Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets (4 page)

“Which is why she needs the hardcore
bodyguard. Those politicians are vicious,” Miko added with a grin,
glancing out into the crowd again. “Bet the guy was packing heat.
He had krav maga and tae kwon do, at least, chipped in.”

“He was,” Mina assured on the first, then
raised a brow. “And just how would you know that?”

Miko grinned, dropping her voice as low as
she could, managing to add a bit of gravel to it in an attempt at
an impression. “It's a very distinctive stance.”

Scott and Mina glanced at each other for
hints of recognition, then just shook their heads.

“You guys are hopeless,” Miko teased, before
digging back into her pizza.

* * * *

The next few days were a blur of activity.
Between some combination of whatever things he needed to sign, the
chipping surgery itself, recovery time, and training, Mina didn't
hear from Scott again after the party. She saw Miko at school, but
otherwise most of her time was divided between work, sleep, and
more work.

Mina's parents were clearly trying to make
her feel more included and familiar with the business. Her father
showed her layouts for park landscaping; her mother explained
relations with the farms and gardens that provided supplies and
inventory. Even still unchipped, Mina was handed more
responsibility to arrange small orders to free up her mother to
help with park work when not handling weddings, funerals, and other
large-scale occasions. As expected, however, most of Mina's time
was spent running deliveries. She got to use the van for bigger
orders more often, but a lot of time was still spent on her bike,
with three or four jobs at a time.

The end of the week neared, and her
consultation loomed. She might almost have looked forward to the
impending break in the routine, but the nerves just got worse. All
thoughts of her chipping and the rest went out the window, however,
when she returned from a delivery to find her parents waiting for
her. Her mother's eyes were red from crying, while her father was
in the midst of getting everything into the refrigeration unit and
closing down the shop.

She had barely begun asking what happened
when her mother ran up to her on Mina's way in through the door.
She was pulled into a big hug. “Oh, honey ...” he mother started.
“Stacy Szach just called. We're going over there now ...
something's happened to Scott.”

Chapter
Four

The drive over to the Szachs’ home was
quiet.

“So what happened?” Mina asked.

“We don't know,” Jim Cortez said quietly.
“But Ben and Stacy are both home in the middle of the afternoon,
and they need us.”

Mina understood his point. The Szachs didn't
come home before dusk lightly. This was serious. All sorts of
scenarios ran through her head, but she forced herself to stop
asking for information she knew her parents didn't have. The ride
seemed to take forever, and she found herself wishing for Miko and
Vlad's ability to break the posted speed limits in an
emergency.

When they arrived at the Szachs’ home, both
of the Kimuras’ cars were parked out front, along with two police
cars. One officer was posted out by them, another at the door. The
officer near the street talked with Mina's father a few moments,
verifying who they were and that they were expected, and even
scanned his wrist unit to verify his identity before letting them
fully park. A few words into a subvocal mic, and the policeman at
the door nodded, waving them up.

Dr. Kimura met them at the door, looking to
Mina's parents and shaking his head. “No news,” he started off,
quietly. “Amiko is downstairs, watching Elizabeth,” he told
Mina.

The invitation to go join Miko with Scott's
little sister was obvious, but Mina shook her head. She wanted to
find out what was going on from as official a source as was
available before getting Miko's understanding of the situation. She
needed to have the facts to get herself grounded before Miko made
it ... real. She followed along with her parents. As soon as they
hit the living room, Mina's mother ran over to where Mrs. Szach was
sitting on a couch, giving her a long hug before sitting down next
to her. Mr. Szach was still standing when they entered, pausing
from talking with two more officers as the group entered. Dr.
Kimura made his way over to the standing group, followed by Mina's
father. Mina settled awkwardly into one of the recliners, waiting
for someone to say something.

While it was able to dispel a lot of her
worst fears, the explanation raised almost as many questions.
Apparently, Scott was working at the University. Officially, doing
programming for the University itself, though Mina wondered. At
some point, some type of kidnappers had broken into his work area.
There were no official reports on what, if anything else, had been
taken. The officers answered Dr. Kimura's specific questions about
University security, cameras, and other measures evasively. As far
as anyone could gather, the people who broke in either knew the
right codes, or had managed to hack the systems, and knew where the
cameras and security were stationed. Scott and most of his
co-workers had disappeared from their computer lab. Beyond this,
and being there to wait for an expected call from kidnappers, they
didn't seem to know much—at least they wouldn't, perhaps couldn't,
say much.

“Once again, Mrs. Szach, Mr. Szach, while
there were signs of violence found, every indicator we have is that
Scott is still alive and hopefully unhurt,” an officer said. “We're
keeping a security detail here, and the house phones are ready to
trace any ransom calls that come in. We have people still
investigating at the University.” It seemed to be a refrain.

Despite her frustration with the situation
and lack of answers, she couldn't help but feel for the policemen's
position. Having to be the bearers of that kind of news, while not
having any kind of reason or logic to offer frantic parents, or
worse, having information that might help something like this make
sense, but not being able to share it, even with those parents.

Mina was sitting there, simply thinking about
that professional situation. She sat there while the parents talked
quietly, almost like they did in the 'pre-shindigs.' Any minute
now, someone would go get the veggie tray, just to test it out.

Except that didn't make any sense. Not
because they were talking to police officers, but because the
bringing out of the veggie tray had to be accompanied by Mrs.
Kimura's playful cursing of her doctors for forbidding blue cheese
dressing. The three families hadn't really had a 'pre-shindig'
since Mrs. Kimura died. Just the official parties, just business.
And now, just ... this. Missing the professor's wife jarred her
abruptly back to what the conversation was about.

She quickly excused herself, feeling a bit
dizzy and disconnected. On her way down into the cool basement,
something in her brain didn't give up trying to convince her that
none of this could be real. Scott would be downstairs, with his
video games plugged into his eye, while Miko would be showing Beth
ancient TV series or movies.

She found the pair of girls on the couch of
the downstairs TV room. Scott's room door was open, but the
computer was turned off, the chair unoccupied, connection wires
dangling loose from the desk. Miko was, indeed, using her hand-held
vid player to show some series or other, but she wasn't doing any
of the voices, or adding little quips and bits of the history of
the show while they watched. A little under a year ago, when she
was still eight, Beth had decided she was too old for her stuffed
animals and dolls and had packed most of them away. Now she was
half-wrapped around the teddy bear that Miko had won her at the
state fair baseball toss (and let Scott claim credit). Miko had
even lent Beth her fedora, making her very red eyes all the more
visible.

At the sound of Mina's entry, both girls
disentangled themselves and ran to her, leaving the hand-held
running in front of the bear. Miko buried her head on Mina's
shoulder and wrapped her arms around her, while Beth did her best
to encircle both girls' waists.

It was only then that everything came
crashing down to the level of reality, and Mina started crying
too.

* * * *

No news and no ransom calls came in the days
following, but at least there was also no sign of bodies or
anything that would signal the worst. The police were still
operating under the theory of kidnapping for ransom. The Szachs had
received a long line of the city's elite wishing them well and
offering any help they could provide. The police were a constant
presence, and Beth was given a security escort to school. The
Cortezes and Kimuras were there almost every night after work, but
work had to go on. Scott was missing, and Mina was delivering
flowers.

Aside from the responsibilities of work, she
had this consultation or whatever it was. She'd been dreading this
even before all of the chaos with Scott. Now she was just wishing
it could be delayed indefinitely. Still, when the day arrived,
there she was. With Miko, thank goodness.

“Are you sure you don't need me to give you a
ride?” her mother had asked. “I can leave your dad alone with the
shop for a while when it's your Chipping Day!” Carmen Cortez was
excited.

“Thanks Mom, but it's not my Chipping Day.
Just one of those special consideration meetings they mentioned in
school.” Implanting someone with everything they needed to know to
do their assigned job perfectly had become a mostly exact science
in the century-and-some it had been in use, but complications still
came up. “Dr. Kimura got Miko out of school for the day. I'll be
fine.” Mina wouldn't have been able to bear her mother's excitement
over Mina's florist chip.

The chipping center in Bellevue loomed. Mina
had seen the place before, with its odd mixture of hospital and
militarized zone. Heavy security patrolled the grounds, and they
had to go through two different checkpoints to get in. This part of
the process, at least, Mina understood perfectly. With the right
chip, someone could do or learn almost anything. The black market
was huge.

Miko sighed as they went through the first
security line. “Gotta make sure we're not here to fry ourselves
trying to become billionaire astrophysicist racecar drivers,” she
whispered.

Mina got the joke even if she didn't really
smile properly. Just as big as the potential benefits of
black-market chipping were the risks. Chips were directly tied in
to a person's aptitudes. While a chip technically provided all the
knowledge—and even rote muscle memory and reactions—to do a job, a
person's interests and physical suitability to the tasks still
played a part. And 'interests' were not always the same as 'goals.'
A chip might give an ambitious buyer perfect knowledge of human
anatomy and perfect reactions to deal with every mishap that might
arise. If, however, the recipient didn't already have perfectly
steady hands and a curiosity regarding the connections of muscles,
nerves and organs, the chances of a surgeon's chip malfunctioning
went up exponentially.

Hundreds of thousands of people had faced
neurological damage or death in the evolution of the battery of
physical and psychological tests, surveys, and interviews to
determine that Mina was, in fact, absolutely perfect to a lifetime
of working with flowers. Somehow, their sacrifices didn't inspire
her to any greater enthusiasm about the prospect.

The first checkpoint let them into the
overall installation. Each of the centers in the two-square-mile
complex would be dealing with different aspects of the work being
done. Mina was directed towards the overflow building. This is
where they'd take oddities being handled outside the normal
schedule, like emergency florists. The place wasn't terribly busy,
but most of the parking spots were built for modern, minimalist
cars, not archaic monsters like Vlad. They ended up parking amidst
a few vans and work vehicles, then made the trek to the
building.

“I have the day off,” Miko reminded her, a
hand on Mina's shoulder. “So I'll be here to take you to the shop
or home or whatever you need.”

Mina didn't respond at first, just looking up
at the block-long, severe-looking building with its metal walls and
security checkpoint at the doors. At first, the two guards
stationed there were hesitant to let a non-family member through,
but a short debate, a brief scan of her subdermal ID chip, and a
review of Dr. Kimura's project clearance and status got her waved
through after a few minutes and a supervisor's approval.

“Glad that's settled. They weren't getting
rid of me so easily, and now we don't have to figure out if we
could've taken them,” Miko whispered cheerily.

“What do you mean, 'we'? You and your
aikido-tae-kwon-do-krav-maga would be on your own.” Mina tried to
smile this time, but it was wry at best. She didn't know any of
that stuff because she was a one-hobby girl, and didn't even have
that one anymore.

Miko rolled her eyes dramatically. “Pft, My
aikido-tae-kwon-do-wushu-krav-maga. You forgot one. And tai chi,
but that's more a morning exercise program before piano lessons.
After. I mean, after. It was before ... before. Still, bet we could
have taken them.”

Most of the descriptions of Chipping Days
Mina had been given were of parking lots full of vehicles from the
nearest seven states and packed hallways that eventually let people
into equally packed waiting rooms. From the traffic, she suspected
several of the other buildings were dealing with that, but this
building was mostly quiet. Three other families had staked out
their own areas of the sterile waiting room decorated only with
charts, lists, and places to tack up more charts and lists. A few
nurses and orderlies moved about from place to place, but it was
nothing like the chaos she'd envisioned.