3rd World Products, Book 16 (27 page)

I felt a brief, small surge of field energy and Milla nodded. “I see.” She reached through my probe’s field to touch the sample with a finger and we watched a dark spot spread to encompass the sample, then apparently soak into it.
 

Milla said, “When you install these nanobots, they’ll sense the presence of Marie Connor’s greater body and activate. Reconstruction will take two to three weeks, depending on her intake and elimination cycles. Moderate exercise would hasten the process slightly.”
 

Looking at Tanya, she said, “I’m afraid all I can do is arrange repair of damaged tissues according to her DNA and RNA, but I’ve found the human brain is marvelously adaptable in its capacity to heal and make use of new neural pathways.”
 

I said, “I told her there were no guarantees where brain damage is concerned. It’s just too iffy. But from what I’ve read, Marie’s damage hasn’t made her lose much, if any, of her memory. When your ‘bots restore motor controls and missing tissue, I expect her to recover pretty well.”
 

Milla canted her head slightly and said, “I hope you’re right. May I expect to meet her at some future time?”
 

“There’ll be a time when they won’t be able to justify keeping her. I’ll get her down here as soon as possible.”
 

Nodding, Milla said, “I look forward to meeting her. Thank you for helping me extend my services, Ed. I hope you won’t encounter difficulties from this action.”
 

“Oh, some, maybe. None we can’t handle somehow. Milla, I think certain power mongers are brewing up a legal and political battle for the upcoming election year. Creating new mud to sling, you could say. Could be people won’t have to sneak down here after the elections.”
 

She smiled in a manner that made me want to hug her and said warmly, “That would be wonderful, Ed.”
 

To Tanya, she said, “I wish your mother the best possible results,” then to both of us, she said, “I have patients awaiting me. Goodbye.”
 

Milla vanished and Tanya almost whispered, “Well, she doesn’t waste time with long goodbyes, does she?”
 

“She’s handling about fifty people at once. We tied up this piece of her persona long enough.”
 

“
Fifty?
How?”
 

I grinned. “She multitasks really well. Saddle up, ma’am.”
 

We reboarded Tea and headed back to the US in a reverse of the high arc that had brought us to Guyana. Tanya avidly watched our takeoff as I cranked up Tea’s monitor screen and searched for more info about Mike Sayer. I turned up his military and DAC assignment records, but there was a curious empty space regarding the week he died. Nothing told me where he’d been or what he’d
been doing.
 

Okay. I’d dig obliquely. What were Connie, Will, and Marie doing the week he died? Hiding, though they’d technically been on leave. Connie and Will had gone to Kenya to visit friends and Marie had gone to Innsbruck, Austria, then to Naples, Italy to visit friends.
 

Back in the Cold War, various agencies verified all our social contacts on general principles. I found verifications of Marie’s friends in two files and a record of Marie’s visits in one of them. The dates checked out. She’d been clearly photographed on a Naples street the afternoon of Mike’s accident.
 

Hm. The accident had happened during my first week in Israel. That immediately eliminated as suspects everyone in my own agency’s local pool; they all knew I’d been sent out of Germany in a hurry. We knew Congressional subpoenas had been issued for everyone in our intel pool and most of the sub-agencies surrounding ours.
 

American agents were being arrested in five countries at once. An Italian newspaper published a long list of names of CIA officials, agents, and local hires. The Watergate Hearings had begun in mid-year. Largely due to the winding-down of the long-running Vietnam War, the Senate and Congress had been leaning hard on the militaries and the intel services.
 

Most of us felt the subpoenas were a continuation of politically-biased attacks against President Nixon and his administration in particular and the beginning of a pogrom against the militaries and the US intelligence community as a whole.
 

That belief was bolstered when Nixon resigned the following year. Gerald Ford took office and subsequently signed the Helsinki Accords, which had drastic effects on the capabilities of the American foreign intelligence services. Congress gained a stronger control of foreign policies and worked hard to reduce the powers of the President while increasing its own powers.
 

And, of course, Israel’s October War had begun during my first week there. The day before Mike’s death, in fact. But I couldn’t see any connection other than the rather vague possibility that someone had thought we were part of an op by pretending I’d gone to Israel when my car was obviously running around in Germany.
 

So how would any of all that stuff seriously piss anyone off at me in particular? Or at Mike, however unlikely that seemed? Unknown. My car had been wrecked in Hannover. Why was Mike in Hannover when everybody else had scampered out of reach of subpoenas? I checked; of all my group’s field people, only he had received a subpoena.
 

To testify about what? Our groups didn’t assassinate people or topple governments. We delivered info, money, and supplies into East Germany and pulled people out of there. We didn’t even carry weapons on most missions.
 

Tanya said, “
Ed!
” in a very insistent manner. I paused my core link and looked at her.
 

“Yes?”
 

“I had to call you
four times
.”
 

“I was busy. What’s on your mind, ma’am?”
 

“The pictures you found. I don’t think it would be a good idea to show them to mom. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t
feel
like a good idea.”
 

“That’s your subconscious at work. It’s tossing up warning flags, so we won’t ignore them. I’ll get the treatment into Marie without making a second trip.”
 

Possibly surprised to have been taken seriously, Tanya gave me a very curious look before she nodded. “Thanks, but how will you get the nanobots into her?”
 

“The same way I got the sample out of her. A probe.”
 

“Show me one.”
 

With a shrug, I said, “Okay,” and manifested a probe large enough to carry the sample. It looked as wispy as ultra-thin monofilament and ended in a tiny bulb. I directed it to Tanya and she closely examined it.
 

I said, “The sample makes it tangible, so it could set off monitor alarms. Unless you can think of a good reason for a second visit today, we might have to use the squirrel idea. One really fit squirrel would do, I think.”
 

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. A squirrel is a kind of rodent. They might kill it if they can’t catch it easily. What about using a bird? When it got tired, they’d catch it and just toss it outside, wouldn’t they?”
 

“I wonder. Birds are a flu vector these days. They might run it through a lab for tests. No guarantee it would survive that.”
 

“Then what can we use?”
 

“Good question. Flying bugs are out of season right now.”
 

Tanya slumped in her seat and studied the world beyond the flitter for a time, then said in a quiet tone, “Maybe we’re back to the candy idea.”
 

Hm. Or not. Stop by a Dollar Tree store and buy some of those superballs that bounce like crazy. Wait for a door to open and send one in.
 

“Nope. Dollar store superballs.”
 

“Whats?”
 

“You’ll see. Drop one and it bounces almost back up to where it was released.”
 

She nodded. “Ah. Okay. I’ve seen those.”
 

“We’ll shoot one into the building from the street to deal with the alarms. I’ll send the probe in after it. We’ll dump the others in the street so it looks like somebody dropped his balls.”
 

Tanya grinned. “I like it! Yeah! Superballs!”
 

We stopped in Miami to find our ammo. Once I located a store, I turned on my personal protective field to avoid leaving fingerprints, bought a six-pack of one-inch superballs, and we headed for Ocala and Lake George.
 

Landing in the same clearing where we’d begun our trip, I let Galatea vanish with my usual thanks. We walked around at the edge of the lake for a short time before again mounting our boards and running maneuvers above the lake.
 

After a while we headed for Tanya’s apartment and let ourselves in. I called Galatea back and she landed in stealth mode to pick us up, then we went to Marie’s nursing home.
 

Again wearing my p-field, I used a tendril to scuff one of the superballs on the surface of the street, then rubbed one side of it hard against a car’s tire for contact residue.
 

About fifteen minutes later, a guy headed for the nursing home’s front doors from the parking lot. When the doors opened for him, I used the field tendril to sling the superball into the opening. The two guys at the door ducked and dodged and alarms sounded the instant the ball went beyond the entrance alcove.
 

We saw the ball bounce hard once, then bound away down the corridor. I sent the probe in after it and found Marie asleep, her open-sore hip aimed at the ceiling. Great. The probe slid under the sheets from the top and found the sore spot covered by a bandage. It forced its way under the adhesive edge and firmly tucked the sample back into the bed sore.
 

Tanya and I watched a magnified view of the nanobots waking up and spreading out. She ecstatically jumped to her feet to yell like a cheerleader watching a touchdown play.
 

“
All right! Go! Go! Go!
”
 

She happily grabbed my face to kiss me hard. Well, I mean she kissed me firmly, which made me hard. Whatever. You know what I meant. We watched the screen and I adjusted it when Marie moved. Her hand cupped the sore spot and she rolled on her back.
 

I withdrew the probe further for a view of the bed and scanned Marie. The ‘bots had entered her bloodstream and spread out around her body to begin making more ‘bots. On our screen it soon looked as if she was completely composed of them, but that’s because their permeation was thorough and the green dots used to represent them were so much larger than the actual ‘bots. They quickly blended together and it looked as if they’d completely taken over Marie’s body.
 

Blowing the screen up to life size cured that visual problem. We were able to see hundreds of well-spaced tiny green spots. Soon there were thousands. I let the probe dissipate and we watched the front of the building. After another few moments the alarms stopped and a couple of guys came to the front doors.
 

I let the other balls drop into traffic in the street below us. Cars rolled over some and sent
others flying. A few split beneath tires and the pieces zinged off in odd directions. I made sure a couple of pieces kicked up by passing cars bounced off the glass doors and outside wall of the nursing home.
 

The two guys yelled something back at someone and cautiously came outside for a look around. One guy had to duck as a carefully-slung piece of superball bounced off the pavement ahead of him. He followed it and picked it up, then headed back to the doors with it.
 

I sat back and sipped the last of my coffee, tilting the mug high as a hint to Tanya. She grinned and straddled my lap, pushing the mug aside so she could kiss me again. So much for hints about coffee.
 

Tanya broke the kiss and simply sat there hugging me for a time with her chin resting on my shoulder, then she sighed deeply and breathed, “We’re going to celebrate, Ed. Right here. Right now.”
 

Kissing me again, she stood up and stepped back with a big grin, then began unbuttoning her blouse. I took off my shoes and stood up, too. As I unbuttoned my shirt, she stopped what she was doing to grab my collar and pull me close for another kiss, then returned to unbuttoning.
 

Chapter Eighteen
 

In short order we were facing each other naked. Tanya stepped forward for a long embrace and kiss, then gave me a little push as a hint. I sat back down and she again straddled my lap, draping her arms over my shoulders as she lowered herself and found my dick with her pussy.
 

With a grinning giggle, she whispered, “Look, no hands!” and began settling herself around my shaft until she was fully impaled.
 

Meeting her happy gaze, I said, “Well done, ma’am.”
 

She chuckled, “Thank you. You know, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but you aren’t my first.”
 

“Really? Then I should probably tell you I was actually waiting for Miss Right. Want the job?”
 

Tanya laughed, “We’re so full of shit. I’m so glad I didn’t seduce you. That would have spoiled everything.”
 

I chuckled, “Um… how’s that? Wouldn’t seducing me have put us together about like this at some point?”
 

She shrugged. “Well, sure, I guess it would have, but it would have felt like one of those ‘last resort’ things, just a way to get you to help. I like things a lot better this way. Damn. Do I really have to explain the difference?”
 

I shook my head. “No, no. Willing and happy is
always
better than ‘in the line of duty’.” Leaning slightly for a quick kiss, I whispered, “But I would have done my absolute best for you anyway, ma’am. That’s just how I am. When duty calls, I stand tall. All that stuff.”