Chapter 10

Sythro Laboratories particle accelerator and Research Facility-Livermore, WestHem

Amanda Hesper walked purposefully through the halls of the research facility at 1400 that afternoon, her uncomfortable high-heeled shoes clacking on the sterile tile floor. As was the case with any female professional in these ultra-conservative times, she was wearing a considerable amount of clothing-much more than necessary for mere comfort in the environment of the workplace. A dark colored, long-sleeve button-up blouse covered her upper body and a black, shin-length skirt covered most of her legs. Under the blouse was a tightly constraining brassiere, and under the skirt was a thick, knee-length slip and a pair of non-transparent nylons. Pinned to her blouse was a red and white security badge containing her photograph. The colors indicated the highest level and allowed almost unrestricted access to the facility.

She passed through two security checkpoints, clearing them after a retinal scan, a fingerprint exam, and a voiceprint. At last she came to the electric door that guarded the office of Thomas Hentman, the Sythro director for the project she had been working on the last six years of her life. She put her finger on the door panel, buzzing him, and a second later his voice issued from the speaker, inviting her in. He was expecting her. She herself had requested the meeting two hours earlier.

The door slid open and she entered. It was a modest office considering the importance of the occupant but still much nicer than the one she inhabited on the other side of the building. He had a desk of genuine oak wood, and plush carpeting covered the floor. Potted plants were sitting here and there and a large tropical aquarium was set up in the corner. There were no windows in the office due to security concerns and the interior was checked for listening devices at least twice a day by a security team. Hentman himself, dressed in a white shirt and a conservative tie, sat behind the desk. He looked up as she entered.

"Good day, Amanda," he greeted, his voice amicable enough. He waved to a chair before the desk. "Have a seat."

"Thank you, Mr. Hentman," she said, addressing him as propriety dictated she should. She walked over and sat down, adjusting herself in a ladylike manner, so that nothing more than the top of her ankle showed from beneath her skirt. To accidentally flash one's knee was considered quite slutty.

"What I can do for you?" he asked, once she was settled.

"Well, sir," she said. "It's about the trip out to the site." The site, of course, meant the Lemondrop reactor that was being assembled in far space, out beyond Pluto, where its activation would-probably-not cause any damage to an inhabited area or draw a nearby planet from its orbit. A critical step in the construction was fast approaching and Amanda and her team had been ordered to oversee it in person.

"What about the trip out to the site?" he asked. "Are you having trouble arranging for care of your residence? If that's the case we can..."

"No, sir," she said. "There is no problem with that. It's just that... well... I thought maybe I could sit this particular trip out."

"Sit this trip out?" Hentman asked, as if he wasn't quite sure he was hearing her correctly.

"Yes, sir. You see, my final research into the project side effects is coming to a culmination and I really think I would be more useful here, finalizing the details and running sims. My team is well briefed in the component assembly process for the sub-reactor and I'm quite sure they can oversee the assembly without me."

Hentman's expression darkened, his face becoming almost a scowl. "You want to stay here on Earth while your assistants oversee the sub-reactor assembly?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "I think that would be for the best."

"Amanda..." he shook his head a little. "That's the most insane thing I've ever heard you say. You know you can't stay here and let your team handle this. You know that. We don't dare allow communications out of the site. If your team runs into a problem, they won't be able to contact you for guidance. Your presence out there is absolutely mandatory."

Amanda blushed, casting her eyes downward, already cursing herself for having asked. Yes, she did know her presence out there was mandatory. So why had she come in here and asked to be relieved of the trip? Hadn't she known this was how the meeting would go? "I'm sorry, sir," she said meekly. "You're right, of course."

"Amanda," he said. "I have to be honest with you. Your asking me this disturbs me. I can't believe you could even consider such a thing. You've worked for six years on the engineering and construction of this reactor. You know what the stakes are. The entire future of WestHem may very well depend on our success here. Why in God's name are you coming in here and asking me this now?"

Yes, she had just made a big mistake, a mistake that could potentially draw a lot of unwanted attention to her. She thought fast, her sharp mind-which, after all, was used to deception-quickly groping for an explanation for her strange behavior that would sound reasonable. "I'm sorry, sir," she said again. "I think I'm having an attack of nerves now that we're getting close to assembly. Please forget I even asked."

Hentman looked at her, at the strain on her face. He knew Amanda was one of the most brilliant physicists in the solar system, her reputation unimpeachable. But for all her intelligence and skill, she was still a woman. Every WestHem male knew that the female half of his species could be notoriously moody and unstable at times. Weren't they always portrayed as such in the popular media? And she was in charge of what was perhaps the most critical portion of the project. Her plea of stress did not seem all that unlikely. No, it really didn't at all. "Are you going to be okay, Amanda?" he asked gently, switching over to the protective father-figure roll almost without realizing it.

"Yes, sir," she said. "Honestly, I apologize. I've been working quite a bit lately and I'm so tired all the time, and... well... I guess I just lost it for a little bit there. I don't know what I was thinking. All of a sudden those side effect studies just seemed to be the most important thing in the solar system, and... well... you know?"

"I know," he said soothingly, his hand reaching out to pat hers across the desk. "We've all been working hard lately and we're all getting nervous as we start to get closer to final assembly. But don't worry. I have the greatest confidence in you and your team. Everything will work just as it was designed to."

"Yes, sir."

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" he said. "Get a little rest at home. Do something unrelated to physics or reactors. I think you need it and I am quite sure you've earned it."

"I don't want to do that, sir," she said in mock protest, although that was exactly what she wanted to do.

"I insist," Hentman told her. "You go home and relax for the rest of the day and I'll just forget this little conversation we had, okay?"

"Yes, sir," she said, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea after all."

Twenty minutes later, she had cleared the various security checkpoints and was climbing aboard a public transit train. She found a seat near the front, away from the thugs and criminals who were gathered in the rear. She stared out the window as they began to move, heading east toward the Altamont Pass, the gateway to the Central Valley and her home. She saw nothing of the urban scenery as it flashed by, her mind still cursing her for the stupidity she had just displayed to her boss.

What in the name of God was I thinking? she demanded of herself. Did I really think Hentman was going to let me stay here on Earth? Did I really? Her request had seemed so reasonable to her before she'd made it. Now, after the humiliation of having it rejected, she saw it for what it was, an act of irrational madness, a decision based on emotions she knew should be kept deeply buried. And she knew what was churning these buried emotions to the surface, compelling her to act in a self-destructive manner. It was love. That great, irrational force that had destroyed more lives and careers than all of mankind's wars combined, she would venture. She was thoroughly and completely in love with her neighbor, Julie Dittmeyer, and could not bear the thought of spending eight months in the blackness of space without seeing or talking to her.

She had first seen Julie six months before, when she'd been touring the house next door prior to purchasing it. Amanda had long before come to grips with her sexuality and had felt no guilt when her breath caught in her throat at that first sight, when she felt a small gush of moisture flood her sex. Julie was a beautiful creature, even dressed in the frumpy clothes women were required to don in these repressive times. Amanda spent the next month hoping the glorious vision she'd spotted would be the one who finally purchased the long vacant house. Her wish came true. Little more than six weeks after that first glimpse, Julie was moving in and setting up residence.

For the first two months the infatuation had remained on a strictly visual level. Julie had introduced herself-as neighbors do-only a few short days after moving in, telling Amanda she was an accountant for Agricorp, divorced, but other than that, very little information. Amanda's appreciation for her new neighbor's beauty had taken a sharp step upward at that first meeting but it remained no more than a physical attraction pretty much like what she felt for almost every woman of beauty she met in her day to day life. True romantic feelings did not come until later, as they got to know each other better, and even then, they crept up on her so slowly, so gradually, that she hadn't really noticed them for what they were. Until today, until she'd made a complete ass out of herself and risked her very security clearance.

She sighed wistfully now, thinking of how she had vowed she would never let herself fall in love with a woman again, not after what had happened with Lorraine all those years before, not after the near disaster and near ruination that relationship had brought to her life, not after the humiliation of what she had to undergo to keep it a secret. She had worked very hard since that horrible day to keep herself distant from attractive women, to keep herself distant from everyone. And now, despite all of her precautions, despite all of her vows to the contrary, she had let herself fall head over heels yet again, she had let herself become emotionally involved. She wasn't just lusting after Julie. She was in love with her. In love!

And the worst part was, she wasn't even sure if Julie felt the same about her. She had no idea if the woman she wanted so badly even thought of her as anything other than a good friend, a platonic friend. They had never been intimate with each other, nor had Julie ever given her anything more than a slight vibe that she might even be inclined to be intimate with the same sex. There had been no overt innuendo, nor any subtle innuendo. Not a single time had Julie spoken a phrase or even a word that could be construed as sexually suggestive in any way. But at the same time, there was something there. Somehow, some way, she had the distinct feeling that Julie would be receptive to... well... a more personal kind of friendship. Was it instinct telling her this? Or was it wishful thinking? She didn't know, couldn't tell. The only other time she had felt this way had been in the early days of her relationship with Lorraine, before they had become physically active with each other. Her instinct had been right then. Was it right now? Did she even want it to be right now?

"I am so confused," she mumbled to herself.

She arrived home an hour later, after walking from the tram station. It was the middle of the workday and the neighborhood was quiet. As she walked up to her front door she cast a glance at Julie's house. It was dark and appeared quite empty, of course. Julie didn't generally get home from work until almost 1900. Amanda knew this because she often peered out her window, anxiously awaiting the appearance of her friend walking up the street from the tram station. Oh, how she had lusted after that vision, first in physical infatuation, and then, as Julie came over to visit more and as they became closer and closer, with hopeless love. Even now, the very sight of Julie's empty house stirred deep feelings in the pit of her stomach. Julie sleeps in there, her mind told her. She undresses and showers and walks around naked in there!

"Stop it," she told herself, dragging her eyes away. The image of her beautiful friend sleeping in the nude-as she had once confessed she routinely did-and rubbing soap all over her breasts in the shower, was almost more than she could bear. She walked up to her door and put her fingerprint on the pad, opening the series of locks that guarded her domicile. The door swung open and she nearly dove inside, as if trying to outrun the erotic visions.

Meanwhile, twenty kilometers away, in Lodi, Julie Dittmeyer was lying on the bed in the back room of a two-bedroom apartment located in the middle of a sprawling, moderate-income complex. This was the residence of William Scramm, another member of the Martian intelligence services who had been on assignment on Earth for the better part of a Martian year now. Scramm was covered as a janitor at the Sythro Lab complex and it was he who ran most of the Martian agents that had been infiltrated into that particular facility. Every workday, from 0800 to 1830 hours, Julie holed up in his apartment in order to reinforce the belief of the neighbors in her primary neighborhood and Amanda herself that she was going to work at the Agricorp building in downtown Sacramento.

It was the most boring part of her assignment, without a doubt. There was little to do here day after day except browse through the Earthling Internet sites and watch Earthling entertainment or news shows. That generally kept her interested for the first thirty minutes or so. After that, she was left with nothing but her thoughts.

She was naked as she lay there, the prudish business outfit she had worn that morning when she left her house now hanging neatly on a hanger in the closet. She had already masturbated herself to orgasm twice this long day and was now doing nothing more than chain smoking cigarettes and watching the clock for it to be time to go home. Laura, the sacrifices she put up with for her planet. About the worse torture you could offer to a person of Martian heritage was boredom. That was one of the reasons Martian prisons were considered such miserable places. And then there was this awful growth of pubic hair. Before leaving Ingram for her assignment, the hair-growing gene in her pubic region had been turned back on, allowing the regeneration of her bush. WestHem women were forbidden from shaving themselves there.

"Email alert," the voice of her PC suddenly intoned, breaking the silence.

Julie raised her eyebrows a bit and then sat up. Although false records of past emails from a variety of real and imaginary people had been programmed into her server's memory banks as a means of reinforcing her cover, the only people who ever actually emailed her were Amanda or Ron Sampson up on the Ingram. In the case of Amanda it was usually to respond to an email Julie had herself sent or to discuss some aspect of plans they might have made. In the case of Ron-who naturally did not email directly since it might seem a bit odd to the WestHem government that one of their citizens was receiving messages from a ship they didn't even know was in orbit around their planet-it would be to discuss some operational aspect of the mission or to pass on information that had been discovered. No matter what the case was now, it would at least kill a few minutes of the torturous nothing she was enduring.

She picked up her PC and told it to access the mail server. A moment later the face of a non-descript man appeared in holographic form above the screen. "Hello, Miss Dittmeyer," he said. "My name is John Jenkins and I represent the Third Bank of WestHem credit department, the provider of your recent home loan. We have been looking at your account and notice you have not asked for a home equity line of credit. We are prepared to offer you such a line in the amount of 600,000 dollars at our favorable customer rate of only 13.8%. This money can be used for anything from..."

"Stop message and purge," she interrupted. Instantly the non-descript man disappeared. An unsolicited advertisement email-one of the scourges of WestHem civilization. The average WestHem citizen over the age of 12 years of age received more than fifteen such messages daily, despite the almost universal condemnation of them and despite their clinically proven infectiveness as an advertising medium. But this message held some interest for Julie because such messages were usually filtered from her account by special Martian software. The only time one was allowed to get through was to send a message for her to call Ingram.

She stood up and pulled a robe from the closet, loosely covering her nudity. She then took her PC and walked through the apartment, going into Scramm's bedroom. Scramm, like men the solar system over, was quite typical in his aversion to neatness. The bed was unmade and several days' worth of laundry littered the floor. She gave a little grunt of disgust and sat down on the bed, reaching over to open the blinds covering the window.

The apartment had been carefully chosen so it would enjoy an unobstructed view to the southwest. In that direction, sixty kilometers away, Mount TrueWest-which had been known as Mount Diablo before the corporate name placement craze began in the early 21st century-poked its summit up over the horizon. Atop Mount TrueWest-the highest point in the bay area-a complex array of communications equipment was mounted, including WestHem military dishes.

"Computer," Julie told her PC, "switch to alpha mode."

"Voice authorization confirmed," the PC replied. "Speak authorization code."

She rattled off a six-digit code, thus satisfying the security requirement. Her PC looked exactly like a standard WestHem model but had actually been manufactured by the Martian intelligence services and thus contained some special hardware and software. One such thing was a communications laser system.

"Contact Sampson," Julie told the PC, after making sure it was setting on the table and facing Mount TrueWest.

"Contacting," it replied. "Don't touch or move until communication is complete."

With that the PC quickly oriented itself using WestHem GPS data. It then sent an outbound signal to a military laser reception dish atop Mount TrueWest, the laser a tight, undetectable half-millimeter in width. It struck the dish only six centimeters off center and sent the hail into the WestHem military system, utilizing a side band that Martian intelligence had long since installed for their own use. The signal was transmitted via fiber optic cable to an encryption center in San Francisco, and from there it was sent via microwave dish to another communications array atop Mount Agricorp-which had once been known as Mount Shasta. There, a transmitter encoded the signal yet again and sent it to a military satellite in geosynchronous orbit above South America. Normal WestHem software should have sent the signal to Denver-the capital of WestHem-at this point, but instead it was sent out in another direction-towards what the WestHem intelligence services would have assumed was empty space in low orbit. The space was not currently empty however. Ingram floated there, its own sensor arrays searching for just such a signal. Seven tenths of a second after Julie's words, the hail request was appearing on Ron Sampson's terminal in the intelligence room of Ingram. He returned it, establishing the communications link, but the return signal did not follow the same route. Instead, it went to a civilian communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean and sent the signal down to a standard cellular communications system in the San Francisco Bay area. There the signal found Julie's PC four fifths of a second later, although the signal was encrypted and the fact it was sent would never register in the TrueWest Communication Corporation tracking computer.

Sampson's hologram appeared above the PC, his face cordial, though obviously showing the strain of so long in zero gravity. "How you doing down there, Sweet Cunt?" he asked her. "Getting a lot of Earthling dick?"

"Wouldn't want it," she returned. "You know how Earthlings are in the fucking department? About as good as they are at keeping their communications secure."

He chuckled. "Good analogy," he told her. "I trust Scramm has been taking care of your needs though?"

"Oh yes," she said. "He hoses me down about once a week or so, time permitting. If it wasn't for a little taste of some good old-fashioned Martian cock once in a while, I think I might've gone insane down here by now. So anyway, what's the haps? You didn't call me to talk about my sex life, did you?"

"As rankin' as I find the subject, no, I didn't. I went through your weekly report yesterday and was a bit dismayed to hear your target is going to be out in deep space for eight months or more. That might set our timetable back a bit."

"No shit," she replied. "She just told me that last week. She's pretty vague about just what she's going to be doing out there or even where she's going. All she tells me is that it's for a project she is working on. I haven't pushed her too hard, other than to let her know I'm saddened she's leaving."

"Well, it seems she's a bit saddened she is leaving as well. We've just developed some pretty rankin' information up here about her."

"Yeah? Lay it on me."

"Well, in the first place, she left work early today, at around 1430."

"Hmmm, a break in the routine all right," Julie agreed. She didn't need to ask how Sampson had come up with that information. It was the intelligence team's job to track everything her target was doing by any means available to them, especially now that Julie was in contact with her and in potential danger if things took a wrong turn. Sampson would know what time Amanda had left work by the computer trail she left behind her. She would have used her bank account to pay for her ride on the tram. The transportation corporation computer would also make a notation of her presence on a particular train at a particular time, as well as any transfers she might make. It was virtually impossible to travel anywhere or enter any building in WestHem without some computer, somewhere, making note of it.

"She's probably home now," Sampson said. "But that's not the interesting part. She apparently had a meeting with her boss-Thomas Hentman-today, just before she left. Of course we don't have any listening devices or anything else in Hentman's office, nor do we dare tap into the Sythro email or messaging server-but it seems that Hentman is good friends with another manager at the facility-a man by the name of Clinton Barbason. Barbason is in charge of the anti-matter production department for the Lemondrop project. Shortly after we received record of Amanda boarding the transit train, Hentman used his personal computer account to send an email to Barbason's personal computer. The transcript of the message was somewhat contemptuous and sexist in nature, alluding to the underlying biology and weakness of the female sex. What he describes is Amanda coming into his office and requesting to be relieved of the upcoming trip to 'the site' because she was suffering from 'nerves.'"

"Oh Laura," Julie said, grimacing. "Did she really do that?"

"We have no way of confirming this information," he told her. "But analysis tends to sway in favor of its truthfulness. We can't imagine why he would say such a thing to his friend if it wasn't true."

"Yeah, that makes sense," she agreed.

"She left the office shortly after that, leading us to believe she was told to go home, hopefully just for the day. About twenty minutes after she got there she used one of her false identities to access a lesbian pornography site. I don't think I have to tell you what kind of pictures she was looking at."

"No, I don't think you do," Julie said. Ever since she and Amada had become friendly with each other there had been a sharp increase in the amount of time Amanda spent perusing such illegal databases. And the pictures she downloaded most often-and seemed to spend the greatest amount of time examining-were those that portrayed petite, dark brunettes with medium breasts and athletic legs. In other words, women who closely resembled what Julie herself looked like. Back checks of her previous downloads confirmed she had never shown a particular preference for this type of woman until meeting Julie.

"So what we have here is a case of good news and bad news. The good news is that she seems to be falling in love with you, just as we'd hoped. The bad news is that it's starting to make her do stupid things-to override the caution she's always had on the subject of her sexuality."

"If she keeps behaving this way," Julie said, "she'll be removed from the project and I won't be able to get any details from her."

"That is our consensus up here," Sampson told her. "Laura knows you're the one in control of the situation and any decisions will rest with you. That's only common sense. But we're wondering if it's not time to maybe nudge things along a little faster."

"You mean make a move on her."

"Fuckin' aye. She would still go to the Lemondrop site for eight months but if you have more than just a platonic relationship working by the time she leaves she would more than likely have her caution restored. You've been working on her for several months now. Do you think she would react favorably to an escalation in your relationship now?"

Julie smiled, thinking of the way she'd teased and tortured the poor Earthling over the past month or so with the "accidental" glimpses of her body, or the seemingly inadvertent rubs of her breasts across her back when in close quarters. "I think she might," she answered. "I've given her more than a few openings to try something with me but so far she hasn't taken the bait. She's probably scared of rejection, which is understandable given her situation and the prevailing attitude here. I've held back from being the aggressor so far because I'm afraid of blowing the contact if she's not quite ready. You understand that is a risk I would run if I try something?"

"Fuckin' aye," he said. "And again, I'll leave the ultimate decision up to you. You know her much better than we do. All we do is track her by computer. You actually talk to her, know what makes her tick, as it were. She does seem to be in love with you. Do you think it's riskier to send her off for eight months with that love unrealized or to risk rejection by trying to push it?"

"A rankin' tough call to make," she said reflectively.

"That's why we pay you the big credits," he reminded her.

"Yeah, I guess it is." She thought quickly for a second, knowing she could not keep the communication link up for very long. In the end, she decided to go with good old gut instinct. "I'll give it a shot."

He nodded. "I thought maybe you would."

"And maybe," she said, her mind continuing to race along, to analyze, "this setback might be the perfect opportunity to slide in the back door-as it were."

Amanda was lying on her bed when the buzzing sound from her computer terminal broke the silence, informing her of an incoming com. She had been crying, her mind troubled and racked with guilt over the idiotic move she'd made today and over the lustful, dangerous indulgence in illegal pornography that had been her response to it. When she looked up at the bedroom terminal and saw that Julie was the person attempting to talk to her, she almost didn't answer it. After all, Julie was the source of all the conflicting feelings she had been having these last months, was the catalyst for the disastrous meeting she had called today. She knew the best thing for her to do was to break all communication with her friend, to attempt to break the hold she had on her before anything else happened.

But just seeing her name there on the identification screen, just seeing the arrangement of letters in that specific order, tugged harshly on her heart, sent wanting coursing through her body. Despite what had happened she could not keep from seeing her face, from hearing her voice. She quickly got up and walked over to the desk, the same desk where she had masturbated to a furious orgasm while drooling over digital images of Julie look-alikes not two hours before. She sat down in the chair, took a deep breath, and told the computer to answer.

A holograph of Julie's face appeared before the screen, the hair tied back in its usual ponytail, her eyes sparkling. "Hey, Mandy," she said, smiling. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine," she said softly. "How are you, Julie?"

"It's been kind of a long day. I just got home and thought I'd com you to see what you're doing." Her eyes focused more intently. "Are you okay?"