The Unincorporated Woman Read online

  “I may be able to help with that,” offered J.D.

  “This is nuts,” fumed Mosh. “Maybe he will; maybe he won’t. They want hope. They don’t want hope. Maybe she’ll pop out and be fine; maybe she’ll be a raging lunatic. Forget maybe. Admiral Black is here now and has clearly had a palpable effect on bringing order back to the Alliance—as if her preventing yesterday’s near religious riot weren’t an indication. Why are we messing around with so many what if’s and maybe’s,” he growled, pointing to J.D., “when we have what we need right here, right now? We all need to grow a pair, and Janet, you need to give up this charade and prepare for your inauguration. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Whether this could work or not,” interjected Cyrus, having recently regained his composure, “it seems to me that Justin would want this Sandra O’Toole to have the best chance at a successful revival. Why don’t we see if Kirk can get Dr. Gillette to us, and then we can see if he’ll help us? If not, then we inaugurate Admiral Black and, at worst, lose only a day or two.”

  The heads around the table slowly nodded; eventually even Mosh reluctantly agreed, though he was the last. With that, the meeting broke up. Kirk waited a few moments more, as Janet Delgado Black had sent him a private message requesting that he remain.

  When they were alone and J.D. was confident that the room was secure, she spoke.

  “You’d better deliver, Kirk.”

  “Why,” he sniffed, “because you don’t want to be in that office any more than I want you there? We’ve already been over that.”

  “No, Kirk, because whether you succeed or not, in two days, I’m waking the bitch up.”

  4 The Doctor Is Out

  Martian Revival and Reintegration Facility, Barsoom, Mars

  Lisa Herman looked up at her selection in the cafeteria. She enjoyed eating in the main hall with the other patients, even though she’d once been one of them. Now cured of her post-traumatic stress disorder, she’d risen to the vaunted rank of assistant to the system-famous Dr. Neela Harper. The strange truth was that over time, it almost seemed as if Dr. Harper had become an assistant to her. In a little under a year, Lisa had gone from simple filing and appointment work to acquiring an emergency license in military revival techniques. It didn’t make her a doctor nor did it allow her to work on particularly complex cases, but she’d become one of the most effective group leaders in the compound and had more practical experience with the reintegration of traumatized spacers than almost anyone around. That, and Dr. Harper’s insistence that Lisa was needed at the hospital more than anywhere else, was what had kept Lisa’s repeated requests for transfer back to combat duty from being accepted. And even though she was considered part of the staff, she still thought of herself as a spacer first and former patient second, which is probably why she was so good at helping the spacers under her care.

  Today Lisa was waiting her turn at the processing slot and using her DijAssist to review the ingredients on the day’s menu. It was a little quirk, certainly in an era when most trusted that even if they ate badly, medical science could compensate for the indiscretion, but it was a quirk Lisa felt defined her better and so she continued the habit, unabashed by the snickering of her peers. Yet even with her ritual observance, she almost missed the oddity.

  The veggie burrito she’d finally settled on was using guacamole made with lymon, an ingredient she’d never heard of. While she was perturbed that a taste she’d gotten used to might now have a slightly different texture or flavor, it intrigued her nonetheless. She ordered the burrito special including soup and salad, took her plate, and found a seat in the cafeteria. She lifted the burrito to her mouth and stopped before taking a bite. A peculiar sensation had caught hold of her. It was something about that ingredient, that lymon. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but the more she thought about it, the more subsumed she became. It was an odd sensation, almost erotic, in how good, how right it felt to say that word, “lymon,” over and over again in her head. The repetition was leading to something—to what, she didn’t know, only that she must repeat it in her mind until that something arrived. And then it did.

  Wide-eyed, she stared out into the cafeteria, mouth slightly ajar, burrito still held firmly. To anyone watching, her mannerism might have indicated she’d forgotten what she was doing or conversely just remembered some arcane task she’d need to complete. What they would never guess was that Lisa Herman was no longer in the cafeteria, that she’d been replaced by another … the other within her. The other had never really gone away, but with a combination of meditation and hypnotherapy had been effectively suppressed. But now the other was waking up. The other took a bite of the burrito. It was good. She continued to eat. She was starving. Over the course of her meal, between the soup and the salad, the last vestiges of Lisa Herman finally disappeared. The other knew everything about Lisa and would act in no overt way differently from Lisa. But this other also knew she had a far more important task to complete, yet rather annoyingly had yet to determine exactly what that was.

  After lunch, the other complained of a headache to her colleagues and arranged for someone to take her place leading that afternoon’s therapy session. She then headed over to the infirmary. Once there, a helpful medic gave her a shot of aspirin and suggested she take the rest of the afternoon off. He also placed a small data crystal into her palm and used his hand to gently close her fingers around it. She gave him a curious look, but his warm smile and strangely soothing voice reassured her. He further suggested she give him a call later that day. He has a nice smile, thought the other, and so decided then and there to take him up on the offer. He pointed her in the direction of a local café and she went, like a leaf pulled along a stream by an unseen eddy, without protest. Once at the café, the other ordered a Turkish coffee and found a private booth in which to view the contents of the crystal. To her surprise, the message—displayed for less than a second—consisted of only three words: START SMART GRAB. As had happened earlier, she puzzled over the words, once again mesmerized. And then for the second time in as many hours, she was struck by a clarity of purpose. Only this time, she knew exactly what she was supposed to do. The patients were no longer her concern—the doctor was.

  The woman known as Lisa got up from the booth and quickly exited the café. For the first time that day, she noticed the weather. It was early afternoon, and there was a cool breeze being funneled through the campus buildings. The cold air felt good against her face and somehow added purpose to the immediacy of her task. If all went well, she’d be leaving Mars in the next few hours. Visiting her apartment was out of the question.

  The transit tube took her to downtown Burroughs in a little under ten minutes. The provincial city of over twenty million had grown into a major transportation hub that, as capital of the United Human Federation, had become responsible for the lives of nearly thirty-six billion. After President Sambianco had insisted on moving the capital from Earth to Mars, its rapid growth had been assured. In the brief span of five years, it had managed to get itself ordained as the most prefabricated city in human history. Even the Presidential complex was made of interchangeable hard foam that would normally have been used as offices for a temporary construction project.

  But what should have been a prescription for a dull cityscape turned out to be anything but. The city’s new immigrants, used to a certain level of culture and visual stimuli, had refused to take the drab material on its merits alone. So by virtue of a popular technique called flo-motion color injection, plus the addition of minor architectural trimmings, they’d managed to breathe visual life and energy into a material meant to be devoid of any. As such, Burroughs from above looked like a massive hodgepodge of seemingly independent, in-motion, colorful, and oddly geodesic structures. The intrinsic exuberance of the buildings was simpatico with the street musicians, food vendors, and souks selling everything from captured Alliance uniforms to exotic fruit kebabs. As in any great city, the sidewalks and fly zones were filled wit
h a mad rush of people going to and fro, dressed in all manner of fashion from street chic to corporate cool.

  The other loved the palpable energy of the place, especially the dwellers themselves, who had about them the quiet confidence of diplomats buoyed by the rightness of their mission. The other knew that Lisa loved it here too, but not for reasons that the other did. Lisa, like those busily passing by, actually believed in the UHF and what it stood for, while the other could not understand how they could all be so easily fooled. But that no longer mattered. She took a tube transport to Old Town, the artistic center of Burroughs and the only part of the city not prefabricated. It was off to the west, closer to the sea, and made up of two- and three-story buildings constructed by the original settlers. The other walked down a few alleys until she arrived at the place she was looking for: the John Carter Chess Club—a quaint establishment decorated like a Victorian gentlemen’s smoke room but themed out to the famous Edgar Rice Burroughs character. Besides the decorative brass and leather trimmings, there were also mementos under glass, artwork on the wall, literature lining the shelves, and of course, a life-sized statue of the hero himself.

  The club had made a name for itself even before the UHF’s arrival transformed the once sleepy city. The atmosphere was relaxed, and its clientele were mainly of the upper class and, barring that, the filthy rich. The war alone had introduced a whole new category of scoundrel, the likes of which had not been seen in hundreds of years. The scoundrels were tolerated not only for their money but also because they performed a vital function—the movement of goods, people, and ordnance. The club, though, was private, and membership was by invitation only. There was still a large area open to the public, and this was where the other’s journey momentarily came to a halt. She took in the room. It was a warm and inviting space at the center of which was a large hearth piled high with burning logs. A few well-placed sofas and an ample number of brass-dimpled overstuffed leather chairs surrounded the fireplace. The din of visiting tourists ogling the life-sized sculpture of John Carter could be heard mixed in with the sporadic crackling of a falling log.

  As Dr. Gillette was playing chess in one of the reserved areas of the club, the other had to wait patiently while being announced. A human messenger was sent—a DijAssist notification would have been too unbecoming—and a few minutes later, the other was gratified to see Dr. Gillette emerge from behind one of the many richly embroidered velvet curtains that separated the waiting room from the private areas.

  His face beamed at the unexpected surprise. “My dear Ms. Herman,” he exclaimed, “what on Mars brings you out here? Is everything all right?”

  Her mouth formed an awkward smile. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, sir. Dr. Harper tells me how much you enjoy this time to yourself.”

  “Ms. Herman,” he confided, inviting her over to some open chairs by the fireside, “you took me away from a game that had lost my interest.”

  “Because you were winning?” she asked.

  “Actually,” he said with a rueful grin, “I was being roundly thrashed by a player so much better than I that the only thing I was learning was abject humility. Inasmuch, I am now humbly”—his bushy eyebrow shot up as he stared at her—“in your debt. How may I be of assistance?”

  The other feigned concern, slipping over her words. “We … I … um, I suppose we should use a good privacy booth.”

  “That will not be a problem, Ms. Herman. There are many good ones here. I’ll just—”

  “I was thinking someplace,” she interrupted, biting her lower lip as her eyes darted about nervously, “less conspicuous, please. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”

  “I see.” Dr. Gillette’s amiable mood was replaced by appropriate concern. “Did you have someplace in mind?”

  “The orport seems like a good place to get lost in a crowd, and … I—” She looked around nervously once again, then said in a tone so low, the doctor had to tilt his head forward to hear, “I think that would be best.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” he whispered back, “what’s this about?”

  “I … I think,” the other replied, matching his tone, “that Dr. Harper and the … the President may be—”

  Dr. Gillette put his hand on her shoulder and with a conspiratorial look indicated that she stop talking. “Let’s wait till we’re at the orport, shall we?”

  “Of course, sir.” The other allowed him to take the lead. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

  “No reason why you should be, Ms. Herman.” The doctor gently lifted her elbow prodding her to stand. “You were an electronics technician, if I recall … who became a military trauma revival specialist, yes?”

  She nodded too eagerly, almost as if confessing to a crime.

  “Well, then,” he said with a reassuring glance, “I hardly see how this would equip you to the life of a spy.”

  The other smiled gratefully and stood waiting patiently as the doctor went and checked out his coat and an umbrella. When he returned, they headed out the door, where a taxi was already waiting. The flight over to the Burroughs Interstellar Orbital Port took about fifteen minutes. The orport, though new, was typical in its design—a large dome through which hundreds of tubes pulled in and shot out transorbital pods of various shapes and sizes.

  As the other and the doctor entered the main lobby, they quickly located and then headed toward a row of dedicated privacy booths used mainly by the corporate class to conduct business on the fly. The other was fully aware that the entire area was under surveillance by the Internal Affairs Ministry but also knew that by the time anyone bothered to review the images, she and her precious cargo would be long gone. She and the doctor walked past the booths marked BUSY and were about to pass another when a man carrying a small yellow bird in a cage suddenly emerged directly in front of them. He apologized, straightened himself out, and moved on. The other pointed Dr. Gillette to the booth fate seemed to have handed them.

  Gillette entered the room first but stopped short when he saw a standard UHF military suspension unit parked inside. He was just about to turn around and suggest they find another booth when he simultaneously heard the door close behind him and felt something tickle at the nape of his neck. He was unconscious before he hit the floor, but the other caught him just as he fell and then easily lowered him to the ground in the low Martian gravity.

  The other quickly removed a small pouch from inside her jacket pocket and flipped it open. It contained a small mirror plus a series of tubes held in by soft elastic bands. She pulled a tube of short-term nanoepidermis and used it to change both her and the doctor’s facial features. Then she applied a gel to change their eye color and another to change their hair. Both makeovers took less than three minutes. She then used the small mirror to check out her handiwork. Once the other was satisfied, she closed the pouch, placed it back in her pocket, and stood up. She then went over to the suspension unit, input a code, and waited patiently for the hatch to spring open. Inside, she found two uniforms that bore the dreaded insignia of UHF Fleet Intelligence. There was one uniform for her and one for the doctor, with a matching set of identifications based on their new features.

  With an ease that came from knowledge and experience, she made quick work of undressing, redressing, and moving the doctor into the suspension unit. She then resealed the hatch and input a few more commands that would see the doctor enter into a much deeper sleep as his body cooled to an unearthly minus-200 Celsius.

  She was examining her pistol and checking the ammo capacity when the back wall dissolved. Determined to finish her task, she barely looked up as a man wearing maintenance overalls guided a small load lifter into the privacy booth. There was no exchange of greetings as he perfunctorily gathered her and the doctor’s old clothes and placed them into a shoulder bag then maneuvered the lifter under the suspension unit and began to slowly back it out of the room. When they’d all cleared the room, the wall re-formed behind them. The ot
her saw that they were now in a long narrow passageway reserved for official personnel. It led out, she saw, to another area demarcated for government officials only. The maintenance man tilted his head slightly forward, handed her the controls to the load lifter, and disappeared down a side tunnel almost as quickly as he’d appeared. She walked through the passageway with the suspension unit floating silently behind her and emerged into the opening. She then headed for the nearest reservation desk. Without so much as a good day, she handed her DijAssist to the bored-looking young man behind the counter.

  “How may I help you, Captain?” he asked, momentarily startled.

  “Look,” she said icily.

  He noted her uniform with concern, stared once again at the DijAssist, and then his eyes lit up as the blood drained from his face. Not sure what to do next, he saluted.

  “Corporal,” she said in a lowered voice still shrill enough to command fear, “you will refrain from saluting.”

  “Sir,” he whispered back, eyes darting to and fro. “Yes, sir.”

  “Further,” she added, maintaining her low, biting tone, “as you’ve undoubtedly realized, this mission is of the utmost importance and secrecy, so unless President Sambianco himself asks, I and my boss,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the suspension unit, “were never here. Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Beads of sweat began to form at his temples. His fingers and eyes worked the holodisplay furiously. “Your t.o.p. is in tube 317, Captain. It has clearance to leave as soon as you and the colonel are aboard.”

  “Corporal,” seethed the other, “is your tour of duty at this orport so boring, you’d prefer a marine assault brigade in the Belt?”