Port Casper

Chapter Eleven

The door slid open and they stepped into the apartment.

"Donner, Grace, welcome!" the doorway chimed. "Chanho, Raj, welcome!" As Tim trotted through, there was a pause and the biopad went dark for a moment before glowing green again. "Trouncer, Tim, welcome!" The door closed automatically behind them.

"Grace, this apartment is bigger than mine! And look at this view!" Raj flopped on the sofa of the fully furnished suite. "You nailed a mango contract."

Tim flashed an image of a woman holding her finger up to her lips in a 'shhh' position. Raj sobered. He removed a cube from his coat and began walking around the room, waving the device. Tim went the other way and began sniffing.

Grace walked the apartment silently. It was a three bedroom with a kitchen and two bathrooms, a large sunken common room, and a patio balcony with a transparent deck. A set of controls inside the patio doors managed the deck opacity and the guard wall for privacy. She looked up and saw through the bottom of the upstairs patio. A hairy pair of legs hung out from over a chair. She saw the underside of a table and potted plants.

"All clear," Raj said, standing in the open patio doorway. "No listeners, tappers, blurpers, or whistlers. It's clean."

A chime sounded through the audio system, and the common room display turned on. The screen showed a view of the hallway outside Grace's apartment. Three delivery men with several cases were in the hall. Behind them was Randgarten.

"Come in?" Grace said. Tim retreated, darting into a spare bedroom. The front door clicked and slid open. The men entered. Raj directed them to place the cases in the common room.

"Ms. Donner," Randgarten said, hesitating outside, "do you like the place? Is there anything you need?"

"Yes, the place is wonderful, thank you, and no, I don't need anything." Grace motioned for him to enter, but Randgarten held up a hand.

"Thank you, Ms. Donner, but I'm not going to bother you while you unpack. I'm going to the office to finish paperwork. Talk to the apartment for any tutorials you need. Call me if you need anything."

He disappeared down the hall. The workers followed after him and the door closed.

Raj opened the cases and removed gadgets and components of all kinds. Most were black plastic or metal, some with wires and fibers dangling like spilled entrails. He opened his safecase and revealed a cadre of tools and sensors that would make any engineer giddy. Tim trotted back out of the bedroom and stood near Raj.

Grace knew better than to interrupt Raj at work. She wouldn't get anything out of him until he finished assembling whatever it was.

She went further into the apartment and found the master bedroom. It was spacious, nearly the size of the living room, with a huge bed in the center. One wall was entirely glass, giving her nearly as grand a view as her balcony. Another wall offered floor-to-ceiling storage.

She dumped the contents of her duffel on the bed: a spare jumper, stockings, socks, underwear, a manual reload kit, accelerants and various other chemicals in plastic containers, a pair of hot-knuckles, a Bowie knife in a sheath, an EMP multi-device kit, and a half-eaten bag of trail rations.

In the bathroom, toiletry products stood in a row behind the sink, compliments of the Frawley. After checking on Raj again, she shrugged and decided to try the shower.

Grace let the hot water from the nozzle batter her head and neck for a full fifteen minutes. Every detail of her journey ran through her mind: from student to outcast to well-heeled, gainfully employed, and well-armed protector in a matter of days. She felt lucky, though she knew it took more than blind chance to graduate from Cloister Eleven a year early.