GEN13 - Version 2.0 (5 page)

Still, through it all, Sturmer had never forgotten her roots. She never forgot how hard the road had been, or how much help she’d needed from others in order to get over the hurdles. That was why she devoted so much of her free time to working as a volunteer mentor for teenage girls, doing what she could to help them succeed in school and their future goals. She’d lost count of just how many girls like Taleisha she’d helped over the years, but many of them still filled her mailbox to bursting with holiday cards on a regular basis. She cherished the relationships she had built with these girls, and while she didn’t know where all of them were today, she could still see every single one of their young faces in her mind’s eye.

Sturmer grabbed her purse and a leather-bound notebook from her desk as she walked to the door. The aide was already consulting her own notes to bring Sturmer up to speed. “Today’s agenda leads off with a revised proposal for HR#22-571.” She handed Sturmer a thick file of papers and followed her into the hall, past the uniformed guards who were stationed at regular intervals. “Which one is that?” Sturmer asked.

“The allocations for satellite-guided missile development.”

Sturmer made a face. “That nonsense again?”

“The contractor is one of Representative Zwiren’s constituents.”

“Oh, right.” Sturmer flipped through the hefty document as she walked. “Does this revision make any more sense than the last one?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s not much of a surprise, I suppose. Well, let’s see what sort of case the old windbag makes this time.” “And then, after that...”

“Never mind the ‘after that,’ Maggie. You can throw out the rest of the agenda. This Zwiren thing’s going to take a while.”

“Will you want me to bring you some coffee?” Sturmer grinned. “Lots of it, thanks.”

As they turned the corner, Sturmer stopped at the sound of a quiet voice off to her side. “Representative Sturmer ...?”■

She turned to see a slim, twelve-year-old girl standing there. The girl had long, dark hair and would have been quite pretty, if it weren’t for the blank, impassive expression on her face.
It must be nerves, the poor dear,
Sturmer thought.

Sturmer bent down toward her with a warm smile. “Yes, that’s right, dear. I’m Representative Sturmer. What’s your name?”

The aide tapped Sturmer on the shoulder from behind. “Um, the meeting ..

Sturmer waved the reminder away with a dismissive gesture. “It’s just a roomful of stuffy politicians. They can

wait a few minutes. Some things take priority.”

She turned back to the girl. “Now, what can I do for—?”    '

The girl’s hand lashed out to clutch Sturmer’s throat. In less time than it took to tell it, she crushed Sturmer’s windpipe between her fingers.

Representative Charlene Sturmer fell to the floor, dead.

The aide stared, wide-eyed, then screamed.

From either side of the hall, a pair of armed guards came charging toward the scene, their rifles drawn. The closer one ordered the girl to halt. Yet, even as he raised his rifle, he knew that, deep down, he couldn’t quite imagine shooting a twelve-year-old girl.

That was his mistake.

With blinding speed, the girl grabbed the barrel of his rifle and yanked it from his grip. She broke his arm in three places before he could react.

That was all the second guard had to see. Disregarding every regulation against discharging firearms in public places, he stopped outside of arm’s reach, quickly took aim, and opened fire.

At least three of his bullets hit her dead center. He was sure of it.

But they didn’t seem to have any effect.

Calmly, the girl picked up the first guard’s fallen rifle. With one hand, she flung it at the second guard. The stock caught him right between the eyes, sending him flying off his feet. He was out cold before either his body or the rifle could hit the ground.

The aide cowered in terror against the opposite wall. Who
was
this girl?
What
was she?!

In fact, though, there was no longer anything to fear. The girl had already done what she came to do.

A second girl, similar in age but with short, curly hair, stepped out of a doorway to join the first. “We weren’t supposed to engage the guards,” she said. “Time to withdraw.”

The first one nodded.

The second girl closed her eyes. The air beside them started to shimmer. The pair stepped purposefully toward the effect, and in the blink of an eye, they were gone without a trace. Only the bedlam that they left behind remained as proof that they had been there at all.

The whole thing had taken only a matter of minutes. With startling efficiency, two twelve-year-old girls had invaded one of the most secure areas in the country. They had overcome a pair of highly trained guards. They had committed cold-blooded murder.

And they had done it all without a single change of their impassive expressions.

The front office of the employment agency was a sea of noise. Between the ringing phones, the clicking of fingers on keyboards, the employment counselors pitching clients to potential employers, and the hopeful souls laying out their dreams of the future, it was hard for the people inside to hear themselves think:

“What kind of experience do you have?”

“Yes, I’ve got a terrific candidate sitting right here. I think you'll be very happy with her.”

“I understand. Thanks anyway.”

“Oh, sure! I see it now. So what you’re saying is that maybe I could
start
with accounting, and then sort of ease my way gradually over toward lion tamer... ?”

The ongoing din wasn’t uncommon at the agency. If anything, it simply signalled business as usual. It was far more uncommon when, a moment later, the noise came to an abrupt halt and an awestruck silence blanketed the room. One by one, all heads turned when Kat walked tentatively in through the door.

For a second, Kat worried that it might have been because of the bullet holes in her sweater. But a quick glance confirmed that they weren’t visible; she’d had the foresight to keep her jacket zipped up to conceal them. After all, Kat figured, an outfit riddled with bullet holes might not make the best first impression.

No, Kat concluded that the reason was a much more familiar one. Even without bullet holes, Kat had grown used to the fact that she had a hard time blending into a crowd.

Screwing up her courage, Kat strode through the room. She tried to distract herself from the stares by focusing her attention on the room and its furnishings instead. The walls were a faded off-white, the desks and file cabinets were the standard sort of metallic black and gray that were typical of almost every office Kat had visited since her days in elementary school. (
Hmm
, Kat thought, reading the metal tag on the front of a desk as though it was deeply important.
“Ridgeway and Company, Akron, Ohio.”)
Her feet followed along well-worn scuff marks in the linoleum that hinted at the many years’ worth of people who’d gone before.

Kat headed for one of the few desks where the guest chair beside the desk wasn’t already filled. A heavy set, middle-aged woman in hom-rimmed glasses sat behind the desk. Her fingers were still on the keyboard that she’d been using before Kat came through the door. The nameplate on the desk proclaimed her name as Rhoda Mickel.

Kat stood in front of the desk, her hands clasped together. She tried a nervous smile.

“Hi,” said Kat.

“Yes?”

“I’d, uh ... I’d like to find a job.”

Ms. Mickel peered over the frame of her glasses and eyed Kat skeptically. Kat shifted her weight from foot to foot.

“Sorry,” Ms. Mickel said, “this isn’t a modelling agency.” She turned her attention back to the computer and started to type.

Kat was dumbstruck. “But—but that’s exactly the point!” she said. She leaned forward with an earnest look on her face. “I’m tired of people judging me by how I look. It’s like everyone I meet out there is only looking at the surface, and not at the person underneath. I get too much of that already.

“I don’t want the kind of job that comes because of how I look. I want the kind of job that comes because of who I am.”

Ms. Mickel kept on typing. “Really,” she said without looking up.

“Really,” Kat replied.

Ms. Mickel pursed her lips, then swiveled back around in her chair to face Kat. “So let me see if I understand this. You’re upset because you have a serious problem. There are just too many people out there who are attracted to your looks.”

“Well, yes.”

“Poor baby.” Ms. Mickel went back to her typing.

Now, Kat was starting to get annoyed. “Look,” she said, “I don’t know what your problem is—”

“Oh, I don’t have a problem. I just have trouble mustering up a lot of sympathy for a Barbie doll whose big complaint is that she’s too gorgeous.”

“ ‘Barbie doll?!’ I was pulling down A’s when I was at Princeton!”

“My mistake,” said Ms. Mickel. But her dry tone suggested that she was still unimpressed.

“Why do you resent me so much? Because I’m pretty?” Kat said. -

“Listen, sweetheart, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve seen your type before. You start out all committed to working your way up the ladder. But then, when you realize that really means
working
your way up, it loses its appeal. So you start looking for the faster track.” Without meaning to, she glanced over at the slim, blonde woman who was coming out of the manager’s office. “You start batting your long eyelashes and passing over the less beautiful people who really deserve it!”

“You know, there are laws about discriminating against people because of how they look ...”

Ms. Mickel shrugged. “Sue me. Does this place
look
like it has a huge bank account?”

“This is so unfair!” Kat exclaimed. “You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences with those kinds of people before. But don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re doing the exact same thing they do. You’re holding me back because of my looks!”

Ms. Mickel raised her eyebrows at that one. Her fingers paused, then left the keyboard. Ms. Mickel sat back in her chair and looked up at Kat, clearly mulling the point over. Finally, she spoke. “You really mean it, don’t you?” “Yes.”

Ms. Mickel nodded slowly. She gestured toward her guest chair. “Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. It’s been a bad day. Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

Kat’s smile lit up her entire face. Somehow, this victory felt better than beating a hundred super-villains. She thanked Ms. Mickel and sat.

Ms. Mickel reached into her drawer and pulled out a pen and a pad. “Name?”

“Caitlin Fairchild.”

Ms. Mickel started to write. “C-A-I-T ...”

“L-I-N, yes.”

“May I take a look at your resume?”

Kat shook her head. “I, um, haven’t put one together yet.”

“Mmm, all right. Well, you mentioned Princeton. What sort of degree do you have? Bachelors? Masters?”

“Um, none, really. I did about two years of course work in computer science, but I never finished.”

“So, are you currently employed?”

“No. Well, yes. I guess. Freelance, sort of.”

“ ‘Freelance, sort of.’ ”

“Yes.”

The comer of Ms. Mickel’s mouth turned down with

a sardonic look. “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”

Kat gave a small, sheepish shrug. It made her look like the largest little girl on Earth.

Despite herself, Ms. Mickel smiled. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got for you.” She picked up one of the piles of paper from her desk and started to page through it. “Oh! Here we go! This one’s perfect for you!”

Kat’s heart leapt in her chest. “What is it?”

“There’s an opening for lady wrestlers. How are you with hot mud?”

Kat’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Just kidding,” Ms. Mickel said with a wink. “Let’s see what we can find in the way of entry-level computer jobs...”

The semi-nude couple writhed and intertwined across the tabletop. The scene dissolved into a series of passionate kisses and darting tongues, as they twisted their bodies in ways that seemed to defy the limits of human anatomy.

It was a miracle that no one else happened to come into the pizza shop.

“Her food’s
gotta
be burning by now,” Bobby said. “What did she order? A calzone?”

Sarah shook her head. “Pizza,” she replied. She took on a breathy tone as she grinned and added, “With
everything ..

“Golly, Grunge,” Roxy said, shaking and shimmying around the room to the bump and grind music that pulsed through the moaning. “I never knew these ‘special interest’ videos of yours could be so entertaining. No wonder it’s all you do all the time.”

Grange clasped a pair of throw pillows to his ears and kept his eyes clamped shut. “I’m not listening! I’m not listening! La la la la—I’m not listening!”

The gang was home now, sprawled across the plush, L-shaped sofa in their lavish penthouse suite at the Omni Seasons. Bobby reclined lazily in the corner of the L, and regarded his friend through half-closed eyes. “Something wrong, Gee? Not up for a little pom?” He gasped in mock horror. “Oh! The bet! This must make it real hard for you, huh? How insensitive of me.”

With a grin, Bobby shot a glance at the television. “Oh, wait—here’s a good part.” He pointed the remote control at the screen and scanned back a few seconds to replay the scene. The woman was spanking the clerk with the paddle he used to make pizza.

All Grunge could do was voice a strangled cry.

Just then, the front door burst open. The team started to jump to their feet, instantly alert and ready to defend themselves against any possible attack. Then, they relaxed again as Kat literally danced into the apartment. She was singing to herself and virtually walking on air. Kat leaped and twirled around her friends, leaving them amused and curious.

“Geez,” Roxy said, wide-eyed. “What’s up with you, sis?”    '    '