Feedback is the Sin of My Choice.
lisby@earthlink.net

XI

5:30 P.M., Strategic Information Operations Center, Operations II, fifth floor

It was 10:30:16 in London. Tina Hill could see the big numbers through the
enormous glass window--a partition, nearly--separating Ops2 from Ops1. In
there, against the far wall, a row of digital clocks marked the hour,
minute, second, half-second, minute particle--whatever--in the four
domestic zones and Greenwich Mean Time. The clocks were always accurate to
the micromoment. Some anal retentive asshole got paid a GS 20's salary to
make it so.
Ops1. The Big Boys' playroom. Last April, when the Murrah building blew,
she'd had been detailed there, taking orders for fast food, keeping the
coffee coming, the donuts and Mrs. Fields cookies. The big room had been
frenzied then, but now the large-screen TVs and rows of CRTs were black.
The way-cool electronic map of the world was switched off. Overheads set at
quarter-power twilight.
10:31:00 in London. 1:31:00 in Los Angeles.
4:17:22 in Baltimore.
Tina giggled. Poked at the wilty lettuce in her cafeteria salad. Ate a few
carrot shreds drowned in ranch dressing. The teletype machine outside
Ops2's glass door spit pages--she saw it but couldn't hear its ticking.
Couldn't hear anything but her own noises and the white roar of climate
control.
Alone.
She'd waved away the night intelligence research analysts--two geeks pale
from living in reverse--told them to go eat an extra-long 'breakfast.'
She'd say they were in the john or something. Log in the lonely-heart
teletypes from FBI Botswana; answer calls from tipsters squealing on their
neighbors. Hell, she'd been doing it all day--might as well keep talking to
paranoid patriots until Andy came back. Fuck knew nobody was calling about
Fox Mulder.
Tina's patent-leather Mary Janes slipped off with an easy push at each
heel, and she dug her toes into the heavy pile of blue carpet. Elation was
short-lived: a buzzer's sudden sting made her slap palms over her ears. She
bent her long neck awkwardly to look toward the hallway, focusing through
various thicknesses of bullet-proof glass. Recognized the blurred autumn
colors of Dana Scully.
Carpet fibers massaged her arches as Hill pushed through the clear door,
moved past the galley, and hit the red button that unlocked the security
door to the narrow "airlock." At the other end, beyond the second glass
portal, Dana held a carry-out bag from Le Bon Pain.
Hill's copper palm smacked another red button. Gestured inward when the
electronic lock released. "Welcome to my TARDIS. You must be my new
companion." Dana pushed past her with a determined shoulder and an
impatient mouth. Tina turned, followed. Swung her thick black braid around
to thud on a broad back. "'Doctor Who'?....Hmmm, guess I got into it after
we broke up."
Dana went through the door to Ops2 and let it shut in Tina's face. The Big
woman bumped it open with her elbow. She watched Dana toss her purse on the
conference table, drop her sweetly curved ass onto an upholstered chair.
Unfold the flap of her paper sac.
Hill paused by the workstation to retrieve her molded foam dinner platter
and sat it down beside the little woman's grande cup. Sugar packets tore
and dumped crystals into coffee with the tiniest rush of sound.
"Didn't know we had a dinner date, Mutt." Hill sat and picked up her spork
to stab a cherry tomato, feeling the cheap plastic bend at the skin's
resistance. Then the stressed sphere ruptured and seeds and jelly oozed
from the fissure.
Dana's voice was waxpaper thin. "Looks like murder-in-the-first."
"Au contraire, dear Watson." Tina's almond eyes lifted, passed over
silk-cloaked breasts and up a naked creme throat to the face of her former
bunkmate at Quantico. "I dare say this was a mercy killing--perhaps even
justifiable homicide."
Dana's nostrils flared. "So....Anything new?"
"Well...."
"Nothing at all?"
"'Unsolved Mysteries' phoned in a decent viewer tip on the Consuelo missing
child case." Hill tried to smile as Dana ripped her egg bagel into
bite-sized bits. "Gee. I hope you never do my autopsy."
A long, tight silence, then a pop as Tina snapped off a piece of her
platter and finger-punted the flake with a red fingernail. "I'm sorry,
Mutt. So's Andy." No words, but Dana's orange bob jiggled as she shrugged,
as she clicked the lock of her private heart. "Listen, Vanderbilt's
Immortals aren't going to let you down--"
"I like your 'Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves' look, Tina. But I think Cher
wore a dimmer shade of powderblue eye shadow back in 'Sixty-nine." Great.
Wonderful. The Smart Ass Maneuver.
"Could be." Tina's nod was careful. "I didn't have any archeological
samples for comparison. But, hey, this slightly smeared deal you've got
going rocks the house. Subtle, yet conveys the message 'woman at the
breach.'"
Silence again.
"I don't like this shit, Jeff," Dana finally muttered.
"You think I do? But it's what we've got since you came from Quantico. And
we were so psyched about being in the same building with the same AD."
"I know."
Hill watched the small woman yank a vinyl make-up bag out of her purse and
unzip it. Excavated her compact while Tina pushed the wilted salad aside.
"I thought you were going to get cleaned up at home, Mutt."
"I got too busy on-line."
"Find anything?"
The redhead pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Maybe....Listen, Tina, I
need a big favor. It's a favor I don't deserve."
Tina huffed as she crossed her legs, calf on knee. "You're right--you don't."
The pretty mouth stayed a small, slack 'O' until Hill quirked ochre lips.
Saw ruby rise on Dana's cheeks and her gaze fled to the limited reflection
of the compact mirror. Couldn't tell what Dana saw there--maybe a shiny
nose or a poppy seed between front teeth. Or maybe truth. "Tina, I'm sorry.
You were my best friend and I got scared and I'm sorry. You're right. You
don't have--"
Hill's heart thudded. "I don't want to hear you say I can refuse and walk
away. You know my feelings for you haven't changed. You own me. So, just go
on and tell me what Uncle Jeffie can do for you."
"Tina." Watched Dana take a deep breath. "Tina, I need a substitute
partner."
Hill nodded. "And I would be the lucky winner of the Spookster stand-in
contest? I've got the height, but there's something missing in my
trousers."
Lips pinched again. Someday her mouth was gonna freeze that way. "I don't
need to get laid. I just need someone to help me think."
"Help you think?" Hill leaned forward in her chair, tips of elbows poking
thighs. "I don't have a two-twenty IQ."
"His IQ is two hundred." Dana's chin sank to her chest; eyes hooded. "You
heard it direct from Mrs. Spooky. Go on and impress your friends in the
bullpen."
"Don't worry. I will. Now listen, Mutt, you're no Special Ed kid. Why do
you need my help?"
"Because I'm tired. I need someone to cover me so I can go down--otherwise,
I won't go down at all, not while he's gone." Her eyes rose--clouded but
honest. "Skinner almost shut the search down today. Maybe he'll let it go
through the end of tomorrow. But after that, Skinner can't justify all
these agents and resources to find Mulder. He's gone AWOL too many times
before. They're ready to let him hang with his own rope."
"But he's an FBI agent. He's been abducted, for chrissake. We don't abandon
our own."
Amusement spread across schooled emptiness. "Jeffie, it warms my heart to
hear you say that, but I guarantee this search will be called off again
soon. I've got to be ready to go on without Vanderbilt's Immortals."
Another slow breath. "He has a photographic memory. Is that common
knowledge, too?"
Tina nodded. "And a cock the approximate size of Florida."
She was glad when Dana smiled and shook her head. "Jesus, Jeff."
"So, he's sucked your brain--that's what you're telling me?"
"Well, maybe enabled my gray matter to atrophy. To get him back, I need to
be on top of things."
Tina crossed her arms on her chest. "You told me on the phone that you'd
found something at his apartment." "Was it--for lack of a better
word--spooky?"
"I don't want to say more until I get Skinner's okay on tapping you. But I
had to know you'd agree first because I don't want anyone else. Skinner
gives me you or nobody."
"I'll do it, Dana. No question. Do you want me to come along and tell the
AD myself?"
"No. Let me talk to him on my own."
"Okay," Hill's tongue moistened her lips. "Go see the man, one-Adam-twelve."
"Thanks." Soft. Sad. "And I really am sorry."
"You know, I saw a great sale over at Tyson's Corner--a new place that
carries eights through twenties. When this is all over let's go get
shit-faced on kiwi-raspberry margaritas and buy the same outfits and see
some crappy romance, too--like we used to do."
Dana's frown might have been a smile. "We really screwed with Tom Colton's
mind in those mauve lace slip dresses, huh?"
"You mean at the Eighty-nine-eleven reunion? 'Win Every Battle, Every
Time.'"
"'Win Every New Year's Every Time.'"
"Oh man." Hill sighed. "We fucking won that one."
--Lisby
lisby@earthlink.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mistress of the Dark Unconscious
Mermaid of the Lunar Sea
Daughter of the Great Enchantress
Sister to the boy in me..." Rush, "Animate"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------