Chapter #18Explanations for an Ex-Jeep by: Seuzz   Mutters of confusion erupt in the room as Knotts hurries out. "You heard the boss lady," you shout over the voices. "Glasses down! You know who your buddies are, so go home! Patterson! Gallion! Stick with me!"
Cox is by your elbow, and he leans in to mutter at you. "Did you see—?"
"Shut up," you say. "Get Liu and get out of here. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Gallion is still leaning against the wall. You grip him tightly on the upper arm and roughly shove him toward the wet bar, where all the shot glasses and tumblers are being placed. "Clean up all that shit. Put the bottles away. Straighten this place up."
His eyes are feverish. "You're worried about—"
"Do it, cocksucker! Now!"
Instinct kicks in, and he complies. It won't do him much good, except to keep his hands busy, but that should slow his brain down a little. "Patterson," you call, and pull him over to the door. "You stay here till I get back."
"Aren't we supposed to be keeping an eye on our buddies," he asks with light irony.
"Yeah, so keep an eye on Gallion in there. One eye on him, the other on me up the hall. I gotta talk to Knotts."
Yeah, he doesn't seem scared enough, but at the moment that's a good thing.
Knotts is shoving papers into her attaché case when you tap at the door. "Go home," she says after glancing up at you. "Slap some sanity back into Gallion."
"I think that should be your job," you say, and she straightens with a glare. "You paired us up most senior to least senior, but at the moment it's Patterson who's keeping his shit together and Gallion who's acting like an ex-jeep." You drop your voice. "I think he needs Mama Grizzly, and after all the yelling you've done, he needs to know you love him."
She looks past your elbow, down the hallway. "You might be right," she says. "Thanks. You can also put a little fear of celebrity into Patterson."
"You noticed that too, huh? Also, I wanted to say I'm sorry for not mentioning that second dart hole this morning."
"Doesn't matter. I wouldn't have paid any attention to it. And now—" Her lips disappear. "And now we won't have to worry about it."
You hesitate. "Someone's been at it since this morning. Gallion saw it, and I saw it before you pulled it down, and I think Cox did too. When are you bringing Lamb back inside?"
She resumes packing without replying. Still you watch her. After she's locked her case, she straightens up but doesn't look at you. "We leave him out there as long as possible," she says. "He's got CID chasing the celebrities for us. I know what I told Gallion, but I don't like playing pure defense."
"But he's exposed."
"No, he's in deep. There's nothing to link him to us, no thread for the celebrities to follow."
"They found Stanfill."
"Stanfill had a zampo parked in front of his biff's flat. Also, I checked, and Elliot's worked with Chernov before. I think it was through him that they made the jump from Chernov to Stanfill."
"They can make the same jump to Lamb, if they haven't already."
"Elliot only had contact with Stanfill, never with Lamb, and we've pulled him back anyway. Lamb's been talking to me directly, since I'm supposed to be Chernov's sister. There's no link good enough to tip them off about where and who he is."
"But I saw the dartboard, Knotts. It's got four holes in it. What do you think those mean?"
"It's coincidence," she says in a fiercely. "It's got to be. Because what does it mean if it isn't?"
"Paranoia keeps us alive," you remind her. "Don't you want to at least check on Lamb? Because if it's not coincidence, it means one for Chernov, one for Stanfill, one for Carrero, and one for—"
"Muniz," she says. "That's who it was for. If it wasn't coincidence, it was supposed to be for him or for whoever went out to meet Cupcake."
"I hope you're right," you say slowly.
"Just take Patterson back to your flat. Try frightening him instead of me."
* * * * *
"You can have my bed," you tell your guest as you pull blankets from your closet. "I'll take the sofa. It's too short for you."
"I can make myself compact," Patterson says. "You know that."
"Okay, let's make that the first lesson in tonight's orientation," you say. "The topic of Chiyoko is off-limits to ex-jeeps. You do not mention, refer or allude to Chiyoko in any way or form, and no one mentions, refers or alludes to Chiyoko when talking to you. It's only polite."
"So we never talk about it?"
"Not while you're an ex-jeep."
"Okay, but can you explain that terminology to me? I kind of get what it means, but no one really explains that stuff to, uh, jeeps."
"They don't? Then sure, siddown. Wanna drink?" You pull some gin out of a cabinet. "Okay, a jeep is what you were until you got your fifth card tonight. A jeep is a trainee. You got your fifth card now, so you're not a trainee anymore, but you're not really one of us until you've done your first job. So, at the moment you're in an in-between state. You're an ex-jeep." You stir him up a martini, and toast him with one of your own. "Here's to your living long enough to become an ex-ex-jeep."
He swallows it without making a face. "Why 'jeep'?" he asks, then sniffs appreciatively at his glass.
"It's US Air Force slang, I think. Came courtesy of Isaac Banks, the guy who ran us before Knotts took over. It means 'newbie'." You fall into the chair opposite him. "I think he also liked it 'cos he was a Popeye fan. You ever heard of Eugene the Jeep?" Patterson shakes his head. "Some magic character in Popeye, Banks told me once. Eugene the Jeep had this magic trick, he could disappear. Banks only called people 'jeeps' when he wanted them to get out of his sight."
Patterson grunts. "So until I successfully do a job—"
"Play a game. We call 'em games. You know how those work, right? Okay," you continue when he shrugs. "They're graded like your training exercises. Every assignment is ranked on a difficulty scale, from deuce to ace, and if you pull it off you earn the card and put it in your rank. Pull it off fast and neat, and you get a card higher than the job was ranked. Screw the pooch, and you earn a lower card. Whatever it is, Knotts throws out one of your cards and slides the new one in. That changes your rating, sometimes even your rank."
"So I could replace that five of spades by doing a job—"
"A game."
"—that's ranked six or higher?"
"Now you've got it. Of course, if you fuck up your play, you could lose that jack instead, and go down in rating."
"So what's our current game rated?"
You crinkle a brow in puzzlement, then snort when you realize what he means. "You mean our current crisis? This ain't no game, this is for fucking real. We're not running a game, we're having one run on us, and our object is to survive, that's all."
"Survive who, exactly?"
You peer at him. "How much gossip did you pick up in training? Oh, never mind. The celebrities aren't really something you get a formal orientation about. Because if you're lucky, you don't ever have to worry about them, and typically you don't find out about them unless you and your crew bump into one. So—"
You take a couple of breaths as you puzzle out how to explain it to him. You also get up and make him and yourself another martini.
"So, you understand that this tech we're using, the tattoos and shit, it ain't exactly natural. No one likes to call it 'magic', 'cos that sounds gay. Just call it, um, 'exotic tech'. Okay?"
Patterson nods.
"Well, this 'exotic tech' comes in different flavors. There's a set of projects we've got going to develop ten of those flavors. Like Nerio. Did you apply to Nerio?"
"Yeah, but I didn't pass the physical."
"None of us did. Everyone at Diana tried Nerio first. Don't let it worry you, you're better with us. But Nerio, they're working on a flavor of exotic tech related to fighting, to super-soldiers. That's how come their code-name is Nerio. She was a goddess of war or something."
"I see," Patterson muses. "And Diana— She was the goddess of the Moon, right?"
"Aces, man, you're up your mythology. Bone up on your astronomy too, 'cos the project names are actually keyed to the solar system." You wipe at the ceiling with your hand. "Nerio is actually keyed to Mars, that's how come they picked a war-like name for the project. Project Hermod is Mercury, 'cos Hermod and Mercury were both messengers of the gods, and Project Hermod works in communications. And so on. Diana is the Moon. She was goddess of the hunt, and the Moon has eclipses—" You toast him. "So we're ninjas, man, hunters striking from the shadows."
"What's this hafta do with the celebrities? Who are they?"
You suck down your martini. "Okay, we gotta use tech, this 'exotic tech', to do our tricks. All the projects do, and they're constantly trying to improve it. But the celebrities, man, those people can do it without exotic tech. 'Cos they're born with it or something."
"What do you mean 'born with it'?" Patterson asks, and his eyes freeze.
"Like I said. They're fuckin' mutants, right outta the comics. What we're trying to invent, they can already do. And they can do it ten or a hundred times better than we can."  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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