April (10 page)

"You want any sausage, or bacon with this?"

"Yesss," April said smiling, drawing it out to imply both. Trying to share a little humor with her was chancy, as she might take offense if she thought she was being trifled with. "Some of those hash browns if you would too," she asked shamelessly.

"Lord," Wanda exclaimed, rolling her eyes dramatically, "I don't know how you made it this far, with just nothing to run on, weak from hunger," all the while scooping meat and potatoes on a second plate. "Here, take some ham too, or you will be back pestering me for it before I can get my cleaning done!"

"Thanks," she said, tickled at her success with her this morning. Wanda probably had most people trained not to ask for anything special, or they'll get a hard time. She started thinking how to counter her grouchiness, with a devilish smile on her face. A familiar voice made April look up to see Ruby coming down the line, loading up off the hot table, calling across the counter to Wanda.

"Just do your total and leave any cleaning. You're tired and I'll have a short day now. You go on home and relax," she ordered Wanda.

When she turned for the tables April waved her over and Ruby nodded yes, changing direction to join her. She sat down with a substantial breakfast, hot rice for cereal, with butter and syrup, scrambled eggs with diced tofu and a big Danish covered with cheese. She had her own ceramic mug from behind the counter, filled with coffee.

"So, your boy is doing OK now," she said with no question in her voice.

"Yes, thank you, but how would you know?"

"Well I figured you wouldn't have an appetite for such a big breakfast, if you were still worried about him."

"You're smart about figuring things out Honey. Just don't get too used to it and think you can do it all the time," she cautioned. "Get you in trouble."

"I know what you are saying. I meet a young guy yesterday, nice looking big guy and he came too close to fooling me completely. I can't tell you everything, but I spent this morning telling security about him."

"You mean the body builder type, who jumped out the lock?"

 "He's the one. But how did you hear about him already?"

"I got an earful from my man when he came home off shift. He was still cussing about the USNA shuttle, which insisted on pulling in by the hub because they had to recover some 'debris'. Debris my delicate little butt. Nothing bigger than a scooter is supposed to get within a half kilometer of the North hub, unless they are docking. This jackass parked himself right in the path of about twenty ton of beams coming in on a tow. Funny thing about towing something. You can't push back on a wire to stop."

The market window in April's spex showed green, to tell her the medical stock her brother recommended was up a dime and traded some volume. She highlighted it and clicked sell with her eyes and never interrupted Ruby.

"So my guy just turned away ninety degrees and burned until his scooter was empty of fuel. They spent the rest of the shift rescuing him, because scooter and load were on a slow trip to Neptune. Shot the hell out of the schedule for the whole crew. When they talked to him, security acted like they would have been just as happy if he'd smashed into the damn thing." Her eyebrows said how crazy that was.

"But it's sure no secret. Everybody saw the man jump, saw security bring his shoes and jacket out of the lock. They said he was a fine jumper. Few of them beam dogs were saying they could have him bolting high iron in a week. Their heads are so big, that's high praise coming from those boys." She ran down and dug back in her food.

"As near as anyone knows he was some kind of spy," April admitted.

"Doesn't surprise me. The man sat here in the cafeteria a couple times with a wool blazer on, sweating and wiping his face with napkins. They keep it too warm in here for a jacket. Anyone else would have taken it off and hang it on their chair. Either he was too vain to take it off, which makes no sense as he was fine looking, he'd be happy to show off his build, or he had something to hide. I already had him pegged for a cop, so, spy - cop, makes no mind. They're more alike than different."

"Did you think of calling security because he acted suspiciously?

"Because he looked like a cop? Honey, how many times do you think security is going to put up with a cook calling them up like that, before they get tired of it?"

"I can see not wanting to bothering them for vague suspicions," April admitted. "But they'd be  stupid to not listen to you because you're a cook. I think you're smarter than some of the professors I study under on the 'net!"

"Honey," Ruby laughed. "I've been a college professor before. Cook's harder to do really well. You can defend a bad idea, easier than a nasty piece of cooking. I don't think  a doctorate would impress security much. There are so many PhDs up here, you aren't keeping up if you only have one."

"Ruby if you've taught at college level, what are you doing cooking in a cafeteria?" she demanded, indignant.

"And how many Professors of Medieval European Music do you think they need on a space station? About as many as they have harpsichords. When my husband wanted to work rigging in orbit, I was
not
going to see him every six months on leave. That's no way to live. The University of Detroit was paying me $60,000 a year, which was just about $120,000 less than the golf coach. Poverty level wages really, but it was just part time. I had an office so small, you had to step out in the hall to scratch yourself," she exaggerated, slightly.

"Now though, we work six months and cash in our three-month leave tickets in for cash. We save our travel vouchers, since they don't let us cash those in. We end up paid 18 months, for 12 months work. Add hazard pay, time and a half, sometimes double time, living allowance and longevity. Last year he made almost $800,000US. I make four times what I did before, plus leave, plus travel. We make well over a cool million every year," she added up for April.

"We have the sense to save a good bit of it too and we have six round trips to orbit paid up. Something most folks consider a once in a lifetime trip. So we can go down anytime we want, for a wedding or whatever. If we save up many more vouchers, I wouldn't begrudge spending two, on a long weekend in Paris or New York. How many folks can do that? Good riddance to Earth life and Earth wages."

 Ruby took a big pull of coffee and looked concerned. "Things are uncertain right now. If you have a little money hang on to it," she warned April, "maybe even have a little of it in cash, in case com is down and your cards don't work." That counsel from Ruby surprised April. Ruby was no fool.

"The degree was kind of handy though," she admitted, quickly jumping back to her story like she regretted getting so serious. "They award the jobs based on a point system, which includes education and not many of the other cooks had a doctorate."

Ruby applied herself to finishing up the meal and there was still ten minutes to the end of the hour, but she said, "Gotta get to work Girl," and hurried away.

April sat with her thoughts, finishing her coffee. She had two other classes she needed to catch up on at home. She could spend time on them and turn in some work before going to meet Heather and Jeff. It felt good to contemplate some normal things not involving guns or spies. But she wasn't going to forget Ruby's brief warning either.

* * *

Later, at home she was still polishing her material to submit for class, when the com chime sounded and an icon in the corner of the screen announced she had a live call. The interruption decided her, you can fuss with something too long, so she clicked on send, to submit her class work and went to the call.

Heather was looking at her from a console seat, looking anxious and Jeff was hovering over her shoulder leaning on the chair back. "Are you still meeting us for supper?" she wanted to know.

"Sure, I told you I'd call if I missed. I'm looking forward to it." Thinking about it, she felt a little hollow already.

"Have you tried your scanner out yet?"

"Oh yeah. It works just fine. I taught it a new word and heard some neat chatter. I'll need an optical port on it however. I have it listening through an external antenna my dad has right now."

"Well, bring it along please. There's a transmission Jeff and I heard through ours, that doesn't make sense and we hoped yours might have picked it up better."

April thought about it a moment. "Why don't we link the scanners on the 'net and if one is closer to a transmission, or has a better signal for any reason it can get it off the best machine?"

"Thanks for offering, but if we get in trouble for something and you are tied so closely to us, you could get sucked into our problems."

"It works the other way also," April pointed out. "You guys are at risk for my behavior. No risk, no gain,"  she quoted one of her brother's favorite phrases.

"Yes, but Jeff and I have some big problems already, I don't even want to get into describing. You don't deserve to be dragged into our troubles."

Alarm bells went off in April's mind. Could her friend have big troubles, the same time as all her own problems the last two days and it not be connected in their little world? Let's fish a little and see
,
she decided.

"Would you say your troubles involve - snooping?" she intimated.

"Yessss," Heather hissed. She put both hands on the console and leaned forward, dismayed. "How could you possibly know?" Jeff behind her, gripped the top of the chair like he needed the support, looking suddenly sick.

"I've had a few similar problems myself, the last couple days. Let's talk about it face to face, not on com," she suggested. "We can compare notes and maybe I can help you. See you then," April said, feeling a little strained to be cheerful. She was the one who signed off, so she missed Heather's sig. file.

Two hours until she had to leave, she noted, looking at the clock. She wondered if that was enough time, to research on the 'net how secret organizations and conspiracies were organized? It seemed to her she might need those skills the direction things were going.

April was still reading about cells and complicated spy craft, when the alarm she had set put a flashing icon on the screen. She used an alarm a lot, because she could lose all track of time when she really got engrossed in something.

Almost nothing she had found fitted their resources or situation on M3 and the worst case scenarios she imagined. She loved spy novels, but the fictional things she read assumed a whole different set of circumstances than what she had. There was no maze of city streets to lose a tail, or cluttered parks to site a dead drop. Everything on M3 was neat and cleaned and watched. Being systematically sneaky looked like a great deal of work. Especially if you didn't have the resources of a government or huge corporation, helping you behind the scenes. All the characters in the stories, could drop in their office and pick up fake documents and ingenious devices, as easily as she could get a new pair of footies.

The best thing she could see happening, was a compact and unofficial alliance of Heather, Jeff and herself, agreeing to work together and not worry about recruiting others yet. The three of them were not without resources. Passively waiting and hoping it worked out OK was not her style. She just hoped Heather and Jeff would be willing to work with her. She really couldn't think of any other potential allies.

She did something that made her feel a little dirty, but it was too important a resource to ignore. Heather and Jeff would not be on a board like My Boss, which she knew had some listings for her dad, but they might be on some gossip sharing boards, that rated small businesses or individuals. She configured a search for Don't Go There, The B*B*B, B*Bunderground, Run!Run!Run! and a few that even school kids used like, Only Your Best Friend, The Date from Hell and All Da Dirt. After she sat looking at the search field a minute she added her own name, her brother and Jon.

It had been months since she had looked at the posts and polls for her dad or herself. Some of the remarks about her dad had hurt more than her own. Yet even the ones that plainly said they didn't like him, held a grudged respect, even if it was put sarcastically by calling him a Boy Scout.

Posts about her tended to say she was too nosey, which she simply took to mean she wasn't sneaky enough about her snooping. But she felt good about one that said she knew where all the bodies were hidden, if you could pry it out of her. That's not so hard, she thought. Just have some decent information worth swapping!

Heather had more entries than she did and, April could see there were more of them starting a little over a year ago, when Heather had started to really get a mature figure. There were entries about her electronic skills three years back, but a lot of the newer ones were snotty little digs, about why a major developing hunk like Jeff Singh would spend so much time with such a plain unexciting person like Heather. It was amazing how much of it was petty sexual jealousy. She still hoped puberty wouldn't make her stupid.

April covered her own breast in an appraising hand. She barely had to cup her hand to mold the shape. If her LET doctors were right it would be a long time before she saw any change. Unless, taking so much after her dad instead of her mom, she just never got real big.  In either case it would probably be a long time before people posted snide comments about her appearance, unless they snipped about her as taking too long to develop. That would be silly with a LET patient. One poster noted Jeff hung out with Heather, because he was too smart to enjoy being around shallow, unintelligent people of either sex and too polite to tell them so. April approved of that post.

Her dad didn't approve of these boards and refused to look at them. She wasn't going to give too much weight to these gossip boards, but if any had been completely at odds with her own opinion, she'd have tried to find out why.  Jon's ratings, both personal and professional were different. She certainly had no other friends or acquaintances described as 'hiding sudden death in both hands'. Several posts suggested he was 'unyielding' and plain old stubborn, but never fickle or undependable.