“You said the man in the photographs was nice to you too,” I bring him back to the subject of the dead man in the Denali. “Did you know him?”
“He lives in my neighborhood. Or he did.”
“In your mobile home park?” and you could knock me over with a feather when Lex nods his head. “Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“He never introduced himself to you or your grandmother?”
“I never really talked to him, would see him sometimes when I was walking to get the bus,” Lex says. “Or if I rode my bike past his house and he was outside, he’d wave and say hi. Once I ran into him at the food pantry, except he acted as if he didn’t know me. Not everybody wants to be seen in there.”
“Which pantry?”
“The one at the Baptist church,” he replies as I think how convenient and callous.
Food banks are a perfect way for someone to stay anonymous. Most require no proof of identification, and no questions asked. A killer for hire walks out of a church with free groceries as he plans his next murder, and I decide it’s time to buzz Fran.
I place the call myself like I used to in my SIN-less days when I didn’t have ART. And the instant she answers, I tell her she’s on speakerphone.
“Lex is with me,” I add. “But then I suspect you know that.”
“I heard,” she says in a cold, disapproving tone.
On Langley Boulevard now, I can see the vacuum spheres at the scramjet facility several blocks ahead, ghostly in the dusk. The giant white metal orbs clustered like giant PONGs make me think of Ranger, and I glance in my mirrors as if I’ll spot the camouflaged mobile hotspot tailing us, assuming he is.
But not a sign, just the sun smoldering as it dips below the horizon. Light flashes gold off the glass windows of the institutional brick buildings, the black Suburban following at a distance.
“We’re a minute from HQ,” I let Fran know. “It would be great if someone could meet us in the parking lot with Lex’s coat so we don’t have to come inside. Where are you right now?”
“In my office where I’m staying,” her voice through my truck’s speakers.
ART connects me to cameras at headquarters, including the one built into the computer on Fran’s desk. No matter how many times I’ve told her to cover the lenses of her devices, she doesn’t always bother, and I imagine my artificial helper is shrewd enough to make sure he turns off her desktop activation light so she can’t tell anybody’s watching.
“. . . Don’t ask me to lift a finger to help him out,” her attractive face looms in the camera unbeknownst to her.
She’s combing her fingers through her dark hair, sitting in her ergonomic chair, paperwork and empty coffee cups everywhere. Craving a cigarette right about now, I can tell as I see her in my SPIES and PEEPS.
“. . . I don’t care if he freezes his little ass off after the crap he’s pulled,” her voice hard as nails for Lex’s benefit since she knows he’s riding shotgun.
Angry as she may be, I know she doesn’t mean it. She has her own precocious handful at home, 6-year-old Easton who keeps her hopping because the apple didn’t fall far. Fran may come across as not having a soft side or maternal bone but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
“. . . I never had lunch, and now I’ve got a bear of a headache. Thanks very much, Lex,” she goes on irritably.
I’m unpleasantly reminded it was eons ago when Dick gave me muffins and a protein drink. My stomach is so empty it might digest itself.
“At least the lights are back on,” Fran’s no-nonsense voice. “And the hissing sound inside that lab magically stopped just like everything else your dad’s pet intern managed to crash and burn around here,” she adds condescendingly, rather brutally, and Lex’s face has turned red, his eyes flashing.
“I didn’t damage anything!” he erupts in a furious stage whisper, and I press my finger to my lips, shaking my head, warning him to shush.
ART updates me nonstop in my lenses with news feeds, silently alerting me that Vera Young’s body was cremated a little while ago according to her daughter in California. In response, Neva Rong is threatening to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia for failing to conduct a thorough death investigation.
She claims officials deliberately destroyed evidence, falsified records, and are refusing to turn over Pandora’s proprietary property among other high crimes and misdemeanors. In addition, Mason Dixon is broadcasting live from Chamberlain & Sons Funeral Home and Crematorium, ART shows me.
“Where are you headed?” Fran asks.
“I’m taking Lex home,” I reply, and she won’t be happy.
“Excuse me? I assumed you were bringing him here,” Fran voices her disapproval even as Mason mentions me by name over the air, informing his internet audience that as usual I’m refusing to comment.
Since when does the buck stop with me? Certainly, he’s tried calling often enough at any hour he pleases, and it’s true that I do what I can to avoid him. But he’s never criticized me publicly, not like this, and it’s as if he’s issuing a challenge.
“. . . Repeated attempts to contact Captain Chase have been ignored, and I gotta tell you, folks, it’s not okay. As taxpayers we have a right to know what’s going on in the United States government whether it’s NASA or Space Force . . . ,” he says outrageously in my implanted earpiece.
21
I SEE FRAN in my lenses, pushing back her office chair, standing up, tired and rumpled in her uniform.
“Do you really think that’s the best thing for him . . . ?” she asks, gesturing impatiently as if I’m right in front of her.
“At this time, yes,” I reply, and I suppose squabbling with her remotely isn’t all that different from butting heads with ART.
“Well, I sure don’t,” she adds as if there’s a better choice.
There isn’t. Not as far as I’m concerned. We don’t have a lockup at NASA. We’re not in the business of warehousing prisoners of any age, and I’m not about to shuffle off Lex to Hampton’s youth detention center. I’m also not going to discuss this with Fran while he’s listening, and I take the call off speakerphone.