Fish Swim in the Lake

Part 7.5 | On the water

"Fine," alphaDana said. She made her voice creaky and begrudging. "I'll vog for it and see if I can make a deal to have some delivered. That's probably what he meant. We'll leave your contact for later, if it's an emergency."

She wasn't sure if Colin could tell if she was vogging the net or not, so she did it anyhow. Besides, it was soothing to put her mind in a bath of information, trivia and garbage after the day's action. She had a small stack of mail; had it only been a few hours since she'd last checked? Most of it was junk. She considered sending mail Up There, just wildly pitching a record of the day's events to some general address, but she could not be sure of finding someone safe. Beyond that she could not be sure of being interpreted correctly; outright clips from the day's record would verify but take far too long to uplink.

She sent mail to a few of her local friends; she asked them to meet in person if they didn't hear from her in a week, and gave each partial access to her vlogger. It would take all of them together to invoke it; she trusted them, but not casually. It did assume that her vlogger was still operational, and neither destroyed (along, presumably, with her head) nor removed from her. Even if removed, though, it might be accessible from the net. She'd never tried to contact it from outside her head.

"Did you find anything?" the mentech said. "I'd hate to have to... Please don't make me call her." Now he looked genuinely distressed. Could she have been mistaken? A twist in the mirror, even in this expensive and ancient hotel, perhaps it was an ancient mirror and the glass had flowed.

If he had planted the fake phionine himself -- from Vas's reaction, there seemed no doubt that it was fake -- then perhaps, she thought, he had the genuine drug on his person. In his clothes.

She could only think of one way to find out.

She said, "I think he's asleep." She guided Colin from the bathroom to the bedroom.

She smiled at him.

Posted by gtaylor at May 24, 2002 09:14 AM