Silverfox 04
#4 of Silverfox
Silverfox 04
Silverfox awoke with a jerk. She couldn't remember his name.
She slithered from under him, which woke him up. "Good morning, babe," he yawned out. She mumbled a reply. She was always bad with names. She was already in an ugly mood because she hadn't had oral sex for almost forty hours and it didn't look like she'd be getting any this morning. He went for the bathroom. Her eyes narrowed. Strike two.
Silverfox started the coffee in the hotel room coffee maker, ears turned towards the bathroom, where he was using a cell phone.
"Yeah, Curt, I know," he said, his voice low. "The bitch is right in the next room. I can't talk louder."
Silverfox didn't mind being called a bitch in a respectful context. She doubted this qualified. She looked at the coffee pot thoughtfully, wondering about its aerodynamics.
"No, she doesn't drink from the toilet, asshole -- I'm in the toilet. Turn up your volume.... yeah, the one in the picture I sent. The piece of fox tail. Of course it's the one in the picture."
It? Picture? Silverfox thought, nonplussed. Her eyes narrowed and drifted in the direction of the bathroom.
"...Yeah, well you just say that because you've never had any. I'm telling you that synth ass is the best -- they're made for it... No, get your own. She's in town all week and fuck if I'm gonna share --"
Okay, enough. She took her Swiss Army knife out of the drawer and deftly popped the privacy lock on the door. He was sitting on the toilet, pants down around his ankles.
He looked up, "Huh?" he asked, perplexed, taken aback by this gratuitous intrusion of his privacy.
"The phone," she ordered, putting her hand out.
"No," he said, starting to frown. She stepped up and grabbed for the phone. He tried to resist, so she used her free hand to put pressure on his palm and the back of his hand. She turned the joints in his arm and wrist just the right way and pushed down.
As though by magic, he slipped off the toilet and sank slowly to his knees. It was an impressive immobilizing hold; the cop she learned it from advised using it in front of crowds, because it made you look like an utter badass. The phone dropped out of his hand and she caught it. His expression changed from peevish rage to fear.
She put the phone to her ear. "Hi, Curt?" she asked politely. "Your friend is leaving now. He's not good enough for a second date." She ended the call as laughter started coming through the speaker. She toggled through the pictures on his phone. If she were any judge, his buddies would be talking about this for weeks.
She wished she could remember his first name, "Guy," she said, forcing a book's worth of contempt into three letters, "you don't even have enough class for me." She was distracted by one of the pictures. "Ooo, that one's nice," she admitted, impressed.
"Thank you," he said, gasping when she gave him an extra little twist.
She looked down at him. "I'm sending these to a hacker friend of mine. If she finds these anywhere on the web, she will add you to a database of pedophiles, and then I will come back here to force you to eat your own spleen. I'm from the States and we kill people just to see 'em bleed. Got that?"
He was a lot bigger than she was, but he was also on his knees on the floor. That gave her a considerable amount of credibility. The funny thing was that if she told him about her week, he'd probably think she was making it up.
She added a bit of pressure. She knew it was a curious sensation; not exactly painful, but unpleasant in a way that was hard to describe, and frightening because of that.
"Got it," he gasped.
"Good," she said. She held him down until she finished deleting the pictures, and dropped the phone onto the tiles next to him. "You know where the door is."
She left the bathroom and poured herself some coffee.
"Can I have a cup of that?" he asked. A moment later, he left, wearing his cup.
It was too early to get to work, so she threw herself on the bed and turned on the video screen. _Pretty Magical Kitsune Princess Girl Doki Doki_ was playing, so Silverfox watched her kick Dragonfly Kingdom ass until her mood lifted. Then she got an email from Technofox asking who [email protected] was, why he had just sent Technofox eight naked pictures of Silverfox, and if she could keep #3.
It reminded Silverfox she was away from them, and it made her feel lonely. She called Technofox to explain instead of sending an email.
"So," Technofox said, "Twenty five centimeters of love?"
"I think that the US meter must be longer than the Canadian meter," Silverfox replied.
"I'm going to make a wild guess. You want me to add these pictures to the watch list?"
Silverfox squirmed. "If it's not a problem."
"Actually," Technofox replied, "it will be a problem if ICON figures out these were not taken in Blue Diamond."
"Thanks for the sympathy," Silverfox said in a leaden voice.
"That's what friends are for. Can I keep number three? It's sort of cute."
Silverfox nodded. "You can keep number three."
"By the way," Technofox said, "I was looking at the logs for our search agents. Did you send a request for a dossier on a female cougar chimera? A Golemtech Catamount, and I can't remember the model number?"
"Yes, she's going by Dawnstar. I met her at Womynfyre. I thought she was Tawny from Blue Diamond but her dossier didn't match up."
"Okay, thanks," Technofox said. "It's just that the agent log showed two different requests for the same dossier and I was afraid the input queue was stuttering again."
"Oh, did I do it wrong?" Silverfox asked.
"No, not at all -- you flagged it as low priority and only submitted the request once. It looks like Firefox did the same search later that day."
"Huh." That was funny. "Why did she do that?"
"Dunno. I guess she bumped into Dawnstar too. If Dawnstar looks that much like Tawny maybe she mistook her for Tawny as well."
"I could see that. Dawnstar is probably Tawny's clone sister or something -- I swear she looks and sounds just like her. Hell, she even drinks coffee black."
"...Really?" Technofox asked, puzzled. Jokes about cats and milk were pretty well founded in biology. Felid chimerae were, by and large, indifferent to sugar -- they couldn't even taste it -- but they craved animal fat. Typically, they liked a little coffee in their hot milk. But black coffee was a Blue Diamond thing.
"Yeah, it's kind of spooky." And it was more spooky when the talked about it. Dawnstar had little tics of body movement that Silverfox recognized from Tawny, the sort of thing chimerae developed in the real world. Even the smirking contempt in the phrase "She-Shamyn" had seemed like a "Tawny" thing to do.
"It's sort of weird for two clones to look that much alike," Technofox said. "Usually environment overcomes genetics. Especially in the way they act. It's one thing if you're looking at pictures, but to sit and talk to them...."
"Yeah," Silverfox agreed, nodding. "I think we might want to keep an eye on Dawnstar, anyway."
That took Technofox by surprise. "What for?"
"Dawnstar is a mystic she-shamyn. Spelled with a 'Y'."
Technofox hesitated, and started laughing. "Oh, no -- is that the poster with the cougar girl in the desert? Advertising a book called 'The Path?'"
"You saw it?" Silverfox was impressed. There were lots of posters all over Boston; she was surprised this one had registered with Technofox.
"The one with an Inuit inukshuk, a Haida Raven mask, and an Iroquois Bent Face mask in a desert?" Technofox laughed.
"...Might be," Silverfox guessed, wondering what an 'inukshuk' was. In a conversation with Tech, she was lucky if she knew two nouns out of three.
"That poster's like someone blew up the Museum of the American Indian, and added a cougar babe," Technofox chortled. "Remember Doug? This is exactly what he was talking about."
Douglas Bravelad was an ICON op who had been in Boston for a few days a couple of months ago. "Yeah, I remember. But I'm kind of worried that her ethics are about as good as her anthropology," Silverfox said.
"Is this a problem?" Technofox asked.
It was embarrassing to say it out loud. "The She-Knights of Lesbos seem to think she's some sort of ascended being."
Technofox snorted. "Well, that's her karma." Silverfox could imagine Technofox shrugging. This would be a hard sell. Janet was Silverfox's friend, not Tech's.
"If I believed in divine justice I'd work in Denny's," Silverfox replied.
Technofox was quiet for a moment.
"C'mon," Silverfox said. "I'm worried about them."
"Well, okay," Technofox said finally, without much enthusiasm. Silverfox closed her eyes. Foxforce had already done some pro bono work for Womynfyre, when the store was being repeatedly vandalized and the police weren't stepping up to the plate. It had been a slack time and Foxforce was only too glad to pitch in for something like that.
But confidence tricksters, especially spiritual confidence tricksters, were another matter entirely. There was only so much you could do to protect someone else from their own stupidity.
"Thanks, Tech," Silverfox said, feeling awful because she knew she was dumping her problems on Foxforce again. And doing it for people who didn't much like her family, and who probably wouldn't appreciate it.
"I swear that hooking up with you was the smartest thing Janet ever did," Technofox said, sounding just slightly resentful. Ouch, Silverfox thought, wincing. "Lunch is ready," Technofox said. "I'll say hi to everyone."
"Thanks again," Silverfox said helplessly.
Technofox hesitated a moment, and Silverfox somehow got the impression she was listening to someone offstage. "...Oh, and Shadow wants to know if you found her prank in your room."
Silverfox's hackles rose slightly. She had dreaded this. Even after packing, her room had been prank-free to her perception. The prank still had to be there somewhere. "No," she confessed. If she had said yes, Shadowfox would simply have asked her what it was. And then mockery would follow.
"Okay, she said something about making sure it doesn't ... starve or decompose or something... something time sensitive, anyway."
Silverfox was silent as her imagination went to work.
"She said she'll make sure she puts it back in your room before you come home. Bye!"
"Tell her I hope she fails to enjoy her sandwich," Silverfox snarled. Technofox giggled happily. The sandwich curse was used only under extreme conditions, and Shadowfox would be delighted that she had driven Silverfox to it.
Time sensitive? Silverfox's eyes narrowed. It couldn't be biological, because she would have smelled it...
Silverfox went to breakfast. Not so much because she was hungry but because she sort of liked the idea of eating at the same time the rest of the team was. She wondered if the prank were alive, or decomposing.
Silverfox dawdled over her meal, charged it to her room, and went out into the mid-morning. The weather was cloudy and just a bit threatening. The first order of business was to buy a week's pass to Butchart Gardens -- she'd probably have to spend a few hours there, if only to be able to field casual questions, and to store up anecdotes. She fought an impulse to call Boston.
Silverfox went to a Tourist Information kiosk, where she picked up the pass, declined a dozen others, but was talked into buying a City Pass which entitled her to go to a large number of small exhibits. She'd have to set a day aside just to touch base in touristy places. That left four days. She took out a hiker's map of the area in a map pouch. Victoria was in the southeastern corner of the island. The ground she was supposed to cover had been broken into four blocks, two north of Victoria and two to the west, with Victoria more or less at the corner. The Inner Harbour was on the southern edge of the island.
She looked out at the Inner Harbour. It seemed you could practically walk across it on the decks of yachts and whale watch boats and other vessels. A flush deck smuggling boat would stand out like a submarine among the others. No, there was no way the smugglers would base here. But there was no way to tell what "out of the way" meant just by staring at a map. She'd have to start walking.
Silverfox picked up some bottled water, a bar of toffee -- better than chocolate because it wouldn't melt -- and some hard candy shaped like little maple leaves in case she couldn't find a place for lunch. And then she realized she had left her hotel room without her camera, which was an essential bit of equipment for this.
She went back to the hotel lobby and frowned. Something was tickling the back of her ears; a sensation of something familiar. She turned to face someone sitting on one of the couches, reading from an eBook. Her jaw dropped. Silverfox stared in stunned disbelief as Jerry waved at her. He came across the lobby as she watched, speechless.
"Jerry, what are you doing here?" she asked, unable to keep astonishment out of her voice. At the same time, she couldn't resist giving him a big hug and sniffing for girlfriend. She could only smell him, which made her feel better.
"I told you I was visiting Victoria," he said. "Didn't you believe me?"
"Not really, no," she said. "This verges on stalker behavior," she said. It might have been a bit more menacing if her chin weren't tucked affectionately over one of his shoulders.
He gave her a squeeze back. "Can you say, 'Mixed Messages'?"
She snuggled tighter. "Sometimes I think I can't say anything else," Silverfox replied. She squeezed him again. "It's good to see you. It's just that I'm..."
"Working?" he asked in low tones.
She hesitated, and nodded. He pressed his lips together.
"Shit," he said softly. "When you said you weren't -- am I compromising you?"
If she said yes, he'd leave without taking offense, and there'd be no risk of ICON finding out what they were doing. But she wanted him there. "No, I..." she scratched the back of her neck. "Come to my room, okay?"
"If I must," he sighed.
"Gee," he continued gallantly. "The Empress is tons better than this." He looked at the bed. "Is that what poor people use for pillows? Tragic." He shook his head and sniffed. "Sometimes I think it's good for me to look at a place like this just to remind me how lucky I am to have a patent and a good broker. Yes, I think I could use a dose of noblesse oblige."
"I'd offer you coffee, but it kind of sucks," she said.
"I'm sure it does," he nodded, in a manner that implied he wasn't surprised to hear that.
She picked up her camera, turned it on, and checked the battery and data card. She looked at him. "I'm sorry I lied to you about being here to work."
"No offense taken," he said immediately. "If you had told me I wouldn't have come. I'd never knowingly do something that might put you at risk."
"I know. It was a bad call. Thanks for understanding."
"You're an agent," he replied seriously.
"Operative," she corrected.
"Some time ago I decided not to pressure you about your work. If you say you can't talk about something, I'll change the subject."
"I appreciate that."
"And I'd rather you were working than you didn't want me around."
He sat down on her bed. She nodded. "Duly noted."
"But if you have any free time while you're up here, I'd like to spend it with you."
She grinned. "I will. The job is much less exciting than you probably think. Heck, if you're up for a hike I could take you along."
"Really?"
"Really. I'm not doing anything illegal. It's pure white spying. All I am doing is walking around the shore and maybe taking some pictures. Innocent passage trespassing at the very worst."
"Are you looking for a dock a smuggler might use?" he asked. "Just say yes, no, or no comment."
What was the point of pretending? "You figured it out?"
He shrugged. "You were in a gunfight with smugglers. The smugglers came from Canada. Maybe from this island. Investigating wherever the smugglers have their base seems like a logical next step. But I'm kind of surprised the case is important enough for you to follow up on it, with so much hush-hush."
Silverfox nodded. "It's not in the papers yet, but there's some murders involved."
"Oh." He hesitated, a little rattled and trying not to show it. He probably didn't like to think about that. "I see. Should I be worried for you?"
"I don't think so. But don't let anything drop in public. Officially, I'm here on vacation."
"So you're not here with police sanction. Technically, that would make you a foreign spy. Super."
"The RCMP is working on the case."
"And the RCMP has you secretly taking pictures of the Canadian shoreline? That seems a little weird."
"Foxforce is not working on the case." She paused. "It's sort of complicated."
He raised a finger. "Tell me nothing I don't need to know. Because I'll be upfront with you -- if we get in legal trouble I'll say anything they want the moment the rubber hoses come out."
"That's okay," she said. "Everybody does."
"Walking is slow. You can't use a car because the road probably runs too far inland. Why not rent a boat?" he asked.
"Don't you need a license?" she said. "Besides, I've never driven a power boat."
"British Columbia has a forty-five day grace period for foreigners," he said immediately.
She looked at him. She had no idea if he was right, but that wasn't the sort of thing people happened to know off the tops of their heads. "Have you handled boats before?" Silverfox asked.
"Well, I don't have a commercial license or anything like that, but I do have a Boating Safety Card from Florida."
"Not Massachusetts?"
"Massachusetts doesn't offer them. Want to go for a boat ride?" he asked.
"...Much obliged," she said.
Silverfox lay their bento boxes and her camera and binoculars on the counter. The guy behind it was looking at her just a bit dubiously as she slipped into a life vest. That annoyed her slightly, so she pointed over at the wall where some scuba equipment was on display.
"Do you have full-face helmets with at least eight centimeters of open space?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "I didn't even know they made them."
"They're a specialty item," she agreed. She lifted her chin and pushed the fur away from her trachea valve. "Usually I just use that when I'm travelling. I prefer the full face mask, though. I lose a lot of heat through my sinus and putting the snout in water is pretty cold, especially this far north."
"I could see that," he said. "Personally, I never cared for full face masks. You don't get as much bottom time. But yeah, it's a matter of taste. Do all chimerae have an attachment like that?"
"Most of us," she said. "Except the ones with human mouths. That's how you give us oxygen in an emergency. Plug the line in and hold the mouth closed."
She was stretching the truth a bit -- it was an option for chimerae who would probably need environmental gear. SOP in an emergency was to perform a tracheotomy.
Jerry finished with the written test and handed it back. The guy behind the counter looked over it, and nodded. "Good enough," he said. "Back by nineteen hundred, or there's a late fee."
"No problem," Jerry said, fiddling with his wristwatch. "Give us a hand pushing off?"
The boat was a Zodiac. She had ridden on one before, and she knew they were pretty fast. She hoped she wouldn't miss anything. She'd have to tell him to keep it slow.
"Where to?" he asked. He fumbled under his life jacket and took out a pair of sunglasses. Silverfox already had hers on.
"Let's head north," she said. "Or rather, east and then left." She took out her camera. He glanced over.
"If you've got image stabilization on that thing, you might want to turn it off," he said. "It's usually worse than useless on a boat."
"Really?" Silverfox asked, turning a switch. "I wonder why."
"Technofox probably knows," he said. They were running very slow, and Silverfox noticed a sign that read NO WAKE. "If you find out, tell me. I'd love a set of image stabilizing marine binoculars, but they don't make them." He looked over to his left. "I'll keep it to about fifteen clicks. It's ten now, we've got nine hours. On the way back I can open her up. So let's say we spend five hours searching the coastline, three hours coming back, and leave an hour in reserve."
"That's, what, seventy-five kilometers of coastline? Outstanding. I was hoping to do thirty a day." She looked at him. "I really owe you one."
"Not for long," he said. "This isn't for free, you know. I'll expect sexual favors in return."
"Could we not phrase it that way?" she asked. "It makes me uncomfortable."
"Sorry. And when we're back in Victoria, I'll go to my wonderful hotel while you return ... to your, uhm, motel. Did you see the landscape on your wall? The signature read 'Betty Nussbaum, Aged ten.' Is that from the artist's Blue period?" he asked.
She grinned ruefully, remembering the landscape. "It is sort of dire, isn't it?" Silverfox agreed.
"I dunno. I like how it sort of captures the entire Pacific Northwest. With the trees, mountain and water. And the artist has matured to the point where she didn't put a smiley face on the sun." He shook his head. "It really pains me to see someone I like staying in an armpit of a room like that."
"You know, I got that impression," she said.
"If only you knew some guy in a nice hotel room where he could bring guests."
She was giggling. "Stop making fun of my accommodations."
"I can't. I mean, that place is seared into my memory. Now, in the Empress, the pillows are like resting your head on a cloud, and the mattress is like sleeping on an ocean wave. Even the towels will make you moan softly with pleasure as your lover uses them to dry your naked body."
"I'm really glad you came here," she admitted.
"I'm glad to see you too," he replied. "Have you had breakfast at your hotel yet?"
"Yes. It was pretty good."
"Humph," he said. "'Pretty good,' she says. She who should have an orgasm with every bite that passes her lips."
"In that case, lunch would take hours," she said pragmatically. "So did you orgasm with every bite at the Empress?"
"I believe that the kitchen staff at the Empress is recruited from those who serve the gods on Olympus," he said seriously. "The fried eggs I had this morning were as beautiful as the first view of the golden sun to a newly-healed blind man. It was a quandary."
"Why so?"
"Not to eat them would have been an offense to the artist who created them, and to eat them was to deprive the world of beauty. I chose to eat them, but I feel like I have stolen something from posterity."
"So, do you like your hotel?" she asked.
"I don't want to oversell it, but it's not bad," he said. "Unfortunately, there's no woman in the bed." He bit his lip and looked thoughtful. "Now where could I get one of those? I don't know Victoria well."
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you dropping hints?"
"Trying to," he said. "Are you picking up on them? Am I being too subtle?"
"The truth is that I want to sleep with you more than you want to sleep with me," she said.
"Not possible," he said firmly. "You'd burst."
She looked at him. "I'm tougher than you think."
"You looked a little depressed when I saw you in the lobby," he said.
"I feel a lot better now," she said, scanning the shoreline.
He nodded. "Want to talk about it? I promise not to make fun," he said.
She hesitated for a long moment. "I don't feel comfortable away from the others," she said finally. "Not really. I suppose it's a little hard to explain. I know they're fine, and they're a phone call away, but I need their ... presence. It's a chimera thing."
"Have you ever been away from them before?" he asked. "I mean, not just a sleepover, but in a different city?"
She hesitated. "...No," she said slowly.
He shook his head. "It's not a chimera thing," he said firmly. "It's tough to leave your family for the first time. Everyone feels the same way when it finally happens."
She looked over at him. "Really?" she asked.
"Really," he said seriously. "Gosh, that was the worst thing about going away to camp. Only difference is that I did that when I was a kid."
"If you don't mind," she said, "I'd like to go to your hotel tonight."
He looked over at her, feigning shock. "Where do you get these ideas? Miss Silverfox, there are those who would call such forward behavior on your part unladylike."
"Fiddle-dee-dee," she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.
"I think it can be arranged." he said.
She was watching the shoreline. "I don't think anyone's going to have a smuggling base in the city."
"Right," he agreed. "And a flush deck rides very low, so it's not at all likely they tie it to shore. There'd have to be a pier. Ideally, with a cargo hoist. A boathouse would be perfect, especially if it had a door or curtain seaward."
"Let's kick the throttle up a notch," she suggested.
"Everything you say sounds dirty," he said, "and I wouldn't have you any other way."
Silverfox balanced the camera on one hand, aimed, and pressed the shutter release. The camera salvoed off three shots.
"What are you photographing?" he asked.
"That crane," she said, pointing. "On the cliff. If the water's deep enough to come alongside, they could load the boat from there."
"Oh, I see. Right. You know, it's probably just an old hoist that broke and never got removed."
"Almost certainly," Silverfox agreed. "Technofox has a list of people who might be connected to organized crime or poachers, and I give her a list of places that might be useful for smugglers, she figures out who owns them, and then we see who's on both lists. A wolf only catches its moose one time in ten, but that's enough to make a decent living."
"Nice mental image. Want me to swing by for a second look?"
"...I don't think so. Right now we're just tooling by on a boat. If we double back or slow down we'll look suspicious."
"Fair enough," he agreed. "It's been five hours. I think we can go another half hour and still make it back in time."
"Sure. I'm sorry to keep you away from vacation."
He shrugged. "I'm having fun, to tell you the truth. It's sort of like an episode of _Man From UNCLE_ where a civilian gets dragged into an adventure. Except they usually end up hanging from chains on their wrists, and I've got to admit I'm not looking forward to that."
"Grab the chains with your hands," Silverfox advised. "It hurts less that way."
"And I get to spend the day with you," he said.
Silverfox lowered her head and looked away. She never knew how to respond to words like that. Or rather, she did -- they had taught her what to say in Blue Diamond. But there it all been a lie, and in her mind the lies were bound with the words.
So instead, she put her hand on his and squeezed it slightly. Without looking at her, he touched her hand briefly before moving it to the helm, freeing his other hand for the throttle. The boat took a long turn to the right, and the engine noise changed, turning into a soft buzz a human might hear. The sound of the hull cutting water turned into a hiss. The Zodiac rose slightly, bow tipping upwards. Through the soles of her feet she could feel a vibration as the water sent ripples of shock through the thin deck.
They were in the Inner Harbour again, creeping slowly towards their dock. She didn't want to distract him. She was beginning to get a sense of why boats had to move so slowly compared to cars; they didn't have tires to grip the ground, and the road didn't suddenly move in another direction.
"I like Zodiacs," he said. "They have a huge inflated rubber bumper all around the hull. Any ideas for dinner?"
"Nothing really comes to mind," she said.
"Okay. Let's just wander around and stop off anywhere that looks interesting."
"Sounds good," she nodded. "Can we swing by my hotel first? I need to pick up a few things for overnight."
"Sounds like a plan. Huh. That's funny."
She looked at him. "What?"
He pointed. "That ship up there. The bow's weird." Silverfox looked over. He was right. He continued talking. "See how it's flat and angled? It looks more like the bow of a barge than a ship."
Silverfox frowned. She looked around at the other vessels. While you only saw sharp, knife-edged bows on warships who didn't particularly mind if they cut another boat in half in a collision, all the others had rounded bows that came to a point in an obtuse angle.
"Funny," she agreed. "Like a landing ship -- something designed to run up onto a beach and drop a ramp."
"Yeah, but those don't go above fifteen clicks." He shook his head. Silverfox took a picture. He looked over at her. "You don't think it's important, do you?"
"Probably not." She shrugged. "But Technofox loves weird stuff like that."
Jerry was dealing with the paperwork of turning the boat in. "Silver," he said, "Feel like going out again tomorrow?"
"That would be great," Silverfox nodded. "As long as the weather holds."
Silverfox realized that Technofox would be expecting pictures taken from the shore. She'd need to send her a message to explain. She took out her phone and quickly whipped out a note explaining that Jerry had followed her to Victoria and figured out what she was up to, so she thought it wouldn't do any harm to tell him. It looked incredibly fake written down in unforgiving black text on the white of her phone. Firefox would probably hit the ceiling. Well, there wasn't anything she could do about that. She hit send.
They went back to her hotel, where she grabbed some things for overnight. Then she reconsidered and packed everything, telling herself that this way she wouldn't miss anything.
"Why don't you check out?" he asked, picking up the bigger of her two cases.
She shook her head wordlessly, before grinning and saying, "I need a lair of my own." He chuckled, and she put her arm around him.
The Empress smelled nice, in a way she couldn't quite put words to. His room had a kitchenette, which he had already stocked with a bag of the pretzels he liked and coffee. His laptop was on the charging stand.
"Mind if I move this?" she asked. "I'd like to send the pictures back home before we go to dinner."
"Sure, it should be topped off. I'll hit the bathroom."
She turned her notebook on, and made sure it was getting power from the stand. As it hunted for a wireless connection, she turned on her camera and set it nearby before looking for the camera's power adapter. By the time she plugged the camera in, the notebook was busily moving pictures from the camera to its own drive. She opened her file synchronizer and set it to work, synching her photo directory with the one on Foxforce's server back in Boston. The two interfaces brought up progress bars, and as she watched one went to 8% and the other to 3%.
Since Jerry was still in the bathroom, she opened her email client to let Tech know she was sending the pictures, so she'd know if there were a glitch. There was an email from Firefox. She steeled herself for an angry diatribe about letting civilians in on ops, but instead Fire seemed glad that Silver had found someone who knew about small boats to network with. Silverfox perked up, and dialed Firefox's number.
It was a voice only connection. "H'lo," Firefox said, a little bleary.
"Hi, Fire," Silverfox said. "Sorry -- I forgot the time difference."
"No problem," Firefox said brightly. "Good to hear from you." There was an off-stage mumble. "...It's Silver, hon. Do you want to say hi to her?"
"Hi, Silver," came Technofox's voice, at a lower volume, and echo-ey, as Firefox turned on the speaker phone feature. "Nice to hear you."
"I just wanted to say I was sending some pictures over," Silverfox said.
"Anything jump out at you?" Firefox asked, her voice turning crisp.
"Not really," Silverfox said. "The problem is that just about every building with waterfront property has a little pier that could be used by smugglers. I mean, it's not like they'd need a dry dock for an aircraft carrier."
"No, they wouldn't," Technofox agreed ruefully. "Well, I'll get on those tomorrow. How much ground did you cover?"
"About seventy kilometers."
"Awesometastic," Technofox said.
Jerry came into the room, and stood by as Silverfox continued talking to her notebook. Silverfox smiled slightly.
"We need to come up with some way to thank Jerry for his help," Firefox said, timing it perfectly.
Silverfox smiled and looked up at him. "I told him something about a two day sex vacation with the four of us."
"I was kind of hoping to trade sex for a Korth Shooting Star of my own," Firefox replied. "But maybe first-one's-free is good business."
Silverfox giggled.
"He can't hear us, can he?" Firefox asked.
Silverfox grinned and was about to say yes when Jerry frowned and shook his head. "No," Silverfox lied. "I'll see if I can cut a deal with him. How much sex would you have with him for a Shooting Star?"
"All of it," Firefox replied immediately. "He can all the sex I have for a Shooting Star."
"Save me some," Technofox griped.
There was a kiss. Firefox paused. "...No, seriously. I'd almost be tempted if he made the offer. I thought Shadow's motorcycle was cool until I saw that pistol. As long as you're gone, can we borrow it?"
"No," Silverfox said immediately.
"You're pimping us to your boyfriend but you won't let us borrow your gun?" Technofox asked.
"Well, of course not," Silverfox said. "A man is only a man, but a pistol or rifle is something personal and important."
"She's right, you know," Firefox said thoughtfully.
"We're going to dinner now," Silverfox said. "Talk to you later."
"Later, Silver."
Silverfox wanted to be nice to them. "Okay, you can borrow the Shooting Star. But promise Firefox will clean it herself when you're done. You polish better than Tech or Shadow."
"Thanks, honey," Firefox said, her voice relieved. "You won't be able to find a paw print on it."
"Bye."
She ended the call. "Why didn't you play along?" she asked Jerry.
"I don't know your friends well enough to engage in sexual banter with them," he said.
"They won't mind. I do it all the time." She shrugged.
"That's your privilege," he said. He offered his arm. "Dinner?"
Silverfox hesitated before taking it. She hadn't packed any formal attire, figuring a nice pair of hiking boots was more useful than a dress. Among the walnut furniture, she felt awkward in her T-shirt and cargo pants, practical travelling togs with nothing to recommend them in terms of style and looks.
He was in business casual, nothing fancy but at least he had a collar. Although it wasn't particularly cold, she grabbed her brown armored jacket on the way out, so she could at least make a token gesture of dressing up.
"So your friends like the gun too?" he asked.
She smiled. "Yes, very much," she said. "It's officially the Coolest Present any of us ever got. Not just the most expensive. I mean the fact it's a perfect present, just the thing I'd never buy for myself even if I had the money, and that you went to the trouble of having it customized. It's classy," she said, finally finding the words. "They're so jealous that they're sick. It's the coolest present ever."
"I was afraid it would be too much," he said. "But I'm glad to hear I've made your best friends unhappy."
"Oh, absolutely. The really good presents make your friends doubt their own value and turns them physically ill. I don't know how many times I've been there."
"I didn't know you four were so competitive."
"Oh, sure. I mean, they're the most important people in my life, but we're all sharp and aggressive. I mean, we're predators, after all."
He chuckled and patted her hand.
They left the room and she disentangled herself now that they were in public.
After some wandering, they settled on a Morton's Steakhouse. They were seated quickly.
There were other chimerae about, but she was the only one not in a dinner dress. She wondered what they assumed about her. She wasn't dressed as eye candy.
"Sir, ma'am?" said the waiter. "My name is Edward and I'll --" he froze.
Silverfox froze. They stared at one another, driven subzero metaphorically by the other.
"Do you want an appetizer, Silverfox?" Jerry asked.
Silverfox opened her mouth slowly. "Twenty-five centimeters of love!" she gasped.
Jerry looked up, puzzled. "I was going to suggest the chicken wings, but if you want to skip dinner--"
[email protected] looked at her, his expression changing to that of a deer in the headlights. As his fear grew, so did Silverfox's delight. Silverfox smiled, a broad, cold predatory smile. "Not you," she said. "Him."
Jerry frowned. "Look. No means no, but I think it's a little unfair of you to--"
"No, no, no," she said. "The waiter. I slept with him last night."
"Can you keep it down?" 25cm-of-love said nervously, in hushed tones. "Please?" he added.
Jerry looked up at the waiter, his expression blank.
"Silverfox," he said finally, "I'm very disappointed in you."
"I'm going to break this shit's kneecaps," she hissed.
"C'mon, please," 25cm-of-love said, glancing about.
"Oh, thank God," Jerry said with a laugh. He looked up at 25cm-of-love. "I was afraid this was going to be awkward for me," he explained.
"I could lose my job," 25cm-of-love said in low, panicked tones.
"Good," Silverfox said.
"Silver, honey," Jerry said raising a hand, "Please. That's not fair. I don't know what happened but don't threaten the man's job. That's not right."
"He took pictures," Silverfox said. "So he could brag about nailing a synthetic."
Jerry looked back at the waiter. "You asshole," he said calmly.
"No, I swear," the waiter said, panicked. "I treat all women like that."
"Oh," Silverfox said, slightly mollified. "That's okay, then."
"I swear I didn't post them. Jesus, I don't want to go back to bussing tables," he said plaintively.
Jerry took a deep breath. "Tell you what," he said with forced cordiality. "Get us a different table with a different waiter and we'll say the sun was in our eyes or this one is too close to the kitchen or something. Because she wants to maim you and you're not getting a tip from me."
"...Thanks, man," 25cm-of-love said.
"I'm not good with that," Silverfox said immediately.
"Silver, please," Jerry said. "As a favor to me. Making a waiter go back to bussing tables? That's just low."
"I still want to break his kneecaps," Silverfox said.
"Breaking his kneecaps is fine," Jerry agreed. "Just not here."
"...Okay," Silverfox said reluctantly.
"Atta girl," Jerry said brightly, patting her hand.
At their second table, Silverfox cut into her steak.
"But let's suppose it's metaphorical," Jerry said. "He's not literally his brother -- instead, it's about how a good friend can become your brother, and how the only way to heal the loss from a death is to let someone else fill the gap. And that is why Racer X is Speed Racer's brother." He put a bite of steak in his mouth.
"Racer X is Speed's brother?" Silverfox asked, astonished. "No way."
"Yes way," Jerry said, nodding seriously. "And don't laugh -- that paper got me a B+."
"Why not an A?"
"I misspelled 'hermeneutics.'"
"Which means what?"
"No idea."
"Why don't you want me breaking his kneecaps here?" Silverfox asked. "He deserves it."
Jerry shrugged. "We're at his place of work. There's the personal and there's the professional, and it's best if they don't overlap."
Silverfox hesitated, and nodded. She didn't disagree, but she was uncomfortable with the implications of that.
"Let's skip dessert," she suggested. "We'll both be eating in the hotel."
Silverfox's tail stiffened out and quivered. The tension in her body built and drained away as she exhaled in a long gasp. She took her arms off the head of the bed, lifted her hips, scooted them down and dropped next to him. She kissed him twice, tasting herself on his lips and chin, before saying anything.
"Thanks," she said. She squeezed him. "That was nice. Really nice. Did I rest too much of my weight on you?"
"Nah. I just wish I could see your face," he said. He kissed her back.
"You're not missing much," she said dismissively. "Let me show you my expressions." She looked at him seriously for a moment, then bugged out her eyes. She put on a goofy grin, made her eyes cross, and then stuck out her tongue and wrapped it around the top of her snout. He was shaking with silent laughter.
He rolled over on top of her, touched the end of his nose to hers, and cradled her head in his hands. Her expression changed. She slipped her hands up, and grabbed the head of the bed with her fingers.
"I like it when you hold me like that," she said. "It reminds me ..."
"Reminds you?" he prompted.
"...Of the second guy who slept with me," she said.
"Good memories?" he asked.
"A few," she admitted. "Put it in," she whispered.
"Who are you calling a bitch, bitch?" Silverfox said to her notebook.
"This bitch is calling that ho' a bitch, bitch ho'," Shadowfox replied, poking her finger at the camera on her own notebook.
Video internet chats were always just a little creepy, because it was natural to make eye contact with one another, and the camera didn't match the position of the eyes of the person who was talking to you, so it always looked like the other person was staring at your boobs when they were probably looking at your eyes on their screen.
"Ho? Who, ho?" Silverfox said with false indignation, pointing back.
"You, ho, bitch ho," Shadowfox replied.
They went silent for a few seconds, and pointed emphatically at one another.
Shadowfox grinned suddenly and touched the screen with her fingertips. "I miss you, you know."
Silverfox had to bite her lip. "I miss you too."
"I bumped into Tawny last night," Shadowfox said. "She's got some sort of spiritual healing scam going. She wanted me to thank you for not spilling the beans at Womynfyre."
"It is Tawny?" Silverfox asked, shocked.
"Sure," Shadowfox said, frowning slightly, a bit confused. "We talked about Blue Diamond. She called us by our Blue Diamond names. I corrected her, of course... but she said she recognized you."
"I thought I did," Silverfox said.
"You lost me."
"Okay," Silverfox said. She took a deep breath. "I saw a cougar girl at Womynfyre. I got her identifier code and ran a dossier search on it."
"Why did you do that?" Shadowfox asked, surprised.
"Because she's got some sort of spiritual healing scam going on at Womynfyre," Silverfox said, patiently.
Shadowfox hesitated and nodded. She needed to be reminded that Silverfox actually liked the Womynfyre gang.
"So what did you find out?" Shadowfox asked.
"Her ICR dossier doesn't mention Blue Diamond as an owner," Silverfox said. "If that's Tawny, she's fooled the International Chimera Registry and ICON."
"The hell?" Shadowfox said. It wasn't impossible, but it was like discovering the shoeshine boy was a world-class jewel thief. ICON could be fooled but anyone doing it probably wasn't going to be running a spirit healer scam.
"Was she an illegal sale?" Shadowfox asked. "No, that doesn't make sense, because she was processed and cleared like the rest of us. Even if she were stolen she'd be tagged."
"Did you ever get Tawny's ID code in Blue Diamond?" Silverfox asked.
"My brain implant was out of my control there, like all of us," Shadowfox said. "When Technofox fixed it, I didn't log anyone else's IDC. So, no. Wait -- you think her chip's been hacked? That she's using someone else's IDC?"
"It's not impossible," Silverfox said. "I mean, our chips can send multiple IDCs."
"Sure, but we're law enforcement. We've got a different system set up." Shadowfox considered.
"Maybe Tawny's law enforcement too," Silverfox said.
Shadowfox looked at her sharply.
The Zodiac turned in a long arc, accelerating as it went. The GPS display and the whisky compass pivoted, two different pieces of technology, one ancient, one barely older than chimerae, showing the same thing: the boat was turning to the east.
"You've saved me four days of hiking around the island," Silverfox said. "I'm two days ahead of schedule."
"Thank you for giving me a chance to show off and be useful," Jerry said. "That's what guys live for. Do you have anything planned for tomorrow?"
"Well," she said, "Mission accomplished, to tell you the truth. Tech and Fire might come up with some more recon targets later." She snuggled slightly against him. "But if they don't, I was thinking it might be fun to spend a day in our hotel room expressing my gratitude."
"Well, I'm up for that."
She kissed him. "You better be."
There was a boat heading their way. At first, Silverfox thought it was a small cabin cruiser, but as it got closer it got substantially bigger. It was big motor catamaran, like the boats that ran between Seattle and Victoria, and the paint scheme was familiar.
"Isn't that the ship we saw last night?" Silverfox asked. She had her camera in her hand and raised it to her eye. With full zoom, it about filled the viewfinder. She took a picture.
"No, it's got a different bow," Jerry said. "This one's a catamaran, the ship last night had a single hull. They have the same superstructure, painted the same way, though. Maybe they're two ships in the same line."
"Oh," Silverfox said, feeling stupid. Jerry passed the catamaran on the right, and turned the bow out towards the ocean to avoid the wake of the much bigger craft.
"Chinese food tonight?" Jerry suggested.
"Sounds great," Silverfox agreed, turning her head to look at the ship they had just passed. On impulse, she took a second picture.
"Here, look at this," she said. She brought up the picture of the ship they had taken in the harbor and zoomed in on the name: _M/V Flying Saucer,_ written along the pilot house. She toggled to the picture of the catamaran they had passed during the day. On the stern was written _M/V Flying Saucer_.
Jerry frowned. "It is the same ship. I don't get it."
"They use a curtain or something when they dock," Silverfox said. "To make them look like a single hulled ship. Why would they do that?"
He got it instantly, putting her vague doubts into words. "Crap on a stick," Jerry said softly. "There's something between the hulls they don't want people to see."
Silverfox looked up. "Like what?"
Jerry shrugged. "Like a submersible. Submersible research boats are very, very slow and have next to no range, so some of them have tender vehicles that take them where they're supposed to go."
"And we're on top of the Canadian Navy's Pacific base," Silverfox said. She looked at him. "Think the _Flying Saucer_ is really with the Canadian Navy?"
"No," he said. "She's registered in Bermuda. Of course, that might be a disguise. Why park it in a busy harbor filled with tourists and cameras when there's a secure Naval base across the island? So she's not Canadian and she's not here with the permission of the Canadians."
"And it's not American either, because we've got a naval base practically right over the border," Silverfox said.
"In Everett," Jerry agreed, unnecessarily.
She nodded. "She's carrying something. Like a submersible, or a flush deck smuggling boat." She explained.
He cocked his head. "That seems like a very high-tech approach to smuggling."
"They're got high-tech opposition," Silverfox said. "But it adds up. Let me show you."
She brought up the list of GPS waypoints she had taken from the smugglers, and mapped it onto a nautical chart. She pointed.
"The smugglers had GPS waypoints in their navigation equipment. But see? The start and end points were two separated points in the middle of the water, neither of which were on shore."
"I get it," he said. "You thought they had two docks, on the shore, and we just spent two days looking for them from a boat."
"Exactly. But suppose they operate from a boat?"
"Is there enough money to justify it?"
"Possibly."
"I doubt it," he shook his head. "You're thinking like a telescopic sight, as though this has something to do with you. You're looking for smugglers, so you assume anything out of the ordinary has something to do with smugglers. It doesn't work like that, not really."
"That's very possibly true. Either way, it's out of my hands," Silverfox said. She opened her email client on her notebook, and started to create a message using Darned Good Privacy. "I'm telling Firefox. She can decide the next step." As she was typing, she smiled at him. "Just in case, do you think a girl can rent a closed-circuit oxygen rebreather in this hick town?" She was, she had to admit to herself, hoping that he'd offer to pay for it. She wasn't on an expense account and that sort of equipment would cost a lot to rent.
"Oxygen rebreather?" he asked, stunned into silence. "I'm pretty sure it's illegal to rent those in Canada. You need all kinds of licenses. Those things are dangerous."
"So are bubbles," she said. He had a good point about renting it, she had to admit.
He sat quietly for a moment. "Not this late, anyway," he said, finally.
She nodded. They'd work something out. She realized it was a good thing they were going to stay in the hotel room tomorrow -- that way, if orders came suddenly, she'd have next to no downtime before carrying them out. And with that thought, for the first time came another one she hadn't had before: she was taking advantage of him and it was sort of unfair.
She took his hand in a sort of mute apology and squeezed it.
He was trying to thrust harder, to push over the brink, but she rode his hips, keeping him from penetrating deeper. She relaxed her PC muscle, letting him slide gently into her, keeping control. He pinched her nipples and she gasped, squirming down against his to rest her face next to his. She licked his ear and sniffed, resting for a moment. He tried to hold her tight, but she pushed herself back into a seated position, squeezed his shaft tight and bounced her hips quickly, giving him what he wanted. He climaxed and she came an instant later.
For an instant, just an instant, she imagined Master's hand on her back, reassuring and warm, and she collapsed against Jerry again, nibbling and licking in a frenzy that was at least three quarters animal.
He responded in kind, in a frenzy of kissing and hugging of the sort that usually preceded sex. A few minutes of that and they settled down; with him stroking her fur, the pleasure of that making her eyes half-close.
"You like me, don't you?" she found herself asking.
"What was your first clue?" he asked. "The wonderful sex?"
"It's not that."
"It's not wonderful?" he asked, with an expression of exaggerated sorrow.
She snorted a laugh and hit him with a pillow.
"No, it's after the sex," Silverfox said. She sat up and folded her arms. "Sometimes with some guys I get this feeling that's, like, 'Okay, I'm finished bitch -- there's the door,' even when we're in my apartment."
"Mmm," he said not sounding entirely sympathetic.
"Mmm?" she asked, brow furrowed.
"Can I tell you a little story?" he asked.
"Is there a moral?"
"Yes."
"In that case, no," she said.
"Once upon a time," he said, "in the forgotten Before Times --"
She sighed, resigned. "When was this?"
"Two years ago. No, three."
"Okay." She nodded.
"I went to Blue Diamond."
She stiffened again, and her ears flattened slightly. "You what?"
He looked surprised that it hit her that hard. "I swear to God I had no idea how that place was run," he said seriously. "That was before it hit the net."
"Okay, then." She relaxed just slightly. "So you believe the news stories about Blue Diamond but not the ones about me?"
He looked at her quizzically. "Sure. I know you. Besides, Blue Diamond didn't deny their women were locked in cells and whipped if they misbehaved -- they just said it was legal. Personally, I don't care if fifty lashes a day is legal or not." He looked curious. "You're in law enforcement. What's your take? Media hype or what?"
"Not much hype, I think," she said.
"Well then, we're on the same page. But here's the thing -- believe it or not, I never saw anything that made me think the women were being abused."
"I believe you," she said.
"Thank you. Most people wouldn't."
"I'm guessing you had a girl in your room overnight," she said. "You're a cuddly guy and you've got the money."
"Well, yes," he admitted. "But that's not really --"
"Do you remember what color her collar was?" Silverfox asked.
"Uhm ... black." He hesitated. "I didn't notice any other colors."
"Okay then. The collars were a color code for security. Red collars were for women who were actively resisting. Black collars were for women who were allowed to work unsupervised. Most of the abuse was focused on red collars."
Firefox and Technofox had red collars, Silverfox remembered. She felt a stab of guilt over that, over knowing that they had been easier on her than those two. Sure, she had told herself that getting hit more wouldn't save them anything, but she couldn't help but feel she had failed them.
"Oh," he said. He looked like he was wondering how Silverfox happened to know that, so she interrupted him.
"But you were telling me a story? With a moral?"
"Oh, right." He gathered his thoughts. "Here's the thing. I went to a slave state, to a slave brothel. Then the whole story came out. And half my brain was 'Gee, I had no idea I was paying to sexually abuse a woman,' and the other half of my brain was 'Asshole, there's a reason they call it a slave brothel.' Looking back, it wasn't a mistake. It was stupid."
"All right," she agreed. "You didn't think hard enough. Duly noted."
He sighed. "Silverfox, maybe this is out of line, but nobody's forcing you to hook up with a string of jerks."
She stiffened.
There's a tiger in my head, she said to herself. And that string of jerks keeps her at bay.
He felt her body recoil, and misunderstood. "You've got appalling taste in men. I mean, look at me. Whenever we go out people look at me and look at you and think, 'wow, she's slumming.'"
"You're not a jerk," she said. "You're not." She hugged him, tightly, because she didn't want to talk.
He kissed her lips lightly. An email popped into her head; Firefox wanted to talk to her, by video, in fifteen minutes.
"I just got a meeting invitation," she said.
He nodded, suppressing a sigh "Want me to leave the bedroom?" he asked.
"That's okay," she said. "I'll take the notebook into the living room."
"You're not going to make a dive with an oxygen rebreather," he said firmly.
"Look," Silverfox said patiently. "It's a moot point. I don't have an oxygen rebreather. You don't have an oxygen rebreather. They don't rent them in Victoria because they're not for sport diving. The nearest oxygen rebreather system is in the Canadian Navy base, and there's no way we could scam an oxygen rebreather designed for a chimera from the Canadian Navy. Right?"
He smiled, reluctantly. "I guess it is sort of ridiculous," he admitted.
"I didn't know the Canadian Navy had chimera dive masters," Jerry said conversationally.
Hardtack was a canid model, with the fur pattern of a wolf or a husky. Silverfox was pretty sure he was an American design, maybe grown under license. He had a noticeable British accent, slightly cockney, which Silverfox suspected was part of the customization package.
Hardtack didn't look up from where he was checking the connection from the oxygen rebreather on Silverfox's back to the valve in her trachea. "Yes, sir," he said. "Originally, they wanted to go with the models the US SEALs use, but the maintenance cost on those are too high, so they went with the Fidelus instead."
Hardtack was almost the same model as Morgan: Hardtack's variant on the Fidelus model had a higher proportion of body fat for better insulation in cold water. It made him look vaguely out of shape, like a former athlete. This, she knew, was dead wrong.
It was 0200, the moon was down, and the nearest streetlamp the victim of some recent vandalism with thrown rocks. Jerry had a pretty good pitching arm.
The Inner Harbour was framed by a seawall, with steps leading down to a concrete walkway that was a meter or so over the water, depending on the tide. They were in a corner, near a pushcart that in daylight generated a stream of fresh mini-donuts that would be sold in wax paper bags. It seemed very odd to be preparing for a covert dive next to a closed mini-donut pushcart. Covert dives should take place off the shores of hostile governments, with grim shore patrols to avoid. Not in tourist cities with "Old World Charm."
To see them, anyone would have to walk down off street level. Jerry was there to run interference if the police showed up. A rich American human tourist was in a better position to get some slack from a beat cop than a couple of chimerae, legally human or not.
"You're sure you've used an oxygen rebreather before?" Hardtack asked her directly.
"Yes."
"What monitoring software are you running?"
"Computerlung 1.14."
"Good, I'm compatible. Sync up," he ordered. "My key's six - nine - oh - five."
She ordered her implant to accept a handshake from 6905, and let him access her copy of Computerlung. He looked at her dive log, which showed her last commercial flight and her next scheduled flight three days off.
"Hold your breath," he said.
She held her breath; her blood oxygen dropped and her CO2 levels started to climb. After a few seconds, the LOW O2 icon started flashing on her visual cortex. Hardtack waited a bit longer, and nodded. "Okay. Morgan said you knew what you were doing, and I guess he's right."
Silverfox met his eyes steadily. "I'm all right," she said. She didn't blame Hardtack for being nervous; he was essentially handing her a loaded gun, and if something went seriously wrong he'd have a lot of explaining to do.
"If the police show up, go back to the hotel," Silverfox said. "Assume they saw you and assume they're watching you secretly. Send me an email if you have the leisure." She held up her cell phone and turned off the wireless connection. "I'm running silent for now, but the message will cache."
"Gotcha," Jerry said.
She was wearing a tight headpiece. A rigid guard fit over her snout, holding her mouth closed, and goggles went over her eyes. Hardtack put a helmet on her head, and sent her the access code. She accepted it from him, and her brain implant loaded the interface driver. "I haven't used an ultrasound helmet before," she muttered, unable to speak clearly because of the mouth guard. It felt a bit like a gag, and she fought to ignore the associations that brought up.
"You've used virtual imaging, haven't you?" Hardtack asked.
"Yes, infrared scopes," Silverfox replied. She wondered if she should have been so specific.
He nodded, not surprised. "It's a lot like the infrared visualization package on a rifle sight, but you don't get tunnel vision and the image quality's a bit worse," he said. "Hard surfaces may look translucent. The helmet uses false color for sound amplitude, not frequency -- loud is blue, quiet's red."
"Right. Is it active or passive?"
"The helmet's passive," he said. He reached into his pocket. "We usually use these high-tech tone generators if we want to go active." He took out a small toy shaped like a ladybug, with a black metal strip cantilevered over the concave side. She looked at him dubiously.
"Where I'm from, we call that a tin cricket," Jerry said.
Hardtack nodded firmly. "Yes, sir. And if you do this--" he clicked it a few times slowly, and then rapidly, "--it sounds just like the attack sonar of a toothed whale. Much better than snapping your fingers, if the bad guys have hydrophones."
He attached it to a band around her left wrist. "There's orca in these waters, so it won't stand out."
"You wouldn't bullshit a friend of Morgan, would you?" Silverfox asked. She wished she could ask Technofox's opinion, but even if she were willing to double-check on Hardtack in his face she couldn't imagine calling Technofox out of bed to ask her what an orca sounded like.
He shook his head. "Absolutely not. Anything to say?" Hardtack asked, his fingers on the switch on her throat.
"How deep can I go without spilling gas on the ascent?" Silverfox asked.
"Depends on how much buoyancy you have set. It will be less than five meters."
"Think that's deep enough?" she asked.
He considered. "It's night, the bottom's dark, you're in black, and I don't see any lookouts staring over the sides. Unless they have sonar or a trained dolphin you should be fine at one or two meters."
"Okay."
"Who do you work for?"
"My friends," she said.
"That goes without saying." His eyes weren't sympathetic.
"Private security. Nothing aimed at Canada," she assured him.
He nodded. "Okay." It seemed odd that he hadn't brought that up before. Or was it? The equipment he was lending her was carefully engineered to be as fail-safe as such technology could be. And he probably knew a dozen ways to sabotage it in a way that would kill her without her knowing. She hoped he was convinced. The worst thing she could do now was seem nervous.
"I'm good. Switch me over."
"Sixty second test. Breathe normally."
He turned the valve, and Silverfox's throat closed. She breathed out through the trachea valve; her breath ran through a box that captured the carbon dioxide and the rest went into a holding chamber. There, the oxygen was supplemented to match the partial pressure at sea level. Nitrogen was added to make the mix match the pressure of the environment. It was a much more complicated system than conventional pressurized-air scuba, and a lot more could go wrong with it.
She inhaled, exhaled again and the process repeated itself. Grimly, Hardtack kept a hand on her, watching her blood oxygen level fluctuate as she breathed. Finally, he nodded and gave her a thumbs up. She saluted in response, and turned, putting her feet in the black water. She scootched forward and off the dock, sinking slowly to her neck. An instant later, her feet touched bottom. She knelt to bring her head underwater.
The mix chamber was like a powered accordion, with a variable volume, and could be used like a fish's swim bladder. She adjusted the volume down; she liked a bit of negative buoyancy on a combat dive. A reticule popped into her vision; the course to the _Flying Saucer_. She spent a few seconds and breaths looking at her blood oxygen level.
Breathing different gasses at different pressures had all sorts of oddball physiological effects, most of them dangerous. Too much oxygen could be as deadly as too little oxygen. Too much nitrogen brought on rapture of the deep. And just to make things extra-fun, the symptoms of hyperoxia, hypoxia, and nitrogen narcosis could barely be distinguished; it couldn't be felt any more than a diabetic could feel their blood sugar. She wasn't designed to breathe different gas under different pressures. Nothing was. She had to ignore what she was feeling and only give credence to the numbers her implanted computer was returning to her.
She wasn't more than a meter or two under the surface, but the moonlight was too weak to filter down. She was uncomfortable in darkness, so she switched to the passive sonar in her helmet.
Instantly, she was in a world of shimmering ghosts: she wasn't seeing light; she was seeing a computer's representation of ambient sound reflecting off surfaces. She looked down at the floor of the harbor under her feet; she was in the middle of a contoured disk that was green in the middle and tapered to red on the edges. The surface was fuzzy, not-quite-there, like aerogel.
She took the tin cricket and clicked it slowly, three times. It was like holding a flash bulb. She twitched her eyes away from her hand instinctively, even though they were out of the loop.
The harbor bottom turned blue in the middle and extended; now she could see the sea wall and fish, hearing what they thought was a predator, turned and sprinted away. They glowed yellow and faded to red as the sound died down. All right, she thought, the software doesn't compensate for range when it assigns a gradient.
She looked up in the direction of the _Flying Saucer_; she couldn't see anything there. She flattened out and started to swim along the compass heading, fighting the instinct to hug the bottom, keeping herself two meters under.
As she passed by boats, she could see flashes appearing and fading across the spectrum; doors closing, people walking, the rumble of conversation; transients both mechanical and biological in origin, as the sensor and computer in her helmet translated sound to vision and sent it to her brain implant. She shivered for a moment; the water was cold and her fur wasn't helping any.
She kept her eyes moving in a pattern: a quick scan of her surroundings, focus on her compass heading, keep her depth at two meters, glance at her blood oxygen. That very important number was trembling up and down but remained reassuringly green. It was an effort to keep breathing; her jaw and sinus were clamped shut and it felt bizarrely schizophrenic, her mouth was holding her breath while her lungs were breathing. The air wasn't flowing through her sinus and it was odd to feel it in her throat. It felt unnaturally cold, just because it hadn't been warmed by her nose.
She began seeing dull red flashes around her compass heading, and experimentally, she worked the tin cricket. The hull of the _Flying Saucer_ appeared for a moment, red tinged with orange where the sound reflected back at her especially well. She wondered if she should click it again, but thought of Jansen and his flashlight and decided against it.
As she drew closer, the flashes lasted longer, fading across the spectrum, and traced out more and more of the structure of the hull. As she drew within three meters of the ship, some impulse made her stop and toggle the sonar off.
There was a moment of darkness before her vision came back, and then she could see a soft, glowing band of light. She dismissed it as an illusion caused by readjustment, but a few seconds later she was sure she was seeing it: bright light between the hulls, scattering into the water.
She felt shaken, first by the unexpected light and then by the possibility she wasn't alone. Light. People needed artificial light. By reflex, she looked around. Nothing was there. Her blood oxygen spiked, and as she watched, slowly settled down. She took a deep breath, rattled by how close she had come to swimming into a brightly lit patch of water while trying to be stealthy.
Well, now what? There was every reason to guess there were people working between the hulls, people who needed light. She couldn't just pop up to the surface between the hulls and snap away with her camera, as she had planned to. Someone was almost certainly there, and he'd probably spot her.
She took a deep breath, the buoyancy chamber compressing slightly to compensate. Hesitantly, she put a hand on the hull, carefully, as though she thought it were alarmed. She felt along downwards, hooked her fingers on the bottom of the hull, and pulled herself downwards. When she was under the hull, she adjusted the buoyancy chamber to push her up against it, and upside-down, slowly shifted further under the ship.
Finally, she peeked her head over the edge. Looking up through the water, all she could see was light and blur and ripples. She wiggled closer, and took out her camera. She snapped it a few times, dissatisfied. She had come a long way for some blurry pictures of light.
She thought she might be able to break the surface with her arm.
She double checked to make sure the camera was in silent mode. It might be worth the risk.
She held her breath and, keeping as much of her body concealed as possible under one of the twin hulls, reached through the surface of the water. The bottom of the hull was almost two meters down; she had to roll quite a bit of her body around the pontoon, holding onto it to keep from shooting up to the surface.
She held the shutter button down, and moved the camera through an arc, three shots a second, hoping that she was by blind luck pointing it in the direction of something interesting as the camera itself set the exposure and focus. She pulled her hand back, moved closer to the bow and did it again, and then a third time.
A thudding hammer hit her ears, like twin explosions. Startled, she whipped her head around and saw two divers in the water, surrounded by the bubbles of air they had brought down with them. They held spear guns. There were bright lights on their heads. She was gone before she formed the decision consciously, forcing herself down, gliding across the bottom.
Soon, she was in darkness, and she turned the passive sonar on. There was a moment of adjustment again, and she was back to seeing sound. She went up slightly and rolled over on her back, so she could see behind her.
The _Flying Saucer's_ hull glowed with the impact of running feet. The divers were behind her, following her, maybe six meters away, occasionally emitting streams of bubbles that lit up their heads with the sound she was seeing. She felt a moment of relief. Divers in the water meant they wouldn't be tossing in hand grenades. She slowed down and turned, out in the direction of open water, hoping they would follow her original course or break straight for shore.
The entire bow of _Flying Saucer_ lit up like a airport beacon. An second or so later, the bubbles following her turned in her direction. They were tracking her with sonar and guiding the divers. She rolled back over and started swimming, hard and fast, her only coherent thought oh shit oh shit oh shit...
No. She forced herself calm. No need to panic just because she was at a slight disadvantage (two on one and those armed). The _Flying Saucer_ didn't seem to be pinging constantly. But she knew exactly where they were, at all times. Could she use that advantage? She drew Hardtack's diver's knife and slipped the lanyard over her wrist. Maybe she could, but didn't think she had enough of an edge.
Crap. She had to warn Jerry.
She swam closer to the surface and turned her phone on. It got a signal, a weak one, but good enough. She downloaded an email from Jerry. It said Jerry and Hardtack had been spotted by a patrolman who had driven them back to the Empress so they could continue their night together and get to the hot, sweaty man-love in private. Which, she thought, was a heck of a good alibi. Well, at least she didn't have to worry about them.
The dock was coming up. The divers were closing in from two directions. She had to get out of the water and out of range of their spear guns. She turned off the sonar, lifted her head briefly above the water. Two guys were there, one in a gray sweater, and one almost luminous in a white sweater. Damn. They had pulled off an end-around.
She ducked under again. Shit and shit. Well, she could face them or the two divers, and she was better on land.
She turned the valve on her throat and put her head above water, breathing air that hadn't been in her lungs for the first time in half an hour. White Sweater had a pistol.
"That thing silenced?" she asked, offhand. Her voice was muffled by the mouth guard. He looked startled, suddenly uncertain. She put up a hand and by reflex, Gray Sweater reached down and grabbed her left wrist in a sailor's grip. She grabbed his. He had something in his other hand, and he was swinging it at her. An arc crackled in the air.
She pulled down as hard as she could, at the same time thrusting up with the knife's hilt. It found the bottom of his chin, driving his teeth together with a loud clack. Her left hand grabbed the wrist with the baton. His arm felt like dead weight; maybe he was blacking out.
She was almost out of the water, her hips well above the level of concrete. She jerked on Gray Sweater and swung her butt over the deck. She could just barely reach White Sweater's leg with her feet; she swept low and he started to go over onto her. She twisted the baton up so White Sweater fell on it; there was a sharp crack and ozone smell and hit entire body jerked and somehow went in the opposite direction; he slammed into the ground, convulsed and lost bladder control.
She was gripping Gray Sweater, ready to break a bone if he showed signs of fight, but she was the only thing holding him up. He was drooling spit and blood; he probably had some broken teeth. He wasn't quite unconscious, yet. She turned the baton and got ready to push him away so she wouldn't get shocked when she zapped him.
There was a splash from the water; she swung Gray Sweater around, using the extra mass from the rebreather on her back. There was a hiss and wet thwack as a spear buried itself in Gray Sweater's back. He gurgled softly. Not quite dead, but it wouldn't be long.
White Sweater was squirming on his back, gun near his hand. She jumped down, flipper on his nose, driving his head back against the concrete with a soft crunch that couldn't be good news for him. She toppled Grey Sweater into the water, hoping to buy a couple of seconds.
She took White Sweater's gun, flipped off the safety, aimed it left handed. It was a Sig P225 in 9mm, a round she didn't particularly like, but it was better than nothing. The divers went under. Good thing, too. She didn't want to fire the weapon either. It was time to get away.
It seemed she flew up the stairs onto the road, and was a good three blocks away before she stopped. She took off the flippers, re-arranged the rebreather so she was carrying it instead of wearing it, and avoided streetlights.