Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (161 page)

The reply came back, “It would be if she quit her job and stopped trying to help Michael during a few weeks of therapy. Michael isn’t capable of learning what he wants Ariel to help him learn to do, and won’t admit it. Soon she’ll need to take a vacation from both her job and Michael to avoid permanent damage, and her job means a lot to her.”

Brett felt the last pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place, why Ariel’s friends were immediately open to someone Michael had taken a dislike to, why she hadn’t told him about her career, the unique way of moving which had so captivated Brett the first time he saw her. Suddenly he visualized his hands around Michael’s too handsome neck, but he couldn’t really do that.

Then another idea came to him, if anything less workable. He indulged the fantasy for a moment. How ironic to use the nannies themselves to get her first away from Michael, then Oceania herself. Even in imagination he couldn’t quite think what she would do after she left the hive mind and the planet. Fortunately it was an unrealistic problem, the most plausible result of the harebrained scheme was a slap in the face and the end of a friendship.

Or was it? Brett remembered the time Ariel had spent with him – and never with him and Michael together. Though there had been many reasons not to speak of it, Brett was convinced she had the same emotions for Brett that he had for her.

All the arguments against involvement that had been true yesterday still applied today. Rationally, he should take time to consider the cost before acting rashly. There was no time to think. The moment had to be seized – or else let pass forever in an excess of common sense. Perhaps she would slap him, save him from his own folly.

He studied the floating brain image before him. His idea had captivated him, and he kept planning despite its flaws.

When he knew he would never be readier, he touched Ariel’s brain again. The initial site of contact was the sensory cortex, the part that would represent her upper arm near the shoulder and back. Different neurons connected with different regions, and her brain responded. Would she experience a meaningless sensation, or a warning from her own equipment?

The floating image before him indicated otherwise. The stimulated neurons signaled other dendrites, communicating with both the pleasure and pain centers. Brett imagined what Ariel felt: a light stinging pain, as if fingernails were being gently dragged across her skin. Somehow the mild pain was mixed with pleasure, although not completely localized in her arm.

Ariel turned to face him, saw he hadn’t moved even if his fingers could have passed through her blouse. Before she could speak, Brett mimed embracing an invisible woman with his left arm and pulling her close. His right arm moved through empty air, but it might have followed the curve of a woman’s neck, passing over her shoulder while moving inward towards the middle of her back, sliding downward but curving outward again so they passed near but did not quite touch the cleft between an imaginary pair of buttocks.

Did she feel invisible fingernails pass effortlessly through her clothing? She inhaled sharply as they might have brushed over her neck, arched her back as they would pass across her shoulders. A few moments later her face flushed. She gasped and leaned most of her weight against the cushions behind her. For a few moments she seemed to have trouble speaking, and when she managed her voice came out in an effortful whisper.

“How dare you! I never gave you permission to do that to me!”

Brett felt like a god.

“Tell me to stop and I’ll apologize and go away. Better yet, slap me in the face.”

He came close enough to make it easy. She whispered, “I can’t”

“I guess you could use the overrides on your equipment.”

She shook her head silently, closed the remaining distance between them.

He tried to lift her onto his lap, but instead she shifted him and pressed his back down towards the seats of the couch. He complied and she locked her legs around his hips. He savored the curve of her shoulders and back with his hands instead of virtually. She slid her tongue in his mouth and he became aware of the heat inside her.

When she pulled her tongue out of his mouth and started to undo his clothing, he managed to speak. “Ummm … birth control.”

“The nannies will take care of it.”

Chapter 15

The couch was too narrow. A couple of hours ago, when Ariel had straddled him and enthusiastically begun bouncing up and down, her knee had slid off. Luckily she hadn’t pulled a groin muscle, which would have been an exceedingly painful way of killing the moment.

Now he lay on the leather stomach down, with his head turned to the side. It was getting a little sticky. Ariel lay on top of his back, with her breasts pressing into the spot that was hard to reach. His body felt good all over.

That part was nice, but when he relaxed his legs tended to sprawl. Either he made a conscious effort to keep them together, or his right leg fell over the side, pulling him off balance. He couldn’t even use his other leg for balance, because the couch had a back.

Then his stomach rumbled, and that decided it for him. He asked Ariel, “You mind if I grab a snack? Can I bring you anything?”

He felt her voice vibrating through his chest as well as hearing it with his ears. “Kitchen is right through there, or you can circle round through the hallway and go in the other side.”

She didn’t move though. When he nudged her she asked, “Am I too heavy for you? Maybe the Space Force should have their officers do some exercise.”

Her arms wrapped tightly around his chest as he levered himself to a standing position. Then she said innocently, “My legs are sort of dangling. Help me wrap them around your waist?”

Brett did so, gripping her warm thighs near the hips. She unwrapped her arms from around his chest and gripped his shoulders. Then she said, “OK, I’ll tell you how this is going to work. When I kick your sides like this …”

Her heels were dangling much too low to actually kick him in the sides. Instead they caught the outsides of his thighs. She continued, “… you walk forward. If I just kick on one side you turn away from the pain while continuing to walk forward. If I sit up straight and clench my thighs like this you stop.”

She scissored her thighs together but didn’t make much progress against Brett’s torso muscles.

Brett suddenly recalled video he had seen long ago on military history. A word drifted into his mind: ‘Cavalry’.

He reached behind him and slapped Ariel’s bottom hard enough to sting.

“Ow!”

“I am not a horse,” Brett told her firmly.

“The kitchen is still thataway, but I don’t know if I’m going to get you anything if you’re not good. There’s grass outside though.”

Did horses eat grass or hay or something? Was hay a species of grass or vice versa?

And did he really care? His stomach rumbled again. He walked towards the kitchen to get something for himself. He let Ariel stay as she was. The warmth of her body was pleasant, and she wasn’t that heavy to carry.

He’d walked out into the hallway and was about to turn left into the kitchen when she started kicking him in the left thigh. The joke was becoming a bit annoying.

“Even if I were a horse, you’d still be steering me the wrong way, away from the kitchen.”

Ariel replied, “I thought I’d take you for a little walk first. You can graze later. I didn’t signal a stop. Gee-yap!”

Presumably that was supposed to be horse language, though the little he recalled of horses made him uncertain they had their own language. Ariel kicked harder, and her round heels were becoming annoying. Enough was enough. He moved back to the plush carpeting of the interface room and got down on his hands and knees. People usually didn’t know how to fall right without training.

Then he twisted his torso sharply. Her thighs had no real purchase and he had no trouble pulling her hands off his shoulders.

“You bastard!”

She didn’t really sound frightened or hurt. He turned over, using his weight to pin her body to the carpet. His hands pinned her upper arms down, raised above her shoulders, which immobilized her unless she knew how to wrestle.

“You’re hurting me!”

The dulcet tones belied the words, so he brought his head forward and bit her on the neck, first wetting it with his tongue, then scraping it lightly with his teeth a couple of times first to prepare her.

Noises of protest soon changed to pleasure, but eventually he had to stop for breath.

Ariel asked him, “What took you so long?”

Brett studied her face, at a loss for words. So long to bite her? So long to seduce her? Something else entirely? She was an adult, capable of communicating, and had given him to understand she was in a relationship.

In some ways he had come to know her well in the past few months. Her gentleness could sometimes be eclipsed by mischievousness. She was knowing and capable, but had a vulnerable side beneath that, and deep passion layered beneath both.

Yet he had missed all the cues that she was part of the hive mind, because his brain was focused in one direction. Surely all the people at the party where he had met her had been wealthy, powerful, famous, or important in some other way. Nothing but the best for visiting diplomats from another world. He had never asked himself why she was there. Ariel had known as much as his instructors about nanotechnology. And she had argued with the imperious old gnome at the Herbirthday celebration as an equal. Brett could have seen if his eyes were open.

According to Muriel, his lover had been aware of and encouraged the misunderstanding. Perversely, Brett felt flattered, because he knew Ariel hadn’t wanted to drive him away. Now though, he would really get to know her.

Brett asked, “Did you grow up in Landfall?”

The city where foreign diplomats were hosted, the beautiful city by the Ocean and the spaceport, the only Oceanian city Brett had seen more than once. As good a guess as any.

She nodded. “My dad was a Meddy.”

When Brett’s eyes widened in puzzlement she added, “A medtech had some of the skills of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, and works closely with all three. They make housecalls and they’re especially trained to observe and do examinations.”

And the information could go directly to the doctor’s brain if needed. Convenient but creepy.

“Get off of me,” Ariel told him. “You’re heavy.”

He released her arms and propped himself up on his hands so they bore most of his weight, almost as if he were doing pushups. His knees were on the ground though, and his midriff and thighs still touched hers. He couldn’t quite give up the feeling of her underneath him yet, and she didn’t complain again. She continued, “He had a way with people and everybody loved him. So did my mom. I’m not sure she was an artistic genius or anything, but she made people feel good about the way their house was going to look.”

She swallowed and continued, “Not so little, Ariel. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the number of friends they had, and my brother and sister had. I kind of avoided crowds, even though I also wanted people to like me the way they did the rest of my family.”

The words came pouring out. Perhaps it had been hard for her to keep so much hidden.

“Even as a little girl I knew they had ways of learning stuff I couldn’t use. I somehow thought they could teach me the secret of having everyone at a party love me without my being overwhelmed or feeling shy. When I was old enough I begged to get the nannies early, but it’s not usually medically recommended, and my dad was especially against it. By the time I was safely a year past puberty I had turned fourteen, and it seemed to me I had waited forever.

“I wanted … I had natural talent. A few years later I was awarded a scholarship.”

What was she still keeping secret, hidden in that pause? She had suddenly ended her detailed autobiography at the age of fourteen. Brett started to ask but Ariel spoke first. “So now tell me your secrets.”

Brett opened his mouth to protest he didn’t have any personal secrets, just a few things that weren’t fun to talk about. It would be a relief though, to talk with someone about the past, to have one person who really knew him.

Brett began, “I don’t remember my father. Don’t even know if he saw me after I was born, or if he had already disappeared. My mother never talked about him.

“Things must have been pretty desperate then. I’m sure there were plenty of excuses for her drinking and drugs, but sometimes when I see a newborn baby, I think it’s so wonderful, should be enough to bring anyone hope. Even I must have been wonderful.

“It didn’t seem that way to her. Anyway, I ran away when I was twelve.

Chapter 16

As he headed down the vacant corridor towards the VR conference room, Brett refrained from dancing and singing. No witnesses stood nearby, but he didn’t want to get into the habit. Somehow he hoped to take Ariel home with him. But regardless, he rejoiced in his part of her decision to dump Michael.

Best to keep the events of the past couple of weeks quiet. Otherwise half his chain of command would be reminded he was not a typical ambassadorial assistant, and the other half would hatch manipulative schemes. As for the Oceanians, except for Ariel, it wasn’t their business.

Even the prospect of another long session in the VR conference room seated in the metal chair couldn’t spoil his mood, though he did a few stretches before seating himself. Having set up this meeting was another small triumph for Brett, though he would have preferred spending one of the last days of the Oceanian summer with Ariel.

He wouldn’t try and reschedule after all the work he had put in. Senator Peterson’s request that Brett speak with his son hadn’t proved easy. Young Gregory Peterson guarded his privacy, and his address wasn’t publicly available. Initially, the best Brett could do involved sending him messages, without even any assurance that the messages were read or received.

Brett unclipped the computer from his belt and put it on the slice of conference table in front of him. Rather than showing the time, it was counting down the minutes and seconds until the moment when Gregory had agreed to meet with him.

Brett trusted Senator Peterson and remained certain that the man put his duty foremost. His request to Brett had been purely personal, and any private annoyance the Senator felt at Oceanian intransigence would not affect major issues of war and peace. Yet Brett’s respect for Ambassador Williams had grown, despite the initial bad impression the man had made and the cautions from the Senator. Following Williams’ advice, Brett had worked harder to get in touch with Gregory.

Under Oceanian law, the man was entitled to his privacy, and to read or not read his messages as he chose. With advice from Ambassador Williams, Brett had managed to explain the importance of the situation to the Oceanian Ambassador Nocker, without offending Oceanian pride by suggesting that since the Space Force could crush them like eggshells, they should forget their silly little laws.

No, Brett had no desire to break Oceanian laws, or even bend them. If Gregory didn’t want to communicate, make his address available, or even reply to messages from anyone involved with his father, that was that. Brett merely had to make sure the messages had been received, so that Gregory could make an informed decision as to whether he wished to reply to them, or even finish reading them.

How could they establish a protocol to make sure that Gregory had correctly received messages he didn’t want to read? Brett could work on it as long as necessary. Oddly enough, after several rounds of negotiation through intermediaries, Gregory himself had suggested they could have a short conference, under circumstances which would make Brett unable to track him down further. In return Brett would accept that all the messages had been received accurately, and bother him no further.

The computer had counted down to one minute and seventeen seconds. Brett seated himself and put the glasses on. His pie slice of conference table became part of a whole table, but the metal chair was still empty. Brett wouldn’t miss any clues to be seen in the first split second after Gregory’s appearance.

At the scheduled time, a body materialized in the chair. Gregory was on the chair, but not in the right position to sit there comfortably. Gregory might not see a virtual conference room at all. Was he slouching, or leaning back on a bed or couch? What else was Gregory’s software concealing?

“Thank you for agreeing to communicate with me, Mr. Peters.”

Gregory replied, “You’ve been, uh, persistent. You’re good at persuading people to give me messages. I decided talking to you would be less of a nuisance.”

The voice was surly and resentful, matching the words, seeming too petulant for a twenty five year old man. Brett deemed it genuine. Gregory had no real motive to sound artificially childish.

The boy-man Brett faced wasn’t especially muscular or handsome, but the casual neatness jarred slightly. It might conceal nothing more than a lazy fellow who hung around in his underwear all day.

Motions of the mouth and face exactly matched the words and looked natural, which was rather hard to fake in real time. Brett would pay attention to the facial expressions, which might be real.

Brett spoke before his subject could become impatient.

“I don’t work for your father.”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t take me back if you could?”

Brett would have cheerfully shoved the little smart ass in a box and shipped him home as cargo. He didn’t feel like lying about it.

“I’m not thinking about it, since you’ve cleverly arranged circumstances to make it impossible. Since you’re here, I assume you don’t mind helping me out provided it doesn’t cost you anything. I’d appreciate if you’d start by telling me why you decided to come to Oceania.”

Gregory scowled. “Why? I could just leave. You couldn’t trace me.”

Brett knew this to be true, after unsuccessful attempts to make it otherwise. Brett repressed all traces of his annoyance. “You’re right. That was a silly way for me to start. Tell me what the best place to begin would be.”

“I guess we could start with my deciding to come here. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Did Gregory have a secret to deny, hopefully of more than personal interest? Or did he merely refer to the fact that most people from home believed those who emigrated to Oceania and voluntarily put little machines in their veins had something wrong with them? Either way, Brett would make no mention of the childish behavior, of having agreed to the conference and then arguing with Brett over where to begin, then repeating Brett’s suggestion because Gregory had no better ideas.

The boy finally got started. “Nothing I’ve ever done had been good enough for my father. For a long time I didn’t know if I wanted to become rich or famous or powerful, but I didn’t really want any of those. All I’ve really ever wanted is to get away from the shouting and demands. Him and his damn espionage fiction! You’d think a politician wouldn’t romanticize it so much. He talked about political horse trading and corporate donors often enough.

“I admit I had the wrong idea when I came to this world. I sort of thought you just came and got absorbed into a planetary supermind, something like enlightenment but without all the meditating. That’s hard too, you know.”

“Most things worth doing are,” Brett thought but did not say. The kid must really enjoy complaining about his father. He had gone from complete refusal to speak to making personal confidences in a couple of minutes.

Brett resumed the conversation. “I’m sure it is. Please continue.”

Gregory did. “Apparently it’s not like that. It’s more like getting a double Masters degree in neurology and cybernetic computing if you want to pull your weight. A few people with useful specialized knowledge can get intensive assistance.

“I got over it. My work doesn’t pay that much, but I have friends, and this is a nice place to live, and nobody bothers me or wants to know why I’m not like my father. Go ahead and tell me how impressed you are with my lack of ambition.”

Brett was momentarily silent. Why would Gregory invent all these things about his father? Had Brett misjudged Peterson entirely? The Senator’s determination still inspired Brett’s trust. He decided to reserve judgment, but he had nothing to gain by criticizing Gregory, and the fellow might possibly be useful in the future if he abstained. “You have what you want and you don’t kid yourself. Good for you.”

Oddly enough, Gregory seemed slightly let down. “Telling you this isn’t going to be as much fun as I expected, but you still ought to know. One thing I do is follow political and entertainment gossip.”

Brett didn’t stop listening, but he wasn’t interested in gossip. Maybe it would give him a key to getting something useful out of Gregory later.

Gregory continued. “Many people are occasional participants in the Oceanian supermind, but only a few do so consistently. These are specially trained, in some ways some of the most important people on the planet. These people are called Neurons with capital N’s.”

Brett’s attention quickened slightly. This might possibly be useful, although it didn’t seem related to celebrity gossip.

The Senator’s son said, “One of the most important of the young generation of Neurons is Ariel Lilac. She’s sort of a celebrity.”

Muriel had mentioned something about her playing an important role – hadn’t she? She didn’t have an entourage though. The ball where he had met her had probably been mostly rich or famous or powerful people, but still. She would have told him … she had suggested a relationship wouldn’t be a good idea for him … but when he had -”

Gregory continued, “For awhile she was in a romantic relationship with Michael Waterborne …”

Hopefully Brett’s appearance in the gossip columns wouldn’t have a negative impact on negotiations. Ariel had probably assumed Brett understood what he was getting involved with. In retrospect several conversations now made more sense. Brett hadn’t even asked Ariel not to tell her friends.

Gregory finished speaking, “–a politician who currently holds no elective office, but is very popular with the anti Federalist wing of the opposition party.”

Brett began to have a bad feeling.

Gregory was on a roll. “On Oceania amateur paparazzi don’t need a recording device. Memories can be bought and sold. As a rule Ariel Lilac is careful in her choice of friends, and manages to preserve her privacy except for a few memories of casual acquaintances or short conversations. Although most traces of the originator have been removed from the memories in circulation, some suspect Michael Waterborne due to the initial, ah, slant on the Federalist Space Force Major who -”

“Oh Shit,” Brett said aloud involuntarily. Not good technique in questioning the subject, but barely significant beside his other screw-ups.

What had he done? Although he had been primarily selected because of his neurological knowledge and as a counterweight to Williams, he had been given a diplomatic briefing. Clearly it hadn’t taken. He had turned a politician opposed to compromise into a personal enemy.

What had he done?