Mind Over Ship

They’re crazier than any mentar I’ve ever met.

Bait and Switch

As the Starke limo pulled into the station adjoining the John P. Walters National Detention Center, Mary put the finishing touches to her costume. She wore a baggy pantsuit of a medicine-pink color that few, if any, evangelines would dream of wearing. But it was exactly what she’d asked Lyra to make for her.

The limo came to a whispery stop on the brightly lit platform. Clouds of media bees awaited her on the other side of the gull-wing door. She let them get a good look at her through the glass, then put on her medicine-pink hat and lowered its veil to completely cover her face. Leaving the car, she strode purposefully to the NDC entrance tunnel. The flying mechs mobbed her along the way, but they were constrained to halt at the tunnel entrance. Mary continued on through to the scanway and into Wait Here Hall.

Wait Here Hall was a hushed, cavernous chamber where thousands of visitors languished on hard, plastic benches. This being Mary’s eighteenth (and final!) visit, she headed by habit to the FDO gate, but Lyra said, Mary, you’re going the wrong way. Mary changed course to Central Processing, where NO ENTRY barriers blocked the entrance. She looked around for a vacant seat. On the nearest benches, people watched her with jurylike curiosity. She turned her back to them.

“How much longer?”

Patience, Mary. He’s almost finished.

“Are Cyndee and Larry here yet?”

They’re a few minutes out.

Mary paced while she waited. After half an hour or so, a russ walked through the holo barrier, but it wasn’t Fred. The russ wore a guard uniform, and he did a double take when he saw Mary. Despite her veil and baggy pink clothes, he made her for an evangeline, but he continued on without acknowledging her.

A little while later, Lyra said, Now, Mary, and Mary hurried to the barrier. The russ who emerged wore an olive-drab jumpsuit and carried a duffel bag under his arm. He halted momentarily, as though stunned by the size and noise and dangers of such a public space. Then he noticed Mary standing next to the barrier and he looked even more stunned. When Mary went over to him, he opened his arms, dropping the duffel, and without a word gave her a tentative hug. Then he picked up his bag and set off across the hall.

Mary hastened to follow. They walked to the exit tunnel, and when they were hidden from view of both the hall and the tube station, Fred halted and drew her to him. He lifted the veil and looked into her startled face.

“Mary, what is all this?”

“Hello, Fred. Nice to see you too.”

“Why are you in this — disguise? Are you ashamed of being with me?”

“Oh, Fred, you have it so wrong. I’m in costume because it’s really bad out there. I have some help coming. We should wait here for them.”

Fred pursed his lips and tried to make sense of it. “We’ll be fine,” he said. He took her arm and escorted her down the tunnel. When they rounded a bend, he stopped short. In the tube station beyond the tunnel exit was a living rampart of tiny flying mechs — witness bees, public bees, media bees — several times more than when Mary had arrived. They swirled and churned in competition for cam position, and the drone of their wings surged when Fred came into view.

Fred’s jaw dropped. Grimly he said, “I’ll go first. Do you know which direction the trains are? I’ll go first, and you follow close.”

“No, Fred!” Mary said, pulling him back. “Look at me!” He let her pull him back around the bend. “I have everything under control. Will you please let me take the lead for once? Please?”

Fred looked confused. “What do you want of me, Mary?”

A proper hello, she thought. A kiss would be nice. But instead she said, “We have a diversion, Fred.”

“We who?”

Right on cue, Larry approached them from the Wait Here end of the tunnel, and although he wasn’t wearing a uniform, Fred made him for a guard. “Can I help you, brother?” Fred snapped. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t live here anymore.”

The russ hesitated, and Mary said, “Fred, this is Larry. He’s a friend. He’s Cyndee’s husband. You remember Cyndee; she was at the clinic with me.”

Fred nodded curtly to the other man. “Glad to meet you, Londenstane,” Larry said and held out his hand. When Fred didn’t respond in kind, Larry handed him a tote bag. “The plan is for you to put this on.”

Fred opened the bag and saw what looked like a security uniform. He snapped the bag shut and said, “In case you’re ignorant, brother, it’s a felony to impersonate an officer. I’m not even out of this hellhole yet, and you want me to commit a felony?”

“Whoa, pard. Take a look.” Larry took the tote bag and pulled the suit out. It wasn’t a guard’s jumpsuit after all, but a security uniform for a private house hold. It resembled an NDC guard’s uniform only in its cut and color.

Fred looked at it, sighed, and began to unfasten his own jumpsuit, but Larry told him the uniform was roomy enough to pull over the clothes he had on. Fred dressed quickly, and Larry looked him over and said, “Such a deal.”

The remark set Fred off again. “You obviously don’t want to be doing this, brother. So, what gives? How much is my wife paying you?”

Larry made a familiar russ grin of forbearance. “You get three strikes, brother, because of the extremity of your situation, and that there was strike two. For your information, I volunteered for this op. I’m as worried about the clone fatigue as the next guy, but I’m also married to a ’leen, and what you and Mary and Georgine and the others did for the whole lot of ’em is nothing short of miraculous. Cyndee is pulling her own weight for the first time since we’ve been married. And that’s done wonders for her, for the both of us. I think you can appreciate what I mean. You could say I owe you, Londenstane, so get over your freaking self.”

The two russes regarded each other soberly, and Larry said, “Are we good now, Londenstane? There’s a visor cap in your utility pocket.” Larry was already wearing an olive-drab jumpsuit like the one that Fred had been released in and didn’t need to change.

Fred turned to Mary and said, “What now?” Another woman had joined them, a tall free-ranger. Fred looked from one woman to the other and saw that it wasn’t Mary in the pink outfit anymore, but a strange evangeline, Cyndee presumably.

The taller woman next to her wore expensive-looking town togs and veiled hat. She modeled her outfit for him and said, “Are we ready, driver?” It was Mary!

Cyndee, thoroughly pink, lowered her own veil and took Larry’s arm. They’d never fool the nitwork, but they didn’t need to.

“I’m ready,” Fred said, “but I think this is crazy and unnecessary.”

They walked to the bend of the tunnel where Mary and Cyndee hugged each other, and Fred and Larry finally shook hands. “Best of luck, Londenstane,” Larry said, putting on a pair of mirrorshades. And then they were off, the false Fred and Mary, jogging down the tunnel, holding hands. When they reached the media maelstrom, they ducked their heads and charged into it shouting, “Desist, desist.” They veered left, toward the bead train platforms, and the whole cloud of mechs followed. All but a few stragglers.

“Let me go first,” Mary said and walked briskly to the entrance in her elevated shoes. “I have a private car in VIP parking.” When she entered the station, the remaining bees ignored her. Fred entered right behind her and followed her across the empty platform. They left the public area and entered the VIP platform where sleek cars waited on injection tracks, most of them guarded by private security russes, jerrys, and belindas. No one gave the aff or her bodyguard a second glance.

Mary and Fred stopped at one of the cars, a sleek, nano-black limo, a Marbech Tourister. Fred’s attention snagged on the small emblem emblazoned on its door — Starke Enterprises.

“It’s just a car, Fred,” Mary said, opening the gull wing. She tried to take his arm, but he wouldn’t be led any