The Paranoid Thief (15 page)

“Jill! What?
How?”
Randolph stammered.

“
Tsk
,
tsk
, lover boy, did you really believe I wouldn’t try to
rescue you?”
Jill said, driving one handed.
She turned
her head a bit more to see while she padded down the dead officer. “I told you
I didn’t want to train another partner.” When she uncovered the keys, she
touched a button on the dash console and lowered the wire prisoner screen so
she could toss him the keys. “Now if you don’t mind getting out of those
tracking cuffs, I have a car waiting a few blocks over.”

“Did you have to kill the man?” Randolph
admonished, though he was relieved to see her.

Without remorse, Jill eyed him in the
mirror and said, “You do things your way and I’ll do them my way.”

“But your way is so permanent,” Randolph
scolded, upset with how casual she sounded.

“Randolph, I’m sorry you feel that way
about it, but in my experience, live people cause too many complications.” She
slowed and turned into an alleyway and settled the squad car to Earth, then
motioned for him to get out. Randolph moved ahead of Jill to a blue sports
model as Jill pulled out a phase grenade and tossed it in the squad car. But
before Randolph opened the passenger door, Jill ran up and threw her arms
around him and squeezed with a very affectionate embrace before demanding a
quick passionate kiss. Then disengaging, leaving Randolph slightly dazed, she
ran around the front and jumped in the driver seat. “You and I have a lot to
talk about.”

“I just bet we do,” Randolph acknowledged,
clearing his head and sliding in.

He closed his door as Jill gunned the power
and shot them up and over the squad car, and into traffic.

“For starters, where are we going?”

“We’re headed to a motel I’ve rented where
you’re going to get cleaned up and properly dressed for a wedding.”

“A wedding?
But…but Jill?
Now wait just a dog gone minute. You just
busted me out of jail—within an hour my face will be plastered all over the
video channels. We don’t have time to witness a wedding!”

“True, but don’t worry, the church is on
the outskirts of town.”

“Don’t tell me you planned our escape to
incorporate this ceremony?” Randolph asked, unbelieving.

“Not at all.
I
planned to drop in on our way out of town.” She smiled.

“Hold it. I’ve never heard of a wedding
waiting for guests to arrive,” Randolph asked puzzled.

“That’s true.” She patted his leg, “But
we’re not guests.”

Thinking on that a moment, Randolph eyed
her. “You’re not planning to kill someone?”

Jill passed him a scathing glare. “How
could you even think I’d do such a thing? That would be sacrilege.”

“Well you don’t seem to hold to the Ten
Commandments.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “I thought you were
the atheist?”

“No, an atheist doesn’t believe in heaven
and hell. I believe in both, I simply don’t believe either can influence
people, places, or things.”

After a bit when Jill said no more,
Randolph ventured, “Uh, Jill, who’s getting married?”

“I am.” She smiled. “Or should I say my
other side is.” Jill caught Randolph’s puzzled face and explained. “My other
self has fallen in love, and per our agreement before I entered the military,
I’m going along with it. Besides, I like him too, though he can be irritating
most of the time. But what man isn’t?” When Jill saw Randolph’s slack-jawed
expression, she became more serious. “Come off it, Randolph. Can’t you believe
I can fall in love?”

“Truthfully, I hadn’t considered the
matter. Does the lucky groom know about your two sides?” Randolph tried to keep
his tone neutral, lest she realize he had developed feelings for her.

“A relationship cannot last if you keep
secrets from each other,” Jill admitted, pulling into a hotel parking lot and
allowing the car to settle in a numbered slot. “Now come on, we both need to
clean up before the trip and I need to do some calls while you’re in the
bathroom.” Jill pulled the hotel door card out as she got out of the car and
said over her shoulder, “I’ve some snacks inside to tide you over till after
the wedding, then we’ll grab a bite before meeting the jet I have waiting.”

Randolph acknowledged her statement on a
relationship, but felt a lump in his throat as he needed to tell her what he
did. Jill could only kill him once, so Randolph swallowed and warned, “But
using anything connected with the company may not be advisable, you see.” He
spoke meekly, following her inside, thinking it might not be a good idea to
have four walls surrounding him. “While in custody, I spilled my guts—I told
them everything I knew about the company.”

“Yes, I know,” she admitted, heading for
the bathroom and tossing her pocket book on the bed where two suitcases laid
open, filled with clothes for both sexes.

“You know?” Randolph sputtered,
flabbergasted. “Then why did you get me out?”

“Because you told them nothing about me,”
Jill answered with certainty, unzipping the body suit she was wearing, working
her way out of it.

“But how do you know that?” Randolph
pick
up a waffle bar, absently watching her strip.
She and this bar have a lot in common; you
have to peel off the outer layer to get to the goodies within.

“Simply put, I was in the Global Rift
Supply and Demand cafeteria in
Calaway
when FBFC
crashed the building in force. Those of us on the first five floors held
no chance of escape as the alarms didn’t go off
. Covering
all exits to the cafeteria, they carded and ordered us all in chairs. After two
hours of watching people come and go, including those who worked there, I was
approached and told I could go.” Jill started the shower and said as if it was
an afterthought, “I guess the fake ID I always carry around saved my butt.”
Then looking at Randolph with a smile she said, “That’s how I knew you said
zippo
about me, for if you had, I’d be in one of their
cells as you were.” Jill came back to the door and tiptoed to kiss Randolph’s
lips lightly before she closed the door to the bathroom. “Now relax awhile as I
take my shower.”

For a few moments, Randolph looked at the door
in some bafflement. He chewed the last bit of the bar and sat down on the bed
opposite the one with a full-blown wedding dress laid out, awaiting its
engagement.
But why?
She risked a lot to get me out, postponing
a wedding to a man she has to care deeply about when she’d been in the clear
and could have been a continent over when I got the needle, starting a new
life. So why risk it?
Randolph continued to puzzle the matter over, hurt
she could drop their relationship and find a whole new life in so short a time.
If she was afraid I’d give her up, she
could have just as easily taken care of me in the patrol car and saved herself
the added headache of my face being plastered over every video screen.

He was still puzzling over the matter when
Jill opened the bathroom door, letting the steamy air out, with a towel wrapped
around her midsection and using another to dry her short hair.

“Your turn, mister, and please take a
little longer than I did—you reek of several days laying face-down in a sewer.”

“Jill, why don’t you go ahead and take off
with your honey. I’m indebted to you for saving my life, but there’s no reason
you need risk getting caught because of me.”

Jill wiped off her arms and legs before
sitting down next to the dress. “Look, I can’t leave you here. If the FBFC
catches you this time, you’ll tell them everything about me sooner or later,
and don’t think they can’t get it out of you. I’ve seen some of the equipment
they use and those were only the legal items. Besides, as I’ve already killed
the snitches in our subsidiary office before getting you out, there's no place
I can go where they wouldn’t find me.”

“That was reason forty-two why you
shouldn’t have sprung me,” Randolph put in.

To this Jill looked pensive. “Would you
quit dwelling on reasons why I should’ve let them give you the needle? The deed
is done. Now you can kiss my feet if you feel obligated to for saving your
life, but I’d rather you took a shower instead.” Jill twirled her towel while
he pondered, then snapped it on his leg.

“
Ow
! Jill, come
on, that hurts.”

“It’ll hurt a lot more if I aim it a little
higher,” she threatened.

After he was washed and dressed in
imitation
Harmanii
formal wear, Jill pushed Randolph
out to the car wearing the white dress and a shawl over her hair for protection.
Once on the road Randolph decided to gather more information on this event he
was being dragged to. “So, is the groom’s family going to be there?”

“That would be rather awkward, considering
they think he’s dead.”

“Oh, so what is he, your new partner?”
Randolph asked, a bit testy.

“Relatively new, but we’ve spent enough
time together for me to become attached, especially my other half.”

Jill turned to give Randolph a smile, and
he finally saw the obvious in her eyes and yelled, “NO, you’re not talking
about me?”

“Oh be still, Randolph,” Jill said, patting
his leg. “You’ll get used to me if you haven’t already.”

“That’s not the point. I’m not the marring
type! My career choice renders marriage a liability!” Randolph responded in
shock and with a bit of convection.

With a sigh of unusual patience, Jill said,
“Randolph, were getting married under an assumed name, so it’s not as if it’s
permanent. The hotel I booked us into is really for lovers only, it’s an
exclusive place where only those with a marriage license showing them to be
just married or their on their anniversary, my sign in, and with the added
advantage of no children allowed.” She smiled to this last. “It’ll be a
couples’ playground. Besides, the FBFC would never think to look for you there.”

“But you said…?” Randolph sputtered,
somewhat confused with his own feelings.

“And I meant it. I like you Randolph, and
my other half has fallen in love with you. And as we’re both wanted for murder,
whether you committed one or not, I’ve considered it and thought why not?
Besides, I promised my other self if she allowed me a stint in the military,
I’d settle down later and have a family like she wants.”

Randolph looked skyward and sought patience
of his own while he wished for more time to think things through as he tried to
explain himself better. “Jill, I like you a lot too, but you don’t want me—I
get antsy if I’m in one place too long.”

Jill gave Randolph a sideways look. “
Listen,
can’t you at least give this a try? Being a homebody
will be new for me as well. If it doesn't work out after a year we can go our
separate ways.”

“Okay, for the sake of argument suppose we
do? Where would we live? What would we do for credits to run a normal life? And
on top of the other adjustments, we’d have to sever all ties to everything we
know, have our looks readjusted, and become absolutely boring people like an
ordinary person, because the FBFC have long memories.”

“Well, I hadn’t thought out everything, of
course, but I was more or less considering going native in Africa. There are
still parts that use no technology, so we’d simply fall of the grid.”

“Uh huh, right, and what about me? Being
that totally unplugged IS a death sentence for me. My whole life revolves
around the information system.”

Jill shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. As I
said, I’m winging it. If after our stay in the honeymoon hotel we haven’t
decided on a direction, I have some hard credits to get us to a cheap motel
where we can shack up for a month.”

“I take it your partners did all the
planning,” Randolph remarked dryly.

“Not all of it,” Jill answered. “I’ve
always planned out the bigger aspects of a job, whether in the corps or at the
company. As for the smaller
details, that
I left up to
my lieutenant, or in your case, my partner.”

“Great…okay, say I do go along with this.
I’m not about to cut myself off from the world.” Allowed to think on this,
Randolph considered some other possibilities. “I, too, have a stash of
emergency credits and with it I could set up a shop and solve our money
problem. However, I’m still concerned about this marriage thing. Couldn’t we
post pone this till a later date?”

“Look, Randolph, we need a place to lay low
for a while and I haven’t had a vacation since the corps. I want to have some fun,
lie on a beach, and feel the spray of the ocean and the hot sun on my skin. I
want to dance the night away and not worry I could be called out to die the
next morning. But most of all, I want to feel what it’s like to be just a plain
simple woman. Could you not argue and give me this? I promise if things don’t
work out I’ll leave.”

As Randolph listened to Jill’s checked
emotions, he knew it had taken her total control to have admitted all that. But
a fake marriage to a murderess
rankled
Randolph’s code
of ethics and had him balking on the whole idea. Regardless of his feelings
though, her notion was right about the FBFC; they would never consider
searching in a private resort meant exclusively for romantic getaways.

The wedding chapel was a simple affair,
white steeple roof, plain cheap wood-looking plastic doors and colored windows
depicting worshipers at prayer. All this make-up was really meant for
youngsters in love with few credits or any common sense, poor folks trying to
get tax breaks or those like Randolph and Jill, who needed the license without
scrutiny or blood tests, which in their case would light up a few video
screens. They gave their
I
do’s and two hundred and
fifty credits, as was required, to the bored preacher so his volunteer staff could
print up a five-credit hard chip of proof. It wasn’t long till the two
newlyweds were flying over the Island of
Jewlopo
, a
small span of land out in the ocean that used to be one of the many islands of
Jamaica till it was bought out right by a resort hotel conglomerate moving out
of the over-populated and rundown gambling cities in Indies, a state now owned
by the remaining full-blooded Indian nations.