


Whole Day Off

by Antje



Category: Zeta Project
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-18
Updated: 2005-10-23
Packaged: 2013-05-21 22:08:24
Rating: T
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,965
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2584743/1/
Author URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/257244/Antje
Summary: The agents get a whole day off, only to find out things don't happen as planned.





	1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Whole Day Off (WDO)  
**Rating**: Teen (PG)  
**Length**: Seven chapters; 29,300 words  
**Dates written**: 12/6/05; 25/6/05; 13-15/9/05  
**Warnings**: Definite Bennett/Lee innuendoes, which could easily be platonic.  
**Other**: Story notes at the end of the last chapter … Reviews don't mean that much to me, although I believe that when reading someone's work it's not always right to stay absolutely silent ... And of course, I don't own The Zeta Project.

o - o - o _For Kelly_ o - o - o

**one)**

Jo was humming. She did a lot of that these days, almost as though the last fifteen sour years hadn't existed. They'd disappeared amid the mumbled, incoherent words of a classic pop song, were swept away by her saunter into the kitchen. The happiness was in the bright white tennis outfit she'd donned, in the red of a ripe strawberry as she pierced off its end. Some of that happiness managed to wind its way into her precious smile, wide and toothy, and bridge the distance between them.

"Good morning, James." She set the tennis racket over the arch of her slim shoulder, bent at the waist, and pecked her husband dutifully on the cheek. "You're up early."

James noticed she hadn't thrown a single glance at the computer on the table before him, to see if it was showing the local weather report or a government file. "I never have been much for sleeping in, Jo. You know that."

"Yes, Jim. I think you missed your calling as a crop farmer in Ohio. Isn't it supposed to be your day off?" she chirped affably while chewing the rest of the strawberry.

His first reaction was to grunt and ignore the jibe, until he realized how the comment was emotionally indirect. Jo returned to her humming, racket still poised on her shoulder, not a bit of concern if it was a legitimate day off from James's erratic, demanding schedule. He was an NSA agent, that was his job, and Jo knew that, though often wasn't accepting of his lengthy absences and acidic mood. All things considered, he decided the question was legitimate, but didn't require a response. He was sitting at the table in black trousers and a red percale shirt, hardly the uniform of an agent who expected to dart to the office any second. If she was as observant as she'd always claimed, the outfit would be noticed, her own question answered.

"Well, if you are home all day," she was looking over the daily calendar to see what the Bennett household would be up to, "answer the phone if the caterers call. I already programmed the food list into the phone, so give that to them, would you?"

He looked up at her: bouncy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, the skin tanned by the heavy Colorado sun, the distinctly feminine shape despite her age, her having given birth to one son. Momentarily, he wondered if any other man dared lay eyes on her the way he used to.

"What caterers?" he asked, removing his glasses and rubbing his brow. "I don't remember any—. Hang on, today's Saturday, isn't it? It's _that_ Saturday!" He rubbed his brow harder, with both hands, to hide the mortification.

"You forgot?" Jo bounced the soft center of the tennis racket at the round bend of his shoulder. "You really, truly, actually forgot?"

"I've had a lot on my mind."

Jo pursed her lips, one hand magically floating to her hip. Whenever she did that, he knew he was in trouble. Fifteen years living with a woman, and you automatically know her kinesics. Everything else stays a mystery, but not those kinesics. Hand on hip. Frown. Dark storm clouds brewing behind the gray-green eyes. This was war.

To lessen the tension, he smirked. "At least I reminded myself. That's a change from the norm, isn't it?" He grabbed the racket's shaft, above her hand, and pulled in. Jo splashed to his knee. He caught her chin and placed an indulgent kiss on her cheek. "I remembered the anniversary part, but not about the big dinner party."

Jo weaned her stare from him. "I know how you feel about this party, Jim. But I think it's important. We've never made very many friends since we moved out here—"

A decision he'd always wanted to regret. He just wasn't the kind of man who had a lot of time to devote to regret. It takes a lot of extra hours to feel shame.

"And the few that we do have, well, they've never actually seen our house before. It'd be nice for them to know we don't live in a cardboard box. Wouldn't you agree?"

Before he could answer, Jo returned to her feet and headed for the exit. She stopped just over the threshold, in the foyer. The morning sun was oozing in the front windows, highlighting her hair and shadowing her eyes.

"I've got to go. It's almost time for me to pick up Bonnie. We're going out to lunch after a few matches, so don't expect me back until this afternoon. I think Jimmy's outside somewhere, probably with Frey. Remember what I told you about the caterers."

"I will," he nodded. She turned away. "Have a nice—" he tried to call out to her but heard the door to the garage open and close, "time."

The house seemed unearthly silent. It was mid-summer, already July, and in the nearby boughs that scraped the panes, he heard no birds chirping, no insects from the shrubbery, no cars trundling down the street. Then refrigerator kicked in, and the kitchen was filled with its calm whirring. James, sighing, turned back to the laptop. On the screen was the weather forecast, ironically not a government file, if only Jo had noticed . . .

Blindly, he focused on the computer. This home PC was different; it was the computer that Jimmy used for school work, where Jo ordered half her more elaborate pieces of wardrobe, where he, James Bennett, could catch up on what was happening in the rest of the world. Elections for Colorado governor were heating up . . . There was a drought out in Grand Junction, which he didn't understand why anyone bothered to report that year after year, as it'd ceased to be news . . . A tornado had touched down and caused rural damage in Sterling, weather that was about as opposite as one could get from Grand Junction . . . The transportation bureau had voted to add another lane of traffic to southbound I-25. Just as well. The road needed all the help it could get. Even he'd stopped taking it to work every day. He lived seventy miles from work, one way, purely by design. Living too close to the NSA field office would be like living too close to in-laws. They'd be over all the time, never be able to get rid of them; they'd bring bad food, have cookouts no one wanted to attend, etc. It was just better to live out of their reach.

His mobile unit rang. The keypad lit up like a copper-stuffed firecracker on the table beside the computer. For a moment, James let it ring, until he finished the last line of the text news article. He didn't even need to look at the caller identification to know who it was.

"It's my day off," he said as a greeting, replacing his typical "Agent Bennett" line. "Why are you calling me?"

"Yes, I know it's your day off," Gina Hattie said. She was his boss, the director of the NSA's technical operatives, like James. "We do keep track of that kind of stuff, Jim."

"I know you do, sir," he paused, "but you're not calling me for a friendly reminder of the NSA's code of conduct. What is it?"

A long breath came through the line. Director Hattie tended to sigh a lot, particularly when dealing with the Zeta Project task team. "Jim, are you aware that Agent Lee has—"

"We've discussed it." He cut her off, meaning to. It wasn't a subject he relished conversing. But he remained nonplussed. "Did she . . . Has she actually . . ."

"I'm staring at it right now."

He arched his eyes and mouthed a swear, already thankful this was an Ears Only call, and he didn't have to face Gina Hattie. He tried to go on before his silence was thought suspicious. "How long will it take for her transfer to go through?"

"Well, I've just received it today—"

"Lee shouldn't even be at work."

"I know, such a tragedy. What can I do about it? She's a workaholic. Reminds me of someone."

Him. She was reminded of him. Bennett didn't even dare smile, Ears Only or not.

"Besides, she's not here," Hattie suddenly said. "She even left early last night."

"Color me surprised," James murmured. "And good for her. How long, sir, until the transfer?"

"I don't know, Jim. Three months, maybe. All the directors here at Colspring will have to sign it, particularly Director Goubeaux and I. Then it'll head to Washington for more circulation. Colonel Lemak, obviously, will need to approve it. He'll be disappointed. He's wanted Lee to go back to Washington practically since she left. He'll be sorry to hear she wants to stay in Colorado."

Definitely insinuation in Hattie's voice, but Bennett knew better than to bring it up, or defend himself. Lee was switching teams, going from a technical operative to a field operative, and getting out from under Agent Bennett's shadow, if it could be called that, in the process. What he wanted to know was when it would happen. He knew more than he cared to know about the how and the why. But the when, he didn't know anything about the when. Now, it seemed, a clearer picture was developing. Three months. Ninety days. And he'd lose Lee.

He jumped ahead to the subject he knew Director Hattie would suspect of him. "Any signs of an agent to replace her?"

"I've not had a chance to go through personnel records and profiles as of yet. This was a surprise to me, Lee's request of transfer."

A surprise? James didn't wholly believe her. The threat had been looming since December of 2041, merely two months after the Major Trio was brought together to hunt and retrieve Infiltration Unit Zeta. As Lee had said to him during a recent antagonizing morning meeting, one of them would have to go in order to satisfy the directors. It would have to be Bennett, Lee, or West. Circumstance finally provided the candidate. Lee balked, lumped, couldn't take it anymore. In ninety days or less, she'd be gone.

"Director Hattie?" he started, and waited for her to acknowledge. "My only request is that you find someone who's got a bit more training than either West or Lee. Someone who's been around the block a few times. I don't mean an old fart like myself—" and Gina snickered at this "—but at least someone who, you know, has crow's feet."

A short pause sounded through the clear line. He knew she was thinking what he'd never speak._ Someone who's married, happily married, would be particularly nice._

"It'll have to be a woman, James. Colonel Lemak will not waver on that issue."

"I'm aware of that," he said, holding back the urge to huff. "I know we can't have a prominent task team going after a prominent figure like Zeta while oozing testosterone and spewing out lines from every military film ever made."

"This isn't funny."

"Damn right it isn't. We're talking about my team, Director Hattie—my team. Not even together hardly a year, and already it's fallen apart. I've taken this very seriously, sir, every step of the way."

Another silence. Then, from Agent Hattie—

"I'll see what I can do to find you a proper, er, mentor for West. I suppose his hero-worship of you has gone on long enough, huh?" A gentle chortle rounded from deep within. A way of apologizing for having bothered him on his day off about something so obviously unpleasant.

"West doesn't hero-worship anyone. And if he does, I'd very much doubt it'd be me."

Agent Hattie understood what Bennett didn't say. West's mentor was Lee, through and through. Bennett was just an unfortunate side effect. Hattie cleared her throat and tried to assuage to the best of her ability. "I'll have you a list of candidates within a fortnight, Jim. That's the best I can do. You know this is a fragile situation. Your next agent will have to be chosen very carefully."

"Understood," Bennett murmured, his voice kept steady by years of training. "Meanwhile, I'll not mention this to anyone, and will go on pretending I don't know about Lee's resignation. I assume Agent West will be in the dark, too."

"That decision rests with Agent Lee."

A familiar chime sounded in the background of the telephone line. As suspected, Agent Hattie brusquely announced they'd chat tomorrow when he returned to the office. Then the call ended. James set the mobile down and once again focused on the weather report and mundane Colorado news. When the restlessness came, he jumped from the chair and decided it was time to brave the heat of the valley and have a jog. Maybe he'd just get lucky by coming down with heatstroke, then the whole slew of directors would have no other option but to give Agent Bennett a health sabbatical. A whole week or two to do nothing but sit about? James rubbed his face as he appeared on the front porch, now in jogging kit. A whole week or two without anything to do was like a nightmare, what with something like Zeta running renegade through an ignorant country blissfully unaware of its own troubles.

_Work, Jim. Work is the only thing you really have to do. Everything else is secondary. You'll never forget that. _

"And I need to stop thinking in second person," he murmured aloud and began an eight-minute pace around the neighborhood.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N - Have a jazz CD? Old jazz or new jazz? If so, I'd suggest listening to jazz while reading this chapter! Oh, the ambience! ;)

**two**)

Since Orrin West was a child, growing up in a suburb of Chicago, he'd wanted two things: 1) To work for the government in some form or another, particularly as someone who gets to use guns and intelligence daily; 2) All the jazz vinyl he could get his obsessed hands on.

This was the first Saturday he had off from work in eight months. And even then, in October, he'd had to submit an official time-off form, on account of his basic religion, Judaism, and its emphasis on the High Holy Days, Yom Kippur in fact. Though not a practicing Jew by any means, he'd never even had a mitzvah, he felt a tie to the religion. The imprint came from his mother; and her influence carried him to the Yom Kippur service for the first time in ten years. The Day of Atonement, as it was called, was absolutely nothing quite like the _at-one-ment_ he felt standing precisely where he was.

The musty scent of ancient vinyl record sleeves, the tinny notes playing through the speakers located at random intervals in the store, the art and photographs hung upon the walls with familiar faces therein. Miles Davis was smiling down at him; a gorgeous black and white of Louis Armstrong with his prized trumpet, an effigy of which West had hanging in his flat; then Billie Holiday in her early years. They were everywhere he looked, around and around him, from a sacred space up above, black and white jazz angels. Angels who'd known music more than their own souls.

Surely this was the way God talked to him, the way he talked to God. _Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'Olam—please keep the jazz coming._

West took in a deep breath that practically shattered his ribcage. He loved being there. Loved it, loved it. Any day he didn't have to be at work, any day he wasn't out of Colorado Springs, West could be found one of two places: the Club Pierre downtown listening to live jazz on its dinky little stage, or he was there, Tootin' Highbury's, the premiere Everything Old store in all the land that side of the Mississippi.

The fluttering navy and gold-trimmed drape hanging over the doorway to the backroom caked to one side by a wrinkled hand. Out popped old Gladys Highbury herself. Her puffy red hair had turned mostly gray now, but she still had the twinkling green eyes that Orrin remembered. The first time he saw Gladys Highbury, he was at the tender, impressionable age of eleven, and had gone to a jazz review show presented by Julliard, hand in hand with his mother. Hanniah was the jazz fan. For as far back as West could remember, she was singing jazz, playing jazz on the ancient piano in the front room, teaching him bits of trivia while he learned the instincts of a jazz riff, a B-flat cord or an E-major. She was the personification of jazz within his mind. A little warped now, long after the years since they'd spoken.

He'd been delighted to find out that Tootin' Highbury's was actually owned by the famous Gladys Highbury, the chanteuse herself. It'd been her brother, Wayland Highbury, who'd been known as Tootin' Highbury. Wayland originally opened the store back in 2024. Gladys took over completely after her brother's death five years ago.

She and West were on a first-name basis now. As she appeared behind the curtain, her hands immediately went for his, her smile bright and kind.

"I knew it was you, Orrin," Gladys said, her voice thick as though cotton balls were stuck in the back of her throat. His fingers were pinched affectionately. "Knew it'd be you. Caught the scent of your aftershave soon as you walked in."

"Gladys, it's good to see you!" Obediently, like Gladys Highbury was his great aunt, he stooped a bit and kissed her soft, wizened cheek. "I know it's been forever."

"Not forever, Orrin. If it'd been forever, we'd probably both be dead and meeting in the afterlife. You've been busy," she said analytically. "I assumed the government was giving its premiere agent plenty to do."

"I'm hardly their premiere agent," West protested. He liked Gladys, and did see her as a great aunt, but he never had told her he worked for the NSA. Actually, he did tell her that once, but she blew up in a fat laugh and never believed him. Of course that was probably because he'd managed to knock over an entire bookcase of jazz titles, tripped over the store's resident cat, Bojangles, and, thanks to an incoming patron, got himself hit in the forehead with the door on his way out. No wonder she hadn't believed him when he said he worked for the National Security Agency, at least not as anything legitimate as an agent. Her response? "What are you, Orrin, their live-in clown and jazz specialist?"

He didn't mind. His vast knowledge of All Things Jazz made up for it. He could talk to Gladys for hours, in an exchange of insightful information. Gladys told him he ought to write a book. That was when it was Orrin's turn to laugh.

With his hands in the deep pockets of his gray pinstripe trousers, Orrin cocked his head and his smile. "I got the day off. For once. I know it's been an age, so I thought I'd stop in."

"Brilliant, Orrin, since you're just in time for lunch." She sauntered by him, paused at his side, and flicked at the brim of his hat. "Remove your chapeau when inside a lady's home, Orrin." Gladys proceeded to the entrance, a hand to her hip. The other hand flailed at her side as though quickly removing cobwebs. "Why do you always have to dress like Spencer Tracy, anyway? Or Humphrey Bogart?"

Orrin had quickly removed the felt fedora from his head, and straightened his hair, the color of lightened cinnamon. "I don't know, Gladys. I guess I like their clothes a lot better than any of the styles out now."

The 'OPEN' sign in the window was turned to 'CLOSED'. Gladys returned to him, gave him a scrutiny, from his well-trimmed hair to his red tie, gray suspenders, down to his wingtips. When she lifted her gaze back to him, she was smiling.

"I can see it now," she said, her artistic and witty mind at work. "To dress like Adam Heat would be tantamount to a very long torture sentence for you, wouldn't it?"

"Most definitely. Perhaps I'd reconsider if Adam Heat acted as well as Humphrey Bogart did in _Casablanca_."

Gladys chuckled, much amused by the twisted way this oddity that was Orrin West saw the world. Suddenly, the musical ambience changed: he closed his eyes, a placid smile on his lips. Gladys grabbed his arm and squeezed.

"Like I said, Orrin: I knew you were coming. I put on your favorite. An attempt to coax you from hiding, I suppose."

It was the music playing through the store that made him reverent and awing. He listened intently for another moment, with the blackness behind his lids adding to the concentration, and finally opened his eyes.

Overhead, all around, nearly omnipresent, was the delicate, smooth and downright gorgeous tone of Mildred Bailey. Mildred Bailey and her intoxicating rendition of 'Me and the Blues'. Orrin still got the chills every time he heard it. To think, if it hadn't been for his mother, he'd never have known something so beautiful as Mildred Bailey existed. The idea was hardly worth pondering. He shoved it away into the dungeon of his mind and followed Gladys into the backroom. Few who were not employees ever made it into the backroom. Orrin always felt like a guest of honor when in Gladys Highbury's presence. To be in the backroom meant that he'd just stepped into what was essentially her house. It was the office, where she did all of her work, the buying and selling of items, produced online promotions and auctions, wrote the daily schedules for all three of her part-time employees, and housed the staircase to the flat above the store.

Bouncing up the stairs ahead of them was Bojangles. He was a fat, long-haired gray and white with insipid yellow eyes and a basic hatred for all those who'd never fed him. It was a great mystery to anyone, particularly Gladys, as to why Bojangles took a special liking to Orrin. It was a secret wish of the agent's that he might someday get a cat, but it'd be impossible to keep that cat happy while away for lengthy business trips. As soon as Infiltration Unit Zeta was caught, though, Orrin supposed the very next day he'd find himself a cat. If the case ever closed. . . .

But he had the whole day off. All twenty-four hours. A whole day not to think about Zeta, the renegade robot, and his hellion teenage accomplice, Rosa—.

_Shut up, Orrin. Just shut up. Okay, okay, shutting up. Am I talking to myself again? Bugger. I am. Stop, before Gladys thinks you're an idiot. Quick, say something charming and witty!_

"It smells delicious in here," he finally said. Not exactly charming. Not very witty. But it did smell nice. And Gladys smiled, so he assumed he'd done all right.

They were in the kitchen, drenched in sunlight from the window over the sink and the narrow door that went to a small 5x3 patio that overlooked the city alley. The patio itself was covered in container gardens, flowers in brilliant hues that vaguely reminded Orrin of the home he'd known once. The flowers his mother used to plant while crooning Judy Garland staples, like 'The Boy Next Door' or Harold Arlen's most famous tune, 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'.

Gladys gestured to the old fashioned stove. Upon it were two round desserts. "I made pies this morning before the store opened. I assume you'll be taking one home with you."

"Ah, Gladys, you're so good to me. Wager you like me better than your own son."

"My heathen son?" Gladys cackled in her throat. "Him! Big city executive. Pah! Where'd all his millions get him? Four wives and a whole lot of alimony." She pointed a crooked finger at him. "Let that be a lesson to you, Orrin. Don't marry! If you have to marry, at least marry when you're about to die. Got it?"

"Tragically apt advice," he responded, suppressing the urge to chuckle. Gladys had only been married once, to Orrin's knowledge, and it'd lasted roughly a decade. Phenomenal length, compared to some. He sniffed over the pies, feeling Bojangles wrapping possessively around his ankles. Gladys watched on, as this had become some kind of game between them, Orrin sniffing the pies to find out the flavors. He inhaled again, then winced his hazel eyes to Gladys.

"I'm thinking—mixed berry?"

Gladys acknowledged this. Orrin turned to the second pie. He knew what it was immediately. Both his hands cupped over his heart and he sighed dreamily.

"Cherry vanilla crumb!"

"I'm surprised you couldn't smell it walking through the door, Orrin. You'll be taking that one home with you, will you?"

"If that's all right." He'd never tasted anything quite like a cherry vanilla crumb pie before he'd met Gladys Highbury. By definition, it was just a pie with cherry filling in it, all and all nothing special, at least not until Gladys added her homemade vanilla crumble. Then—and only then—did it become the one food in the world that Orrin would eat every day.

He took a seat at the dinette, Bojangles still at his ankles. "Get anything new in, Gladys? Anything you know I'd like?"

"I got a Tops Hi-Fi vinyl you may like."

"Oh?" He watched the back of Gladys as she dragged condiments from the fridge. Along with the bread and meats on the countertop, he assumed lunch was some kind of sandwich. All right by him. He was famished. "What's the vinyl?"

"It's a compilation of songs from the 1920's. Standards, for the most part, but there are a couple of jivey arrangements. We'll go down after lunch and have a listen. It sounds best on the old Victrola in the corner. Do you want spicy mustard?"

"Yes, please. How much did you pay for it? The vinyl?"

"Only twenty-eight."

"What?" West screamed out, shocked. "Twenty-eight creds? You're joking! Oh, please tell me you're joking!"

"I'm not," Gladys was so not even joking that she didn't even look over her shoulder at him. She went about making sandwiches as calmly as you please. "I got a call a couple weeks back from a sweet young thing that told me her uncle had just passed and that he'd had all these records. She said I could have the whole lot for three hundred. When I went up to Cheyenne to look at them, I flatly explained to the sweet young thing that if she was going to sell them to me for three hundred, I'd spend the rest of my days feeling like a swindler. I told her the whole lot was worth at least five thousand. But she didn't want to be bothered selling them off individually. I gave her thirty-five hundred and we called it a day. Here's your sandwich."

A plate was slipped in front of him. On it was one of the most overstuffed sandwiches he'd ever seen. He'd tasted Gladys's famous sandwiches before. Loads of times, in fact. And every time he did, he'd pause a moment and be thankful he knew this woman, this victualer, this listener of jazz, this retired chanteuse, this saint who even remembered he didn't eat ham.

"So," Gladys began, mouth partly full of bread and veggies, "have yourself a girlfriend yet?"

She always asked this. He'd never seen her surprised at the answer. "No. I'm married to my work. And the ghost of Mildred Bailey. You know that. Didn't you just tell me not to get married?"

"Just checking to see if you were paying attention. But there's a difference, Orrin, between being married and having a girl to take dancing. So far, the only thing in this world that seems to take an interest in you is Bojangles. And he ain't the dancing type." She patted his hand in either sympathy or humor. West couldn't be sure. She had another bite and some crisps before asking her next question. "Been 'round to the Club Pierre recently?"

"No, no," he shook his head. The Club Pierre was one of his favorite spots in Colorado Springs. Strike that. It was his favorite spot in all the world. Well, maybe aside from Tootin' Highbury's, with Gladys's pies and sandwiches. "I did talk to Trusty Bismarck, though."

"Ha!" erupted Gladys. "Trusty Bismarck! How's he doing? Where'd you run into him?"

"I saw him at the Corner Market down the block from my flat. We live in the same neighborhood. Anyway, he said the Club had undergone some kind of renovation. Is it true?"

"It's true."

West's face fell flat and his sandwich dropped back to the plate. He leaned languidly into the seat. "But—why?"

"Don't go thinking the kittens have drowned yet, Orrin," chided Gladys with a mysteriously youthful smirk. "It's nothing awful. The Club Pierre's still open, still the same place you love, but it'll now have comfier seating and a bigger stage."

Orrin's mouth twitched to better ruminate on these changes. After the reflection, he lifted a shoulder and tilted forward again. "I guess it was hard for Alice Faye and her Rising Sign Trio to fit onto a six-by-six stage, huh?"

"Especially with Alice getting bigger and bigger," Gladys remarked, cruelly tonguing off what everyone knew of Alice Faye, a gorgeous singer but with an ever-increasing waistline. "If her buzzies inflate another inch, she's liable to explode all over the stage."

Orrin broke out laughing, most unfortunate since his mouth was full of sandwich. He managed to swallow, had a sip of peach iced tea, and was calmed. "I'll try to stop over there tonight. Trusty Bismarck said he'd be there."

"Imagine most of the crowd will be there. I'll see if I can come along. What time you thinking about going?"

"Round six, I think. Enough time to catch the evening set. Who's playing tonight, you know?"

Gladys had no idea. "Haven't been there in a few weeks myself. You can ring up Demeter Pudding and ask her."

Demeter Pudding was the nickname of Demeter Houston, one of Club Pierre's managers, wife of the owner, cousin of the investor. Club Pierre was run by a whole family whose dramas would no doubt make a fine evening soap opera. Most of the routine patrons tuned into the drama peripherally as it was. West was just about to ask if Demeter's brother, Austin Houston (his honest to God genuine name), was yet out of the sanatorium when the mobile clipped to his belt sounded, its ring tone the reprise of Glenn Miller's 'In The Mood'.

He groaned upon noticing the name on the screen. The line clicked on, there was a second of garbling as the satellites went secure, and then West was saying a grumpy "It's my day off! Don't be calling me!"

"I know you don't want to be disturbed, West," said Agent Spencer, the Level Nine communications operative. "But I just got off the phone with Agent Hattie, and she said—"

"To bugger off?" interrupted West.

"Er, no," Agent Spencer murmured and cleared his throat. "She told me you need a little bit of training."

"Training? I don't suppose she means obedience training."

"You're not too far off the mark, West. She wants me to teach you some flight training this afternoon. Have you got plans?"

"Not exactly." It wasn't something he could lie about, either. West never had earned his badge in lying, and Marceau Spencer would never believe the solitary, slightly weird Agent West would have legitimate plans on a legitimate day off. "What time am I supposed to be there?"

"Fifteen hundred. We'll be using the Fort Carson Flight Evaluation hangar."

West was familiar with the place. Fort Carson was an active military base literally just down the road from the incognito NSA building. "I'll meet you there. Civvies or suit?"

"Flight suit, actually."

"Right. I'll have to dig it out from my wardrobe. It may smell of mothballs. What'll we be flying?"

"The RT-299. You should know it. You've crashed at least two of them."

"I can't get used to those quantum engines, that's all."

"We'll start with flight simulation, for an hour or so, and then go up. Understood?"

"Understood."

"And cheer up, West. You and I, see, we're gonna get paid overtime for this."

Somehow that didn't improve West's mood when he disconnected the mobile. The sandwich didn't seem half as appetizing now. Neither did the pie. Sulking, his shoulders rounded and he stuck the heel of his palm into the hollow beneath his cheekbone. "Blah. So much for having days off."


	3. Chapter 3

**three**)

The snap of the screen door closing wrestled the lids of Marcia's eyes open. Three feet away, behind the low back of the couch, Marcia caught her brother's hesitant glance.

"Hey, sis." He paused at the base of the sofa, long enough to give a playful smirk. "I see you're still attempting to shrug away the aftereffects of last night's romp in the city, huh?"

From below her neck, Marcia grabbed a decorative pillow and threw it squarely at her older brother's arrogant face. It must've been his CIA-trained reflexes that enabled him to catch the pillow before it did any damage. He gave a small, wimpy laugh, both thrilled and startled that he'd managed to flare her temper so easily.

"All right," he said, and replaced the pillow by her feet. "I'll be sure to remember that a hung-over Marcia Lee is a grumpy Marcia Lee."

"Shut it, Arlo," she hissed, struggling to keep her eyes closed against the streams of sunlight. But despite the plea, and it was quite a plea, she felt her brother's presence continue. "What are you still doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you have left for Washington by now?"

"Nah," he said with one shake of his head, "Dad cornered me this morning and said he's got something planned for today. I'll go home tomorrow."

Arlo worked in Decryption at the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters in the District of Columbia. While he never did anything too strenuous and difficult, not like chasing down a rogue with his feet, he remained physically fit and alert. Nevertheless, Marcia knew she could out-wrestle, out-shoot, out-run him any day of the week, even during a substantial hangover. Through their childhood, being only fifteen months apart, they'd often competed against one another, in every possible way. But mostly they competed to gain their father's hard-earned approval. And apparently, their competitiveness had been noticed by the United States government. After cruising through college on a state scholarship, Arlo went to work for the CIA. Marcia's college tenure, spent at a woman's school in Virginia, ended with a visit from something some would consider a step-up from the CIA: the National Security Agency. With the way things in the government were going at the time of her initiation, however, Marcia hadn't been able to disclose her employers. Instead, her family, her father and brother, believed she worked for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bureau (ATF). In Colorado Springs, Colorado. A fact that'd always seemed a bit fishy to Arlo Lee.

But she wasn't in Colorado Springs.

Knowing that the upcoming Saturday intended to be one of leisure, Marcia ducked out of the offices early Friday evening and took a flight to Washington. Arlo picked her up at the airport after he left work. They hit the town, so to speak, going out to dinner with some friends they'd known since high school. It was well beyond the hour of one when the two of them arrived, Marcia somewhat sober, in Bridgeville, Delaware, where the family home was located. Their father, Danil Lee, had been begging them to visit, and to make certain their visits would coincide. It'd been ages, practically a succession of years, since he'd seen his son and daughter together at the same time, in the same place, without the use of vidphones or such equipment. There they were, in the flesh, and the gratitude on their father's impassive, distinctly Asian face was not much of a reward. Not at first. But Marcia knew he must be glad to see them. She was afraid he'd be lonely out here, in this small Delaware town, with nothing to do but tinker with his toys, and occasionally messing in the garden when fickle Atlantic coastal weather permitted. He didn't seem bored, not that Marcia's intuition detected.

Arlo, on the other hand, was acting ornery and far below his age. She wondered what'd gotten into him. Competitive or not, there was always a rotten streak in Arlo, a rebellion of sorts. She supposed, psychologically, that it had something do with losing their mother early on in life. He'd been four. Marcia three. The loss must've upset his equilibrium or understanding of justice in the world.

Marcia set her head back to the pillow. _Forget about it,_ she told herself. _You think too much. You know you do. How many times has James looked at you and thought of telling you to stop thinking? He even knows _when_ you're thinking. He probably knows you're thinking that . . ._

She squeezed the pillow over her head and gritted her teeth. It wasn't so easy to stop thinking about work, even when work, and all the people she knew through it, were several states away.

In the kitchen, across from the living room where she was reclined, Marcia heard Arlo fill a glass of water. The soothing twittering of the finches in the dinning room aviary could be distinguished easily in the quiet house. As soon as she'd walked in the night before, Marcia noticed the birds, startled that she'd forgotten all about them. Dad loved finches, thought they were fascinating. He'd built a giant wooden and screen aviary, out of plans from inside his own mind, and filled it with thirteen birds. The aviary was a natural habitat for the finches, complete with growing dwarf trees, a waterfall that glissaded into a shimmering pool, and a timer that released food to them at standard intervals. It was hard to tell what he'd been more proud of: the beauty of the finches or the beauty of the aviary.

Dad was something of an inventor. Only his inventions weren't particularly practical in any sense. But he liked to tinker. He'd what Marcia would've called 'an honorary wizard', meaning he could do just about anything if he gave it enough thought. Like building the aviary. Like the strange, primitive ultralights he built in a workshop out in the backyard. He'd built a few things for the War Department back around 2030, during the Common War, which the States were not involved in, theoretically. (Philosophically and monetarily, Marcia figured, were always different matters entirely.) Danil Lee's minor inventions for the War Department had probably been the main reason his offspring were kept under tight surveillance through their growing up years. It certainly wasn't because they were absolute geniuses. They were intelligent, certainly. They were clever, certainly. But so were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of other students across the U.S. and Territories. It wasn't just luck that the Lee children had both gone marching off into government employment.

Of course, Danil Lee's other vocation was real estate. He was a part-time realtor in and around Bridgeville. Business was slow. Bridgeville was a small town. Most of the homes Dad sold were vacation "shacks" for plutocratic Washington and Gotham heavy-hitters.

When Marcia called to Arlo, she found out that's where Dad had gone, to show a house. "Said he'd be back around one." Arlo's shape appeared in the doorway, glass of water still in hand. "It's almost one now. You'd better get dressed. He won't like seeing you in your purple p-jays when he gets back." The face darkened just by a trace. "You know how Dad is about the 'early to rise, early to win' attitude."

The vague nod was read and understood. Marcia waved a limp arm his direction. "Could you get me one of those?"

He figured she meant the glass of water. "Sure thing. Aspirin?"

"Oh, lord," she groaned, "yes, please."

Arlo returned a second later with an aspirin and a bottle of spring water. He sat beside her on the couch, after she'd raised herself up with some difficulty and poorly-stifled moans.

"What was up with you last night, anyway?" he inquired as softly as he could. His curiosity was far less subtle than his sister's. But he supposed she'd learned the fine art of deception through deft ATF training. "You're not supposed to drink alcohol, according to ATF rules. At least that's the excuse you used at cousin Maria's wedding."

"Well," she'd swallowed back the pill and ignored the throbbing in her head, "I do work for the ATF." Not really. It was a big lie. But she knew the Bureau of ATF had similar rules to those of the NSA. Recreational alcohol was off limits. It was there in the handbook, the Agent Rules of Conduct. Page 26, paragraph 2. So what had made her ignore the rules and indulge in one too many glasses of zinfandel? She dipped her chin to her collarbone and squeezed her eyes shut. _Work_. _Work_ had been driving her crazy. _Work_ had shoved her gently and not unwillingly into glass after glass of wine the night before.

She slathered on a somewhat believable smile when her head lifted. "Celebrating. I'm getting a promotion at work." Okay, not exactly a lie, but not wholly the truth, either. Since recruitment into the NSA, Marcia had learned to lie to her family. It was easiest to lie to Arlo, who kept his own secrets, whatever they were. To her father, whom she always looked at straight in the eye, mendacity was too challenging.

"Really? A promotion?" He didn't sound as skeptical as his twisted smile and leer advised. The hand at her arm squeezed affectionately. "Good going, sis. Did you tell Dad?"

Marcia was going to respond but a query jostled the air before she could.

"Tell me what?"

Danil Lee had entered by way of the front door. An odd place for him to enter, Marcia thought, as he usually came through the door out of the kitchen, linking the garage and the house. But she deduced the reason for this anomaly quickly. He'd left his sedan parked in the driveway. He was expecting them to leave right away. If he caught her in purple pajamas at one in the afternoon. . . .

Too late. As soon as he entered the living room, he was agog at the sight before his eyes. "Marcia! Why aren't you dressed yet?"

Arlo, to Marcia's shock, tried defending her in his own older-brother fashion. "She's been feeling kind of under the weather today."

"Humph!" Danil clearly wasn't buying this. "I know why she is, too! Too much drink! Both of you, last night, too much drink!"

"Dad—." Arlo had risen his hands to bring order to this burst, but his sister made a gesture to cut him off.

"It's all right, Arlo." She faced her father, and, as per usual, looked him right in the eye. "Yes, I had too much to drink last night and am living with the consequences today. I'm not used to drinking." The latter words added mostly to herself. She really wasn't used to consuming anything made from fermented food. The thought made her stomach lurch in all the wrong directions. She made a rush to the bathroom. And the only good thing about sitting on the cold tile floor in front of the toilet was the abrupt end it brought to the row with her father.

Danil allowed her time to shower properly and dress with care. He was trimming one of the trees in the aviary, the birds twittering around him, happy at the unexpected gift of his company, when Marcia reentered. The smile from her father told her he approved.

"You're feeling better?" he said, withdrawing from the aviary, pruning shears and small branches in his gloved hands.

"Much," she managed to say. "Do I look all right?" She fanned out the skirt of her two-piece dress, down to the strapped pink and white shoes she was wearing. Marcia hated wearing dresses, but for her father, who always wanted them to look their best, she would suffer through flared skirts, slips, even hose. But she'd left off the hose. A slip, a skirt, and some kind of torturous under-wire bra were enough to endure.

He nodded his agreement. "Very nice. You should dress like this more often. Then, you would get a date with a nice man."

It took all her effort not to roll her eyes. Silently, as she did all the times when her father was in the mood to poke fun at her long reign of singleness, Marcia called on the strength of her mother's spirit, a bit of which must flow through her. Certainly her mother wouldn't mind that she was single. Kim Lee probably would've preferred her daughter to stay single at least until the age of thirty. In that case Marcia had three years left to enjoy. Though there were nights that came and went when Marcia abhorred being dateless, it would be a change to go out with a nice, eligible man. For a moment, her thoughts flickered to Orrin West, her NSA partner, and how he endured his dateless lifestyle. Finally, she decided that Orrin was mostly oblivious to All Things Female, unless they were dead, singers, in black and white motion pictures, or a teenage girl named Rosalie Rowen. And, even for the latter, the idea was a bit of a stretch. Marcia was smiling before she knew what'd happened, and her father took it as a sign of conciliation.

Soon, Arlo joined them. "Good, we're ready to go," their dad declared. He pulled off the gloves and placed them in a fold-out drawer built into the bottom of the aviary. The finches were still chirping, jumping from branch to branch. Danil was telling his little "babies to behave while they were gone". Marcia flickered an amused grin to Arlo, who passed her something of the same.

"Will you tell us where we're going, Dad?" Marcia followed her brother and father out of the front door and down the sidewalk. As she'd analyzed, her father's sedan, in a shimmering slate blue, was waiting in the narrow drive. Already, a few wilted yellow leaves were clinging to the roof. The distressed trees, at the height of a summer heat wave, were shedding a few excess leaves. The Bridgeville neighborhood was old, and so were the trees. Most of the neighbors inside those old houses were old, too, once Marcia got to think about it. Her father laughed into her thoughts. Not a big laugh, he'd never do that, but his common demure chortle.

"You will see. Hop in!" He vanished into the vehicle.

Marcia threw her brother a second glance that he read accurately. Neither of them, it was discovered, knew what their old man was up to. Perhaps it was one of his tinkering projects, one he'd finished and had on display somewhere. It'd happened before. But he'd been too excited then to keep it a secret, and had phoned them about the display as soon as he'd gotten word of it himself. Danil Lee, local Bridgeville legend. And capable of keeping secrets. Marcia had always wondered where she'd gotten that from. She was careful to keep her secrets locked up tight. Not even her death would make them surface. The car was roaming down the street before she realized she was thinking too much again.

There was a suspicious smell in the sedan. Marcia sniffed the air, testing it. Above the musty scent of the air conditioner she caught an odor that was very far from ordinary.

"Dad?" she started, twisting her head to her father behind the wheel. "Have you got flowers in here?"

"Yes, yes," he nodded twice with each affirmation. "They're in the trunk. I would've hidden them better if I knew you had such a sharp sense of smell, Marcia."

She'd almost said she was sorry for stumbling upon the mystery, but held back upon noticing he was proud of her sensory acumen. For a selfish moment, she hoped Arlo noticed. Praise from their father was always subtle, but it was praise nonetheless, always appreciated no matter how it arrived. It was odd but she rarely felt stabs of guilty conscience at the times his praise clashed against her lies. The only thing she'd ever really lied about was her job. Danil Lee was pleased she worked for the government. It didn't matter what branch of government. The lie had built up over the years, so that Marcia was presently up to her neck in it. She couldn't tell him the truth now. Suppose it broke his heart that she'd kept it hidden all these years?

They passed downtown Bridgeville, the antiquity of it bringing a rush of childhood memories, all of them warm, up till they drove by the church where Mom's funeral had been held. It was off-set by the fact that cousin Maria had gotten married there. Marcia believed Maria had done that on purpose, with purity the intention as much as marriage. The ruse did work, at least a little. It was the funeral that sprung to mind first, the wedding following a few seconds later. Leave it to Maria to think of a thing like that. . . .

The car turned from the main road and onto a single lane surrounded by grassy knolls and the occasional overgrown deciduous. Marcia blinked at the scenery, horror turning to dread, dread to anger, then the anger morphing to puerile fear. She glared at her father. He noticed but didn't return the look. He was smart that way. He'd seen Marcia's terrified, annoyed looks before and knew to ignore them

Marcia supposed she had no other choice but to sit down and keep quiet about it. The last thing she wanted to do upon returning to Delaware was to visit her mother's grave. That was precisely their aim. The car turned at just the right spot, next to the stump of a long-lost oak, and came to a stop. Up a few rows was the familiar rose granite marker. Their surname was light but bold at the top, with a space below and on the right depicting Kimberly Lee's birth and death. With bile racing up again into her throat, Marcia exited. Arlo, she noticed flippantly, was concerned, too.

Dad went to the popped trunk and dragged out a generous bouquet of flowers. All sorts were there, and Marcia didn't know enough about flowers to recognize species, except for some kind of lily and a half dozen carnations. Dad peered at his reluctant brood over his shoulder.

"Come, come," he hurriedly told them. "We won't be here that long. I promise. I just thought it was time that we came here together, the three of us."

"You're right, Dad," Arlo began, hands deep in his trouser pockets. "We haven't all been here at the same time since Mom's funeral. Ages ago."

_Quick thinking, brainiac_, Marcia thought to herself. She wished she'd thought of it first. At least the 'you're right' part. Dad would've appreciated the concession. "I've wanted to come with you, Arlo," she said instead, hoping it'd win her some points with her father, "but you've always told me you're busy."

He knew what she was doing. Instead of instigating a verbal battle to see who would win their father's praise firstly, secondly, thirdly, and so on, he merely reached out and pinched her elbow. "And you look like a twip, all dressed up like for Sunday School."

"That," she said, deepening her tone, "was a low blow, bro!"

He twitched his mouth. It had been a low blow. "Yeah, sorry," he immediately mumbled, "I know you're not comfortable in that thing."

Anything else she may have said was silenced by the stoppage of the parade. They'd landed at Mom's grave. Dad turned to them and began breaking the large bouquet into three slightly equal parts. One chunk was handed to Arlo, the second to Marcia, Dad keeping the third for himself.

"You say hello to your mother," he told them, stern as ever, as not even standing by his wife's grave could soften him, "and tell her your thoughts. Then, we'll have lunch. Arlo, you go first." He pushed his son toward the granite.

Arlo figured he'd better be as sincere as possible, and make this look good. Marcia was onto him from the first second. She almost lost composure when Arlo gently caressed his oversized fingers across their mother's etched name. _Cheater_, she thought. _Sycophantic pompous ass._ She wondered idly if Dad was onto Arlo's over-the-top behavior, too, as he seemed to be analyzing his son in a critical way. More critical than usual. Then Arlo kissed his fingertips, touched the carved name one more time, and was up from his knees. His flowers remained at the foot of the stone. He smiled in feigned compassion to his father. Dad made a gesture to Marcia. She bowed before the marker, determined to be genuine. This was her mother, for pity's sake. She wasn't going to use her dead mother's memory to win points with her father. Didn't he love both of them, her and Arlo, the same?

"Hello, Mom," she started, thinking these were always good words of greeting. This wasn't just stone she was addressing. Her mother's body was under her, buried in the damp, cool earth. Instinctively, Marcia's fingers clutched the grass beside her knee. Buried in the earth. . . "It'd be nice if you were here, you know that? We're all of us here together, right now. Me, and Dad, and Arlo. I got a day off from work. You know how busy they keep me, don't you? And Arlo managed to make room in his over-productive social life to spend a few hours in dull, old Bridgeville. He's turned out to be kind of a git, Mom, if you ask me." She heard Arlo snicker over her shoulder, but he didn't promote further denial. "And, anyway, I'm wearing a dress. I hate them, you know that, but I do it for Dad. He thinks ladies ought to dress up once in a while. I suppose he's right. Working for, well, who I work for, sometimes I forget what it's like being a lady. Of course, some of the guys there help me not to forget. Er," her shoulders went rigid as she remembered her father was standing right behind her, and what she'd just said could be construed as very lewd. She tried to straighten out her meaning. "Of course, they ask me out on dates and things, but I'm too in love with my job. My partner's great, too. He's a real nutcase. Kind of like how your dad was a nutcase. And our handler is," finding the right word for James Bennett was difficult, "he's dedicated. That keeps us motivated. Most of my life is about my work. But I like being here, back in Delaware, back in Bridgeville, back with the family. I think you'd be proud of us, Mom, the way we've stuck together after you had to leave us. We probably don't see each other as much as we should, and Arlo and I really don't come back to Delaware as often as we should, but when we are here, we really make it count. Anyway," Marcia set the flowers down, feeling exploited and clumsy, "we miss you."

She returned to her feet somberly, and Dad touched her shoulder and patted. As soon as the old man turned to say his piece to the stone, Marcia flung Arlo a winning grin. His eyes tightened. _Yes,_ he seemed to say, _fine, sis, you've won this round. But just remember which of us has the over-productive social life._

They were back in the car after Dad's inaudible murmurs to Kim's grave. They traveled to the west side of Bridgeville, along the freeway, and came to a halt in the stuffed parking lot of a local Chinese restaurant. Cousin Maria's restaurant.

Inside, the restaurant was bustling as it always would be on a Saturday afternoon. Maria came out of hiding from the cooking pit and embraced them all.

"Your party's already arrived, Uncle Dan," Maria told the patriarch. She grabbed some menus, personally escorting them to their common table, a half-circle in the back corner, far from the noise of the kitchens and front entrance.

Marcia's knees almost buckled as she noticed the middle-aged woman and young man with her. This was their party? But they were strangers. A suspicious eye coiled to her father. He was smiling and greeting the two already seated. Obviously, not strangers to him. And not about to be to her, either.

Dad gestured first to the woman, addressing his son and daughter. "This is my friend, Madeline Brooke. Madeline, these are my children. This is Arlo, and this is Marcia."

Marcia inclined her head and said her "How do you do?" pleasantly enough. Arlo mimicked her. He, too, was a bit uncomfortable. More curious than uncomfortable. One of his CIA traits, curiosity. Marcia learned defense at the NSA. Defense. Another way of saying that she distrusted everything until all the facts were in. Suddenly, a knot twisted in her stomach, remembering the request to transfer, the how and the why it had come about. Mostly the why. . .

"And this is her son, Charles Brooke. They will be our guests for lunch today."

Marcia's arm was grabbed as she was led into the booth. Her father's intention was quite clear: Marcia would sit next to Charles Brooke. Her eyes raced across this attractive man in front of her, preened in a fine suit, and glanced in a woebegone way at his left hand. No trace of a wedding band. So that was what her father had been up to, a blind date of sorts. Marcia's insides squirmed again. The how and the why of her request to transfer numbed her almost completely.

"I'm pleased to finally meet you, Miss Lee," Mr. Brooke was saying.

"Finally?" she echoed, trying to bring needed strength into her monotone voice. "You've known my father for a while, have you?"

"A few months," he replied pleasantly. Even his smile was pleasant. He leaned in a little to share a confidence. "I think they planned this get-together so we offspring would have a chance to meet."

Because of her intuition, Marcia flew right to the heart of this problem. She'd been wrong. Her father wasn't setting her up with a nice eligible bachelor. Her father was introducing her to the son of his lady friend!

Marcia caught Arlo's eye. He lifted his shoulders and had a hard time keeping his smile hidden. She looked to her father, who was whispering with Madeline Brooke, a grin that brought out the twinkle of happiness in his eye. Her father had been dating this Brooke woman for three months, and he'd never even told her! As soon as the rush of annoyance passed, Marcia cleared her throat to keep the laughter away. Sneaky old dad. Just like him. After a sip of water, she entered polite conversation with Charles Brooke. While in a discussion modern movies they both enjoyed, Marcia's phone trembled in her handbag. She excused herself, dived a hand into the bag, and brought out the unit. All the I.D. box said was 'Confidential'. Probably work.

She slid a little out of the booth as she brought the phone to her ear. The heat sensor kicked the phone on as soon as it touched her cheek. Then there was the tell-tale scramble of a satellite racing for security, in the process whisking away all doubt it was anyone else other than the NSA.

"Agent Lee," she said proudly and sternly.

"Ah, that's refreshing," said a woman on the end of the line. "You're the first member of your team today, Agent Lee, not to yell immediately upon answering my call. For that, I thank you."

"You're welcome, sir," she said. Relieved it was only Director Hattie, Marcia sidled between tables and made it to the side exit of the restaurant. The heat of Bridgeville hadn't tapered any in the last twenty minutes. It was stifling. She wanted to make the call quick and run back into the air conditioning. "What do you need, sir?"

"Where are you?"

"Home, sir. In the profound sense."

"Pardon?"

"Delaware, sir. I'm in Delaware."

"Ah, right," Hattie gathered. "The only NSA agent to ever come out of Delaware. Did you know that?"

"No, sir. Nothing good comes out of Delaware. Is something wrong, Agent Hattie?"

There was one of the director's typical long pauses on the line. Lee had begun to interpret these pauses as calms before storms. And, sure enough—

"I need you to come back as soon as you can. Now, as a matter of fact."

The knots in her stomach rose up again. Lee switched ears. A hot breeze from over the parking lot ruffled the hem of her skirt. "Normally I wouldn't ask for a reason, Agent Hattie. But I must ask for a reason now."

The reply came quickly, much quicker than Lee anticipated. "Agent Spencer has a lead on IU-6. I'm reassembling your team despite your day off, so you may have some success investigating this apparent lead."

"Okay," Lee said calmly. "Tell me where the lead is sending us and I'll fly straight there." This was said, even though it'd already registered that Agent Hattie had asked her to return to Colorado.

"You need to return to base, Agent Lee. Immediately."

"But, sir, if Ro and Zeta are somewhere else—"

"They're not somewhere else. They're here. They're _in_ Colorado Springs."

Lee thought she'd gone deaf for a moment. But, no, she hadn't. And she didn't ask the director to repeat herself. "Tell Bennett and West not to make a move without me."

"I've taken the liberty. Jim is already here. West said he'll come in when you arrive."

Lee swallowed and dared herself to imagine what her father and brother would say if she ran out on them now. To hell with it. This was her _job_. This was her _life_.

The breeze caught her skirt again.

And it was work she did in black trousers.

"I'll be there in less than two hours. Lee out."

"Control out," chirped Hattie.

The line went dead. Lee sucked on her lips a second, hesitant to run in there and tell them she had to go: another emergency ATF bust that couldn't be done without her. Well, it was sort of like that, anyway. The lies never got prettier, and they never changed. There just seemed to be a lot more of them.

She just wished she hadn't told them it was her day off.


	4. Chapter 4

**four**)

The paper fluttered in front of her, as fast as she could make it go, and still it wasn't doing much to cool her down. Even her brow was dappled in sweat. She shifted a clump of blonde hair behind her ear.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Zeta looked up at Ro. "Yes. The air conditioning unit's vent has a busted fan blade. If I can just solder the fan blade back in position—"

"Just as long as it starts putting out frigid air in five seconds, Zee."

"It will. Give or take five seconds." He nodded just once, this time analyzing the soldering gun and the questionable fan blade in the recesses of the air conditioning unit. Even while sitting cross-legged on the hotel room's floor, he could feel Ro's hostile energy oozing off her and towards him. The heat of Colorado was beginning to make her cranky, and they'd managed to stop at the one hotel and get the one room with no working AC. Ro had made a mumbling about luck which he'd failed to fully interpret.

He pulled away, the soldering gun returning inside his hologram, inside a chest cavity, while his right arm lifted to the unit's controls. Before pressing the 'ON' button, he twisted his head to Ro. "Better stand back. If I did it wrong, the blade may fly through the air and injure you."

"Uh, right." Ro took a step back. "You're really going to have to work on your self-confidence, Zee."

The button was pressed. At first, nothing happened. Zee stared at the unit, wondering what he'd done wrong, waiting in agony to hear Ro's grumble of disapproval. But she didn't grumble. Instead, she reclaimed her step and lowered a long-fingered and docile hand to the controls.

"I think this is the problem." She touched the 'COOL' button three times.

"Oh," Zee replied, getting to his feet, "of course. The temperature setting."

And just as Ro leaned triumphantly away, the unit kicked on, fan rotating to an ever increasing and then infinite speed. Zee got an elbow in his side. "Good as new!" decided Ro. Zee caught the shine of dampness on her face.

"You have," he paused and lifted his hand, "some perspiration on your nose, Ro."

Ro reached up to wipe it away on her wrist before a servile Zee could do it for her. "One way to solve that!" She went to the unit and shoved her face directly above the fan. The blast sent her cropped blonde tresses billowing out in wavy lines behind her head.

While Ro went through this kind of dry refreshment, Zeta tumbled into the small room's only chair and crossed his ankles in front of him. Out of boredom, he ran a systems check, rather annoyed that everything was functioning without difficulty. He would've liked something to do. The days and weeks and months on the road had led to many adventures for Ro and him, but it made the times between adventures seem like runnels of endless monotony. Synthoids, by definition, shouldn't really experience boredom. That was usually because they had some central programming to focus upon. Zeta, by definition, was a synthoid. But Zeta, by definition, no longer had central programming. So, by definition, Zeta could become bored.

Thankfully, there was Ro: enthusiasm housed in his rambunctious teenaged friend. Gusto that alleviated and nearly obliterated all forms of boredom from his life.

"Hey, Zee?" she queried directly into the fan. Her voice was garbled.

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry. What's to do about food?" She pivoted away from the fan, rose up to her full height, and tested to make sure her nose was perspiration-free. For once, she didn't give a second thought to her hair, now standing on end all over.

"Well," there was a stop to actually pretend like he had to think about the options, when he'd thought about the options even while signing into the hotel, "we have to go out. The hotel doesn't offer room service of any kind—"

"And we already know it's limited on amenities and budget," she said, throwing a hand at the repaired unit.

He threw a careless glance at it as well, then back to Ro. "Right."

Ro dived upon one of the two beds in the room, the one nearest the fan, as was usual. She rolled upon her back, taking with her the electronic telephone book placed in every room. This was how she usually found a suitable place to eat for whatever type of food she was in the mood for.

Zeta then embarked on what Ro had often called 'cheating'. He took out a Reader device from an internal cavity. A Reader was a lot like a mobile computer, but had no GPS tracking capability. In the hands of a renegade, who could be tracked down by anything with GPS, the Reader was a much better option. He accessed The 411 website after logging in through the hotel's wireless internet and putting up firewall after firewall in the process, so it would be difficult for the agents to track. The 411 website listed everything the electronic yellow pages did, but he could search through it a lot faster than a human like Ro.

"There's a ma-and-pa diner up on I-25 a little ways," he announced. "You always like going to small places."

Ro growled a little, because he'd beaten her. "Cheater," she spat. He was right, though; she did like going to smaller restaurants, avoiding the big corporate chains whenever possible, save for the occasional leap into a Ground Wire cafe. It was becoming less and less frequent that this was required in order to find Dr. Eli Selig. Zee had his Reader device, and usually he could steal the internet of hotel rooms, like he exhibited then. Ground Wires were good for two things: chocolate cherry cappuccinos and espresso sticky buns.

She shouldn't have thought of food. Her stomach grouched and rumbled. Zee shot her a surprised look from across the room.

"Sorry," she murmured.

His mouth tightened. Ro thought for sure he was trying not to smile.

"Well," Ro threw herself up on her elbows and gave him a deep glare, "at least I don't snore!"

Now he was definitely frowning. This wasn't a game he was particularly good at. But for the sake of defeating boredom, he'd give it a shot. "At least I don't look like a cat with a shaved face."

Ro had no idea what he was talking about. For certain, he was picking words at random again and trying to pass them off as insults. That was Zee's problem: He had no heart for insulting anyone. Most of the time, during this game, his insults came off more like rude valentine messages. "Your conceit is very unbecoming" was one of her favorites. "Your shoes match your hair" was another ambiguous attempt at being naturally observant and failing entirely. "I wouldn't be as witty as you, Ro, for all the Doctor Seligs of the world" was no doubt the one remark that proved Zee could possess a sense of humor, as long as he kept working on it.

He understood that his insult had escaped meaning. He touched his own hair. "It's your hair. You look like a—a—"

"You don't have to say it!" She rushed into the bathroom. Zeta heard a shriek. A second later, Ro had stormed to him to punch him repeatedly on the arm. Her girlish hits were no match for him, but he endured it and shied away as if the damage was real. "Why didn't you tell me I looked like this!"

"I thought I just did."

Ro returned to the bathroom. Another surprised shriek ensued. The light from the bathroom spilled onto the floor and filled the tiny hallway by the door. He heard the sound of running water, meanwhile looking through the Reader and storing the information found there. She returned about a minute later, damp hair flat against her scalp. Having seen her do this several times before, he knew the hair would dry and be as it always was, in a kind of ratty pageboy.

"Where else can we go for sustenance?" she demanded. "Your shaved-faced cat is still hungry. Meow and such."

"Another place not far from here called Club Pierre," he said. "I went to their website. They have live music."

"What kind of music?"

"Jazz."

Ro didn't know much about jazz. "Do they serve food?"

"All kinds. Mainly Americana, although there seem to be a lot of Polish dishes involved, too. Pierogies, kielbasa and beef entrées, and beers. Maybe we should go there."

Her brow furrowed at the intensity of his voice. "What is it?" she prompted.

He didn't regard her while replying. "Their website says they're owned by the Houston family."

"So? Who are they?"

Zee kept his head cleverly angled behind the Reader. "Irving Houston was a scientist on the Eta Project."

Ro could only fold her arms at this oddity. Her face contorted in mass confusion. "The Eta Project? Eta was after your time, Zee. Eta is Greek for 'seventh'. Zeta is Greek for 'sixth'. Seven comes after six. But that just means this Irving Houston guy had nothing to do with your creation. Right?"

He finally dropped the Reader, wrist to his knee, eyes cast away into the far corner of the hotel room. "Yes. You're right. After me."

"Maybe it's not the same family," she said to try easing his ponderous thoughts.

"No," he shook his head, one short look back to the Reader, "it is. Irving Houston's daughter is one of the managers of Club Pierre."

"Well," her shoulders lifted, "you've obviously done a lot more research on these so-called 'Projects' than I've given you credit for."

He had no reply. "Maybe we shouldn't go," he murmured after a moment, his eyes locked to Ro's.

"Why not? You could find out for sure if it's the same family. Although what this Irving guy's got to do with you—"

"Read this." Zee sat up the chair and handed Ro the Reader. She read the highlighted portion while Zee sank next to her. She veered a suddenly sharp gaze to him.

"You're joking!" A laugh bounced the words, a laugh of astonishment, not a laugh of humor. She twirled a lock of dampened hair around her forefinger. "I guess if the website says it's a hangout for military types, maybe we really should consider eating somewhere else." The glaze had fallen over his expression again. Ro's shoulders fell. "Great. Now what?"

"I should've told you this sooner," he started.

"I'm not so sure I want to hear this."

He wasn't so sure he wanted to say it. But, then again, if they did fall into danger, it was best if she knew. "Colorado Springs is a huge government city, Ro. There are many facilities and outposts here."

"Like?"

"Well, there's Fort Carson. The Air Force Academy. And NORAD."

"What's NORAD?"

"North American Air Defense Command. You can see the antennas for their base on top of the mountain. It's actually built into the mountain. Then there's also—"

"Oh, no! Not the National Security Agency! Zee!" On her feet, Ro was shoving her palms into her eyes, groaning. She dropped her hands. Zee saw the tips of her ears had gone red. Never a good sign. "I can't believe this! Zee! You brought us to one of the three cities in the entire nation we'd actually like to avoid? I don't believe you!"

He remained silent. Ro put her hands on her hips and pointed a toe, leaning into one leg. The tips of her ears were still burning.

"At least tell me you know where the base is so we can avoid it."

He nodded solemnly and spoke quietly. "I do know where the base is."

"Well, now I'm _completely_ relieved," she hissed in sarcasm.

"It's just to the west of Fort Carson's northern entrance—."

She waved her hands wildly until he stopped. "Don't tell me! I don't want to know! I don't want to know where the NSA is! You can't just freely volunteer information like that!"

He could. And he would. "You go down the road until you come to a junkyard on the north side of the road. You'll take a curve, and then you're by the Gate A entrance to Fort Carson. After the street angles to the south, you'll be in an industrial complex. The NSA's building is the first one on the left. There are invisible laser fences all around. An above ground garage where the employees park. A delivery system on the east side. Agent Bennett's office is on the second floor. The secretary's name is Patrice. Can you remember all of that?"

She was staring. "Why are you do telling me this?"

"In case something happens to me," he remarked steadily while folding up the Reader and replacing it.

Ro remained gawking and silent. He stood, lowered a hand to her bony shoulder, and patted. She grimaced, angry all over again. "I hate you for telling me that."

"You'll get over it," he said in his casual way as he headed to the door. He pulled and held it open for her. "Come on. We're going to Club Pierre."

She stepped out, arms folded, all of her cross and showing it. "I've got a pretty nasty feeling about this."

Zeta didn't want to say anything, but he didn't feel all that great about it himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**five**)

James smeared his hand against his chin, gaze fixed on the vidscreen in front of him. Since Marcia hadn't arrived yet, and he'd been instructed to wait until the entire team was assembled before going after Zeta, the opportunity to call home was appreciated. He'd left in such a hurry that no chance came to finish the chores Jo had assigned. He'd called mainly to apologize. It was getting too easy to say the word 'sorry'.

_Saying "I'm sorry" is too easy, and "I love you" too hard. Why is it always that way? Why with Jo? Look on the bright side, Jim. At least you're not talking to yourself in second person. Wait . . . Am I? Forget it. Grammar pedantic men are weenies._

Jimmy currently chattered to his dad. With Frey, Jimmy's best friend, and Toni, Jimmy's girlfriend of sorts, in the background, Jimmy was having a fine time telling his father all about the impromptu baseball game they'd played that afternoon. They'd played at Decker Field, a park not far from the house, just up a few blocks in Englewood.

"It was really, really hot out there on the field, Dad. I was shortstop," Jimmy was saying. "I helped with one double play at first and another at home plate! It was great. Toni even hit a triple!" He grinned a little, pride for his girlfriend. "It was her first one."

"Probably my last," Toni said in the background. "Hello, Mr. Bennett!" She waved and smiled into the relay camera.

"Hello, Toni," he greeted. Weeks had gone by before James grew used to the mere idea of Toni, and several late-night lectures from Jo about how Jimmy wasn't a child anymore, that he was nearly fourteen, and had a right to have girlfriends. Jo had a point, she usually did, but that didn't make James feel better.

"Anyway," Jimmy prattled on, talking so fast he was nearly out of breath, "I think I'll be ready for the baseball team at school this upcoming year. What do you think, Dad?"

James tried to smile. Jimmy would be in the seventh grade . . . Though it didn't seem like yesterday that his son was born, it didn't seem so long ago, either. "The team will be lucky to have you." There was truth in that. Jimmy excelled at sports. He played almost everything, from baseball to soccer to last year's captain of the swim team, and had gained his father's interest in sailing. Even if Jo had had a difficult time adjusting to life in conservative Colorado, after living so long in democratic New England, Jimmy grew into the epitome of Coloradoan: outdoorsy, tanned, sports-oriented, bilingual, fond of small and expensive mountain towns.

"Well," Jimmy began again, "you wound up going to work anyway, huh?"

"Unavoidable," replied James, a hint of remorse. "I don't really want to be here today." For once it was true. For once he'd really rather be home.

"That's all right."

It was all right only because James hadn't made definite plans to spend time with his son. If they'd made plans, and those plans were canceled at the last minute, Jimmy would've been hurt.

James cupped his hands together and placed them under his chin. "Is your mom around?"

"Uh," Jimmy stared blankly into the screen, "she's not home yet."

James kept his eyes from narrowing suspiciously. His tone sounded lukewarm casual. "Oh, I see. Did you talk to her?"

"I tried to ring her mobile to let her know I was home, but the phone was off."

"Maybe she and Bonnie decided to play tennis a little later than usual."

"Oh, no, that can't be it," said Jimmy. "I mean, if she was playing tennis with Mrs. Millford, she can't be playing now."

"Why do you say that?" James tightened his knuckles, squishing his hands together. There was nothing to stop the suspicious look.

"Cos we passed Mrs. Millford's on the way home from the baseball game, and she was out picking at her flowers. Mom wasn't with her. Anyway," Jimmy turned cheerful suddenly, "Mom'll show up for the party you guys are having tonight. I'm going to Frey's house to spend the night. Remember?"

"I remember," the reply sounded remote. He cleared his throat when he noticed a presence in the open doorway of his office. Agent Lee was flanked by Agent Spencer. James returned to the call. "I have to go now, Jimmy. Have fun at Frey's."

"Sure, Dad. Laters."

James said his goodbye and ended the conference. While leaning into his seat, he beckoned the two agents to enter. Both of them stood, Lee still as a wooden soldier, Spencer at ease, in front of his desk. Neither of them made motions to sit. He cocked his eyes to Lee, and, at first, she ignored him, but gave in to a brief look. A very stern and silent and insinuating look. Some part of him thought he'd miss those when, in less than ninety days, a new agent would be standing exactly where she was.

He cleared his throat and clasped his hands atop the desk. "All right, so here we are."

Spencer smirked. "That we are, Jim, and ready to party."

Bennett scanned the empty doorway. "Where's West?"

The three of them turned to the door when a sienna-headed kid dressed in a flight suit flew into the room. He grasped the doorjamb as he did, stopping, panting, hand clutched over his chest.

"H-Here, sir," he breathed, words sounding like snake hisses. West stumbled farther into the office and slumped exhaustibly into a chair. His hand clasped to his side. "Oh, man, I've got a stitch something awful." West preened his eyes open, one just a bit more closed than the other, surveying Lee and Spencer and Bennett. They had disapproving looks. "Am I _that_ late? I just got the call five minutes ago! I ran all the way here! From Fort Carson! That's five kilometers! Five kilometers in five minutes! That's a kilometer a minute!"

A snort of laughter came from Agent Spencer. "And this fine exhibition of mathematics brought to you by Northwestern University alumnus Orrin West."

Bennett wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic toward West. He caught Lee's understanding peer. "Agent Lee, would you mind . . . ?"

"Not at all, sir." And, acting on Bennett's orders, she slapped West on the back of his head.

"OW!" He scrambled to scoot the chair out of Lee's lethal reach. "What'd you do that for?"

"West," Bennett started, stern in voice and attempting to be stern in appearance, though he ached to laugh. Briefly, he was relieved his agent-clown was staying and Marcia was leaving. At least West amused him. "Why are you late?"

"It's my fault he's late, Jim," said Agent Spencer. Since he was the same Level as Agent Bennett, Level Nine, the highest Level an agent could reach before becoming Assistant Director, Marceau Spencer never addressed Bennett as 'sir'. Well, not never, recalled Bennett, as during formal meetings, in front of The Generals, Spencer was so intimidated that he called anyone 'sir', even West. Agent Spencer drew his lips together, the lines of his age deepening on either side, in a struggle to suppress a smile. "I'm afraid I played a bit of a practical joke on him, Jim, as per I must."

James lifted his brows and tilted into the seat. "Oh? Well done, Marceau. I'm delighted to hear it."

West groused and combed down his messy hair. "Fragging bastard," he mumbled toward Spencer.

Spencer pretended not to hear. "Thought you would be, Jim. Thought you would be."

West couldn't remain quiet. He gestured wildly toward Agent Spencer. "He told me we were having flight training today! So I went over to the Fort Carson Flight Evaluation Center only to find no one there!"

"Of course, West," Marceau said over his shoulder to the kid agent, "what else would expect on a Saturday afternoon? A teddy bear picnic? All the little bears dressed so fine in their fine, fine flight suits?"

"That's not half of it!" West snarled. "I tried to get cleared to enter the building, and Spencer here hacked into the computer and lowered my clearance to Level One, sir! Frag me, I can't remember the last time I was Level One!"

Spencer remained unfazed. "Want me to remind you, West?"

"I think you just did! So then I had all these problems trying to get _out_ of the ruddy gate! Stupid guards! It's not like they've never seen me before!"

Bennett held the tips of fingers together, smirking just vaguely. "Yes, you're quite memorable to them, West." He caught Agent Lee's look again. "Would you mind terribly?"

"Not at all, sir." This time she hit Spencer on the back of his head. His jaw lowered and he reached automatically to the smarting black cowlick, shouting "OW!" at Lee. She grinned proudly, very fond of her job. She wouldn't even think of how soon she'd be leaving it. But she did think it, and her smile evaporated.

Bennett noticed; he cleared his throat as he got to his feet. "Well, Spencer, you've wanted all of us together, and you've got us all together. Now, do you want to tell us why?"

"Reckon you know why, Jim," grinned Spencer. He took out a hologram display unit from the front pocket of his blazer. With his thumb at the proper control button, the display shot up, the image scrambled into its defined shape, the shape of Infiltration Unit Zeta. "It's got to do with this little feller."

"He's charming," quipped West, still trying to get his rambunctious hair to stay flat.

"Yeah," said Lee, folding her arms, "never seen him before. Friend of yours, Jim?"

Bennett went back to the sideways smirk. "Not hardly, Marcia. I've met him once or twice, though."

Spencer was fond of playing along. "Frat buddy of yours from old college days, eh, Jim?"

"That would explain why he's in Colorado Springs," remarked Bennett, an actual Colorado native who'd grown up in Lakewood. He waved a hand and Spencer flicked off the hologram. All of them had seen enough of Zeta's scarecrow-like cranium to last a dozen lifetimes.

The hologram returned to its pocket. Spencer patted it gingerly. "I've been at the consoles all day today trying to find a pattern among Zeta and Rowen's movements."

"And?" said Bennett, not exactly hopeful.

"And nothing." Spencer shook his head. Then he straightened to his full height, one arm up to his chin, tapping fingers there, and the other around his middle. "Funny thing I did notice, though, was how often they're in cities that are sponsoring science conventions."

Lee's brow furrowed. "Conventions?"

"Science conventions, that's right," repeated Spencer. "Detroit, Albuquerque, Oceanside, Gotham City . . . Every time that Rowen and Zeta were there, a convention was taking place. With prominent speakers."

Bennett was naturally intrigued. "Like who?"

"That I've not had a chance to run through the systems just yet."

"Let us know when you know."

"The very second. You could even know before I know, Jim, super spooky as you are."

"We'll see. Is there a convention taking place in Colorado Springs this weekend?"

Lee glanced at Bennett, as she'd been thinking the same thing. It would be odd, she decided, going to work for another handler, under Director Goubeaux, someone who didn't understand her half as well as Bennett. . . . _Again with the thinking too much!_ she reprimanded herself.

"The only convention in town is for kitchen appliance sellers," said Spencer without delay. "That'd hardly draw a scientific, I'm-secretly-a-robot crowd. I can't find any motive behind their stop here." He flashed the group a smile. "Unless it's to pay you guys a visit!"

Lee huffed in something like a laugh. "Yeah, right. I'm sure we'll be the first people they'll want to see. Right after Roden Krick and Director Wellington, maybe."

Despite the intensity, Spencer chuckled, and even Bennett broke into a brief smile. The silence overcame the room, only to be smothered by the sound of soft snoring. The three of them turned their gazes off each other and onto Orrin West. The kid had fallen asleep with his cheek in a raised palm.

"Aw, bless him," said Spencer. "We've tuckered out the little tyke. He looks so peaceful like that, so nice and quiet. Such a shame we'll have to wake him."

Bennett, Lee, and Spencer made no immediate motions to wake West. The trio looked around at one another, then Spencer and Lee looked at each other, silently asking why Bennett was being so un-Bennett-like, even downright lazy. He wasn't exactly rushing them into a van and straight into the ream of Zeta sightings.

"I take it," surmised Bennett, "that we really don't have much to go on at the moment with Zeta and Rowen?"

"Not really, sir," concluded Lee. "Aside from the official sighting from a convenient store clerk in Aspen Park, we've no idea where they are now."

Bennett darted his gaze around thoughtfully. "Aspen Park is a bit to the northwest of where we currently stand. Maybe they're just passing through."

"I don't know, Jim," cranked out Spencer. "It's possible that they—"

"Last time I remember, Agent Spencer, you were not a certified member of my task team."

Agent Spencer caught himself about to protest. Outwardly, he was confused at this odd observation. Bennett hinted his meaning.

"And as such, your ideas fail to sway my conclusion," said Bennett, showing off the weight of his handler and Level Nine guises. "And my conclusion is that Zeta and Miss Rowen are merely passing through this fine city of ours on their way to another convention. And, seeing as how there is no conclusive lead on their current location, I'm at liberty to return to my day off without the slightest touch of guilt."

"Right," drawled Agent Spencer, catching on. He tapped his nose to say he understood. "I fully agree with you, Jim. It's also my conclusion that Zeta and Rowen are merely passing through, perhaps, as you so keenly observed, on their way to another convention. In that case I see no reason for the four of us to remain within this shackle of a building. Marcia," he turned to her, "how about we stop at Club Pierre for a drink?" He cleared his throat pompously. "Non-alcoholic, of course. My treat!"

"Oh, sure," said Lee. "Best idea you've had in weeks, Marceau." Non-alcoholic was all right with her; she'd had enough of it for years to come.

Bennett finished writing himself a reminder note when he spoke up, "Why don't we all go?" As expected, Spencer and Lee gaped at him. Lee's mouth was even open slightly in her shock. "I know, I rarely ever socialize."

"Rarely!" shrieked Lee. "James, I can't remember the last time you went with us anywhere, I mean that wasn't . . . that didn't have . . . where—"

"It's all right, Marcia," he said calmly, hand raised to let them know he was still as sane as he ever was. "I can stay out late and play with the other kids, as long as I'm home by seven-thirty."

"What happens then, Jim?" asked an ornery Spencer. "You turn back into a pumpkin in the NSA's experimental garden patch?"

"No," Bennett stuck the reminder note on the computer screen, where he'd read it first thing tomorrow morning, "I turn back into a scaly old dragon and breathe fire on malevolent Rat agents!" He made sure his desk was tidy enough—it wasn't great but it would do—and stood on the other side of dozing West. Marcia was across from him. All he had to do was look at her, and she knew what to do. He'd really miss this wordless form of communication with someone. As he headed for the door, he heard West snort and wake up as soon as Marcia smacked him in the same spot as before.

"We're going to Club Pierre," Lee told West, already wide awake and wide-eyed. "Want to come along?"

West was out of the chair and stretching indulgently. "What about Zeta and the girl?"

Lee just shrugged. "Coming, or have you got a hot date?"

He snorted, this time in self-ridiculing laughter. "Agent Lee, _arcades ambo, ignotum per ignotius_."

"Latin! Oh, shut up, West," said Lee, throwing a hand at him. It infuriated her that he knew Latin and she didn't. "Coming, or not?"

And he laughed yet again. "Club Pierre _is_ my hot date." West joined Bennett and Spencer in the hallway. He scanned his handler up and down. "What's this? You mean you're coming with us, sir?"

Bennett only nodded and followed the gang down the corridor. He took his mobile unit from the inside pocket of his black blazer and hit speed-dial for his wife's phone. It rang once before message service picked up, meaning her phone, as Jimmy had said, was completely shut off. Dismayed, mouth twisted, Bennett returned the mobile and found himself in the lift with Lee, West, and Agent Spencer. Lee, nearest to him, leaned in a bit.

"Why are you coming, James? Isn't your anniversary party tonight?"

"I'll be home in plenty of time for it," Bennett said quietly. "Besides," he tossed her a glance she couldn't read, part playful and part melancholy, "why should Jo be the one who has all the fun?"

Lee clearly didn't understand. "Is everything all right? You seem a bit more—dare I use the word?—_chipper_ than—well, ever."

He touched her shoulder momentarily, a sign of reassurance. The lift doors opened to the NSA's main floor. "Everything's just fine. In fact. . . ." He paused his steps down the corridor to the entrance and took out his mobile unit again. He shut its power off and left it in his pocket. Jo wasn't going to get away with this. Absolutely not. Positively not.

Lee was giving him a wry glance. He looked straight ahead as he responded, "I'll explain it to you some other time. Who's driving?"

"I am," said Spencer.

There was a round of laughter into the arid, hot late afternoon.

"You sure we can all fit into your car, Spencer?" Lee inquired, aware of Agent Spencer's tiny orange colored roadster, with two seats in front and a rumble seat in the back.

Spencer had West in a walking headlock and rubbed knuckles into the kid's thick hair. "We'll throw West into the rumble seat! He folds up so nice and neat, you see," he directed at Lee, who smiled.

"Yeah," she said, "I wish I had a dozen suits just like him. Easy for traveling."

West straightened out his hair, a constant struggle, and lunged for the protection of Marcia. "Okay, I'm in back, but Marcia sits with me!"

With a click of her tongue, Marcia arched her eyes. "You're a Level Five technical operative for the NSA, West! Do you really need me to protect you? I am not your gallant superhero, Orrin."

"Yes, you are!" He took her hand and valiantly kissed the top of it. "And you'd look smashing in a cape, don't you know!" He kissed her hand again and dashed ahead, chasing Spencer down, who'd taunted him.

Marcia watched, idly sighing. "I've grown fond of that kid," she said to Bennett, whether or not he listened.

"Sickly enough, so have I." Still, he was more fond of her. "I wish you'd reconsider this hasty decision of yours. Even Colonel Lemak wants you to reconsider. He had no idea you'd take things this far."

"Yes, I've heard from the Colonel already. I won't be leaving right away, but I believe Director Wellington will approve expedience in this case; he'll want to make sure I'm replaced with practical alacrity. We have to tough it out a little while longer until I meet with everyone's approval." Marcia paused with James, just long enough to touch his elbow and let go quickly. "I've made my decision. I'm sorry, Jim."

_So am I_, he thought. This wouldn't be the end of it. He'd never stop hearing about Marcia Lee's resignation from one of the most important task teams ever formed within the NSA. But, as the two of them had figured out, one of them needed to go in order to satisfy the suits of higher command. "It just won't be the same without you."

"I'm glad to hear it. It'd be devastating to find out I haven't been missed."

The roadster came flying out of the parking garage. West was in the rumble seat, his arms raised above his head, and he caterwauled wildly like a wolf at the full moon. The car stopped in front of Lee and Bennett. West scooted over and patted the empty space beside him. Lee fell ungracefully in. West threw a casual arm across her shoulders and gave another "Woo!" for no reason at all. Then he purred to Marcia, really rather good at it, nearly sounding feline and everything.

"This is a fantastic day!" he shouted as Spencer's vibrant orange car sped out of the parking lot and down the deserted lane. "A whole day off," he said, conversationally, "and a whole evening too!" West made a noisy kiss against Lee's cheek. Lee aggressively pushed him away, but West didn't care.

"A whole day off!" He wailed it at the sky, he sang it to the sun, at the height of feeling free.


	6. Chapter 6

**six**)

The car slowed to a conspicuous pace while taking a long curve. Ro slithered deeper into the passenger's seat, but reached a long arm to punch Zee on the shoulder.

"You actually have brains enough not to be this crazy, Zee. Drive a little faster, would you?"

He scanned what was outside the windows, in a passionate almost pitying way. "But, Ro, it's the junkyard. We're almost there, to the NSA."

Ro didn't bother to raise an inch or even flick her shoulders. She crossed her arms, huffed, and forced herself to notice the junkyard. So it was. Dead cars and all. "How impressive," she uttered darkly.

Uncertain what to think of her dismissive approach to what he considered very important, he slammed his foot aggressively over the speed pedal: The car shot forward.

"Zee!"

He ignored her protest. "I should've let you drive. You always complain about my driving. You drive too fast, Zee. You drive to slow, Zee. Watch out for that mysterious and potentially hazardous object in the center lane, Zee."

She stuck out her tongue. He looked at her out the corner of her eye: she looked away.

"You know something, Ro?" Now that the car had decelerated to the speed limit along the twisting avenue, he took a moment to consider how familiar this stretch of Colorado Springs was. "You're really cranky today. Here's the Gate A entrance to Fort Carson."

He slid the two sentences together easily, hardly any break between them at all, as if her crankiness was the spell that made the military base appear. Ro, curious, observed the guarded entrance as it passed beyond Zeta's narrow window. Just outside a guard post were three men in fatigues, gathered around a younger man in a blue flight suit, his red hair aflame in the sinking sunlight.

Ro gulped, blinked, until the image disappeared behind the blue-violet sleeve of Zee's jacket. Ro flailed a hand, contorting around in the seat to see out the back windows.

"Frag me . . . Zee! Stop!"

"What?"

"Stop the fragging car!"

He touched the brake lightly. Ro gripped the seatback to keep from tipping. She could just barely see the shape of the redhead and guardsmen at the gate. She had the feeling they were watching her, obviously wondering why a car would slow to a halt in the middle of the road.

"Slag it, slag it!" Ro flailed her arm again, managing to slap Zee on the back of the head as she faced forwards once again. "Drive, Zee! Drive!"

"But what . . . ! Ro!"

Ro stretched her leg to his side of the car. The front of her shoe managed to find Zee's toes. She forced his foot down over the pedal. Holding her breath, Ro watched the speedometer climb to fifty, ten over the speed limit. Zee's hands tightened over the wheel, his widened, worried eyes fixed on the road, ready for every obstacle.

"Next time, Ro, I'll just let you drive," he said kindly, thinking this the only reason for her odd and very uncouth behavior. With the vehicle completely under his control once again, he peered at her calculatingly, and she seemed docile enough on the outside. He was less sure about the inside. Guts and bones were not the only things housed in this companion, a helpful and wiry girl he'd picked up off the street one day. There was something else in her he was still unable to put a finger on, even after all these months. _The Great Unknown and Titanic Mystery of Ro_, as he came to refer to it in his mind.

She started to look at him, and he turned his attention to the road. At a recognizable grove of trees in a clump of fine landscaping amid polished green grass, Zee let the car coast. It slowed up a long incline.

"That's it," he said demurely, eyeing the plain limestone and glass bit of architecture beyond Ro's side of the car. "That's the NSA field office, Ro."

For whatever reason, perhaps for the sheer guile of this adventure, Ro's stomach knotted and her fingertips tingled. Sure, the building had all the exterior disguise of a mundane office building, where mundane employees went about their mundane jobs. She could almost imagine that to be its limit, until Zee pointed to indicate the second floor, visible through the trees.

"That's the floor where Bennett's office is located."

Ro narrowed her eyes to the row of windows. "It's weird to think of Bennett even having an office," she turned to face Zee, ill composed, "you know? I mean, he's hardly ever there, isn't he? Instead," she returned to face the menacing structure, "he's always out, chasing us, wherever we are."

Zee noticed how her gaze drooped and her lips fell apart, signs of her over-thinking Bennett's current whereabouts, whether the agent knew they were now driving past his office building as though sightseeing. Zee made another fluent gesture.

"See those columns?"

Ro saw what he indicated: Giant steel poles, like eighty-foot flag poles, surrounded the circumference of the building, hidden sometimes behind tall cottonwoods and soft green olive trees. "What are they? Some kind of communication system?"

"No, nothing so innocent. Those are transmitters for the laser fence."

Ro eagerly had another look at the imposing columns. "I can't see the lasers."

"Of course not. That would defeat the purpose." He blinked and sped up the car. "I told you the place was surrounded. The NSA is never as it appears, Ro. Never."

She settled back into the seat, the knots in her body loosening. "I'm starting to figure that out."

For a moment she let the car be the only sound between them. Quiet with Zee was a rare thing, now that they'd grown comfortable with one another, as both of them liked to talk too much. Zee because he could always say what was on his mind, usually without any sort of filtration process before he spoke, much to Ro's chagrin. And Ro couldn't hold her tongue now that she had acquired such a willing audience. It was nice to have someone to talk to, even if he didn't and couldn't understand all that she was feeling. But it mattered that he tried to understand.

"Ro," he started, "what was your problem back there, with my driving?"

She snickered, and he was relieved by this airy noise.

"It wasn't your driving."

He smiled.

"Well," her brow bent together, "not really your driving."

He stopped smiling. "Did you see something? I know the agents spend some time outdoors in this area, and—"

"I thought I saw Agent West at the Fort Carson gate."

Zee had no response. Ro explained, angling around in the seat, one leg bent under her.

"Well, I thought it was him. Red hair and that really weird way he stands. You know," she paused defensively when Zee's confused expression flittered her way, "like he's got a hunched back or has a great weight on his shoulders."

Zee still had no response. Ro couldn't tell if he disbelieved what she was telling him, if he found it interesting, or if he found it dull.

"Anyway," she huffed and went about winding a lock of hair around her finger, "it wasn't him. He wasn't in a uniform. Actually he was in a uniform. But it was all blue with some kind of patch on the arm." She lifted her hand, fingers curled, and touched the part of her left arm where she'd seen the patch.

Several long seconds passed, while the car waited at a red light at a dead intersection, before Zee replied.

"It was probably a flight uniform," he eventually drawled. The car turned and headed north on some road Ro couldn't catch the name of. "Fort Carson does a lot of flight training for NSA agents."

"So it could've been Agent West?"

"Yes. It could've been Agent West."

"Well, that makes sense. I guess you and I both know he could do with some flight training. The better for him, perhaps the worse for us."

A few more traffic lights later, and Ro began noticing how the buildings were closer and closer together, older, some in rotten shape, others newer.

"Where are we?"

"Route one-fifteen. Club Pierre is just up ahead, at the next light."

Like a lot of modern buildings with downtown locations, patrons had two places to park at Club Pierre: on the street or in an underground garage located just beneath the building. The street parking was full, and the garage was nearly to capacity.

"Packed place tonight," Zee observed aloud before Ro could, although she'd been thinking it.

Ro bobbed her head. "There's one, a spot, two cars away."

"I see it."

The parking space was right beside a support beam of thick cement. A very small space, Ro noted, mentally trying to figure out if they could even fit the car in it. When Zee started to swing the vehicle in, she grabbed his arm in protest.

"Wait, you can't make this in one turn!" she shouted. "You'll have to make it a two-point turn."

He analyzed the spot, the angle of the car, the length of it, the tightness of the turn . . . And, after all of this was done to a satisfactory degree, he pried Ro's fingers from his sleeve.

"It'll fit fine."

Ro involuntarily intensified her stare.

"Trust me." It was difficult to tell in the dim, poor light in the parking garage, but he was certain Ro's ears turned pink at the top. Suppressed anger was also suggested in her body language.

"Well, go ahead, then, if you're so smart," she grumbled. For show, Ro tightened her seatbelt strap.

Zee lurched the car toward the open space, turning, turning ever so slightly— The cement beam edging nearer and nearer the upper right bumper— Just softly came the scratching sound . . . It went on for several agonizing seconds, the bumper's outer surface being scraped away by the rough cement—until the car broke from the torture entirely. Zee braked, fully into the spot. He turned off the engine. He unwillingly found Ro's humiliating glare in the dark.

She opened her mouth only to find her synthoid friend's reflexes were faster; he covered the offending unit with his palm. All he did was nod the concession. Yes, she was right; no, she didn't have to tell him so; he was perfectly aware.

Ro sat there a moment longer after Zee exited. She watched him through the windshield as he inspected the bumper damage. "I told you so," spat in a whisper. She had to say it. Absolutely had to, even if it was said into thin air. That was better than nothing.

The seatbelt was hastily undone, Ro hissing "Men!" poisonously. Once out of the car, Zee met her at the trunk, dangling something from his hand as they headed for the lift. Ro opened her palm: the object fell into it. Her steps faltered a moment while Zee traipsed on ahead.

"You can back the car out of there when we're ready to go," he said. He turned about in a three-sixty, the violent hue of his coat illuminated madly in the sodium-vapor lighting. "If you're so smart."

Ro pocketed the object, which was, of course, the keycard for the car. She caught up with him as he held the lift doors open for her. Ro's apprehension toward this trip, being in Colorado Springs let alone going to a military fraternity-like hangout, kicked adrenaline and nerves to fearful heights.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ro inquired so fast that it sounded slurred. The elevator stopped and the doors opened, almost all at once. Zee took her elbow as if to escort her into the Club, but this action held his answer. He was sure _enough_ he wanted to do this. And, as when they left the hotel room, Zeta reflected on the possible consequences. The unfavorable outlook lingered. He stalled a moment, tightening his grip on Ro's hand.

"This isn't any worse than anything else we've ever done," he explained, as if this answered all the trouble she was feeling, not to mention all of his.

Ro bent her brow in the way she did when being overly critical or obnoxiously adverse. "It is too worse! We're in one of the three cities of the contiguous United States that we do not want to be in, that we have wanted to avoid ever since—" here she paused as two patrons were leaving and walked too near; she lowered her voice, "ever since we started running. Colorado Springs, Gotham City, Washington D.C., those are the Evil Three, Zee! The Evil Three!"

She was being sensationally over-dramatic, and he almost admired it. "Gotham City?" he retorted, breaking his face into obvious confusion. "I never would've considered it to be one of the—what did you call it?—Evil Three."

"Ew, come on! We've been there already, and look what happened! We shouldn't go back, Dr. Selig in Gotham or not."

"Your actions, particularly in the last few minutes in company of Batman, would suggest an opposite viewpoint."

"I told you I wasn't going back there," blurted Ro, her cheeks catching up to the pink of her ears. "_Ev-vur_." Ro was surprised at how disappointed he appeared.

"We can leave now, if you want," offered Zee. "While I do not believe this to be anything more dangerous than any of our previous actions—maybe even a little less dangerous than some—I have sworn to protect you."

The rosy color drained from all unnatural places. The fire of anger was vanquished. Ro sighed. "And I promised I'd help you find your creator." She lifted her elbow for him to take as squire. "Come on. Let's go do some serious brownnosing to find this Irving Houston guy."

By a cheerful host, they were shown to an intimate table for two rather set to the left of the stage. Zee pulled out Ro's chair and gently pushed her in. The server sprouted off the night's specials while touching a button on the end of the table. The button lit the decorative tabletop candle. It wasn't a real flame but a holographic image. They could have the flame be one of five colors: natural, indigo, forest, sky, and salmon. The host suggested "sky, to match the young lady's eyes", a suggestion that made Ro blush and Zee quite pleased. Ordering beverages, as usual, was always a chore.

The host said grandly, "Our house wine tonight is a cabernet sauvignon grown and aged locally in Durango."

Ro tried to appear impressed, making a note to later asked Zee where Durango was and why it should matter. "That sounds nice, but I think I'll just have a grapefruit juice with a bit of soda water."

The host nodded and turned to Zeta. "And for you, sir?"

Just when Zee was about to announce he wanted nothing, Ro touched his hands before he got beyond "No" in the "Nothing for me, thank you."

Ro looked at the host. "He'll have a citrus club, no ice, and with a straw."

The server left, and Ro observed the stuffed room for signs of a familiar government face. Surrounding them were strangers. Each candle upon the table flickered in its own requested color, but the lights hanging from the ceiling were red glass spheres, making features difficult to read, difficult to distinguish. She thought Zeta, with his enhanced vision—enhanced everything—would have better luck.

"See anyone we know, or may want to know?"

"No." He scanned the room again for the eighth time. Practically every inch of it was known to him by then. He knew where the offices were, where the musicians' greenroom was, the best exits, an alternate route to reach their car in a hurry, the best way to leave the car behind, roof access, basement access, all sorts of accesses. But no Irving Houston.

The two of them switched gazes to the stage. Some of the local jazz musicians had stepped out to set up equipment. Out among the patrons, a tall, thin man left his table of three and went to the stage. He called to one of the musicians who came immediately. The two friends slapped hands together and made light banter. Zee heard what they were saying over the thick conversation hanging in the air. He leaned in toward Ro to convey what he'd learned.

"That man over there," he indicated the stage with a glance, "the one in the hat, that's Trusty Bismarck."

Ro snorted at the name. "Who's he?"

"I don't know. A local legend and know-it-all, I'd say. But the other guy, that's Nicky Pete Jones. He's married to one of the Houston girls, Maeve Houston. She's here tonight."

"Is her father here, more importantly?"

Zeta listened for a few more words between the two men, but they separated. He gave a slight shake of his head. "They didn't say. The show will begin in about five minutes, Nicky said. If you're all right, Ro, I think I'll take a look around once your drink arrives."

Ro wanted to go with him. She didn't suggested the idea once she realized that if both of them wandered from their seat unwanted attention would certainly follow. Suspicion should be avoided in a place that could be packed with NSA agents.

The drinks came with a silent, efficient swoop of a practically invisible server. The moment was so abrupt that Ro understood why Zee stuck around longer. He waited, instead, until the music started. The crowd was dense then, almost every table but those in the far back were occupied. When the set began, the band introductions through, Zee gave Ro a solid nod, she nodded in return, and she stared blankly into his vacated seat. She held her glass of grapefruit juice tighter, blinked away the melancholy—composed of unanswered questions and elusive endings—and focused on the talent.

The first few songs were recognizable; old songs that had been around for a hundred years or more that even modern children like Ro had picked up through some American embryonic fluid invasion. In front of the stage was a blank bit of floor, wooden and well-waxed that the flickering light mirrored. After the first few songs, this bit of cleared space began a slow occupation of swaying couples. When Ro figured out they were dancing, cuddled together closely to the sentimental tune, she watched on, both repulsed and fascinated. Then a kind of unknown horror fell like icicles beneath her skin: What if, just what if, someone asked _her_ to dance? She threw a glance at the glass of citrus club across from her, relieved by its presence. It showed, at least, that she wasn't alone, even if she did look pathetically alone. With a quick peer around, she noticed she was the only person sitting by herself at a table.

Zee had been gone for three songs, with the fourth one just beginning. Shouldn't he be back soon? She wouldn't get up and look for him. Then he wouldn't know where to find her. And if he didn't know where to find her, she wouldn't know where to find him. They'd be lost.

_We should really pick a place to go in case we get separated,_ she thought to herself, sipping her drink. _Yeah, right, like where? North Dakota? Oklahoma salt flats? A church? Synagogue? Cemetery? Well, we need somewhere._

A shadow loomed over her, and Ro snapped up her head. A man of nearly six feet stood in front of her, with messy, rough-cut brown hair, small eyes and a trimmed goatee. One of his hands extended to her.

"Dance with me, Ro."

Cautiously, Ro slipped his fingers into his. "Zee?" she whispered, being led to the dance floor. Taking for granted it was Zee, with the hologram becoming vaguely familiar, as though he'd used it at least once before, Ro let him hold her like the other couples. She felt awkward, uncomfortable, as if the others in the room would know—know that they weren't like them. "Did you find Mr. Houston?"

He dropped his voice to mimic her own faint tone, never watching her eye, always watching above and around her. "No, and I don't think I will." Now he matched her gaze, clearly disheartened. "I went into the back office, Demeter Houston's office, and found some messages, notes, cards. . . ." He drifted off a moment, away from himself and all of Club Pierre, until he was aware once more. "Ro, Mr. Houston's dead. It must've happened recently."

Ro's hand flexed in his. This was bad. "I'm sorry. So you can't find out if he knew anything?"

"No, not unless you know something I don't about making the dead talk."

Ro looked at her feet. Zee pressed the little curve of her back.

"It wasn't very likely that he would've known anything about Dr. Selig's new work, anyway. You were right about that."

"Maybe," she said, "but I was very willing to be wrong—even to the point where I'd admit it." Ro thought this would lighten his mood, albeit momentarily. It didn't. She stared at him intensely. "And I'm starting to think there's more bad news. Wait, let me guess. Agent Bennett and the rest of his lot just walked in." She saw the way his expression changed, from passive to alert, in an almost human transition. The fear was so strong that she lost her steps, stood perfectly still, and tried to swallow. Her arms fell from Zee. He immediately brought her back into place. He held her close, closer than before, to fit with her fear and the sappy song, and pinned his chin to her crown.

"Just keep dancing, Ro," he instructed. "They're right behind us. It'll be all right. Just keep dancing."

Ro lost track of time, and the songs seemed to blend one right into the other. She remembered having an odd assortment of thoughts, like how glad she was not to be wearing one of her typical outfits; being relieved that her hair had grown longer since Bennett had seen her last; that she had gained a tan while spending so much time in California; worried about Zee; wondering when she would be able to change her shape as easily as he did these days . . . He was hardly himself anymore . . . His obsession with finding Selig completely overshadowed her interest in finding out what happened to her mother. . .

"Hey, Zee?" Her voice remained soft and low. "That guy, Irving Houston, I was just thinking . . . You've mentioned that the others . . . Some of the other scientists, well, they're dead too, aren't they?"

He took a moment to configure his thought. Memories were scanned. Some he'd tagged and flagged earlier for easier access during searches. Finally, he had his answer. "Yes, several of them are dead."

"How . . . how many of them? I mean, out of all the Projects, how many have died?"

"A dozen," said Zee. He looked down at her. "Ro, I believe you're insinuating something."

"I think I am. Maybe. Or not. Maybe it's not just a coincidence. Maybe it is." He didn't respond immediately, and Ro idly wondered if she'd offended him. Or had she suddenly thrust a crazy idea upon him that could be possible? Ro felt her steps taking a path unlike the others, and noticed Zee was leading her off the dance floor. She was sitting down at her chair, drink in front of her, before he explained.

"The agents have gone."

The music stopped as Ro saw him scanning the area where the agents had been sitting. She peered over her shoulder and saw the empty table, a half-circle booth on the opposite side of the room. "How many of them were there?"

"It was Bennett," Zee started, "agents Lee and West, and another dark-haired agent I don't recognize. He left with West first. I saw them disappear out the hallway beside the stage. Then Bennett and Lee got up and headed for the front." He squinted and played with the glass of citrus club, though he would never drink it. His thoughts stayed upon the agents, their actions peculiar. "It's odd they should've separated. They arrived at once, as a party of four, through the front door. And since they came through the front door, that means they must've parked on the street."

Ro set her glass down and was keen on the stage events.

Zee put his jaw in his hands, rubbing his goatee. "That doesn't explain why West and the other agent chose to exit in the rear."

"Maybe because they _didn't_ exit," Ro said, volume a little above a whisper.

Zee shot her a look. "Pardon?"

Ro threw her chin in the direction of the stage. Zee angled around so he could see it. Adjusting the microphone thereon was Agent Orrin West, his hair that unmistakable sienna red, out of the blue flight uniform back in his old-time civvies. Beside him, at rest on a plain wooden bar stool with an acoustic guitar on his knee was the dark-haired agent. Nicky Pete Jones popped out to set another stool down for Agent West. West thanked Nicky Pete Jones politely before taking a seat, microphone in front of him. He said something to the guitar player, and their mutual chuckles were picked up through the microphone. An artifact was plucked from the floor at West's feet and plunked upon his head, a gray fedora hat. He set it back from his brow, with just a few locks of hair visible, and showed his boyishly shy smile to the crowd.

"Evening all," he started.

Ro stared, slack-jawed, at Agent West. Her body felt so heavy with fear and fright that she set it into a supporting hand. "He isn't actually going to sing, is he?" Zee, if he had an answer, never said.

West set his hands against his knees, comfortable, not as nervous on the outside as he felt on the inside. "Marceau and I are going to sing a little song for you tonight. A few of you regulars have probably seen us in this way before. I see Trusty Bismarck sitting over in the corner, like he's hiding from creditors."

A few applause snaked through the audience. Ro and Zeta saw Trusty Bismarck give a greeting not fit for a bashful man.

West pointed out another patron with a wink and a big smile. "I see Gladys Highbury sitting with the Club Pierre's regular chanteuse, Alice Faye." Gladys blew him a kiss from across the room, making West near giggles. He paused and adjusted his footing against the rungs, making a small smirk toward Marceau, then back at the microphone. "The jazz elite are here tonight—I don't mean me and Marceau," a remark that brought a few peals of laughter. "Anyway, Marceau's gonna try and string out some blues riffs for me, Chicago-style, while I attempt to sing . . . 'me and the blues'." The title started the song: he sang it, just like that.

Ro's arm dropped to the table in a thud; she was total disbelief. "I don't . . . can't . . . How dare he be good at something!"

He _was_ good. And Ro hated him for it. Agent West wasn't supposed to be good at anything.

"It goes against all that's right in my fantastic little world," Ro complained. "I have lost all faith in the capabilities of the universe. I don't know how I could be surprised by anything else ever again, not after this." Ro couldn't understand why Zeta was so unmoved. "Listen to him! He's . . . He can sing!" She threw herself into the back of the seat, pouting. "That's so not right." And she felt the inclination to say she wanted to go home, only to realize this was as close to home as it got, being with Zee in some other American venue, the agents invading like a visible plague.

The two faced the figure that suddenly appeared next to them. Ro nearly jumped from her seat, expecting Zee to do the same, but she was held in place, though not calmed, when Zee grabbed her forearm and held her still.

"Isn't this a pleasant and rather cozy surprise," Agent Bennett said. He flashed them a harsh, shallow grin. "I'd heard you two were in town but didn't quite believe it."

Ro stared and stared. It didn't really look like Bennett, yet it certainly sounded like him, except for that aggravating tone of false blithe. Bennett finally noticed her revolted leer.

"Wondering about my wardrobe, Miss Rowen?" inquired Bennett, tilting forward so his hushed voice carried straight to her. "Yes, well, trousers and a nice shirt are what I wear on my days off. I don't wear the NSA uniform all the time, Rosalie. I would've supposed even you could've figured that out."

Ro leaned away, trying to loosen herself from Zee's commanding grip. He wouldn't let go. For some reason, she felt a hot rush of tears invading her eyes, getting ready to spring . . . She knew she was hysterical. And Zee was so tranquil, a fact only adding to her panic.

It took a lot of strength to keep Ro still, no matter how strong he was. Bennett's presence couldn't be what it seemed. As he'd told Ro, the NSA is never as it seems. "What do you want, Agent Bennett?" he finally asked. Perhaps this would reach the heart of the matter. Maybe not. But it was better than listening to the NSA making pathetic small talk.

Bennett lost his bogus outer demeanor and returned to the cunning, cool agent. "I'm not here to arrest you, Zeta. I'm here to have some drinks with my coworkers, to listen to Agent West make a fool of himself on stage. I'm here to enjoy my day off."

"Then why stop and say hi?" continued Zeta. He finally let go of Ro's arm when he felt the struggle within her cease. "Come to tell me that Irving Houston's dead? I've already figured that out. But thank you for your concern."

Bennett had one arm folded over his red percale shirt, the same clothes he'd put on that morning, his morning off. His other arm bent to his chin. "What are you up to exactly, Zeta? Looking for someone, something, a reason for your existence? I'm not asking as an agent—I told you it's my day off—but I'm asking as a person. Why do you keep running? You know we'll get you in the end."

"Why do you keep hunting? Are _you_ looking for someone, Agent Bennett? Someone, something, a reason for your existence? I'm not asking as a robot: I'm asking as a person."

"That answer is so easy that I'm disappointed in you, Zeta. Miss Rowen," Bennett turned to her, "would you care for a dance?"

Ro nearly lifted her leg to kick him, but she refrained, too appalled. Zeta gripped her wrist tighter, his threatening glare marking Bennett.

"I'm unarmed," Bennett said to them. He lifted his arms partly to suggest this. "I'd like to have a word with Ro alone, if I may. I promise I won't hurt her. I'll bring her back to you unscathed, Zeta, just as you see her now."

Ro gave her reluctant okay for this through a silent look to Zee. He let go of her wrist, leaned into his seat, and crossed his arms. Still, he watched Agent Bennett for any sudden move. Ro was escorted to her feet, cursing her superlative curiosity in the process. Like curiosity led cats to their deaths, Ro was sure this would occur to her one day, one evening, maybe on a dance floor.

Agent West's song had ended during Bennett's discourse with Zeta, but Alice Faye returned to finish off another set. She was singing about having the world on a string when Ro jump-started the conversation with Agent Bennett.

"I didn't want us to come here," she began in earnest. Her knees struggled to keep their strength; her legs and arms felt as water in a furrow. "We were just passing through, and, well, one thing led to another, and—"

"And you two just thought you'd stop by a club frequented by NSA agents and high-ranking officers from Fort Carson? Like I said: I'm disappointed. I thought you would've had more sway over Zeta by now, Miss Rowen."

"Er, can't you just call me Ro? I think we know each other well enough by now."

"Good, then call me James."

Ro's stomach lurched. She'd never be able to think of him as anything else but Agent Bennett. "So what are you going to do with us tonight?"

"Oh, the usual. I thought I'd start with torture. That always works best. What do you fear the most, Ro: needles or dark and enclosed spaces? I'd like to know."

He was joking with her. Somehow she knew this. Her palms felt sweaty in his giant hands, reminding her of dancing with icky boys in sixth grade phys-ed classes, back in Hillsburg, back a long time ago . . . before all of this. She smarted and filled with resolute gumption and guilelessness. "What are you _really_ going to do to us tonight?"

"I'm going to let you guys have a," he stopped to look at his watch, "a six hour head start. Tomorrow doesn't officially begin until midnight. My day off will be over. Then it'll be back into the uniform, back into the routine that's become so familiar over these last—what is it now?—nine months?"

"Ten," she answered quickly. Agent Bennett's knowing smirk sent a wave of embarrassment over her cheeks. "Ten months, one week, five days. But who's counting?"

"What are Zeta and you after, Ro?"

"If I told you that would be cheating."

"Who are you working for?"

"No one, Bennett. No one at all."

"I don't believe you."

"I can't help what you believe. Your inability to believe the truth will probably be your greatest downfall. Just watch. You'll see. You'll be dead long before I will."

Bennett reacted to this by holding her tighter. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Zeta twitch forward, as if about to bound to her rescue. "I wouldn't be too hasty to hand out predictions if I were you. Zeta cares a lot about you, doesn't he?"

"I can't speak for Zee."

"What's he using you for?"

Ro didn't see any reason not to say. Agent Bennett wasn't likely to believe it. "He wants to figure out what it's like being human."

This almost caused him a loud laugh. "And you're going to help him with that?"

Her mouth tightened, knowing what he meant. "Stranger things have happened."

"A heartless girl who was raised without a loving family is going to teach a synthoid what it's like to be human? Wait till I call Contradictions Anonymous."

"Gee, Agent Bennett, I didn't realize you had such a paltry sense of humor. You must give Mrs. Bennett one big guffaw after another." Ro winced, finding his weakness and tightening the noose. "What was that you were saying about heartlessness and loving families and contradictions?"

"Maybe we're a lot more alike than you realize."

"If that were true, I'd go jump in a very swift-moving river."

"Zeta would jump in and save you. Why do you hang around him, Ro?"

Ro waited the question out. She had an answer, she just wanted to keep it as her own. Finally, the song ended, not a moment too soon. Before she got a step away, Bennett held her back.

"You're obviously a smart girl, with enough energy and aggressiveness to do anything she wants. Yet you've chosen the wrong path. Why do you continue walking it?"

She shook out of his grip but remained in place to answer. "It beats government work."

Ro turned around only to run into three agents. First in front of her was Marcia Lee. She smiled at Ro.

"Hello, Miss Rowen. A pleasure seeing you." Marcia almost sounded sincere. "Did you enjoy the NSA buskers?" Marcia indicated West and the agent named Marceau. Marcia obviously knew that Ro hadn't met the latter agent before. "Agent West you know, of course. The other is Agent Marceau Spencer. He works in the communications department. Oh, hello, Zeta."

Zee entered the gathering and slipped a protective and guarding arm around Ro's shoulders. He glared at them. Marceau raised both of his hands in an expressive attempt at apologizing.

"Hey, don't worry. We're all unarmed and we're all not on the clock, so to, er, speak." Agent Spencer couldn't help but whistle through his teeth as he stood in front of Zeta. "So, you're the Infiltration Unit, huh? Not seen you since forty-one. My, but you are fancy, aren't you?" He reached to pat Zee's upper arm, getting a feel for the texture of the hologram-produced image. It was, as Spencer delineated, quite remarkable. "Very slick, Zeta. You don't always look like this, though, do you? I mean, the Wanted posters depict a different image of you, with dark hair, not brown or blond or whatever shade that is. Anyway, I am impressed. High time I got my chance to see you out in the field. You're not the anticlimax Marcia and Orrin always make you sound. Hey, if we pretend to chase after you, will you do something cool with one of your gizmos? That'd be shway! I'd love to see what you can do!"

Zeta listened, since Spencer prattled on so fast and so childishly it was almost ludicrous to imagine he was an NSA agent. Finally gathering his wits, such as they were, Zeta drew Ro away. "We're leaving." They were only a step gone when Bennett called out to them. Zee expected to turn around and see Bennett and the others with blasters pointing at them. But, no, Bennett stood there, weaponless, in black trousers and a red percale shirt, blending in with the rest of the horde.

The watch on Bennett's wrist was calculated, and he raced his stern eyes to Zeta. He tilted upward, till his shoulders were broad and square. "You have five hours and fifty-one minutes. I suggest you not waste them." He looked to Ro, the corners of his mouth lifted. "Thanks for the dance, Ro."

West touched the brim of his hat and gave them a nod. "We'll be seeing the two of you later."

Marcia waved. "Have a nice trip. Watch for storms in Nebraska, if you're heading that way."

Spencer also rose his hand. "Y'all come back now, ya'ear?"

With a tug to Ro's arm, Zeta brought them around the corner, into the side entrance. They left down the lift, silent and thoughtful.

Bennett returned to the booth as soon as the two fugitives vanished from visual. He checked the drink tab on the electronic receipt and quickly downed the remains of his drink. Spencer and West and Lee packed into the booth, their faces full of a deranged excitement.

"Heading out, Jim?" asked Spencer.

"Yeah, I am." He pretended to read the receipt again, and it was abruptly lifted out of his hands. Culprit being Marcia.

"I'll pay for it," she was saying, looking it over. "Consider it my anniversary present."

Bennett pretended not to notice Spencer nudging an oblivious West in the side.

"Say, Jim," Spencer kept his voice edged toward insincere, "why aren't any of us invited to your big anniversary party? Or is it more of a shindig? Perhaps a jamboree? If you're in the need of buskers, West and I are free. But I can understand why you wouldn't want rascals like us rubbing elbows with elite mistresses like Josephine Bennett, upstanding judge's daughter, wife of a fine young Marine, back in the day. Alas, poor us, as we have much respect for your intelligent and alarmingly invisible wife yet are prevented from sharing it with her."

As with everything, James had prepared a suitable lie should it come to this. He didn't really have to give a reason. He could stay quiet about the whole thing. But then he felt them watching, waiting for him to say it was none of their business, once again admitting that his personal life was not at all part of his professional life. But that was a bigger lie.

He rubbed the back of his neck as though uncomfortable explaining. "Jo canceled it a couple of days ago."

Spencer cleared his throat. "That doesn't sound like Jo." Jim just glared at him. "Well, not like I know her that great or anything. So what are you two crazy kids going to do tonight?"

"The usual." He swirled the three melting ice cubes around in the glass, worried about the party, worried about where Jo had been all day . . . "We'll try not to kill each other. As for the two of you," he looked to West and Lee, "you should know I'll want to go after them first thing in the morning. And I do mean first thing."

"Midnight?" piped up West, who'd been unusually quiet through the evening. "I heard what you said to them, that they have a nearly six hour head start. Weren't you serious?"

"Nah," uttered Bennett shortly. "We'll get them. Eventually."

"James," it was Marcia, so startled by her own thoughts that she couldn't speak again for a moment. Then it was too appalling, too incredible, and she shook her head. "Never mind. Just . . . try and have a nice time tonight."

He nodded silent thanks, and left them to listen to the jazz and drink their non-alcoholic soul tonics. As soon as he stepped outside, he brought out his mobile and tried again to reach Jo. It was about 18:15 hours, and the guests would be there soon. . . . She answered, finally, but he didn't let on that he knew something between them was amiss.

"Listen, Jo," he slammed the car door shut, "I'm just now leaving the Springs. I won't get there until a little after seven-thirty."

She wasn't even angry. She wasn't even surprised. He shut off the phone and went up I-25, still congested at that time of night. He wondered where they were now, Ro and Zeta. He wondered if there was any way he'd be able to cut out of his own anniversary party early. Why not? It was as much of a façade as everything else. The evening had been odd, about to get stranger, mingling with people from Jo's work that he never bothered to know and didn't need to know. The run in with the Rowen girl and Zeta had amused him more than upset him. But somehow he'd walked out of Club Pierre feeling emotionally uprooted, and a little bit hurt.


	7. Chapter 7

**seven**)

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Ro asked from a dark shadow across the street. She looked straight ahead into a white adobe and wood building with several stories of arched windows. The dainty bits of wrought iron designs here and there made it appear like an old chateau somewhere in France. It was, indeed, Agent West's apartment building in downtown Colorado Springs. Maybe any moment he'd be walking up the avenue and entering through the front door, a greeting touch to his fedora as he passed the pleasantly plump doorman.

An hour had gone by since Zee and she had left Club Pierre. As Ro didn't actually get around to ordering a meal at the club, Zee took her around to a Ground Wire for a chicken salad sandwich and a small rooibos vanilla tea, one of her new favorites. While she ate, savoring every bite and sip, Zee explained the situation to her. Ro, to her credit, listened quietly, likely her mouth too stuffed with food to argue. What she hadn't said was how she'd continuously eaten on purpose, so she wouldn't say all the crazy expletives that'd run through her mind. Zee's yen to "discuss things with Agent West" was the stupidest plan ever, as far as she was concerned. Yet Zee swore Agent West wouldn't do anything to them, especially in lieu of Agent Bennett's dismissive behavior earlier. "West follows and does specifically as Bennett tells him," Zee said, Ro reluctantly agreeing. Then she added her own impression of West's obedience: "He tries to follow whatever Bennett tells him but usually winds up making a mess of it."

Finding West's apartment was easy. It was in his NSA file. Zee read through it quickly at the Ground Wire, Ro reading over his shoulder. The file had West's picture, an amusing image of West in a grand smirk with both his thumps pointing enthusiastically upward. His height and date of birth were depicted. Ro realized for the first time that West was older than she'd supposed, already nearing his mid-twenties. Odd—when he acted no saner than a teenager. She read through his list of NSA promotions, having to ask Zee what a "Level" was.

"To go up a Level," he explained, refraining from excessive detail, "is a great promotion for an agent. West and Lee are both Level Five currently, since only those with Level Five clearance are able to access certain hardware and software necessary for immediate information. It's unusual, though." He paused, Ro picking up on his inability to express what was odd.

"What is? If you say it's normal for agents like them to be a Level Five—."

"It's not that. It's Agent West's file."

Ro shrugged, once again scanning the information. "Looks all right to me. Except I didn't think he was that tall. . . What's wrong with it?"

"It doesn't list anything personal. No relatives. No previous address. No college he attended. It's like he didn't exist before he joined the NSA."

"H'mm," Ro said, eyebrows raised, playfully inquisitive. "Wait, I'm getting an impression . . ." She raised her hands as if all should stop around her. Zee, who'd seen this sort of behavior from her before, tilted into the seat and pursed his lips. "The impression's coming . . . wait . . . yup, there it is . . . The impression is that I don't care about Agent West! Can we please go now?"

Never mind what was or wasn't in his NSA file; Ro was about to get a first-hand look at Agent West, by way of his apartment. Zee nudged her in the side and indicated a figure in a hat, about West's height, heading toward the apartment down the sidewalk.

"Ready?" Zee inquired, merely for the token of caring. Ro knew nothing would've changed if she said "No, I'm not ready."

They dashed across the silent street and headed off West. The agent stopped as soon as he caught sight of them, and stopped humming a light tune. He was unmoved by their presence, almost as if he'd expected them to pop out of nowhere and pounce upon him, unarmed and not in the mood to converse. He tilted the brim down below his thick brows, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"What can I do for you? You want an encore of my musical talent?"

"If you're willing," began Zeta serenely, "I'd like to ask you a couple of questions."

West lifted his chin. Ro saw the whites of his eyes glistening in the poor street lights. "Really? Well, suppose you tell me what it's about first, and then I may or may not consider it. Work begins at midnight, you know. I figured you two would be long gone by now. No, you stuck around." West, drawing out a ring of nickel keys, stepped between them and to the entrance, saying as he went, "Can't say the two of you will win some sort of 'Smartest Renegades of 2042' award. Good evening, Angus." This was to the doorman.

"'Evening, Mr. West. Have a nice time out tonight?" Angus the doorman went about his job. He held the door ajar while nearly toe-and-toe with West.

"Fine enough. How's the wife?"

"Well as ever, I thank you." Angus cocked his head in the direction of Ro and Zeta. "They going in with you, sir?"

West stuck a hand in one pocket, surveying them, wondering what he should do about them. He didn't really know what to do. It wasn't as though Marcia or James were around to tell him what to do. But he would follow Bennett's example from earlier: It was a day off for the agents, and West had four hours and forty-five minutes to himself. Finally, he angled inside the foyer. "Hurry up if you're coming. The sooner we talk, the sooner I can enjoy the rest of my quiet evening."

Once gathered in the elevator together, West leered at them covertly. "I moved into this place because it's all about the low-tech, perfect for the kind of hobbies I have, as you've seen, but it doesn't have metal detectors. You're not carrying any weapons, are you, Zeta?"

Zee shook his head. "Only a soldering gun."

"Then I know who to call if I need metal work fixed. What about you, Ro? You know, a weapon, aside from your mouth."

Emitting attitude crossed between resentment and over-confidence, West decided Ro was a weapon wholly on her own, needing no embellishments of blaster fire or hydraulic pellets.

She peered at him haughtily out the corner of her eye. "I guess everyone has a side of themselves they keep hidden, West."

"And for good reason," he added. "How touché of you, Miss Rowen."

West couldn't wait to reach his apartment. He was relieved just to cross the threshold. He told Ro to shut the door behind her, which she did, while he stepped inward removing his hat and jacket. The effects were thrown into the first chair just on the other side of the foyer, past the coat closet. He smoothed down hair that wouldn't stay flat, a cowlick on the back of his head that sprouted out wildly, and turned to them, Ro and Zeta. They were standing in his home. The white light overhead poured down on them. Ro's blonde hair glowed in a corona. Zee, back to his dark hair and violet coat, appeared distinguished and imposing.

Zee, as West hoped, began the conversation. "I came to ask you something."

"Splendid. I love questions from dangerous and wanted fugitives. Ask away, pal. Then you can leave." Watching Ro every other syllable, West saw her sneaking around the dinning room, observing the art he had on the walls, the black and white photographs of Chicago through the ages, of jazz musicians he'd admired since childhood. And, quite suddenly, West realized Ro was the first girl to see his apartment since Marcia's one and only visit back in October, not long after they met.

_You really need to get a life, Orrin,_ he told himself. _And stop talking to yourself. Now what's Ro looking at? Can't she sit still? Shh, I think Zeta's going to ask his question . . . _

"I went to the Club Pierre tonight thinking I may get to have a word with the scientist Irving Houston," started Zeta.

Orrin stuck his thumbs at the base of his suspenders. "Sounds familiar. He's the patriarch of the Houston clan, isn't he?"

"You'd have a better grasp on that than I would, Agent West."

"What's Irving Houston to you? So he's a scientist, big deal. So's my dad. Have you got a point, Zeta, or is this just mindless robot rambling?"

"Only this, West: Irving Houston worked on the Eta Project."

The color drained significantly from West's cheeks. His thumbs fell from his suspenders and bounced at his sides like dead weight. "Oh."

Ro saw Zee's expressionless face and knew how important this meeting was to him. She doubted West would be able to help. The best thing West had done was show her a little more dimension to his character, and that was hardly necessary. Zee mentioned how long the Eta Project had lasted, details that Ro might've heard before but had siphoned due to disinterest. But West was interested, particularly when Zee made his final claim.

"I've wondered if you've heard anything in the NSA, West, anything from some of your handlers or assistant directors, maybe from The Generals, about the coincidental deaths of twelve Infiltration Unit Project scientists. Have you?"

"Heard anything?" counter-questioned West, now so deflated in ego and energy that he sunk to the arm of the couch.

Zeta nodded patiently.

"No," West replied, adding a negative shake of his head that went on long after the word had died.

Ro looked at Zee. He felt her presence and returned the significant look. Ro made motions with her eyes to the door, indicating that she wanted to leave. She gave a little jump when tinny music began out of nowhere, a jazz tune that wound up coming from West's mobile. He read the number's identification.

"It's Marcia," he announced.

Ro shifted weight from one foot to the other, back and forth. Zee's presence a mere six feet away began to feel like sixty. They'd lingered in Colorado too long as it was . . .

West answered the phone, and the jazzy tune stopped. "West here . . . Hello, Lee. Yeah, yeah, just dandy . . . No, not a whole lot at the mo . . ." His hazel eyes widened and he shot a hand into his hair. "You want to WHAT? Of course I'm not going . . . I don't care if it is . . . Well, no, actually . . . I can't go . . . No, Lee, I'm serious . . . I can't go . . ." Observing his crowd, West fought for a means to explain how busy he was without giving anything away. "It's not that I don't want to go, I just can't . . . I'm occupied . . . Doing what? Uh. Er. Do you mind if I not tell you? I'm afraid of ruining certain good impressions you may have of me . . . Ha-ha, very funny . . . Yes, all right. I'll be here . . . Right . . . Right . . . Be careful . . . Laters."

The phone was dropped to the center of the coffee table just in West's reach. He rubbed his face and yawned noisily.

"She's going up to Bennett's to talk to him about something." He watched them watching each other cautiously. "Not about you two, not directly, although direct approaches to any subject is one thing Bennett and Lee have in common, believe it or not. She wants to ask him . . . I don't know . . . Something that couldn't wait until later."

Zee didn't ask what Ro wanted to ask: Why didn't Lee just call Bennett on the phone and ask him? That was the obvious thing to do. But perhaps Bennett, being off-duty until midnight, as West had said, wasn't answering his phone.

"Where's he live?" asked Ro, unable to ask anything else.

"Bennett?" West lolled back into the deep couch and proceeded to roll up his sleeves. "He lives south of Denver. Why? Not thinking of going up there, are you?"

Ro snorted a laugh. "No . . . I was just . . . Trying to imagine Bennett having a life."

"Well, good luck. It's not at all what you think it is, Rowen," chided West in his best cool tone, at least a few degrees cooler than Ro's. "Agents never are what you think we are." He held Zeta's stare. The atmosphere had gone stale between them. "Sorry I can't help you, Zeta. If I feel like scoring suck-up points with Bennett or my director maybe I'll mention this coincidence of yours at the next briefing. But you'd better hope that if I do you haven't been anywhere near one of those dead scientists around the time they met mortality. Is that clear?"

There was no response from the synthoid. The silence spoke the terms of agreement.

West's golden eyes hardened to stone. "Forgive me if I don't show the two of you out."

That was, of course, the last personal thing Ro and Zeta ever heard from Agent West. That was, of course, the last time Agent West wanted to say anything to Ro and Zeta that could be construed as personal.

— —

Thankfully, the moment he stepped in the door, James heard the bustling of a busy party, saw ahead of him the white shirts and black vests of catering servers, and knew he could slip away into the recesses of the house without being seen. He needed to change his clothes, make sure he didn't have to shave, and conceal his resentment, all in a span of roughly five minutes. It was the latter movement he was afraid would take longer than time allowed. On the seventy-minute ride home, Jo stayed in the forefront of his mind, overpowering meeting Zeta and Rowen in the most public of places and refusing to do a thing about it. Jo was the one in his thoughts. His resentment to her was unfairly brusque. He reasoned himself out of it for about ten minutes, only to lose his grip on justice, and again screaming to her in his head that this was unfair, that she had no right to play him like a fool . . . Forget the fact that he deserved it. She was the one in the wrong. She was the one . . .

"Oh, James, are you home, finally?"

He'd just rounded the corner from the kitchen to the little hallway. Jo stood in front of the spindle-legged stand to his right, an arched passage that opened into the living room. Twelve pink roses were being arranged in a crystal vase by a cheerful Jo. She ignored him and went about party business, humming again, like he'd heard her that morning.

"Yes," he nodded vaguely, giving her a hard stare she pretended not to feel, "I'm home. Finally."

Jo ceased humming to explain the roses. "The Millfords brought us these. Aren't they lovely? I know just where to put them."

He gawked at her, unable to decide what to do. She picked up the vase to be carried into another part of the house. James reached out for her arm, stopping her.

"I called you this afternoon," he started weakly, "but you didn't answer your phone."

Her gray-green stare was unreadable. She might be a worthy liar, for all he knew of her, only he'd never thought about it much before, never having had a reason to consider it. "I was playing tennis with Bonnie until three. Then we had a late lunch—"

"You can't have played tennis until three. I talked to Jimmy. He said he saw Bonnie earlier, at home, and you weren't with her. Where were you, Jo? I tried calling," he said again, hearing the desperation in his own voice, "where were you?"

Jo began to understand how deplorably intense this conversation had grown. She flicked his hold away, face reddening. Her deep eyes pooled. "And where were you all the times I've tried calling you, James? Huh? Where were you? I've had a more meaningful relationship with your secretary than I've had with you in the last year. I can't believe you even have the nerve to ask me about my private business."

"Since when . . . when did we start having _private_ business, Jo? When did we stop having one life?"

"You should ask yourself that."

This was the part he knew would come since he bothered bringing it up. Its inevitability made the appearance a disappointment. He traipsed down the hallway and into the bedroom, quietly shutting the door. For a moment, he leaned his back into it, sighing. Fifteen years to the day he'd been married to Jo, the upright judge's daughter, but never had James hated her more—hang her aristocratic family connections, hang that she was mother of his only child, hang it all . . . He despised her because he could not figure out the proper way to love her anymore. Maybe if they hadn't moved to Colorado . . . Maybe if he hadn't taken the Zeta case . . . Maybe if he'd never . . .

_Never mind_, he thought. _Just never mind. It's business tonight, Jim. You put on a nice, clean shirt, you go out and smile at everyone and remark about how lovely it is that Jo is as lovely as ever . . . and no one will be any wiser. Except you. You'll know._

The nice, clean shirt had just been pulled on when Jo opened and closed the door. He didn't say a word, only went about his business, one button after another.

"Look, James," she started, fidgeting babyishly, "I don't exactly know when all of this began between us—"

"Funny, I don't think I've forgotten. Wasn't it fifteen years ago? We were a lot younger then." He flashed her a smile. "Probably too young. But, oh, aren't we sensible now!"

"James," she drawled in a painfully slow way, "I meant . . . this . . . This! The insinuations. The arguments. You never being home—."

"What I'm more curious about," he paused to hunt for his favorite tie, a tenth anniversary present from Jo, "is when you stopped caring that I am never around. That's really what I'm interested in."

She winced and crossed her arms, all granite and coldness, all of her faraway. "A while ago . . . long enough that I figured you'd never get around to noticing."

A hiss of anger whispered through him. He was so infuriated and hurt and humiliated that he felt five years old, unable to understand where his wife's hatred and callousness had come from. Had she always been like this? Hadn't she ever been sweet and considerate, respectful of his feelings as well as respectful of their marriage?

Briefly, James entertained the idea of shutting himself off emotionally, to be the epitome of agent. But he couldn't do it. He didn't want to. The anger felt liberating. The hurt, however, would take getting used to.

He stepped to her and took her shoulders, biting on his lips until the first wave of pain and hope evaporated. "I have never meant to intentionally hurt you, Jo."

"Watchword: Intentionally," she snapped back. "Unlike you, James, I _have_ planned meticulously each and every piece of pain I may have given you over the last year—and rejoiced in it! Haven't you noticed? Haven't you cared? At first I thought I was doing it just to see if you would notice me, but you didn't. And then I enjoyed it. It was all about justice, you see. I only noticed you when you noticed me, and never a bit more. Wasn't that ingenious of me?"

"Where were you earlier, Jo?" he pleaded, giving in to the anguish by falling to the edge of the bed.

She laughed darkly, in the back of her throat. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know! And wouldn't I like to tell you! But I don't think I will. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a party to host. I intend to enjoy an evening with my friends. I don't care what you do, James, but you're not taking this away from me."

Jo was at the door when it suddenly dawned on him to explain. "I'm leaving again at midnight. . . . Business."

"Well," her pretty smile worked like a lancet in his gut, "with any luck, the party won't be over by then, and you can slip out without any trouble."

She was no farther than a step into the hallway when the doorbell rang. Thinking it to be a late-arriving guest, Jo went to answer. James sat there seconds longer, ruminating on the awful facts, the even worse situation, before realizing he was fully dressed and prepared as he'd get to meet the crowd. On his feet, he froze at the new arrival in the doorway.

"Marcia?"

It was Marcia, and James was sure the night had just sunk from Unbearable to Positively Apocalyptic. But, no, he couldn't wholly think that. Marcia, at least, didn't turn against him with claws and knives, even if she was set to leave in less than ninety days, to go some unimaginable distance from him. If he didn't know any better, he could easily start believing he had bad karma where women were concerned. His mother, Jo, Marcia, even Ro to a certain extent . . . He silently thanked whoever was in charge that he'd been spared daughters.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir—." The words failed of their own volition when he neared, waving a hand.

"Don't call me sir right now, would you? I can't put up with any of your pretentious crap right now, Lee. Come on, let's go outside. We can't talk in here." Actually, they could've, except he happened to know it'd be darker outside, in the back garden, and Marcia's vigilance wouldn't effortlessly pick up the emotional strain seeped into his features. He liked the idea of giving Marcia a challenge worthy of her cleverness. Marcia already had enough clues that his marriage was . . . what word to use? There were too many, and he decided to drop the subject. If he thought of it any further, then Marcia would know what word to use, what word he couldn't think of . . . and then where would he be?

The garden was dimmer, not to mention swarming with many dozens of people he didn't know, including a string quartet. Even his backyard was transformed into a magical, fairy-lighted land, heavily drenched in the scent of roses and champagne, wealth and pretenses. He dragged Marcia towards the fence, the top lined in white twinkle lights, the bottom hemmed in yellow tea roses, their perfume nearly overwhelming to the senses.

"Now," James made an opening gesture, "what are you doing here?"

"You wouldn't answer your phone."

James cursed under his breath. "I forgot, I turned it off earlier, after I told Jo I was on my way home. It must be important, Lee."

"Depends," said a steady Marcia. "I'm not here to question your ethics, James; I've done that already. If anything," a tiny grin escaped, "I was proud of your behavior toward Ro and Zeta tonight. It was certainly surprising. Refreshingly so."

"I don't deserve praise or respect from you, Lee. If it wasn't for you, I would've brought them in tonight. I'd still be sitting in my office celebrating with The Generals and Wellington and Hattie, and probably you. But, no, I can't, because I have the most ethical of agents on my team. And I like it that way. She keeps me in line."

Marcia's cynical look silenced him. "I hope that whoever takes my place will be more to your taste, as far as morality is concerned."

"I get the impression," he began boldly, "that we're no longer talking about Zeta and Rosalie Rowen."

"Maybe not." Marcia glanced away for a moment, collecting the turbid ends of disjointed thoughts. "But they're why I'm here."

"Ah-ha, I see. You drove all the way up here just to tell me what you wouldn't say at the club tonight?"

It wasn't a shock that he'd figured it out. He was a handler for his intelligence, for thoroughly knowing the methods of his agents.

"Well," he urged, "go on. I'm not having a particularly wonderful evening, so if you could keep this brief and direct, I'd appreciate it."

Marcia stood 'at ease' and tried to follow orders. "Out of respect for you and your methods, James, I still conclude that you had a specific reason for letting them go free tonight. You're hoping they'll lead you to their cause, the reason why they're doing this, to a specific person, or a place, or a thing. It isn't just enough that Director Wellington and The Generals want Zeta returned, is it? No, you want to figure out _why_ Zeta keeps running. That's what's really important. And that's why you asked Ro all those questions tonight. You thought she'd give you a clue, to keep the cooling chase hot. But I don't suppose she gave you a clue, did she? At last, proof that Ro is as bright as I've been trying to tell you she is. . . . Was this direct enough for you, sir? I'm done. Enjoy your party."

When he'd weighed as much of these accusations as possible, he pivoted and blindly called out. Marcia angled to him and waited, uncomfortable and agitated. He covered the ground between them and cleared his throat.

"I don't suppose there's an act I could commit, a sentence I could say, to make you reconsider your request for transfer?"

She granted him a half-second of seeing the inside of her, the disturbances he'd caused her, mirroring his own hurt and anguish of the night. Then she gave a shake of her head, breaking the enchantment, and the veil was back in place. "I can't reconsider. You know I can't. Please don't ask me about it anymore."

He let her go, unable to find an excuse to hail her back. Somehow saying "Don't go" seemed juvenile and indiscreet. As Marcia returned inside the house, Jo came to him. Her look was no less steely than it'd been, but he sensed her interest in Marcia.

"Friend of yours, James?" Jo drummed her lacquered nails along a champagne glass, partly as a tease since she knew her husband to be a teetotaler. "She's very pretty, in a kind of _noticeable_ way."

Without a look to Jo, he parted his way through the crowds and to the gloomy quiet of his upstairs office. He stretched out on the couch, glanced at the clock, and told himself to wake up in three hours and twenty-six minutes. It'd be zero hours then. It'd be tomorrow. He'd be back at work, not to endure a whole day off again for another long set of months.

_Wishful thinking, Jim. Very wishful thinking._

Whatever made him do it, James was glad he brought out his mobile. He went through the 'Missed Calls' list, and saw all of Lee's incomings:

_18:31 – Lee, Marcia  
18:45 – Lee, Marcia  
18:52 – Lee, Marcia  
19:06 – Lee, Marcia  
19:14 – Lee, Marcia  
19:47 – Lee, Marcia  
20:01 – Lee, Marcia  
20:19 – Lee, Marcia_

Seeing this made him smile. He deleted all the missed calls. Ankles crossed, he put a free hand behind his head, feeling untraditionally relaxed. A number stored in speed-dial was sent ringing through the secure line.

Then, all at once, there she was. "Agent Lee."

It took three second for him to speak. "Hello, Marcia."

Another moment of considerable pause. "What's wrong, James?"

He'd miss this, phoning up Lee and just having her know, without his having to say anything, that something was wrong. How were they, he and West, supposed to go on without her? How as he, as a person, as James Bennett, supposed to go on without her? Uncomfortable with his own thoughts, he coughed anxiously.

"You do realize, Lee, that I will never be able to ring up West like this and chit-chat with him."

"No, I don't suppose you could," she said, almost laughing. "What do you want to chit-chat about?"

"Nothing. Isn't that was chit-chat is? Nothing? Where are you, anyway?"

"Driving home. I just passed E-470."

"Ah. Tell you what. Take 83 south, and you'll run into an inconspicuous tavern. Go inside. Have yourself a drink, NSA style, and wait for me to show up."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because we'll head down to Agent West's. We'll drag him out of his jazz haven by the tips of his suspenders. By midnight, I want us back in the office and tracking Zeta."

"But what about your party?"

"It's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know. Do you want to hear about it?"

She didn't answer immediately. James sat upright on the couch.

"Just wait till I get there, Marcia," he said. "Then I'll tell you all about it. It's been one very strange day."

"And not quite over yet."

"Don't remind me. I have a feeling the last few hours will be the best part. I'll get back to what I know . . . I don't think I know how to be idle very well."

"None of us do, James; no agent does," said Lee, sighing it out morosely. "I see the place you mentioned. I'll get us a table for two. All right?"

"All right." He disconnected, the lights on the phone leaving him in big blank room. Once he was out of the house he felt his spirits improving, as he headed toward something he understood without difficulty or consternation.

— —

On a high hillside north of Garden City, Kansas, Ro perched on the warm hood of the car and looked out beyond the country lane and into the empty horizon, and up into the wide sky full of bright stars. Out here, there was no one, just a lot of corn, maybe some sunflowers, and a whole swarming metropolis of insects. Ro swatted another off her arm. Not too far in front of her, through a grove of trees and underbrush, Ro spotted Zee's quick, lithe movements. She smirked on one side of her mouth.

"Are you chasing lightning bugs again, Zee?"

"Sure," came the answer, in the voice of a young child, the holomorph of Zee that was just a little boy. "It's fun, Ro."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Ro, and then continued on so he wouldn't hear, "I'm sorry I ever introduced you to it." She slapped her shin, wondering if now she was imagining bugs on her when there weren't any. This was why she didn't enjoy country life. It was kind of the bugs to remind her. "Hey, Robinson Crusoe, what time is it?"

"Dunno," said kid Zee. Another leap, and another lightning bug caught and escaped.

"I really hope he's not _eating_ them." She heard his footsteps in the dark, as he made another lunge to snag an unsuspecting lightning bug. "Well, could you find out? I'd like to know how soon Bennett's going to be hopping down our bunny trail."

Along the road's pebble-strewn shoulder, Zee came running to her. His hands were stretched out in front of him, cupped but with small slivers between his fingers. He shoved the bundle in front of her, pleased, smiling. "I finally caught one, Ro, look!" The lightning bug chose that moment, as if on cue, to burst into a soft yellow-green glow.

"Great," said Ro, carefully choosing how much sarcasm and how much enthusiasm to exude. "I'm so glad this world has bugs with glowing butts for you to chase. Sure puts my life into perspective. What's the time, Zee?"

Now he answered automatically, because he forgot not to. "Zero-oh-two hours."

Ro had adapted to this former government agent's overuse of metric time. She knew two minutes after midnight when she heard it. "Bennett will be preparing the team again. It's Sunday. Their day off's over."

Zee's hands lifted into the air, and he held the bundled prize close to the end of his nose until the signaling light turned on and off one last time. Then his fingers broke apart, and he waited, with the patience of one who didn't understand time, for the bug to take flight off the tip of his childish finger. Ro observed him, her own sense of patience oddly matched to his; she knew she ought to feel more uptight, more anxious to get as far away from Colorado as possible. The atmosphere on that country road, the sweet scent of dew on corn, the monotone chorus of insects, were natural events creating a relaxing opus. She did not even mind the burst of bright magenta and blue light that came over Zee when he switched into his more adult shape. His radiance dimmed, except for this other-worldly sheen, as though he always stood in a patch of moonlight. He took a spot next to her on the hood of the car, and wound his gaze through the ropes and tangles of stars high overhead.

"Did you know, Ro, that in the southern hemisphere you can see different stars, and see constellations you never can see up here? I find that fascinating. I think I should like to visit the southern hemisphere someday."

"Zee?"

He determined that she would tell him to stop talking. "I'm sorry. I'll stop talking."

"No, that's not it. . . What's going to happen now?"

"About what?"

"The scientists . . . I don't know . . . What if they really are being meticulously killed off?"

"We'll keep an eye on them. If anything does happen to some of the others, then it may prove more than a coincidence. There's really nothing else we can do."

"You don't think Agent West will actually tell Bennett what you said, do you?"

"That is up to Agent West. I have no power to stop him." Ro's concerned face brought him a touch closer to fathoming the mystery of human misery. He did find Ro confusing, for all her contradictions, but he found her capacity of strength and perseverance as fascinating as all the constellations in all hemispheres. He squeezed her across the shoulders to bring energy back into her. "I don't know what's going to happen, Ro. For now, I suppose we'll keep going day to day," he paused and surveyed the environs, "and from night to night, like we've been doing. If we think of something else to do to help the scientists, then we'll do it—if it comes to that. We're better off helping each other."

Ro leaned into the hood and folded her hands behind her head. After ruminating on these postulations carefully, trying unsuccessfully to push out the thoughts of the evening, Ro knew he was right. "Well, Zee, I guess we'll have to just keep dancing." She felt a conciliatory pat on her ankle.

"Yes, Ro, we'll have to keep dancing."

_So much for sentimentality_, Ro thought. "Hey, Zee, what's that bright reddish star up there?"

"Which?"

She pointed, like it would help. "The one sort of over the tree top right in front of us."

"Oh," he observed and calculated, getting the appropriate bearings of latitude, "I believe you're seeing M-24, known also as the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud. It is just a bit more than one degree in diameter, and is nothing more than a slightly brighter version of the Milky Way. I am impressed that you can view it with your naked eye. I see it best when my sight is amplified to fifty times my normal viewing span."

"And what's that one, the one next to M-24?"

"The Lagoon Nebula."

"What's a nebula?"

"It's a patch of interstellar gas and dust that reacts with—"

"And what's that one . . . ? And that one . . . ?"

— —

**The End.  
Thank you for reading!**

— —

Notes

Chapter One

1) It was difficult deciding how long Agent Bennett had been married, and also difficult to judge Jimmy's age. Fifteen years seems pretty reasonable, which means they married when they were in their early twenties. To me that seems young, but he was also a military guy and she was an educated aristocrat, so they were relatively mature people. Incidentally, I always imagine Jo Bennett looking like Jennifer Aniston. Jo, like poor Agent Rush, had no first name in the series, she was just a vague image in a photograph.

2) ". . . a crop farmer in Ohio." – This is my on-running gag: In every story I write, I must make at least one joke about Ohio. I live there, you know, and I have a very comfortable love-hate relationship with it.

3) Director Goubeaux is the managing director of field operatives at the NSA's Colorado field office. Agent Lee's request of transfer was to switch from being a technical operative to a field operative. She shows field operative qualities in The Zeta Project episode 'Resume Mission', which takes place after she resigns her Zeta Project station.

4) Colonel Lemak is one of the NSA Suits, who's basically like the NSA Watchdog and Human Relations manager. He makes sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing, although he has no responsibility as an NSA director. He was a background character in the show. Although I feel his ranking should be a little higher than colonel, he is only a promotion away from making brigadier general.

Chapter Two

1) Tops Hi-Fi was a real company. The album I mention is also a real album. A lot of their covers are considered collectors items; several feature a young Mary Tyler Moore as cover model.

Chapter Four

1) Zeta's explanation of the NSA's location is a set-up for the episode 'Wired Part 2'. Whole Day Off takes place between 'Countdown' and 'Absolute Zero'. This is why Ro says they've only been to Gotham City once ('Countdown'), and why Agent West doesn't know of Lee's resignation ('Absolute Zero').

Chapter Five

1) The Generals – Two guys who run the NSA from pretty little offices located in Washington, D.C.

2) _Arcades ambo_ - Latin: Arcadians both; fellows of the same stamp; cut from the same cloth . . . West means to say that Lee is as single as he is.

3) _Ignotum per ignotius_ - Latin: The unknown (explained) by the still more unknown . . . West indicates that it's a great mystery why they're both single.

Chapter Six

1) Frag and slag are both Batman Beyond euphemisms that never appeared in The Zeta Project.

2) The design of the NSA field office is only loosely based on its appearance in 'Wired Part 2'. I made it look less like an impenetrable fortress and more like a traditional office building, similar to its brief appearances in episodes like 'His Maker's Name'.


End file.
