Ai-Ling’s side of the feed is still live. She moves the camera back so that only her face can be seen.
“Your orders, sir?”
I tell myself; Brain, be logical. You just heard her mention Boise. This is no coincidence.
But the part of me that is controlled by forces far more primal than logic takes over. It is centered around the head with absolutely no brain. Hence my name for it, Un-brain:
And my unbrain says, Yeah. Tell yourself it’s all about business. But the real reason is standing at full attention right here between your thighs.
With considerable effort, I drag myself back to my senses and unmute the microphones in the conference room. “Enhanced security, Ai-Ling,”
“She’ll have to sign an agreement for that, sir.”
“I know.”
The woman’s voice comes from off camera. “No way. I’m not signing anything.”
Between a strong desire to know our visitor better and the logic that having her around could only add another complication to my already complicated life, I make a desperate effort to go with logic and say, “That makes it easy, Ai-Ling. Show her the curb.”
Another voice cuts in from off camera. A voice of calm command. “I’ll take care of this.” Ai-Ling shifts her phone so that we in the conference room can see the tall trim black woman as she joins the security group downstairs. Still dressed in her leathers, my head of security will have parked her bike in one of the other buildings in the complex.
“I would have been here sooner, but I came in over Cornell. Some kid had run the stop sign at the top of the hill and got himself T-Boned by a pickup. I stopped to help but was monitoring things on comms in the meantime.
“Glad you made it in okay,” I say. “Let me know if there are any problems.”
“There won’t be,” she says, unzipping and stripping off her leather jacket revealing her well-toned physique in a gray sleeveless shirt with the letters U S N across the front. She looks like a dancer but, in the ring, she moves like smoke and thunder. Gone in a poof when you make your move and bringing the thunder from someplace she wasn’t a milli second before.
After I ring off with Diane, I push an icon on my phone. A menu displays labeled Security and I select ‘SE’ and then ‘C0’. The wall across from me changes to display the large security area one floor below us where we had arrived from the club a few hours earlier. There are menu items along the bottom of the screen labeled 0 through 8. The zero is highlighted. In the upper right corner of the screen are the words Sec Bay Bldg E. After waiting for some minutes, a huge security agent drives a tiny car into the garage. He looks uncomfortable—and ridiculous—stuffed behind the wheel. The woman from the club walks in behind the car between the male and female security team that were guarding her earlier. Diane and Ai-Ling bring up the rear.
Once the car is parked in sub bay 2 on the left of the screen, people swarm it with electronic sniffers and dogs. Pressing the zero on my phone again displays the entire security bay. Our guest is in sub bay one, across from the car, so I click the number one. The woman has her eyes squeezed shut against the blinding lights pointed at her from the ceiling and walls. Security staff are all wearing dark sunglasses. Sliding my finger up the screen of the phone brings up the audio.
“You’re kidding,” the woman says, her voice defiant. “No way. Forget it. I’m outta here.” After a long silence where no one in the security bay moves or utters a sound, the woman’s voice is far more uncertain when she asks, “I can leave, right?”
“Of course,” Diane replies, her tone flat. “Eventually. First, we would like to ask you a few questions such as how you know of this place. Then we would have to consider the possibility you have seen certain things while walking in here.”
“But I haven’t seen anything but a big empty garage!” the woman protests.
“And,” Diane continues with no change in her tone, “may I remind you; you did sign the agreement before you even got this far.”
“You didn’t leave me any choice. It’s cold and wet out there and . . . there are other reasons I can’t discuss with anyone but your boss. And, so, maybe I didn’t read the fine print. But, even if I had, I wouldn’t have taken a thing like that as anything more than a scare tactic.”
“Your mistake,” Diane continues as if the woman had not said anything, “We will also hold you until we have done a thorough background check. Ultimately, however, yes, you will be free to go.”
“And what am I supposed to do while you run your security check?” asks the woman. “Sit in a four by eight cell?”
“The tent we will set up for you here in one of the sub-bays be more comfortable than the Multnomah County Jail,” Diane replies. “You will be confined to that tent until we are satisfied that you pose no threat.”
The brain part of me thinks, A tent? Nice touch, Diane.
“A tent?” The woman practically screams the word.
“Yes.” Diane doesn’t waste words.
The woman’s face slowly changes from one of defiance to one of resignation. As she reaches behind her to unzip the dress that she was wearing earlier at the club, she says, “This is totally unnecessary.” Then, raising her head toward the ceiling as if speaking to an audience and with her eyes still squeezed tight, she says, “I hope you perverts enjoy the show.”
Down the hall from where I sit, in the security room for this building, personnel will be analyzing every move the woman makes, every stitch of clothing, every inch of her body. Everything is being scanned and recorded in high resolution for later human and computer analysis.
When she shimmies and drops the dress to the floor, Gordon gasps and my throat tightens at the thin bandage on her right thigh. The gauze, held down with tape, is not up to the task and bloody pus has oozed through and encrusted on the surface. She takes off a black lace bra and then, taking off a pair of matching lace panties holds them out in front of her before dropping them to the floor. “Was it good for you, too, Mister Madison?”
Ai-Ling pulls on a sterile glove and makes a point of finishing with a loud snap.
“Oh no!” The woman’s eyes fly open, but slam shut again because of the bright lights. “No way! You’re all fucking crazy!”
“Such language,” says Gordon. This from the guy whose swear jar will hold enough cash to send his daughters through the most expensive universities in the world several times over.
Sliding my finger down the screen of my phone, the sound is muted, and I switch the screen back to all the business data that had been there before. Something tells me the young woman’s language is about to get a lot worse.
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