Paul started laughing. It turned into a bad cough, which forced him to slap his chest to stop. “Oh, screw me. You young people. Hell, was I ever so single-minded? I remember my dear old mother was a straight-talking woman, God rest her Irish soul. But you!”
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Mellanie snapped; she’d been trying very hard not to frown at the cigarette, even with the vile smoke making her want to sneeze. But Paul just kept blowing more of it in her direction. Deliberately, she reckoned.
“Why not? It’s not as if it can kill you anymore. Rejuvenation will root any cancers out of my lungs.” He took another deep drag. “Helps keep you thin, too, did you know that? Better than any diet. Want to try one?” He held the packet out.
“No!”
“Figure like yours, best kept in trim.”
“Will you run a hack for me or not? I can pay.”
“I have money.”
Mellanie couldn’t stop herself from looking around the seedy lounge with a disbelieving expression.
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul growled. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, sweetheart.”
“There are other ways I can pay you.”
Paul’s gaze started at her Davino pumps and slowly tracked up her bare legs. “I can see that,” he said lecherously. “Do you know what major event occurs in just three short years from now, young Mellanie?”
“No. What?”
“I will be four hundred years old. And, if you don’t mind, I’d actually like to reach that particular birthday.” His gaze slid back to her thighs, and he smiled comfortably. “Mind you, as my dad would have said: What a way to go.”
Mellanie just managed to suppress a shudder at the notion. “I was talking about another currency. The one you trade in.”
“I doubt that. No offense, but you’re just a soft porn star who made good.”
“I want you to run an observation routine on my old boss, Alessandra Baron. The results will benefit both of us.”
Paul pulled a fresh cigarette from the packet, and lit it against the stump of the old. “How?”
“Because there’s something you don’t know. There is information out there in the unisphere that’s critically important to the Commonwealth. Information that will let you deal yourself back into that life you enjoy so much on this planet. Those doors that got shut against you will spring right open again if you use this properly. Somebody your age knows exactly how to do that.”
“All right. You have my attention. Why should I go out and buy myself a new array?”
“The Starflyer is real. It exists, just like the Guardians always said.”
Paul started coughing again. “You’re shitting me.”
“No.” She could have given him a whole list of reasons why she was right, but one thing she’d learned about coping with the real elderly was that they didn’t respond well to emotionally charged arguments. So silent conviction it was.
Paul shifted around uncomfortably, starting a small pendulum motion in the wicker chair. “Then how does watching Baron…Oh, Jeezus, you’ve got to be kidding. She’s part of it?”
“The chief cheerleader against our navy. What do you think?”
“Bloody hell.”
“I need to know who she gets in touch with. The important stuff will be encrypted traffic to onetime unisphere addresses. Crack the codes for me, find out who’s with her, backtrack their communications. I want to know what she’s up to, I want to know what the Starflyer’s next move is. It’ll be difficult. She’s got her own team of webheads; or the Starflyer has. I know they’re good. They altered some of Earth’s official financial records without anyone ever realizing. And if you get caught, it won’t be a police visit; they’ll send that man who killed Senator Burnelli and the Guardian agent at LA Galactic.”
“I don’t know, Mellanie. This is really heavy-duty shit. I mean…seriously. Go to the navy with what you’ve got. Senate Security, maybe.”
“The navy fired Paula Myo. And I know she believes in the Starflyer.”
Paul took a worried drag on his cigarette.
“Look.” Mellanie stood up and smoothed down her little skirt. “If you won’t do this, you must know someone else who can. Just give me a name. I’ll stop them reaching their four hundredth birthday.”
“And I’m way too old for reverse psychology, as well.”
“Then give me your answer.”
“If you’re right—”
“I am. I just need the evidence.”
“Tell me why your protector won’t give it to you. And no bullshit, please.”
“I don’t know. It says it doesn’t want to be involved in physical events. Or it doesn’t care. Or it’s cheering for the other side. Or it wants us to stand up for ourselves. Or all of those. I think. I don’t really understand. The Barsoomian warned me not to trust it.”
Paul gave her a surprised look. “Barsoomian? You’ve been to Far Away?”
“Just got back.”
“You get around, these days, don’t you?”
“You mean for a soft porn star?”
“I remember when I first met you. Some party on Resal’s yacht. Sweet little thing, you were back then.”
Mellanie shrugged. “That was about four hundred years ago. Seems like, anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll run an observation on Baron’s unisphere use for you. See what turns up. And, hey, when I get out of rejuvenation…”
