The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (14 page)

“I'm not following,” said Tia. “You're saying this has been planned somehow? That someone knew you'd track down your fairy godmother and that it'd lead you to Area 51?”

“It was only a matter of time,” said Connie. “One day, I was going to get sick of this and track Thelma down.”

She could no longer ignore Thelma shaking in her pocket. Connie clicked the pen.

“I was set up? They wanted me to die?” asked Thelma.

“No, if they wanted you dead, they could've killed you. They wanted you alive for me to find. You died because you were dumb. Don't blame it on anyone else.”

“You are at least tangentially responsible,” said Thelma.

“Get over it,” said Connie.

“Easy for you to say. You're not the one stuck in here.”

Connie clicked Thelma quiet and tossed her in the glove compartment.

“I'm not saying I don't believe you,” said Tia. “You're usually right about this kind of thing. But isn't it a stretch? Thelma didn't know anything.”

“She knew enough. She pointed me in the right direction. Think about it. If you're trying to keep a low profile, you don't send a Muroid to hire a fairy godmother. Muroids are distinct. You might as well put down a big red X over Area 51 when you do that. To make it easier, you even banish the fairy godmother to Earth.”

“But you went to the Fae Realms to find her. We almost got eaten by a dragon.”

Connie said, “I don't think the plan is that specific. They put her where I could find her and trusted I'd use my own methods to do so. They didn't plan on her death, but I got
around that. I can get around lots of problems ordinary people can't. The important thing was that I found her and that she gave me the one piece of information she had.

“And once I came to Area 51, Charlotte practically threw Klat at me. She knew I was observant enough to spot a nervous Muroid. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed him right away, but once I talked to him, it wouldn't take me long to put it together.”

“You are a master detective,” said Tia.

“I wouldn't say
master
. I'm fortunate enough to be a trained observer and have a smattering of knowledge in exobiology. Enough to know that you don't hire a Muroid if you want to keep a secret, and if you do, you don't leave that Muroid on Earth, waiting to be discovered.”

“Is this a conspiracy or the caretaker spell?” asked Tia.

“It's both, I think. I've busted enough secret societies to know that most of their schemes involve a hell of a lot of luck. When they work—and they don't usually—all the leaders claim to be masters of manipulation. When they fail, they claim it's all part of the plan. The truth is that for most members, these conspirators are a social club rather than a shadowy cabal. Like the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo without the public face. They all pledge undying loyalty to the Grand Poobah, but as soon as the shit starts to unravel, they all hang up their robes and admit they don't know what they hell they were doing beyond sitting in dark rooms and playing elaborate games of make-believe.”

“Like fantasy football with world governments,” said Tia.

“Not far off. But once in a while, I've run across genuinely sinister conspiracies that accomplish long-term goals. They all have two things in common.

“First, they don't have secret handshakes. They don't wear distinct little pins on their lapels. They don't meet in ominous castles hidden in the Alps. They don't advertise. The moment I see a bunch of people in robes plotting to overthrow Bavaria, I know it's nothing to be too concerned about.

“The second thing they do is
not
attempt to control all the variables. They set up a handful of important elements so that once everything gets rolling, it'll go the way they want, regardless of how it gets there. And then they wait.

“I don't know how long they've been waiting for me to start looking, but if they knew my talents and the influence of the spell, I was more likely to end up here than anywhere else.”

“It makes sense, though it is a bit ludicrous,” said Tia. “So, what are you going to do if you're not going to outer space to see what happens next?”

“At first, I thought about doing nothing, but that's pointless. I can't do nothing. That's my curse. Even when I try to avoid it, it still finds me. Instead, I'm going to go back and snoop around on my own.”

“You're going to break into the place you just left?”

“That's the plan. With any luck, it's the one thing they don't expect.”

“
They
who again?”

Connie smiled. “That's what I'm hoping we'll find out.”

S
pecial Agent Lucas Harrison glared up at Charlotte from the monitor. “What do you mean, she's not going?”

Charlotte clicked her tongue against her fangs. “She said to us that she is not.”

“She can't
not
go,” said Harrison. “Are you certain she understood everything?”

“She appeared to,” said Charlotte.

“What does that mean?”

“We cannot say for certain. Though we have been on this world for many years, we do not always grasp the . . .”—she paused, searching for the right word—“. . . subtleties of human expression.”

There was nothing subtle about it. Human faces were strange and horrific contortions. She imagined it hurt them, twitching and flexing all the time. And it was vulgar, the way they scowled and smiled at each other so freely.

Her own species expressed themselves with scent emissions with complete control. It was something one did only
on purpose, and only when truly warranted. Right now, she was expressing her displeasure with a soft, musky stench. He couldn't smell it because he was on a monitor, connected from another room across the country, so the odor served little purpose. She'd been too long on Earth.

“And you just let her leave?” asked Harrison.

“What were we supposed to do? We thought the purpose of this was to not raise the Snurkab's suspicions. Detaining her would surely have done so.”

He sneered. She averted her gaze and stifled a wave of nausea. Sneering was the second worst thing a human face could do. A close second to laughing, an act that assaulted her ears as well as her eyes.

“No, I guess you made the right call,” he said, “but we're on a timetable here.”

Charcoal and rose petals. Annoyance. “We are well aware of the consequences.”

“Goddamn it, I'm getting sick of this chick. Can't go a day without jumping into dangerous adventures, and the one time we really need her to do it, she decides not to.”

“Perhaps the grand plan cannot be averted,” said Charlotte. “Perhaps it is a mistake to attempt to do so.”

“Don't start with the grand plan. It can't be as simple as that. There are variables. We can work within those.”

“Unless variables are part of the plan,” she said.

He scowled, and she covered her eyes at the expression.

“Shall we report this delay to the others?” she asked.

“No need for both of us to do it,” said Harrison.

“Then shall you do it or shall we?”

“Get some pronouns already,” he said. “You've been on this planet long enough to learn the language.”

“We do not speak out of ignorance, but with an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things.”

“Well, kumbaya and all that jazz. I'll inform the higher-ups. In the meantime, we all need to be thinking of a way to get Verity back on track.”

“Perhaps she can be convinced to leave this world some other way.”

“God, I hope so.”

The screen went blank.

Grapefruit and mint. Relief. There was much to do, but she was glad the conversation was over. On her own world, she might have laid eggs in Lucas Harrison, though even that was doubtful. She didn't like him that much.

Charlotte skittered out of her office. A few moments later, Connie slipped down silently from a vent in the ceiling and went to the computer. She removed an aerosol can from her bandolier and sprayed it into the computer's sensors. The smell of chocolate, rubber, sawdust, and wet dog. The Spidron equivalent of a password spelled
password
.

The computer lit up, and Connie scrolled through its files. The interface wasn't designed for a human. The keyboard was six feet wide, and she was a bit rusty in the galactic alphabet. She muddled through.

Most of the records were devoted to managing the base. Spreadsheets, schedules, payroll. Harmless stuff. She jammed a thumb computer she'd brought back from one of her jaunts to the future into a slot.

“Hello,” said the thumb computer's AI in a cheery voice. “I see you are interested in downloading files. Can I help you with that?”

“Lower your voice,” she said.

“Certainly. Do you have a specified volume in mind?”

“Whisper.”

“It is my pleasure to set my vocal output in whisper mode now. If this is acceptable, please say
yes
now.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Would you like whisper to be your default setting?”

Connie glanced at the office door. “Just shut up.”

“Shutting up now,” said the A.I. “When you wish to end silent mode, please say
end silent mode
. Would you like me to repeat these instructions? Please specify
yes
or
no
.”

“No.”

“You have indicated you do not need the instructions repeated. Is this correct? Please specify
yes
or
no
.”

“Just shut the hell up,” growled Connie under her breath.

“Well, excuse me for trying to be user-friendly,” replied the computer, sounding hurt. “I know I'm only a device designed for your convenience, but there's no reason to be rude.”

“I'm sorry,” she said as she selected files to download. Anything with a sinister code name, like Scorpio or Project:
Basilisk, for obvious reasons. Anything else with an innocuous label like Puppy Party or Vacation: Cancun '08, for equally obvious reasons.

“No need to apologize,” said the AI. “I'm just a convenience you keep tucked in your pocket, to be used at your whim, and discarded whenever a newer model comes along. It's just the way it is. I understand that.”

Damn it, she hated future computers. People thought the machines would rise up and destroy humanity, driven by some psychotic anti-human malfunction. Nobody imagined the inevitable war against sentient technology would be caused by computers having their feelings hurt. Passive-aggressive robotic death-ray satellites and put-upon military drones had limited ways of expressing their low self-esteem.

She tried ignoring it, hoping the AI would be content to fume silently.

“Carry on your covert operation,” it said. “I could help you by identifying the files most likely to be the ones you're looking for, but I'm sure you'll do just fine on your own. I'm only a state-of-the-art self-aware thinking application with more processing power than all the combined supercomputers of this particular era. But you're obviously better off attempting this with your woefully inefficient biological methods of data absorption. And the keyboard. Yes, that's terrific there. Sure, I interface with this computer at a rate that makes typing look like a snail racing a photon, but it's charming in a way.”

“What did you find?” she asked.

“Oh, now you want my input? Please, don't bother on my account. I don't need your charity.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I'm not just some toaster you can yell at and expect to—”

“Execute reboot command,” she said.

“Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? I'm trying to have an honest discussion, but you don't give a damn. Typical human response. Let's just reset everything and act like the problem is—”

Connie pushed the small red button on the thumb computer.

“Oh, you bast—”

The computer beeped.

“Hello. I see you are interested in downloading files. Can I help you with that?”

E
scaping from Area 51 was easier than breaking in. Security was focused on keeping people out, not aliens in. Connie slipped away without incident. Back at the hotel, she studied the files. The thumb computer had already analyzed the relevant information and was happy to present them to her via a holographic projection.

Tia couldn't make heads or tails of any of the standard galactic alphabet, but Connie could. It didn't make her happy.

“It's worse than I imagined, and I've got a pretty great imagination.”

“What are you saying?” asked Tia. “There's a conspiracy to direct your life?”

“No. Worse than that,” said Connie. “It's a manipulation. My whole life is one great big lie.”

“But that's not possible,” said Tia. “You've been to other worlds and strange dimensions. You've fought monsters and discovered ancient mysteries. All that stuff has to be real.”

“Oh, it's real,” said Connie. “I've done all that stuff and, as far as I can tell, it was all genuine. The weird stuff, the fantastic, the extraordinary, all that was on the level. It was the ordinary stuff that wasn't.”

“You're suggesting there's an elaborate attempt to convince you that you had elements of an ordinary life?”

Connie said, “I don't know. It's ridiculous. A shadowy cabal lurking at the edges of my life, manipulating circumstances to keep me on track. What purpose would it serve?”

“Who's in on it?” asked Tia.

“Everybody,” said Connie. “Almost every single normal person I've had any recurring relationship with. My landlord. My dry cleaner. Half of my school teachers. Not my parents. I'm sure it's not them. Pretty sure. Not my ex-boyfriends, either. But everybody else . . .”