Matt & Michelle 1: The Fugitive Heir (15 page)

We reached the first intersection where I expected Michelle to turn left, back the way we’d originally come. She turned right and, short of breath for asking questions, I followed. She ducked into the first corridor we came to and pulled up against the wall.

“Why-?” I began.

Michelle put a finger to my lips then pulled out her pad. Calling up the station map, she tapped for directions and surprised me by entering our apartment as the destination. I raised my eyebrows in question, but the sound of footsteps drew our attention.

“We’re almost there, Spitz. Take that hall on the right.” I recognized the voice. It belonged to Fred Cummings, captain of the solar research ship.

“You think we can talk ‘em into giving the guy to us without making ‘em too suspicious?” I didn’t recognize the voice, but Spitz was the name of Cummings’ first officer.

“That’s already taken care of. I told naive Nancy we’d send him to Eridani Station and turn him over to the girl’s father.”

As the voice faded, Michelle and I left our hiding place and followed the directions back to our apartment. We’d taken two turns when we heard Cummings’ cry echo down the corridors.

“What the hell happened in here?”

We took that as our cue to run some more.

We reached the tram safely and, breathing hard, settled in for the ride back to the residence sector.

“That couldn’t have gone any worse.” Michelle’s shoulders slumped with fatigue and dejection.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t
all
bad.” I took the maintenance pad from Michelle and connected to the network through one of my backdoors.

“Nancy is out to get you. Cummings is out to kill us. And they both know where we live. I don’t see a positive.”

“We found a door neither of us could open.”

Comprehension dawned on Michelle’s face. “I was so busy trying to get away from Nancy, I missed the meaning of that. Every door in the station should open to our new clearance.”

“Exactly. We never had a chance for me to take a pointing, but if we can get through that door…” I left the sentence hanging and concentrated on the pad.

As I expected, Michelle expanded on my speculation. “That still leaves us with a couple of problems—opening that door and staying free long enough to do it.” She bit her lip, gazing at the floor of the tram for a few seconds. “There’s a pretty big vagrant population on the station. Maybe we can hide among them.” She caught me staring at her in surprise and grinned. “That’s the second thing they teach you in Real Security 101, Matt.”

I couldn’t help myself from asking, “What’s the first thing?”

“Where to find the bathrooms in your patrol area.” Eyes twinkling, she leaned over and looked at the pad. “What are you doing in the housing database?”

“Looking for empty apartments. If the situation gets desperate, we can join the vagrants, but that has its own difficulties. I’ll need time to figure out how to get through the door that wouldn’t open and privacy so I can leave my chip tracking program running.”

“Are you hoping to identify people who can open that door?”

“You got it in one, babe.” I squeezed her leg. “Plus, a beauty like you will stand out like a sore thumb among the vagrants.”

“Oh, I can take care of that problem with some makeup and the right clothes.” Michelle bit her lip again. This was turning into quite the day for problems. “But do you know what will happen when we don’t show up for work tomorrow? It’s bad enough we have Nancy and Cummings looking for us. If the whole station is alerted, an already tough mission will become nearly impossible.”

That hadn’t occurred to me, but I had no immediate answer. I sighed, “We can think on it after we get to our new place.” I showed her the station map. “I found four empty apartments in this sector. We’re taking the one at the end of the hall. I blocked it in the database, so housing won’t assign anyone to it, and coded the door to open
only
for us.”

“I’ll bet that’s how that door in spaceship maintenance is secured—coded to specific people instead of clearance levels.”

I nodded. “That makes it all the more important to keep the ID plot running—so we can find out
who
those people are.”

Half an hour later, we entered our new home.

Two minutes after that, Michelle and I finished moving into our new apartment. Most of that time went to setting up my pad, then I tossed my clothes onto a nearby chair. I turned to find Michelle glaring at me, arms crossed, hips canted, and one foot tapping. There must be some kind of special training class for women where that is taught because every woman I know—from Mom to Aunt Tess to teachers to Michelle—has that look down pat.

“What?”

She pointed to an open drawer. Her clothes were neatly arranged within, leaving plenty of space for mine.

I stuffed my clothes into the drawer. “I, um, wanted to make sure my clothes were within easy reach in case of an emergency?”

“A likely story.” But Michelle smiled as she said that. Then she flopped back onto the bed. “I know we need to figure out what to do next, but my mind is spinning too fast to think properly.”

“I know what you mean.” I flopped down next to her. “What can a husband and wife do that’s relaxing and doesn’t take conscious thought?”

“Gee, Matt, I don’t know. Do you have something in mind?”

“I do, but we’re both horribly overdressed for it.”

Laughing, Michelle straddled me and pulled off her shirt. “Does that help?”

“It’s a start.” I pulled her down and kissed her.

Later, Michelle lay next to me, idly running her hands through my hair. “I guess it’s time to start thinking about what to do next.”

“My mind is awhirl with possibilities.” I pulled Michelle into another kiss. “But none of them involve getting dressed.”

Much
later, we got dressed and settled down to plan our next move.

“I think I know what we need to do, Matt. Or, at least what to consider first.”

“We just sat down and you already have an idea? Don’t tell me you were
thinking
the whole time.”

“Did I look like I was thinking? Did I bite my lip even once?”

“You nibbled on my lips, among other things, but I see your point. So, what’s your idea?”

“We need to arrange for a leave of absence from work and then make it look like we left the station.”

“Why can’t we just make it look like we left the station? I’m sure the company has had people skip out on their jobs before. Our bosses will be irritated, but that’s about it.”

“No, our bosses will follow the absent-employee checklist.” At my blank look, Michelle shook her head. “It’s a good thing I got a job in
real
security where they go over these things. First, the manager tries to comm the employee. If they don’t answer, the manager should immediately request a sensor sweep of the station, looking for the employee’s ID chip.”

“Isn’t that a bit hasty? What if the employee just forgot his comm?”

“It’s a safety precaution. The employee might be hurt, in which case they can send help.”

“Okay. It’ll take a while, but I can set the system to overlook our ID chips. Then they’ll actually believe we left the station.”

“Which is worse. The station could just have a disgruntled employee running out on the job or they could have a saboteur on their hands. Security can’t know which, so the whole station is locked down while Security uses ID chip data to track every move the potential saboteur made during the previous week.”

“Oh. Yeah, that would be bad. So, what do we do?”

“We find someone who knows us, has at least some level of authority, and then we tell them the truth.”

“That narrows the list down to Nora in HR, your manager—Tanya, right?” Michelle nodded. “Or Greg, my manager.”

“Tanya is out. I have no doubt she’s honest, but she’s strictly by-the-book. If we told her, she’d insist on taking the story all the way up the chain of command. What about Greg?”

“He seems pretty easy-going, the kind of manager who leaves you to do your job.”

“Can you trust him?”

“Maybe. Let’s see what we can find in his HR file.”

Thirty minutes later, Michelle and I agreed we could trust Greg. He’d been with GenCo for over thirty years, coming to Pegasus Station after his wife died. He had a clean record and his subordinates thought highly of him.

“It’s just surface stuff, Matt, but Daddy taught me to pay attention to it. Criminals can hide their true nature for a while, but not for more than thirty years.” Michelle stood up and stretched her back. “Next time we steal an apartment, let’s pick one with newer chairs.”

Stretching was well, I pulled out my comm. “Agreed.”

Greg answered on the second buzz. From the noise, he was still at the Wingspan.

“Hey, Matt. I thought you were spending the evening with that pretty wife of yours. You’re not bored with married life already, are you?”

“God no, Greg, but I do have a problem I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure. You want to come down here to the bar or you want to meet somewhere else?”

“Does Dawn have a private room we can use?”

That seemed to catch Greg by surprise. “Yeah, I think so. Meet me here and, if it’s not available, we can go somewhere else.”

Michelle stuck her head next to mine and Greg brightened up. “Hi Greg, I’m Michelle. I know this is going to sound weird, but is Captain Cummings down there? Or any of his officers?”

Greg knitted his brows. “Does Cummings have something to do with all this secrecy?”

Michelle nodded. “Everywhere I go, I seem to run into one of them.”

“I see.” Greg looked around the bar. “I don’t see any of them. You and Matt hurry on down here and we’ll get this whole thing sorted out.”

I thumbed off the comm unit. “That was a good idea, asking about Cummings. It never crossed my mind.”

Michelle patted my cheek. “It’s a good thing you have me to think of these things for you.”

Michelle tossed my overalls to me. They weren’t much of a disguise—especially after our run-in with Nancy—but they disguised Michelle better than anything else we had. Twenty uneventful minutes later, we walked into the Wingspan Bar and Grill.

No one gave us a second glance. We disappeared into the background so well, I had to tap Dawn’s shoulder to catch her attention.

She gave me a cartoon-like double take. Keeping her voice low, she said, “Good to see you again, Matt, and to meet your wife. Come on, I’ll take you to Greg.”

Dawn led us down the hall past the restrooms and opened a door. Inside was a small office piled with paperwork and barely big enough for the four of us.

“Greg, there’s a buzzer right over there.” Dawn pointed to a switch. “It sends a signal to the bar. Push it and I’ll come back and see what you need.”

Dawn bustled away and Greg shut the door to the office. With a sigh of relief, Michelle removed her hat and let her hair tumble free.

“Matt, your pictures don’t do justice to this young lady.” Greg sat down behind the desk and leaned forward. “So, what’s this about? And don’t say it’s about Cummings stalking Michelle. There may be some truth in that claim, but she’d be reporting this to
her
superiors if that was the real issue.”

“You’re right, Greg. Cummings is part of it—and he’s the main reason we came to you—but he’s just part of the problem.” I paused for a moment and looked at Michelle. “What should I tell him?”

Greg spoke before Michelle could say anything. “Tell me the truth. And if you don’t know where to begin, start by telling me where you got your false ID cards.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

New Allies

Greg’s statement hung in the air for a few seconds. Michelle and I, stunned at this revelation, exchanged glances.

Turning back to Greg, she asked, “How did you know they were fakes?”

If there wasn’t a desk between them, I could imagine Greg patting Michelle’s head. His patronizing smile was more than enough. “Child, I’ve been doing this sort of thing since long before you were born. Your IDs are good—the best I’ve seen—but false IDs are designed to get people through casual checkpoints. They cannot withstand the level detailed scrutiny I gave them.”

I leaned forward and locked eyes with Greg. “If you knew the IDs were false, why didn’t you just turn us in? And what made you check them in the first place?”

“I check the IDs of every new hire in CompSec. A person can do a lot of damage from the inside of my department. When your ID came up false, I checked Michelle’s, too.” Greg leaned back, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “I didn’t turn you in because Nora—the woman who ran your orientation—likes you. She is an excellent judge of character.”

Michelle put her hands to her head and looked at the ceiling. “Is there anyone on this station who doesn’t know we’ve got false IDs?”

“I didn’t tell Nora about your IDs. Since she spoke with you about personal matters, I just asked her opinion of you two. Did she feel you really loved each other? Was Matt just looking for a way to sleep with such a pretty girl? Was Michelle trading on her looks to get in with someone in CompSec?” Greg laughed at our expressions. “The best security person is one capable of imagining the worst in people.”

“And Nora reassured you?” I asked.

“Somewhat.
She
believes you’re a young couple in love. She caught something of a fugitive air about you, but in a benign way. I picked it up, too, and we talked about it. Our best guess is that Michelle’s family is wealthy, Matt’s isn’t, and Michelle’s parents are trying to keep the two of you apart.”

Michelle and I couldn’t help it—we burst out laughing.

Greg shrugged. “It’s a bit romantic, but old folks like Nora and me like to see a little romance in the world. I guess we were wrong.”

“Not entirely, Greg,” I gasped out through laughter. I fought to stop laughing, but Michelle’s continuing giggles interfered. “I’m the wealthy one and my parents haven’t met Michelle since she was twelve.”