Although, right now seemed to be the exception. My soup was already half gone, but my stomach still felt empty. I teased the morsel of chicken off my spoon with my teeth. I’d worry about it later.
“You do now.” Tobias lifted a two-inch thick sandwich off the plate stacked with them.
The dark layer under the red tomato and green lettuce hinted at roast beef, or pastrami or… My heart leapt in my chest. Or, please Jesus, corned beef. I dropped my spoon and reached for a sandwich. Oats flaked off the seven-grain bread as I raised it to my nose. Over the scent of mustard and mayonnaise, I detected the pungent bay leaves, cloves and cardamom. Squishing the bread, I stuffed the corner into my mouth and bit down. Yes, yes, YES! My taste buds sang and I closed my eyes, savoring the moment of Nirvana.
“Glad you’re enjoying it.” Tobias chuckled.
I opened my eyes but couldn’t summon a glare. The man had provided a feast. And I did love food. Good food, not that brittle noodle stuff, I’d been eating since I’d been RIFed.
Setting down his half-eaten sandwich, Tobias tore open a bag of baked Cheddar and sour cream chips. “The CeeBees will be constantly using up your body’s energy. You’ll need plenty of protein, carbs and salts, especially potassium and sodium.”
Protein, carbs and salts. That sounded like a recipe for a heart attack. Still, I continued to whittle away at my sandwich. Who wanted to diet anyway? Especially since he was paying for the food. He was paying for the food, wasn’t he? I rolled a bite of sandwich over my tongue. We’d work it out somehow. I accepted the bag of chips and dumped a smattering onto my plate.
Tobias freed a banana from the bunch next to the bag of oranges. “Eat one of these a day.” He shook the yellow fruit at me. “Two on days when you’re accessing your CeeBees more than twice.”
I tucked it against my plate, set down my half-eaten sandwich then wiped my mouth on a paper napkin under my fork. I’d eaten more than I had for days, yet hunger still stalked me. All these calories had better not end up on my butt. I had an interview suit to get into. Sighing, I stuffed a chip into my mouth then prodded my Smartphone across the table toward Tobias. “As I was saying, I don’t think this phone works. There’s nothing on it.”
Orange scented the air as he dug a thumb under the rind and peeled away a strip. “That’s because you haven’t asked for anything yet.”
“I tried to dial out.” Pulling the cell back toward me, I crunched on another chip. Mmm, salt. I licked my fingers before I caught myself and wiped my fingers on the wadded up napkin. “It wouldn’t let me.”
“You won’t need to dial.” He piled the orange rind next to his plate then split the fruit in two. “Just think of who you want to speak to and it’ll dial for you.”
I shook my head. You needed a contact list for that and I didn’t even have that.
Tobias rolled his eyes and scratched the scar tissue sealing the joint of his right arm. “Ask a question.”
Light winked off his brass arm band. “Why do you wear that brass bracelet?”
I slapped my hands over my mouth. Aw snap! I was supposed to ask the Smartphone a question not Tobias.
Pain squeezed his features before he blanked it out. He carefully separated all the orange segments and arranged them in a star pattern around his plate. “Check the datapad.”
I glanced down. A smiley face appeared on the screen over the word emicons. “It’s definitely not working right. Look what I got.”
I held the screen up for him to see.
“Open it.” He nodded and stuffed two orange wedges into his mouth.
Turning the screen to me, I obeyed. I owed him that much after such a personal question. Obviously, the bracelet meant very much to him. I tapped the smiley face and bunch of files filled the screen. Just how many emicons were there to be categorized according to emotion?
Tobias finished his orange then reached for the bag of chips. “Open the one marked grief.”
Grief? Oh Lord, what did I get myself into? I scrolled down and found the file. My finger shook before I tapped the icon. Only one file remained. Military bereavement. Tobias was a Colonel. I’d really stuck my foot in it this time. I opened the file and read the entry. “Memorial bracelets. To honor those comrades fallen in battle, the deceased’s particulars are recorded and worn until service has ceased.”
Tobias rolled the bag of chips closed. “Sounds right to me.”
The hair on my wrist stood on end when names appeared on the screen. A scroll bar appeared and the position dot shrunk. Lots of names. I cleared my throat. Ages at death appeared next, an odd looking date, rank and last mission. I scrolled down. Many of them died in something called Antaries. After that, names came in ones and twos, until the end. Twenty-five died on the same day.
Was this the mission where Tobias lost his arms? The one caused by the newbie? I backed out of the files until I reached the main screen before setting the phone down. “I’m sorry. I—”
Tobias tucked the bag of chips into a grocery sack with the unopened ones. “Whenever you ask a question you want the datapad to answer make sure you’re in contact with it.”
I nodded. Now to change the subject. I pushed aside the remains of my sandwich. Who knew humiliation could be so filling? Well, I shouldn’t waste the food. Lifting my plate, I walked across the laminate tile to the open kitchen. “Why do I have to be in contact?”
Tobias picked up my abandoned banana and the rest of the sandwiches. “The CeeBees give off an energy spike that every treasure hunter, archeologist and government suck-up in the galaxy is looking for. The signal almost disappears when the datapad is in direct contact with your skin.”
Almost? Son of a monkey’s butt! Almost is means not in my book. The ceramic plate clattered to the counter. I already had one guy trying to kill me, I didn’t need a frickin’ Spam dot bounty on my head. I yanked open the side drawer and snatched up the roll of plastic wrap. “Why?”
“As a steward, you have access to information that could significantly weaken the UED if not bring it down altogether.” Tobias added my sandwich to the remaining ones then set the banana down in front of me. “And those that don’t want UED’s information want the alien tech that’s inside you. It’ll go for a lot of credits on the black market.”
Damn CeeBees should have a warning label. I yanked on the edge of the plastic wrap and three feet of clear sheet spun out. Just dandy! I ripped off the piece and draped it over the food. “If the UED didn’t invent the CeeBees, who did?”
“We don’t know and at this point it’s hard to separate myth from reality.” Tobias scooped up the shrouded plate before I could and headed for the fridge. “Eat your banana.”
I picked it up and broke open the tip. Could I ask the CeeBees themselves? Get real, Rae. If the answer could be found that easily, don’t you think someone would have discovered it before now? I peeled the banana and took a bite. “So what do you know about the Cee-Bee inventors?”
“The Archa’s society was rich, powerful and extended into neighboring galaxies.” Tobias shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it. “They were at their height when humans were just crawling out of the primordial soup. Then one day, they were gone.” He snapped his fingers. “They just disappeared.”
I shivered. God, I hoped the CeeBees didn’t eat them.
Don’t think about it
. Turning, I crossed the kitchen and opened the cabinet near the stove. Rooting through the collection, I unearthed a clean margarine tub and matching lid. The chicken and dumplings should fit inside. My fingers drummed the bottom of the plastic as I walked back to the table. “The Archa sound like a cosmic Atlantis.”
Tobias followed, but headed for his end of the table. “Finding some of their tech on Earth helped Atlantis achieve intersolar system travel.”
I tripped over my feet and slammed to a stop against table. The bag of chips plopped to the floor. “You mean they were real?”
“I’m descended from them.” He lifted a Styrofoam cup then walked toward me. “Atlantians were the first wave of humans to explore the galaxy. We still operate several bases on Earth’s ocean floors. The most notorious is near Bermuda.”
“Bermuda.” White topped my knuckles. I stared at the empty margarine tub. “As in the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Yes.” He smiled before adding the contents of my soup dish to the chicken and dumplings still in the Styrofoam container. “I was stationed there twenty years ago.”
Holy Toledo! It was real. All those nut jobs were right. “So all those planes and ships that disappeared…”
“We took them.” He sealed the lid on the soup. “We wanted to monitor your level of technological progress before we began infiltration.”
Right. He’d mentioned that before. Cold prickled my nape. He also considered killing an option. “What do you do with the people you captured?”
“We didn’t capture them.”
I trailed him into the kitchen.
He set the soup inside the fridge. When he turned around, he bumped into me. He placed his hands on my shoulders, steadying me. “When I was stationed on Earth, they were relocated to another planet. We have stewards on every world to help newcomers adapt.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Twenty years ago.” He scooted around me and made his way back to the table.
Right. He’d said that before. Numbers flew in my head as I stalked him. If he was in the service twenty years ago and he enlisted at eighteen, he’d be thirty-eight. A very fit thirty-eight.
Tobias picked up his glass of juice and drained it. “I’m thirty-nine, in case you’re wondering.”
My cheeks heated as I studied my fingernails. His age was none of my business. I ran my fingers through the sweat on my glass before staring at my Smartphone. “Why did a smiley icon pop up when I asked about the bracelet? Why not jewelry or military insignias?”
“Because that would be obvious.” Tobias stacked his bowl on his plate and sauntered closer. “Drink your juice.”
I automatically raised the cup to my lips. What in the world? Did Cee-Bee’s infect me with some obedience program? I almost lowered the glass. Since he was watching, I drank it. But only because the salt from the potato chips had made me thirsty.
“Our entire tech is designed to blend in with current technology.” Tobias added my dishes to his then carried them to the kitchen sink.
I nodded. That explained the MP4 player that wasn’t, as well as the key chain and cell phone. As for the pen… I still didn’t know what it could do.
“Since not many people would have an app with a military insignia, yours won’t either. And if your datapad falls into the wrong hands, they’ll have a hard time trying to figure out what you were working on.”
“Why don’t the CeeBees prevent anyone but me from accessing the information?” Walking into the kitchen, I retrieved the sponge from the back of the sink and wet it. Warm water dripped through my fingers as I squeezed the blue square. Since he made the meal, I could clean up.
“The CeeBees can protect the information to an extent. But people like Konstantin are specialists at working around the firewalls and extracting information.” Tobias opened a few drawers before finding the towels and selecting one. “They also know how to keep stewards alive for long periods of time so they can rip as much data out of UED’s system as possible.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Being kept alive is not the same thing as living. Don’t get caught by the bad guys. That was definitely going on my anti-bucket list.
Too bad, it wasn’t that easy.
A mental list was hardly an impenetrable fortress. I scrubbed the dishes and put them in the drain board.
He picked up a plate and dried it. “You should keep your datapad near you at all times.”
Of course, the phone. It might have something to stop the bad guys. I skipped to the table and picked it up. Still just the one icon. “What else can it do, besides provide answers like a magic eight ball?”
“There’s no magic to it.” He stowed the dried plate then joined me. “The CeeBees interface directly into your brain, translate your thoughts into their code then seek the nearest—”
I held up my hand. “You’re getting way too technical.”
Tobias ran his fingers through his crew cut. “Think of the CeeBees as an internet provider. It gives you access to science, history, and technology gleaned from hundreds of thousands of species over millions of years.”
I hated science and history. As for technology… It ended up being a pain in my ass.
He sighed. “I know blah, blah, blah.”
His hands parroted a chattering mouth.
I smiled. Good to know he had a sense of humor. “Actually, it’s more yadda, yadda, yadda. I understood what you were saying; I just wasn’t interested in learning.”
“Learning is a part of your job. Each species has living specifications, habits, customs and hatreds. We want them to be as comfortable as possible. Then there are other organisms the UED would prefer not to be too much at home on Earth.”
And I was willing to learn, but only those things that interested me—like staying alive and away from the bad guys. Of course, I would only be allowed to live if I did my steward’s job too. “Quatar is one of the UED’s frienemies, right?”
“Exactly.”
I beamed at him. See I paid attention.
“The Aquadi are more enemy than friend, though.”
Got it. Quatar did seem more like an oil slick than clean pure water. I stared at the cell. “Can I use it as a phone?”
“You have unlimited Milky Way minutes.”
Someone else had been paying attention. Still, that was the second joke he’d made. And not once had he mentioned killing me. The day was looking up, even if it was late.
“It won’t have a contact list like you’re used to.”
No contact list? Aw snap! I was actually supposed to remember numbers. That was so Stone Age. Did I even remember my mother’s number? Yes. Maybe. I pressed the eight. Nothing. Great! “How am I supposed to dial?”
“Just think of who you want to call or what you want to know and the datapad will either call for you or open the app with the information.”
“Okay.” And what am I supposed to do while waiting to be called into service? A new icon materialized next to the emicons folder. I tapped the picture of a card. Solitaire, Hearts, Kings. But what were they really? I opened the first one. Cards appeared on a blue background. “Hey, it’s got games.”