When my vision cleared, I saw nothing but sand and blue sky, with a few scrubby, bush-like things here and there for variety. A blazing sun beat down on us. "Really, Wizzit?" I heard Shelley mutter. "The freakin' Sahara Desert?"
"No, not the Sahara. The Mojave Desert. Good spot. Nobody for miles around. No place to hide. Good undisclosed location for questioning."
I slammed my blaster angrily back into its holster. "Damn! Just one more second and I would have had her."
"No, you wouldn't." I looked up sharply at Shelley, and she went on calmly, "Your blaster wouldn't have hurt her. No Enclave hardware, remember?"
"Oh," I said, mollified. "Right." Our blasters are specially tuned to affect only Enclave enhancements and Enclave hardware. It's a safety mechanism designed to reduce the probability of harming property or civilians. Gotta have it; it's one of Wizzit's rules. One of Shelley's too, probably. Lily Lee, if that was even her real name, had had no enhancements, no Enclave hardware. My shot wouldn't have even tickled her.
With a sigh, I reached out a hand to help Shelley up. "Take us home, Wizzit," she said, sounding as discouraged as I felt.
When my vision cleared this time, we were in HQ. I have no idea where the place is actually located; the only way anyone ever gets there is if Wizzit teleports them. The nearest window showed the same desert landscape that Shelley and I had just been part of, but that didn't mean anything. It could just as easily have shown a Kansas wheatfield or the banks of the Danube; I had seen both before. Simple computer-screen trickery, although it was pretty good. The perspective even changed as you got closer or farther from the "window".
"Keep your force shields on, kids," chirped Wizzit. "You're both hurt. Initiating healing coma in 3 . . ."
"Hang on, Wizzit. Geez, let us comfortable first!"
"Hanging on . . ." For an alien, Wizzit sure was good at conveying human feelings through voice alone. In this case, I believe it was called "petulance."
Shelley looked at me and rolled her eyes. She had turned off the blurring as soon as we had arrived, so I could see her features clearly. Brown eyes, dark blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, strong but nice-looking face that was starting to show bruises from Lily's kicks. She rolled one shoulder experimentally, the one that had gotten hit by the blaster shot, and winced. My head and chest were throbbing from my blaster hits. I would probably have been fine by morning, but Wizzit insists on keeping us in tip-top shape at all times. Even minor hits require healing, and it's no use arguing with him.
Shelley walked into the lounge, the room with the most comfortable easy chairs, and flopped down into one. When I had done likewise, she said, "All right, Wizzit. Go ahead."
"A healthy Prime is a happy Prime," Wizzit declared, sounding altogether too cheerful. "Initiating healing comas."
Wizzit calls it a coma, but it's not, not really. It's just a mode of the force shield designed to initiate rapid healing of the human body. It does make you feel kind of dopey, though, like it's siesta time after a heavy lunch, and you've just taken a double shot of cold medicine. Lying down with your eyes closed generally helps it pass faster.
"Who else is home?" Shelley asked after a couple of minutes. She sounded half-asleep, which is how I felt.
"Just the commander. He is reviewing the videos from your most recent action and will debrief soonest. Mike and Padma are due back in . . . eighty-seven minutes."
I hadn't met Padma yet. She was our latest recruit, which meant that she would be the new Prime Violet. Lucky me, I wouldn't be the low man on the totem pole any more.
If Mike was the one who was bringing her to HQ, though, then I hoped for her sake that she wasn't too pretty. From what I had been told, he could be a real bastard when it came to women; it wasn't beyond him to use his status as Prime Orange to try to get a pretty new Prime Violet into bed with him. I had heard some ugly rumors about him and Robin before she died, back when she was Prime Blue. That was when I was the new Prime Violet, though, and didn't know much, so who knew how true they were.
Shelley was snoring softly now. At least I think she was; I was probably doing a bit of snoring myself. I let my thoughts drift lazily, and most of them wound up centering on the minder that we had nearly caught.
Maybe it was an effect of the healing coma or feelings aroused by the thought of Robin in bed with Mike, but for some reason I found myself thinking how attractive Lily Lee had been. I pictured her face, with those Asian eyes of hers. In my drowsy state, they seemed extraordinarily beautiful -- exotic, but in a comforting, familiar way, like family.
And it seemed to me that she had done an awful good job of filling out the clothes she'd been wearing. Nice curves, both above and below. I idly pictured her in the standard black Enclave-issued jumpsuit that minders usually wore, only this one was skin-tight, molding itself to every curve and crevice of her body. Mmm, nice. Very nice. She was standing in front of me in her skin-tight jumpsuit with that scared, pleading look on her face, her arms around my neck, pressing herself against me . . .
And then the coma lifted. Just like that, the force shield turned off, my eyes snapped open, and I was completely alert. A glance at the clock told me I'd been out for a little over fifteen minutes.
My injuries must have been worse than Shelley's, because she was already on her feet, standing beside my easy chair and looking down at me. "That must have been quite some dream you were having," she commented coolly.
I gulped. Shelley's a big gal -- not fat, but tall and muscular, maybe six-two or six-three -- and when she stands over you, she looms. "Quite some dream indeed," she said, raising her eyebrows, "to judge by your . . . physical reaction." Remembering my daydream, I had an awful thought, and I started to look down, but then she went on, "I was referring, of course, to the silly grin you had on your face."
I looked up at her and saw that she was grinning from ear to ear. Suddenly she burst out laughing. "Come on, Trev," she said, "let's go see my dad." With that, she turned and started walking toward the commander's office.
I scrambled out of the easy chair and ran to catch up with her. "Hey, come on, Shelley, don't tell me you don't ever think about . . ."
"Of course I do," she called back. "Everybody does. You're just more fun to tease about it than most." She looked at me coyly over her shoulder. "Besides, you're kind of cute when you're asleep and . . . dreaming." Then she winked at me.
That brought me up short. Was she flirting with me? I mean, I could understand it coming from Trina -- she was a natural-born flirt -- but Shelley Windham? Prime Red? I chuckled to myself and shook my head. Of course it didn't mean anything; I knew that. Shelley was way out of my league. Still, the thought kept another silly grin on my face that whole walk down the long corridor to the commander's office.
Chapter 4