Chapter Sixteen
Confused, Alibi finds himself waking up on the couch to the sound of the Wand's alarm going off. A priority override call is ringing through to him despite his do not disturb message mode.
"Mediator Alibi Jones? This is Commander Gretsch down at SAIF HQ. We're gonna need you to come down to the garrison here," he informs Alibi.
An "Oh Shit!" list of horrible possibilities involving Katie runs through his mind like a freight train. The SAIF commander breaks the silence and unveils a possibility Alibi's mind hadn't created. "We've got the girl Katie we rescued yesterday in custody. She's charged with attempted murder. Could turn into murder. She said not to call you, so I did anyway. You probably should come down here."
"Thanks, Commander Gretsch, I'll see you soon," Alibi replies, and signs off. "Piccolo," he says to himself. "Has to be."
It is. When Alibi gets down to the SAIF garrison he finds Katie in custody and Piccolo in the infirmary recovering from four bullets in his gut. He visits Katie in her cell first.
"She plugged him with an old fashioned slug thrower, a thirty-eight," the trooper guiding him to the cell tells Alibi. "She must have bought it on the black market. They say he's probably not gonna last more than a couple more hours."
"I want to see him after I see Katie."
"Yessir. The visitor's room is up here on the left."
The trooper leads him into the room and then leaves to stand outside the door they came in through. The room contains only a table and two chairs. Alibi sits down at the table. There's another door on the other side of the room. The door opens and Katie is escorted in by another SAIF trooper.
"Katie," Alibi says as she's led into the room.
"Alibi," she replies in the same tone of voice. She stops in the doorway, surprising the SAIF trooper who nearly runs into her.
"Come sit down," Alibi says.
"I told them not to call you," she says.
"I know."
"I told you, you can't protect me," she says. "I can handle myself."
"Obviously," Alibi says with sarcasm, looking around at their surroundings for emphasis.
"I don't need your help."
"I see. Sit down?"
She reluctantly enters the room and sits down across from Alibi. The trooper follows her in, closes the door, and stands in front of it. Evidently he's staying.
"I'm sitting," she says petulantly.
"So you are," Alibi concedes. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Could we please have a more awkward conversation?!"
Alibi smiles.
"It's not the best of circumstances. Granted. But it is good to see you," he tells her.
"Sure," she says with feigned indifference. "Right."
"So... you finally shot Piccolo," he says in an even tone.
"I shot Piccolo," she repeats without emotion.
"You're not making this easy, are you?" Alibi says, exasperated.
"Nope. Why should I? I want you to leave me alone," she replies in a near monotone.
"Why are you being like this?" Alibi asks her.
"Like what?" she asks defensively.
"Shit," Alibi says, shaking his head and looking down at the table. He looks back up at Katie. "I know we found something... between us," he tells her. He's briefly distracted, looks up at the trooper, decides he doesn't care, looks back at Katie and continues, "Strong enough that you're running away from it full speed."
"What?" she acts surprised. "You think I'm scared or something?"
"You tell me," he says, turning it back on her. She looks away, studies the walls, the ceiling. She looks back at Alibi. He thinks she looks like she's about to cry. "I had to do it, Alibi. I can't get away from Laveillur unless I get Piccolo off my trail. And he wouldn't get off my trail unless he was dead, he told me," she says. "It was self defense."
"Yeah," Alibi says. "I'm not sure that defense is going to work for you."
"Is he dead?" she asks.
"Not yet," Alibi tells her, "But it looks like he will be soon. You plugged him pretty good."
"He's dying?"
"Yeah."
"Good," she says, but she's shaking.
"You're shaking," Alibi points out.
"Shut up."
"Are you really a killer, Katie?" he asks softly.
"I've never killed anyone before," she says in a quiet voice now filled with emotion. "I've never even fired a gun." She sucks in a gasp of air, a sob, and then breaks down, crying. "I won't... go... back there!"
"It's okay to be scared, Katie," Alibi tells her, trying to sound helpful.
"Fuck you," she rebukes him through her tears. "You're not sitting in a cell."
"Not now, but I've been there," he insists. "I've been in a cell."
"How'd you get out?" she asks.
"Busted out," he tells her.
"You broke out of jail?" she asks, incredulous.
"With some help. From Kit and," he stops. Piccolo really didn't help, no reason to mention him again. "And I couldn't have done it without them, uh, him."
"I don't know why you're doing this," she says.
"What? Doing what?" he asks her.
"Wasting your time here. With me," she says softly.
"I'm here 'cause I want to be here," he says. "And I'm going to get you out. Or at least back to Ceres."
"Why?"
"I care about you, Katie," Alibi says. "Shit. I might even love you."
"Shut up," she says, but less harshly. "I can't believe you just said that."
"You..." Alibi starts. He stops because he doesn't know what to say. He finds something. "You don't want to go into the penal system out here. I bet Laveillur has a lot of people in the system, don'tcha think?"
"I can't believe you said, 'bet' again," she manages to joke. Alibi smiles. "Oh," she responds. "Shit. You're probably right."
"Hadn't thought of that, huh?"
"No. Not really," she admits. "Shit."
"Let me see what I can do," Alibi says. "Maybe Aunt Anita can help."
"Aw, I don't want to drag..."
"You don't think she already knows about this?" Alibi asks her. "She knows EVERYTHING!"
"I think you give her too much credit," Katie says.
"I don't think you give her enough," he protests. "Let me talk to her for you."
"Damn," Katie says, giving in. "Okay. Talk to her. My fate is in your hands."
"Not too dramatic, huh?" Alibi jokes. He gets up from the table. "Let me see what I can do," he says. "I'll talk to her and see."
Katie stays seated. She looks up at Alibi.
"Thanks," she says. "Could you tell Anita I'm sorry I took her bag?" She looks down at the tabletop and mumbles, "I don't deserve this kind of help."
"Whatever," Alibi says. "You're getting it anyway. Stop feeling sorry for yourself."
"Nice," she cracks, looking up with the first hint of a smile in her eyes. "Why should I?"
"Cause I said so," Alibi says. He turns and leaves the visitation room.
It would be easier to help her if she wanted to be helped.
In the hallway, he sees the trooper who led him to the room.
"Can you take me to Piccolo?" he asks.
"Yes sir. Right this way,"
Alibi follows the trooper to the infirmary. Piccolo lies in a bed under the covers. Alibi notices the IV drip leads down into Piccolo's hand, and from there down into his right wrist.
"Morphine," Piccolo says to Alibi when he sees him looking at the IV line. "I just press this button and whoosh... all better!"
"How are you doing?" Alibi asks him.
"As if you give a shit!" Piccolo laughs, but stops short with a gurgling cough. When his coughing slows, he gulps in air to speak again. "That crazy bitch of yours shot me! I'm fucking dying! That's 'how'm I doin'!"
"She's not 'mine'," Alibi protests.
"See, though? You ain't arguing about the 'crazy' or the 'bitch' references are you?" Piccolo jokes and laughs and coughs again. "O
r the dying part either, huh?"
Alibi shakes his head.
"Shit. I'm sorry it came to this, Piccolo. Why couldn't you leave her alone?"
Alibi stands in silence at Piccolo's bedside.
Minutes pass by before Piccolo speaks again.
"You know he'll send somebody else," Piccolo says. "I'm replaceable. Laveillur will have Peterson put someone else on her trail soon enough. Won't be anything you can do to stop him."
"Who? Anton? There are APBs out for him already," Alibi argues.
"Anton's just muscle. Nah," Piccolo coughs. "It's Pee..." he tries, but another series of coughs begins. Alibi sees fresh flecks of blood hit the blanket over Piccolo's chest.
Piccolo has a hard time stopping the cough. When he finally does, he looks horrible. His eyes meet Alibi's.
Can almost see the life leaking out of him.
Piccolo speaks, his voice now a soft rasp.
"Someone will pick up where I left off. Maybe Peterson himself, if you're really unlucky," he grins at his own attempt at humor. "Laveillur will get her back. She's his property."
"She's not his property," Alibi says, growing angry at the man, and angry at himself for the sympathy he's been feeling towards him..
"Mark my words," Piccolo rasps. "My, cough, dying fucking words."
Piccolo is finally as good as his word. His eyes close. The life support unit begins beeping frantically. Alibi backs away from the bed as medical technicians stream into the room. They surround the body on the bed and make one last attempt to revive him. They're not successful. As Alibi watches, Piccolo dies.
He leaves the side of the dead man for the main desk of the garrison to call Anita and let her know what's going on.
Anita agrees to vouch for Katie. With her seal of approval, the SAIF garrison commander agrees to release Katie into Alibi's custody. He signs a legal agreement to take her back to Ceres Central. She'll then be in Anita's custody as she awaits her trial for murder.
Katie is silent as she's remanded into Alibi's custody. She doesn't say a word as they head to his ship. She maintains her silence as Alibi pilots the ship up off of Cat's Eye to fly back to Ceres. Once clear of the planet, Alibi preps the cruiser for Transpace. Katie finally talks to him.
"I wish you'd forget about me and let me be," she says. "Leave me alone."
"I want to help you. I'm not doing this because I have to. I want to," he tells her. "I like you Katie."
I might even love you.
"You shouldn't," she says.
"Can't help it, I do," he tells her.
"You hardly know me," she argues.
"In some ways that's true. In other ways, I feel like I've known you forever."
"God," she exclaims. "You're a hopeless romantic, Alibi."
"Get ready for Transpace," he says. He triggers the Transpace Drive and they flash into the Solar System. "We've got a couple hours into Ceres," Alibi says to Katie. "The asteroids are heavy around here right now."
Katie gets out of her chair and circles around to sit across Alibi's lap.
"Can you set it on autopilot?" she asks with a suggestive smile.
"It'll take longer," he tells her, looking up past her breasts, now right in his face.
"I'm okay with that. We can spend some more time getting to know each other better," she teases.
"Sounds good to me," he agrees.
They entangle as the autopilot picks their way through the careening rocks around Ceres. Their entanglement carries them off of the bridge and back to a stateroom where the next two hours fly by.
The proximity alert for Ceres Central wakes Alibi up from a brief post-coital nap. He hops up out of the bunk and wraps a sheet around him so he can bolt to the bridge.
Okay, so I'm falling in love with a murderer. Not good.
Anita downplays Katie's return. She tries not to overwhelm the girl and treats her with more emotional distance after the recent ruthless behavior. There's no big welcome back dinner. Instead, Anita has a pizza delivered.
Anita, Alibi and Katie spend a quiet night eating slices.
Alibi and Katie end up sleeping together again. It seems right to Alibi, natural, even. He wakes up early in the morning and looks over at the sleeping girl next to him. He laughs at himself.
Couldn't help double checking to be sure Katie's still there.
He gets up out of bed ready to take on the world, although there's nothing on his immediate schedule. It will be a day or two before he has another assignment.
Anita, Alibi and Katie eat breakfast together. When no one wants to talk about Katie's kidnapping and misadventures, talk inevitably turns to recent events.
"What do the Tek'Tah have on us?" Alibi asks Anita.
"Why do you think they have something on us?" she asks.
"Well," Alibi considers his words carefully, unsure of whether he's talking to his Aunt or the Former Head of the Solar Alliance. "We're letting them abduct people."
"We're not 'letting them'. They're not doing it in SAIF space," Anita argues.
"But if we – if humans – can't venture beyond human space without getting picked off or kidnapped... that's worthless," Alibi insists. "If we can't leave our own territory without fearing for our lives, what good is that? We have no respect – and we're stuck inside of human space as surely as when we were quarantined by the Eldred. You fought against that! The Tek'Tah ARE a problem," Alibi insists. "They can't just take people like they did Miss Kay. Or Katie."
"Fucking Tek'Tah," Katie says softly. She goes back to eating.
"I think you're right," Anita admits. "The Tek'Tah have reached beyond their limits."
"Then why isn't the Solar Alliance doing anything?" Alibi presses.
"It is being pursued through diplomatic channels," Anita says, trying to alleviate Alibi's concerns. Alibi is not reassured.
"That sounds like governmental BS," he tells her. "The Tek'Tah don't seem to be very good at listening. How can you have diplomacy when one side doesn't engage?"
"There are back channels and things that go on outside of the public view, as you well know," Anita admonishes him. "We have contacts. They are listening."
"I'm not encouraged," Alibi says.
Anita deliberately changes the subject.
"Have you heard anything from that Dakhur friend of yours? What was his name... Kit?" she asks.
"Nothing since he took off for Dakhur," Alibi says. "He has my Wand code. Said he'll get in touch, so I figure I'll hear from him sooner or later."
"I heard from Krish yesterday," Anita tells Alibi. "None of the Eldred bodies tested as recent," she informs him. "But there was something strange about Masakov's body," Anita says. "He said he wanted to talk to you about it."
"Something strange?" Alibi says, grabbing on to the only good news she's reported.
"Something to do with tachyon particles? Some sort of time thing?" Anita tries to explain further, but she isn't sure she understood exactly what Krish was talking about.
Alibi calls Krish, bringing up the com at the table.
"Hello, this is Doctor Krishnavarta."
"Krish? What's going on?"
"Hello, Alibi!"
"Hey... Aunt Anita said something weird showed up with Masakov?"
"The autopsy report came back. Strange energy readings from Masakov's body. Tachyons – temporal or chronal energy – all over it," Krish explains.
"So, uh... what does that mean?" Alibi wants to know.
"This means that the body was bathed in particles whose properties we really don't understand," Krish tells him. "We don't really know for certain what tachyons do, but they seem to move through time. If someone could find a way to harness them, perhaps they themselves could move through time. That's one possibility. We still know so little about tachyon physics, we can't tell what Masakov was using them for. But he had to be using them. His body is soaking in the particles."
"Weird, right?" Alibi says.
"Well, yes. Weir
d," Krish agrees. "But we don't know what it means. Yet."
"Okay."
"Did you see him disappear or anything inside that machine?" Krish asks.
"Disappear?" Alibi asks, surprised by the question. "No. But he was surrounded by a force field of some kind. Maybe he used those particles to create his force field?"
"Not likely," Krish disagrees. "But then again, we just don't know enough about tachyons..." Krish trails off. Alibi takes the opportunity to change the subject.
"Krish? None of the Eldred you tested were recent kills, Aunt Anita says. Is that right?" Alibi wants to hear it from Krish himself.
"No Alibi, I'm afraid they were not recent. Some of the ones that looked, ah, well, 'fresh' on the planetoid were still over twenty three years old," Krish explains.
"Damn."
"Don't look so disappointed, Alibi," Anita says. "The good news is, this means one of the Ancient Enemy hasn't returned," she says optimistically
"And never mind my footage, my evidence," Alibi says.
"Footage isn't proof. It can be altered. The Tek'Tah would argue against us too easily. We need actual proof – hard physical evidence, Alibi. I'm sorry."
"My testimony as a witness wouldn't be any good? And Katie's? And Kit's?"
"Well," Anita considers, "Kit's might be worth something. But anything you two said would be suspect. You're human."
"I would like to go back to that planetoid," Krish says.
"What?" Anita asks, disbelieving.
"Really?" Alibi asks, excited at the prospect of another chance to find evidence.
"Out of the question," Anita says quickly to quash their enthusiasm. "I can't line up SAIF ships for another run out there. Already used up that favor. Besides, now that rock is off limits to both sides."
"That's good," Alibi says. "That means no one will be there."
"There's an automated orbital surveillance platform feeding footage and info to both sides simultaneously," Anita says. "Keeps everybody honest."
"The platform is not a problem," Krish says playfully. " Dell and I invented the prototype years ago. I update the design for the SAIF every so often."
"Krish, I hope you're not suggesting tampering with SAIF security equipment," Anita cautions.
"Maybe the ships were the problem last time," Alibi offers. "Maybe we attracted too much attention. One ship might be able to make a less attention getting visit. Especially with Doctor Krish's help!"
"I can be ready to go anytime," Krish says helpfully.
"No way!" Anita stands up from the table as she raises her voice. Her temper is starting to flare. "There is no way you're going back there! I can't allow it!"
"Can I come?" Katie asks.
Alibi and Anita answer in unison.
"No!"
"It's too dangerous," Alibi says.
"They aren't going anywhere!" Anita declares. "And you, young lady, have an appointment with security this morning! Today you get your anklet so you can stay out of jail and in my custody."
"Don't make Katie reconsider the arrangement," Alibi says under his breath. Katie hears him and giggles. He feels her foot curl up next to his leg as she plays a little footsie under the table.
"And Alibi," Anita says, turning to chastise him, "don't you have an assignment from M'Bekke waiting for you?"
Alibi gets up from the table.
"I do, I do. And what a great time to go check in with him!" Alibi says with mock happiness. "Bye Krish. Maybe some other time, huh?"
"Goodbye, Alibi," Krish says over the com. As Alibi leaves Anita's apartment for his own he overhears Krish trying one more time. "Won't you reconsider, Anita? We could find out..."
Alibi closes the door. He takes out his Wand as he walks down the hall. The Wanderer is a marvelous invention of the Project. Everyone calls it "The Wand" – it is kind of a thick, rectangular magic wand. Its ability to quickly transmit and receive information over interstellar distances is almost magical. Project scientists reverse engineered the Wand's communication tech from Eldred technology, presumably the work of the Ancient Enemy handed down over millennia. The Wanderer can tap into any convenient com stream and then punch out across space using a Transpace derived shortcut. Or so Alibi's been told.
Alibi makes his way into his apartment. Locking the door behind him, he uses his Wand to call M'Bekke, setting the Wand for secure transmission.
"Alibi? Good! Glad to hear from you," M'Bekke says when Alibi gets through to him. "I saved this next one just for you!"
"Can you save it a little longer, like a day or two? Or maybe give it to someone else?" Alibi asks.
"Why? What is going on?" he asks.
"I've got a little thing I have to take care of," Alibi says, trying not to tell him anything but trying not to lie to the man.
"A thing? Is this something with that girl? I heard about that. You made the news."
"I did? Great. Just fucking great," Alibi says.
"What is wrong?" M'Bekke asks.
"I'm just worried the wrong people saw that news," Alibi says. "They would have gotten word eventually. I was just hoping we'd have a little time before they found out. Shit," Alibi spits out the words. "Katie's got some kind of warlord after her. Claims she's his property."
"That is certainly wrong," M'Bekke says. "How does he get away with that?"
"He's outside of the Solar Alliance," Alibi tells him. "He's got his own world, not under anyone's jurisdiction. A pleasure planet or something like that. Guy's name is Laveillur. Seems to think he can make up his own rules."
"Ah. Laveillur. I have heard of him. He is a ruthless man, by all reports. Do be careful, Alibi," he says. "Whatever it is you are doing."
"Thank you M'Bekke," Alibi replies, and signs off. He left the Pope with the false impression that this was about Katie and Laveillur, but he never outright told him it was. Alibi calls up Krish's code on the Wand and makes another secure call.
"Alibi?" Krish answers.
"Can you really be ready to go anytime?" Alibi asks him.
"Anytime," Krish confirms.
"See you in about three hours?" Alibi says.
"Did Anita back down?" Krish asks him.
"What do you think?" Alibi answers with a question.
"I think? I hope you know what you're doing, Alibi!"
"Three hours. Alibi out."
Alibi heads down the hall. He rings the bell and opens Anita's apartment door. He strides into the living room.
"I just talked to M'Bekke. I'm off to Rigel Four," Alibi says, figuring both statements are true, although placing them together like that is deceptive.
"How long is the assignment for?" Anita asks.
"You know how assignments are. You never know how long they're going to take. Don't know how long I'll be gone." He heads straight for the door. "I'll check in when I have a better idea of how long this will take. Bye Aunt Anita! Bye Katie!" He wants to run but tries not to rush as he opens the door and heads out into the corridor.