Though I must admit, if you’re going
to take the plunge, marrying one of the richest girls on the planet is the
right move. Not a bad looker either. From her reputation, she’s probably even
modern enough to allow a few indiscretions on the side from time to time.”

Stu couldn’t talk. Joan spoke for
him. “Who?”

“Miss Zeiss, of course. The press
is calling it a fairytale romance, her saving you from the death penalty and
all. She’s even having that operation at a clinic in Rio so she can wear white
at the ceremony. Is she thinking about becoming a student here, too? That would
be a real coup. Since she’s practically family, I’ve extended an invitation. The
press will be even more eager to take video of you now. Don’t be surprised if
someone sneaks in here with a camera.”

Joan hooted and snorted more with
each successive statement. Tears of amusement formed in the corners of her
eyes.

Pale, Stu said, “I need clothes.”
And
to explain myself to Fiona.

Laura spent the morning
touring ancient Roman sites with her mother. Her knees ached from kneeling on
the hard wood of the Holy Stairs the day before, but thankfully she had no bruising.
Grant was off somewhere doing research.

When
Laura came back that afternoon, Oleander was packing for an emergency trip to
Rio. Oleander made a phone call, and someone high up in Fortune Enterprises
sent a private jet.

One
of the Johnny’s cousins offered Oleander a ride to the airport. Wanting a
moment alone with her, Laura said, “I’ll go with.”

On
the drive, they managed to lose most of the media-bot brigade in a tunnel. Mama
B, who sat beside Oleander, wanted to visit her injured granddaughter but didn’t
have a passport. Between last-minute phone calls and family good-byes, Laura
couldn’t squeeze a word in edgewise.

Laura
chatted nervously as she escorted the female astronaut to the Fortune corporate
hangar. “Do you think Stu is going to be upset?”

Oleander
stared sideways at her. “Not my biggest concern. Are you going to carry some of
this gear?”

“I
usually tip the cab drivers very well to do that for me. It’s not my fault
Grandfather froze all my accounts. Let me try plan B,” Laura said as she approached
an airport guard. She could ask men for simple favors in a dozen languages.
“Scusi.” In shopper’s Italian, she convinced the man to carry the bulk of the
bags.

Oleander
kept the bag with the sneak suit in her possession. Shaking her head, she said,
“Damn, you’re spoiled.”

Sure, spoiled people often get nasty threats from family in their morning
email.
Laura followed her out
onto the tarmac.
“Look, your flight doesn’t leave for quite a while.
Could we talk about Stu? He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Every
empath feels like that about him. As a woman of science, you’re probably
attracted to him because of his Ideal Planets Page. Physically, Stu takes after
his dad. I think you’re just a victim of a bunch of biological effects
combined.”

Laura
put a hand on Oleander’s arm. “Please. It could be more, and I have one hour to
convince him to give me another opportunity. What do I say? As someone who
helped raise him, you have to have some hint for me.”

“The
only thing Mercy ever whipped his butt for was lying. In space, not knowing the
truth can get your whole ship killed. If you want a chance, tell him everything
before someone else does.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?”

“Ask
Grant. Guard him until he gets his passport and can meet up with the rest of
us.” Oleander turned to ascend the staircase up to the plane.

“Hey,
come back here,” Laura demanded.

Armored
bodyguards stepped in front of Laura to prevent her from following Oleander.
“Sorry, ma’am, your access has been revoked. We’ve been warned you may try to
sabotage company property.”

Defeated,
Laura slunk back to the curb. The Bartiluccis were gone. She had told them not
to wait, as her talk with Oleander could have taken hours. With few euro notes
in her pocket, Laura had to take the train back to the central terminal,
Termini, at rush hour. Being in the crowded underground was like being caught
in rapids during flood season. The noise of the commuters competed with the
roar of the trains and the ads overhead. She saw the same Viagra ad three times
before her line advanced far enough for her to squeeze onto the next car. She
had to ride the Metro seven stops and walk thirty minutes in heels.

She
was drenched in sweat by the time she returned to Mama B’s doorstep, where the
multitude of media drones reacquired her.

An
excited Grant burst outside to greet her. “Where have you been? We have an
interview for the … thing in twenty minutes near Termini.” He couldn’t mention
the semolina crisis where news drones could eavesdrop. That could be fatal.

“Funny,”
Laura said, thinking another phrase beginning with f u. “I was just there.
Could you go without me? I need to put my feet up and drink a gallon of water.”

Grant
muttered, “I told them you were too much of a princess.”

Piqued,
Laura flicked him on the nose the way Nana had often done to punish her for
stupid comments.

“Ouch.
What the—?”

“Let
me kiss my mother, change into work sneakers, and grab a drink. Call the cab. I
should be ready by the time it gets here.”

Her
mother was staring at a momentum toy in the dining room as its steel balls on
strings clacked back and forth like pendulums. Kaguya was camped beside a plate
of dinner she had prepared for Laura.

“Hi,”
Laura said, trying to wake Computing Beauty.

“Action
and reaction, it’s getting more extreme,” her mother mumbled ominously. Then
she seemed to see the rest of the room, and her face brightened. “I helped with
dinner.”

The
spaghetti with massive meatballs on her plate smelled delicious. The bread,
however, had been tortured, burned, and mangled. Laura forced a smile and
shoved a big bite of the awful bread into her mouth. She had to immediately
chase it with cheap red wine. “You used garlic salt, not real garlic, didn’t
you?”

“Yes.
Mama B didn’t approve. What do you think?”

“If
I don’t try her meatballs and tell everyone they’re better than your cooking,
our hostess might be offended.”

“You’re
probably right.”

Laura
wolfed down what she could and wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Everything
has been going sideways this week.”

“That’s
because your emotions aren’t in sync with your actions,” Kaguya said.

My mother, the Zen master. Oops, just lost Obiwan to a TV.
Laura left her mother to zone out to a news feed
while she walked into the kitchen.

There
was no water in the refrigerator, so Laura stuffed a couple bottles of Orangina
soda into her new purse. She could use one of the empty bottles at a public
fountain to refill.
Is this what it’s like to be poor? Planning where to get
your next drink of water?
When she returned to the front steps, Grant was
waiting in a driverless cab with a smiley face on the front. Someone had drawn
a cartoon of Mario from the old racing game on the windshield in the position
where a human driver would sit in a real car.

Once
inside the soundproof passenger space, Laura whispered, “Mother hinted that
this might be dangerous.”

“Nah.”
Grant scribbled notes on a map of the city from a home computer printer. “We’ll
be in the military police complex by the medical university. No one would hit
me someplace so public.”

“Well,
our worries will be over soon. We can be out of here and back to the team by
tomorrow.”

Grant
gazed out the window at the passing hotels and shops. “I don’t know. I seem to
have lost my taste for the show. We don’t seem to be making a difference. As
you pointed out, I could stay here and earn a Pulitzer with this story. People
need to know the truth.”

“What
is truth?” Laura quoted Pontius Pilate.
If you answer that question in a
politically embarrassing way, the people in charge reserve the right to crucify
you.
Worried, she asked, “Did you research anything on the Bartiluccis’
unsecured home computer?”

“No.
From there I bought us two-day unlimited Metro passes. We can pick them up on
the way home.”

“How
considerate.” Laura forced a diplomatic smile and swigged down more cold orange
soda.
Maybe you could have mentioned that before I waited in line twenty
minutes to buy tickets with the last of my cash.
“So Oleander said I need
to come clean to Stu before someone else does it for me. Happen to know what
she’s talking about?”

“Uh-oh.”
He glanced out the door, as if gauging to see if the cab was moving slowly
enough to jump.

She
placed an arm around his shoulder. “Talk.”

“I
don’t know if you’re mature enough to handle this discussion.”

“I
endured the groping of a large-animal vet to bust you out of that Saudi
compound. Do you know where those hands had been minutes before he fondled my
breast? Two words: elephant constipation.” She squeezed his neck painfully for
emphasis.

“Okay.
I started the project before you rescued me. Everybody on the team goes through
the ritual. You’d know that if you ever watched the show.”

“What
do you mean? I watch all the time.”

“Then
you know that every huntress is subject to extreme public scrutiny. To protect
the show, I research the skeletons in each cast member’s closet and expose them
to the light.”

She
recalled a few juicy spots about Artemis and then made the connection. “Oh,
God. You’re doing a special about me?”

He
unwrapped her arm and kept his right hand on the door release. “It’s better for
everyone like this. We tell both sides in a balanced way. It inoculates you and
the show against any future smear campaign with the same accusations.”

“W-which
scandals?” Laura asked.

Grant
listed several, and she began to hyperventilate. “Impossible,” she said. “Where
are you getting your information? The company has net searches that
automatically squash anything negative.”

“Someone
called Bouryoku leaked the information to me, including film clips.” The
Japanese nickname meant brutal or excessive force.

I can’t feel my face.
She
whimpered and put her head between her knees. The spaghetti churned in her gut.
She ordered the cab to pull over in case she had to throw up. “My grandfather’s
fix-it man?
He
sent them?” That meant that old man Mori had been
collecting dirt on her for years.

“Yeah.
Hoo
. That table dance you did for those university researchers in the
Caymans. Man. You are going to get offers off the hook.”

The
cab was too confining. She had to climb out and kneel on the warm bricks. She
fought to hold the nausea inside.
I will not cry in front of the monster
who’s doing this to me. I will not give him the satisfaction.

Grant
whispered, “This is a good thing. I used it to get three of Bouryoku’s private
IP addresses. Then I cross-referenced those against all traffic to the people
involved with the semolina crisis. I have three hits—proof. This is our smoking
gun. Grandpa’s plumber rigged the crisis.”

“Don’t
you dare try to be nice to me, you bastard!” She pulled away from him and
strode down the brick sidewalk toward Termini.

“We’ll
walk from here.” He paid the cab and followed her. “This is good. Now I can
hear your point of view.” He activated his brand new floating recorder and
peppered her with invasive and painfully personal questions.

“What
right do you have to ask me that?”

“Pretend
the camera is Stewart. Practice explaining it to him.” She would be spilling
her deepest secrets to all of them on a public street. Soon enough, millions
would be watching in their homes.

Mascara
ran down her cheek as she clinically related each violation. If Testsuo Mori
was going to pull out the stops, she would too. She relayed her grandfather’s
instructions and incentives. Since she had been a minor in all but one of the
incidents, she wouldn’t be held responsible. After explaining how she seduced
the prosecutor for the LA grand jury, though, Laura knew she would never be
allowed near a courtroom again.

“And
Mori forced you to do this, too?”

“No,”
she admitted. “I did it to save Stu’s life.”

“Why?
You’d just met him.”

She
took a shuddering breath. “That’s just it. I touched his mind, and he was more
decent than anyone else I’d known. Grandfather wanted him dead afterwards, so
no one else could have access to the secrets. For that reason alone, I wanted
Stu to survive.”

Grant
handed her a tissue as they approached the door to the train station. He
clicked a button on his drone. “Your interview is uploaded and ready for edit.
Step into the ladies’ room here, and do whatever it is you girls do to pull
yourself together. We’ll still be on time for the meeting.”

“I’ll
pick up the tickets and meet you at the office.” At the moment, she couldn’t
stand to be near the man who had demanded details about her every flaw. “Can
you do the meeting yourself?”

“Sure.
All we need there is proof that the calculation tables for that year’s crop
planting came from Arlo Venturi, a programmer who retired to the posh lake
district a few months later.”

“Why
is that such a big deal?” Laura asked with a sniff.

“Farmers
all over Europe made their planting decisions based on that faulty data. If we
can show it wasn’t an accident, we have proof of conspiracy. I’ll be twenty
minutes or so.”

They
parted ways.