Harsh Lessons (10 page)

Turning her attention to her 'sheet, Emma began angrily clicking through the articles she'd selected.

Silence fell while James and Preacher studied their cards.  Leeth watched them all intently.

At last James looked up.  'How are your lessons going today, Leeth?’

Her eyes lit up, and she stretched comprehensively.  'Sensei just finished with me for today.  I don't have anything till Emma's free this afternoon.'

'Killed anyone today?' Preacher asked sarcastically.

James's head jerked up to stare at Preacher.

'No.'  Leeth cocked her head to one side, trying to work out the reason for Preacher's strange tone of voice.  'I've been too busy, and I'm not allowed out.'

Emma laughed at the response, but it caught in her throat at the look James turned on her.  She stared from the girl to James, his grim expression telling her more than she wanted to know.  Father's injunction about safe topics of conversation made sudden sickening sense.

With a hollow feeling in her stomach Emma cued a search onto her newssheet: "opera and murder." 
There
.  She read it, quickly.  The murder of a well-known soprano at the War Memorial Opera House last night.  Just like several other murders over the last few months.  Gruesome.

Hard to believe the happy young girl before her could be responsible.  Could be "The Breaker": the name some newsment shows had given the killer.  Emma looked at Leeth with an equal mix of horror at what she'd done and pity for her future; then bent her head back to her ’sheet.

At least it explained how Leeth had come to Eagle's attention.

'When d'you go out on your next mission?' Leeth asked the group.  The three operatives exchanged frowns.

'Why do you want to know?' demanded Preacher.

'I thought maybe you could ask Father if I could come with you, to help?'

Preacher snorted.  'Chip out, girl.  You've been here what, a few weeks?  Ask again in six months.'

'Six months?  You mean weeks, right?’  She looked from one face to another.  ‘Are you
serious
?'

At Preacher's amused nod, she sprang from her chair.  'Six
months
?'  She prowled around the billiard table, grimacing, then circled the coffee machine.  'Six months!'

'You've got a
lot
to learn, yet, Leeth,' Emma answered gently.  'We all have to teach you as much as we can.'

Leeth stood, tense.  'Well,' she gestured vaguely with one open hand, then frowned.  'Preacher!  Can you teach me some more shooting?  Now?'

'I'm playing poker, Leeth.  Maybe if you're nice to me, I'll give you an hour's workout, say at two?'

She scowled, continuing to prowl the room.  Emma went back to her news.  The silence didn’t last long.  'Does anyone want to play pool?'

'Billiards,' corrected James, automatically.

'All right, billiards.'  She looked at the table in puzzlement.  'Hey, where are all the other balls?' she asked, hunting around the table.

'That's all there are.  It's for James' scuzzin' billiards.  And we're
trying
to play poker,' Preacher answered.

Silence once more descended, Leeth pacing the room until her attention was captured by Emma's absorption in whatever she was reading.  The girl came silently over, reading over the older woman’s shoulder.  It seemed to be just news, but then a heading caught her eye.  'What's "i-rape," Emma?'

'Identity-rape.  Like r-theft.'  At Leeth's blank look she added, 'Reality-theft.'

Leeth screwed up her face.

'You know, like someone overlaying you with a naked replacement or a diseased one; or someone hacking your mediated-reality with their own one – like they might replace the prices on items with higher ones, or otherwise hide parts of reality from you.'

'We had some trouble with Nelson, when he was younger,' offered James.

'Nelson?' Leeth asked.  'I’ve had some systems, search, and security lessons with him.  What'd he do?'

'Well, technically it wasn't i-rape or r-theft,' Emma said, 'since he was only modifying his own senses, but it was highly unprofessional.'

'But what'd he
do
?'

'He was replacing my body's image with a real-time nude simulacrum,’ Emma said.  ‘It was obvious when he was doing it – he'd have this stupid grin, and his eyes would be practically glued to my breasts.  Mother and Father came down on him like a ton of dragon-shit.'

'Oh.'  Leeth considered asking if there was something funny about Emma's breasts, but decided not to.  Then she wondered how Nelson
saw
the images… but she just wasn't that interested.  She wanted to be
doing
something, not talking!

Emma continued reading her news pad; James took a card from the deck.

Leeth decided to relax, like the agents were.  Plopping down in a seat, she stretched out and tried to think calm thoughts.  She adjusted her position, trying to find a posture that declared
"
I'm a professional, relaxing calmly in between missions, and I could stay like this for
hours
.
"

Five minutes later she was prowling the room again.

Pausing by the coffee machine, she furtively poured a cup.  She knew Uncle said it was a drug, a stimulant, but the others were always drinking it and it didn't seem to affect them at all.  But she added creamer and plenty of sugar, having learned
that
much last night.

'Oh, no,' Emma suddenly announced.  'Another copter went down in the Sonoma Valley – twenty three people killed.  Private charter company.'  She held out her ’sheet so they could all see, before continuing, angrily.  'When the old US government controlled licenses, these people had to meet proper standards.  Twenty three dead.  It's horrible.'

Leeth trod softly over.  A rectangular window showed rescue workers picking through wreckage.  A small frown creased her brow.  'Who was on the copter?'

'It doesn't say.  New Francisco Joyflights Inc haven't released the passenger list yet.'

Leeth's crease deepened.  'Was somebody important on it?'

'I doubt it.  Otherwise they'd have said.'

Leeth moved around and sat back in her chair, sipping at the hot liquid with an expression that seemed to say she was trying hard to enjoy it.  'Why was it horrible, then?'

Emma frowned.  'Because twenty three people died in a copter crash.'

Head tilted to one side, Leeth tried to puzzle it out.  'I don't get it.  Was the
copter
special?'

James's voice on their shared comm-channel interrupted her. 
«Emma!»
  She looked across, where he was making a face at her, subtly shaking his head.  With a chill, she realized this too must be part of Leeth's "psychological orientation."

She tried to recover.  'Oh.  Well, no, not exactly
special
.  Just expensive.  And the loss will, ah, it'll seriously inconvenience a lot of people.'

Leeth put down her now-empty cup, drawing up her knees.  Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth, then jumped out of the chair, laughing.  All three agents looked at her strangely.  Her skin tingled and her thoughts had started buzzing like wasps sucked into a cyclonic vacuum.

'Anyone wanna come for a swim?  We could race!'

Preacher snorted, James shook his head, and Emma gently declined.  Leeth laughed again, hugging herself.  'How about sex?  Do any of you feel like sex?   Even Preacher.'

All three stared at her in astonishment.  Preacher glared down at his cards, looking torn.

But Leeth had already bounced to her feet and run from the room. She had to move.  Sprinting harder, feet slipping on the corridor as she slammed through the door into the swimming pool, she tore off her clothes and dived into the water.

The agents exchanged looks as Leeth surged down the length of the pool.

'She
on
something?' asked Preacher.

'I don't
think
so,' James answered, sounding uncertain.

'Did you notice something, while she was here?' asked Emma.

'Besides the business about the copter crash?'

'Mm-hm.'

Both men shook their heads.

'She barely sat still for five minutes.'

'So?'

'But she said she'd just come from Dojo.'  The two men looked suddenly thoughtful.  'I'm always wrecked after a session with Dojo. 
She
sits down for five, then can't stop flitting about the room.'

All three turned to the transparent wall, where Leeth now…
cavorted
in the water.

Half mesmerized, they watched as she dived and swam, her activity becoming steadily
more
frenetic as each minute passed.

'She
must
be on something,' muttered Preacher.  'Looks like she's going to fragging blow!'

Suddenly she stilled; then a moment later, plunged underwater to the side of the pool.  Her tanned shape crouched on the bottom, then shot from the water like a dolphin.  Hands slapping the sides for an instant –
she's got that down pat
, Emma thought – she raced from the room, ignoring her clothes.

James turned to face the door nearest the corridor outside.  But as seconds passed and she didn't reappear, he let his breath out in a slow hiss of relief.

Emma looked at him.  'Does
that
-?  How
did
things go last night?'

He grimaced.  'I don't like to criticize a lady.  Let me put it this way: at least she knew how to use a knife and fork.'

'And the opera?'

He groaned.  'I don't believe I truly understood the meaning of the word "embarrassment" until last night.'

'Not an opera fan, then?'

'No.  Not.'

'Well, I
did
warn you – what did you expect, introducing her to opera with Wagner?'

Emma expected James to argue the point, but he just sighed.  'And on top of that, she didn't know there are languages besides English, Japanese, Street and Mumbles.'

The other two looked doubtful.

'I swear!  I mean, she thought "German" was a
city
, for god's sake!'  He waved one hand at the swimming pool.  '
That's
exactly how she started acting last night, after the opera.'  He frowned, remembering.  'We, ah,
left
after I'd introduced her to Maria Lempriere.  I took her to a night café.'  He shook his head.  'She dragged me out, though, before I'd finished.  Convinced me to take her into the Tenderloin to show me something.'

'Which was where she…?'  Preacher made a slashing motion, and James nodded.

'What was Maria doing in
that
part of town?' asked Emma.

The two men stared at her blankly, and she gestured down at her 'sheet.  'Maria Lempriere was murdered last night.  I assumed that was who Leeth killed.'

James looked stunned.  '
Maria's
dead?'

He sat motionless for so long that Preacher half rose to his feet, mock-helpfully.  'Looks like your chip's slipped.  Want me to bash it back in for you, "old man"?'

James snapped out of it, ignoring the jibe.  'She did say she wanted to kill Maria.  But… she couldn’t have.  Impossible.  We were together the whole time.'

'Really?' sneered Preacher.  'How was the ladies room?'

James's lips thinned, but he said nothing, merely shook his head again.

In the following silence Emma found herself staring at the empty cup beside Leeth's chair.  She looked up at the other two.  'You said, she dragged you out of a
café
?  What did
she
have?'

'Well, just cake and a cup of-.'

'Coffee?' exclaimed Preacher.  'You think she goes into orbit over a cup of coffee?  Come
on
.'

For a moment, James didn't respond.  'You weren't there,' he said, quietly.

Preacher rolled his eyes.  'Come on, deal up.  You've been chipping too much oh-oh-seven,
James
.  This is real life, not one of your null spy dramas.  Some of us have
real
work to do, not just sleep around with interns while playing pranks on stuck-up nobodies like your fucking pal
Derek
at his five-star restaurant!'

James froze.  Then, staring coldly back at Preacher, he rose and tossed the cards down onto the table.

'I believe I've had enough,' he said, and stalked from the room.

'Hey, you can't just- I was winning, dammit!'  Preacher looked hopefully into the pool, then across at Emma, whose mouth drew tight as she deliberately focused on her news scanner.

With a snarl, Preacher thrust from his chair and stormed off, plowing through the door. 
Bastards.  Oh-so-pure bastards.
 
Whose operation did they think
funded
their delusional rich-spy lifestyles?

Emma shut her eyes tightly against the surge of anguish awoken by Preacher's chip-dream taunt.  Her right hand involuntarily brushed aside the hair concealing her own headjack, fingers tracing the hard edges of the precious socket.  She could go to her rooms right now, chip in and return to Maldemort.  The villagers there now recognized her worth, as the plot moved towards its climax.  Or continue the Enigma Charade – Charlie was definitely in over his head, if he only had the sense to know it.

She half rose from her chair, but with the door still swinging shut from Preacher's departure, the mental image of his sneering face was too fresh a reminder of her own weakness.  Instead, she made herself sit back down and resist the siren call.  Blinking away tears, she forced her eyes open and her attention back to the 'scanner.

'Damn him,' she whispered.

Chapter 11 

Some weeks later, Leeth stalked down the corridor, so angry she'd forgotten her private vow to always walk silently.  The heels of her stylish faux-combat boots cracked whip-like against the concrete floor as she stormed from the meeting with Mother and Father.  She could hardly believe it.  She'd been here well over a month now, and they were
still
treating her like a baby!