Chapter 4

Before Sirtis-9 was able to implement the evacuation order and leave the third-grade galaxy in his rear-looking screen, his host body, Nancy Ho received unwelcome visitors from the homeland security department armed with search warrants signed with a signature stamp for routine investigations.

Fortunately, the bodies were no longer on the premises and Dixie was making sincere efforts to entertain the boys in black by prancing around the small apartment in her undies and high heels. The illegal alien pretended total lack of concern and kept her head and eyes down at all times. It was better to not make eye contact with the investigators because it was a well-known fact that the agency was in the habit of hiring a number of psychic operatives for field work of this nature on the edge of legality.

Most of the black-clad brigade was focused on Dixie’s rump much to Sirtis-9’s relief as he tried to organize a reasonable plan to shake off the poorly designed nets of the intergalactic police force in its infant stages. It was one of those situations that were discussed at great length in the training cycles but they never seemed to pin down a truly correct answer to every case. Sirtis-9 determined that each scenario was unique and that the operative’s judgment was usually the finally word in every case.

“I assure you, my dear Captain that I have no inkling about the current location of the Professor and have not seen him for almost a full week and a half. My roommate Dixie has never even met him and she has no idea what you are talking about.”

The young officer looked at Nancy with a skeptical glance that mirrored his lack of faith in her words of innocence.

“I am afraid that both you and Miss Dixie will have to accompany us back to the center for processing. We can’t let you out of our sight until we find out the status of Professor Frank Shafer PHD and make our report to central command.”

That sealed their doom in Sirtis-9’s mind and she might even have to get rid of Dixie as well just to tie up loose ends. It was protocol, but she had every hope to avoid any distasteful actions.

In lieu of permanent termination, she zapped them with the “sleeper” ray and was secure in the knowledge that they would be out in dreamland for the next sixteen hours and unable to activate any dragnet to scoop up their target during that period of time. It made her feel a lot better because her lack of field experience made such wet-work totally uninspiring and left her with an emotional conflict that confused her thinking more than she would admit to any administrator.

The follow-up report of the mission indicated that the primary reason for lack of aggressive action to “tie-up” loose ends was to avoid unwanted investigation of Sirtis-9’s presence on the backward world and open up a floodgate of suspicious questions.

At first, Nancy thought it might be possible to take Dixie with her to the back-up alternate safe house, but her sense of caution and deep-grained common sense dismissed that as an option.

She hit all the personnel on the raiding party with the forgetfulness implant node and decided Dixie didn’t really need one because she tended to forget what had happened only five minutes in the past.

Nancy briskly walked down the steep hill in full control of her high heels and her swaying hips. Her bright red dress was memorable but witnesses could not remember what she actually looked like for the very life of them.

“I would say ... average height!”

“That’s right ... average nose!”

They could not remember how she walked or for that matter if she had a limp or a way that she held her head. All they could be certain of was the fact she was female or, at least, was dressed like one and it just naturally stood to reason to draw that conclusion.

The withdrawal phase would have to be delayed for a few days or even a couple of weeks until the hue and cry of the hunt had quieted down to a gentle flurry of activity of no consequence. In the meanwhile, Nancy would just find another pole dancing job in another similar place of ill repute and keep her pretty head down and out of sight of the scurrying authorities convinced something was not quite right.

Miss Dixie was as cute as a button trying her level best to answer the questions they fired at her from every direction possible. Finally, even their best interrogator, the strange one from California, slammed his fist into the wall and loudly shouted,

“This one is either the best agent I have ever seen trained in advanced counter-interrogation methods or she was born at a time when brains were not being passed out to beautiful women.”

Dixie looked up at the handsome, dark-skinned agent and licked her lips again to show him how passionate she felt at that moment and how much she wanted to make him satisfied with her performance. He had the most adorable neck muscles and she wanted nothing more than to let him kiss her wherever he had an urge to explore.