“You gonna stay here all night?” Paul asked.
Alex lowered his hands. “Consider the alternative,” he said. “I have to tell her.”
“Yeah,” Paul said. He took a seat next to Alex. “Look, I didn’t want this to happen. You know that, right?”
“I saw your face. I’d like to know why, though. You never bothered about her before.”
Paul glanced around as if someone might be listening. “What Richard said about you and her—there’s a lot of that talk going around.”
“Always has been.”
“From what I can tell, now it’s true. That makes a difference.”
“It sure does,” Alex agreed. “At least, we like it better this way.”
Paul grimaced. “Jesus, Alex. What the hell are you thinking? There’s rules.”
“I’m familiar with the protocols. There’s also loopholes.”
“They get used or not, depending. And with her….” He blew air out through his lips, sounding like a horse. “You two better keep a low profile.”
“Not our strong point,” he mentioned.
“Don’t I know it. Listen, personally, I don’t care what you do after hours. You’re one of the best supervisors we got and I’ll back you.”
“What about Jaguar?”
Paul waved a hand in the air. “She’s like hornet spray. Nasty stuff, but you’re glad it’s there when you need it. And between you and me, she’s got a few senators in her pocket after that whole moon mining thing, so she’s probably safe until the next election. ’Course, if she changed her vote, she’d be off the hook on this one.”
Alex made a derisive noise.
“That’s what I thought,” Paul agreed. “But maybe it’s a good thing. There’s something I want to know about One, and she’d be doing me a big favor if she found out while she was there. She does kinda owe me about now. Come to think of it, so do you.”
Just a few months ago he and Jaguar had both resigned so they could go after a Greenkeeper on the home planet. Paul had deliberately failed to hand in their letters, so they’d been able to return to their jobs with nothing on their records. Of course he’d cash in on that sooner or later, but why now? Why with this?
“What’s up, Paul?” Alex asked.
“Something you’re not gonna like,” Paul said. “And for once, I’ll agree with you. Let’s go back to your office and I’ll tell you.”
Consensus was clearly against Jaguar today, from all quarters. Alex pressed his hands against the table and pushed himself to stand. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll finish the day like it started. With bad news.”
Chapter 2
Planetoid One
A man in a blue suit sat at a desk inside an office on Planetoid One, staring down at a message on his personal notepad. As he read it, he smiled.
He looked remarkably like any other office worker on the Planetoid in that he was unremarkable. He was an adult white male, tall and bulky, his features not memorable for attractiveness or lack of attractiveness. His suit hid his rather demure tattoos, a series of special codes written small that ran across his shoulders and down one side of his back. Each code named a client whose identity was decipherable through a document left with his lawyer, to be used in the event of his violent death. With each successfully completed job, he had a new tattoo inscribed. All his clients knew that. He was not a man who willingly relinquished control.
But here and now he was just another Planetoid One worker, and those who met him had a hard time describing him once he was out of view. That was due partly to his eminently forgettable looks, and in part to a trick he’d picked up while working with military Psi Ops. It was easy, he’d found, to blur the memory of those who met him. Clowning, it was called. Creating situations that distracted the eye, distracted the mind from the truth. And he was a master Clown.
He’d also earned a reputation as a solid Collector, bringing in information, important objects or, when requested, people. But his primary work was as a Cleaner, tidying up messy situations, getting rid of messy people. He earned most of his money this way, contracting with both government and private sector clients, all of whom referred to him simply as The Cleaner.
His current job required all three skills, and he’d been on retainer for it for a few months, working a cover job while here. So far much of his work involved Clowning, making sure certain procedures within the system remained invisible, but he’d also completed one Cleaning job. He’d been paid well, the money waiting in his very private home planet account, and his cover job was interesting without being onerous. He’d also been able to gather data he knew he could sell elsewhere. All in all, it was a pretty good gig.
Today, when he touched his personal notepad screen and opened the file for this job, it had a new message, which is what made him smile.
A new subject was coming his way and he was to begin a D and D order on her. She needed to be both discredited and dead.
He liked D and D’s much better than straightforward cleaning. They required a subtler approach, a longer set up time. They were almost like writing a script, needing artistry and finesse rather than just brute force, and he prided himself on his artistry.
When he saw the subject’s name, he felt a special thrill. He knew something about her. Quite a bit, in fact, since he kept up with the who’s who of empaths, and she was a big one. He remembered some rumors about her giving the pentagon a hard time, and thought of one of his other clients, one who might be interested in doing some collateral damage, or at least gaining some collateral information on her. That client would also be interested in the data he was collecting in his spare time. Whenever possible he liked to double up on his jobs.
He considered possibilities. He was scheduled to go to the home planet tomorrow as part of his cover job. While there he could check with that client, see if he wanted in on this.
In the meantime, he already had some ideas on how to manage the D and D, and he could start some set up right away. He reached into his desk drawer and removed a small data retrieval unit designed to pick up specific energies of interest to this job. He pocketed it, got up and left his office. He’d walk the halls and check the environment, see what possibilities arose from the combination of subject and scene.
He had a pleasant job ahead of him, and he might as well get to it.
Chapter 3
It was evening by the time Alex finished with Paul, made what progress he could toward setting up what would happen next, and got himself home. On and off he’d tried to contact Jaguar in as many ways as possible—telecom, belt sensor, empathically—to no avail. She was following his advice and laying very low.
He decided to go home for dinner before he went to her apartment, but when he opened his apartment door he felt her presence. He adjusted to it, tried to catch a scent of her mood, but all he could smell was incense burning.
There.
She was sitting in his rocking chair, staring out the bank of windows that overlooked the shores of the replica of Lake Ontario, one of the nicest parts of this replica city of Toronto, built specifically for Planetoid Three. He closed the door softly behind him and walked across the room, stopping just behind her.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked.
She ran a hand through the curls of smoke rising from the incense on the table next to her, playing it like a cat played thread. “Here,” she said. “Waiting for you. They want