Part 10 (1/2)

Aldriena nodded. He gestured to a magnetically mounted swivel chair, so she dropped down into it.

He took a translucent sac of fluid from the suitcase and affixed a spray applicator to it. She saw a lot of cosmetic supplies in the suitcase, a collection of high-tech disguise knickknacks.

”This'll feel weird for a sec, but no pain, I promise,” he said.

She felt a crawling sensation on her scalp for a moment. He pulled down one of her eyelids and put a drop into it, then repeated the procedure with her other eye. His hands were quick. He had to have done this before.

”Put these tabs on the insides of your cheeks, right at the center. Your face is a little round for a European,” he said.

He looked at her face openly. She felt comfortable under his honest scrutiny. Most of the time she garnered the nervous glances of men who a.s.sessed her beauty but didn't want to be caught staring.

”How do I look?” she said, smiling.

”Stunning as ever, my dear,” he said in a subdued voice, holding out a cheap plastic mirror for her. She figured his distraction probably came from chatter through his link with the Black Core team on Xanadu. She knew the team had at least four or five members.

Aldriena stared into the c.r.a.ppy mirror and smiled. Despite the damaged edges of the mirror, she saw his handiwork. He'd changed her into a blue-eyed blonde. Her epicanthal fold was no longer visible; her eyes looked European inside and out.

”Looks good,” she said, although she didn't like it. She preferred her real countenance.

”You were more beautiful before,” the man said. His eyes animated again, an indication that he'd concluded his link activity for the moment. He said it calmly and didn't look at her for a reaction, which meant he wasn't trying to earn points with her.

He pulled a green roll from his case.

”You'll blend in more with this,” he said. ”It isn't much in a sc.r.a.p, but it will short a taser at least.”

”Got it,” she said, taking the clothes roll.

”Follow me to the door. I'll send you a green line.”

They walked awkwardly through the engineering module toward an airlock connected to Xanadu. Using the sticky hand and feet attachments, they moved like bugs crawling across a vertical surface, attaching themselves with a limb whenever they could. Aldriena picked up a pointer on her link and the familiar green line overlaid her vision to guide her.

”Thanks for the setup,” she said. ”What's your name?”

”I'm Martin.”

Aldriena stepped through the lock.

”Good luck,” he called after her.

As the lock started to cycle her through, she took the dark green roll and pulled a tab. The fabric released, popping out into the free form of a summer dress. She changed into the outfit in seconds, discarding her light vac suit. Once the thin fabric had detected her body heat, a pattern s.h.i.+fter snapped on and sent white lines streaming across the fabric, moving across her body in a steady, soothing migration, like a wandering spider web that couldn't find an anchor point. It fit quite snug to her figure, but didn't show a lot of skin.

The lock door opened into a tiny lift atrium. Aldriena paused to grab some chewing gum out of the vac suit and stash it into a hidden pocket of the dress.

I should get back to Earth one of these days. While it's still there.

She took the lift down toward the gravity-simulated part of the station. For a moment, she felt dizzy as the lift descended. She cursed.

The doctors told me they'd fixed that. Black Core paid a lot of money for my s.p.a.ce prep. I should complain about it.

She arrived at the station proper and exited the lift. The area beyond exhibited the opulence to which Aldriena had grown accustomed. The floor looked like polished stone. She saw three art prints on the corridor wall depicting peaceful nature scenes. The air smelled fresh, lacking the machine smells of the maintenance area.

She fished into her pocket, brought out some chewing gum, and popped it into her mouth. She started to chew and then realized the gum might tangle with her cheek implants. She frowned but kept chewing. Just another risk to factor into her growing daily regimen of danger.

She walked through into an open area dotted with people and ferns. Xanadu looked the same as she remembered it: colorful and relaxed without any of the crazy freak suits. Aldriena stopped to look through a skylight that gave a view of the outside of the station. Sometimes she had to remind herself how far behind she'd left Brazil. She resumed her walk.

Men and women in the corridors met her gaze curiously but without suspicion.

This was her chance to relax. Ironically, it was also one of the most dangerous parts of the plan. Even with the facial camouflage, if some scanner program or link monitor noticed that she was actually Aldriena Niachi, the Aldriena Niachi, Black Core a.s.sociate currently wanted for questioning for her suspected involvement with the Thermopylae incident, then things could be screwed up fast.

Not that Black Core didn't want her to be noticed. They did. But they needed to control when and how.

Aldriena picked her green line back up and followed it. The indicator twisted left and right down two corridors until turning into a walk-in closet with a rack of cleaning robots dominating one wall. Thick pipes routed across the ceiling.

Her green line wound its way up a desk and through a large metal grille. Some kind of maintenance crawlway or air duct. A pulsing red dot appeared on her pathway.

Pause, it insisted.

Aldriena slipped onto the desk and sat with her legs dangling. She could hear the hiss of something moving through the pipes in the room and a rattle of a worn compressor.

She took out her chewing gum and stuck it under the edge of the desk.

”Isto e para voce, Marcelo,” she said.

Years ago, a boy named Marcelo had been flirting with the girls in her cla.s.s. He had offered gum to every one of them except Aldriena. Gum wasn't for j.a.ps he had explained, and spat at her instead. After school, Aldriena snuck back into the cla.s.sroom to take the gum out of his desk. She hid under the desktop and chewed his gum, sticking each wad under the desk until all the gum was gone. Once the teacher discovered it, Marcelo had been forbidden to chew gum for the rest of the year.

Aldriena smiled. She always got even.

A message came through her Cascavel.

Everything's set. I'm switching you over now.

Aldriena bent forward and ruffled her hair. A shower of tiny yellow strands fell out onto the bare metal floor. Her vision went blurry for a second, but she blinked and everything cleared. She bit the pads off the insides of her cheeks and spat them out. Her face felt puffy for a moment.

An interesting sensation. Aldriena the s.p.a.ce chipmunk.

She felt a rush of confidence knowing her countenance had reverted. Her first, most familiar weapon was available again. She rescanned the room. No one here to recognize her yet.

Aldriena moved over to the air duct. The plastic grille had a locking mechanism on its frame. She brought out a liquid key. The key looked like a block of silver, smooth and s.h.i.+ny. She adjusted the current running through the key and it softened in her hand. She slapped it into the keyhole and let the key flow into the mechanism. Then she adjusted the current again and took a snapshot of the inner workings of the lock.

Aldriena removed a second liquid key and downloaded the snapshot into it. The software a.n.a.lyzed the data and formed the second key into the necessary shape to actuate the lock. She slipped it in and it fit perfectly. She figured that the key also sent an electronic signature stolen by her Black Core comrades, since the grille door opened. Her face screwed up in annoyance at a puff of dust from the opening. So there was dust even here. Probably shed human skin, she thought.

She slid the liquid keys back into her pocket and clambered into the opening. The duct snapped as the thin metal accepted her weight. She winced and shuffled forward again. More noise.

Aldriena shuffled through the confines of the duct following the green line. The metal screeched and snapped. Her elbows popped the sides of the tunnel causing them to flex. A burst of claustrophobia hit her, but she ignored it, refusing to let it take hold.

”Whose r.e.t.a.r.ded idea was this, anyway?” she muttered to herself. ”Shuffling through the air vents? Someone's been watching too many vids.”

All the better to fool idiots into thinking you were on a mission here, said a voice through her link.

”s.h.i.+t. You put a sound pickup on me,” Aldriena said.