Julio paused, and Howard tossed the small plastic box at him. Julio caught it, started to open it.
“Not my birthday.
What’s the occasion?” Howard didn’t say anything, just kept grinning.
When Julio got the box open, his eyes went wide.
“Oh, shit. No!” “Oh, shit, yes. And we’re skipping right over shave tail and going to right to first.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant Fernandez.” “You can’t do this, John. Gunny’ll never let me live it down.” “Already done, Julio. Paperwork is signed, sealed, and delivered.” “John–” “More money, which you need with a new baby. Plus now you don’t have to take orders from your wife. Well, no more than any of the rest of us have to take orders from our wives.” Julio’s wife was Joanna Winthrop, and a lieutenant in Net Force herself, although she was on extended leave at the moment.
“But… but… who can you get to replace me?” “Nobody will be able to replace you, Julio. But there are some new recruits who can manage a top’s chores if you show them how it is done.” Julio shook his head.
“I’ll be damned.” “No doubt, but at least you can tell the devil you earned your money for part of your career before you got the free ride.” Julio nodded slowly, then looked up.
“All right. Thank you, sir.” “Don’t look so sour, Julio. Welcome to the officer-and a-gentleman club. Or at least the officer part of it.” “Yeah, right.” Under the bitching, Howard was pretty sure that Julio was pleased. They’d been working together for more than twenty years, first in the regular army, then in Net Force.
Julio had known about Howard’s promotion to general before Howard himself had, and there were times when the two of them were practically telepathic. Julio didn’t have the educational background of a lot of officers, but when a situation went hot, he was the man you wanted covering your back. He had another few years before he was going to think about retiring, and the higher his grade, the bigger his pension.
He was a married man with a baby; he needed it.
“Go take your nap, Lieutenant.” “Yes, sir.” Washington, D.c.
Normally, at seven in the morning. Jay Gridley would be at Net Force HQ, plugged into his computer and making war on the bad guys.
He’d be hunting lube foots who’d dumped the latest ugly virus into the world’s e-mail, or searching for clues to some computer fraud, or trying to track down some sicko posting kiddie porn on church web sites. Now and then, there’d be a big shark cruising the virtual waters of the net, like the mad Russian or the crazy Georgia redneck or the British genius who’d been using a quantum computer to try and restore England’s lost glory, though those were relatively rare. But a few months ago. Jay had finally met his on-line guru who had been helping him recover from a stroke, an old Tibetan monk named Sojan Rinpoche. And as it turned out, the old man was actually a young and beautiful woman.
Saji, she liked to be called, and one thing had led to another, which had led to another, which had led to her lying beside him in the bed.
Now, there were days when he called in sick and never left that bed except to pee.
He giggled.
“What is funny?” Saji asked.
He smiled at her.
“Y. Me. Th. U.” “What time is it?” “Who cares?” “No, you don’t, goat-boy. I’m teaching an on-line class this morning.” “You don’t have to get up to do that. You can lie right there.” She laughed.
“I don’t think so. I remember the last time I tried to do that. Somebody kept distracting me.” “You’re a master Buddhist, you’re supposed to be able to meditate and tune out little distractions.” “Yeah, but the problem was, the little distraction kept getting bigger every time I looked at it.” They both laughed.
“Work is dead. I could stay home. It’s totally boring there these days. Seriously.” “Seriously,” she said, “no, you can’t.” “You are a party pooper.” “Life is full of suffering, haven’t you learned that yet?” Jay rolled out of the bed, scratched his chest, and padded toward the bathroom.
“You’ll be sorry when I’m gone. You’ll finish your class and be all alone in this big old condo, and you’ll wish I was here.” “I’ll try to be brave.” “You want to shower?” “Yes. After you leave.” “You don’t Crust me. I’m hurt.” “I can see that. Go on. I’ll cook supper when you get home.” “What, roots and twigs?” “You said you liked my cooking.” “That was before you threw me out into the cold,” he said.
“It’s supposed to hit seventy-two today,” she said.
“Not so cold.” “I was speaking metaphorically.” “Go and shower. Jay.” He grinned at her. Boy, did he like having her around.
Really. A lot. More than anything he could think of. He headed for the shower and considered for the hundredth time the proposition he’d been working on in his head for the last couple of weeks. Was it possible to make it permanent?
Legally permanent? As in getting married?
Would she go for it?
There was only one way to find out, but he was hesitant.
What if she said no?
That would be… bad.
The hot water began to steam up the bathroom.
He called out to Saji: “Hey–?” “No,” she cut him off.
“Definitely not.” But he was rinsing the shampoo from his hair when the shower door slid open and Saji followed the draft of cool air in, gloriously naked and grinning.
“Why, Sojan Rinpoche! What are you doing here?” “I came to wash your back is all.” “Uh-huh.” “Turn around.” “Yes, ma’am.” He turned around. She reached out, and her soapy hand began rubbing him.
However, the hand was definitely not stroking his back, nope, no sir, no indeedy!
He laughed, and she laughed with him.
Yep, he was going to be late to work, no two ways about it.
“Hey, I think you missed a spot there.” “I didn’t miss it. I was ignoring it.
Easy to do, it’s so small.” “Ooh. You are a cruel woman. Cruel.” “Suffer, big daddy, suffer….”
MaUbu, California Robert Drayne looked up from his mixing bench in front of the big picture window as a pair of young women in thong bikinis jogged past on the hard-packed wet sand, just at the water line. No rain today, the sky was clear, the Pacific Ocean a nice blue and fairly calm, and the two honeys were blond and tan and bouncy. Not bad for a Monday.
He grinned. He loved this town.
He looked back at the bench. He had a batch ready to time and encapsulate, only six hits, and where the hell was Tad? You didn’t want to start the clock ticking and then have the stuff sit on the table for an hour or two.
That might cut things a little close. Even with a master such as himself, the timing could get a little tricky, could be an hour either way.
As if in response, the door alarm ching-chinged as somebody disarmed it and entered the house.
That had better be Tad…. Drayne dumped a bit of catalyst into the white compound, stirred in the fine red powder so that the resulting mix started turning pale pink. Drayne worked by sight and smell, he kept adding catalyst until the right shade was achieved–a shade somewhere between titty and bubble gum –and that sharp, cherry-and-almond odor drifted up and told him it was about right, too.
Ah, there we go…. “About fucking time,” Drayne said. There was no real anger in his voice, just making a comment was all.
“Traffic is bad on the Coast Highway,” Tad said by way of explanation.
“The tourists are all slowing down to look at the house coming down in the mud slide. How’s it coming?” “Catalyst mixed, as of thirty seconds ago.” Tad looked at his watch.
Drayne grabbed one of the big purple gel caps, a special run he’d had made three years ago by a guy in Mexico who was, unfortunately, no longer among the living. Well, what the hell, he had more than a thousand caps left.
Worry about it when he ran out.
He opened the cap and scooped up the mix with both halves, expertly judging how much so that he could put the cap together again without overfilling it..he looked up and smiled. This was the easy part. The real work was in the creation and mixing of the various components.
That had to be done in a lab, and the current one was an RV parked in a dinky burg on the edge of the Mojave Desert, a couple of hours away from here. By tomorrow, it would be parked a hundred miles away, the old retired couple driving it looking about as illegal and dangerous as a bowl of prunes.