The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (16 page)

“What do you mean, you can't find her?” a woman asked. “She can't have just vanished.”

Connie paused beside the open door. The voice was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

“She was on the tour,” said a man. “Then she wasn't.”

“You're telling me that she was here, in the heart of our operation, and nobody was keeping an eye on her? How does she simply vanish?”

“Isn't that how it's intended to work?” he asked. “She's an adventurer. She gets into adventures. Maybe she was fooled and left. The tour is designed to be as mind-numbing and uninteresting as possible.”

The woman sighed. “Don't be an idiot. She didn't end up here on accident. The tour wouldn't fool her. It'd only make her more suspicious. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd figured everything out by now.”

“It's only been ten minutes, ma'am.”

“In ten minutes, Constance Verity destroyed the Shadow Ottoman Empire.”

“We'll find her.”

“You don't get it. It's too late. She's probably found her way to the self-destruct mechanism and is activating it right now.”

They paused as if waiting for an alarm to go off.

“About that, why do we even have a self-destruct mechanism?” asked the man.

“Not my department. We need to find her and limit the damage she can do. The longer she's running around unnoticed, the worst it will be. I don't have to tell you how important this operation is.”

“No, ma'am.”

“Why the hell am I telling you this?” wondered the woman aloud. “Damn it. She could be overhearing everything we're saying.”

The woman came out of her office, glanced around. Connie ducked behind the water cooler. She recognized the woman's face now. Despite the twenty years since Connie had last seen her, Mrs. Alvarado, Connie's old high-school chemistry teacher, looked exactly the same. Not a new wrinkle on her face.

Alvarado spoke to the empty hallway. “If you're out there, Constance, I would advise you to show yourself now. For the good of everyone.”

Connie almost stepped out, compelled by a reflex to obey her favorite teacher.

Mrs. Alvarado retreated to her office and shut the door.

Connie had pushed her luck enough. Better to leave the factory behind and come back later, when they weren't on alert. She had no trouble getting back into the tour area and slipped unnoticed among a group of tourists near the end of their cursory journey through apple pie history at the gift shop.

“Now, then, are there any questions?” asked Tony.

Nobody raised their hands.

“No questions at all?” asked Tina.

The group murmured among themselves, but everyone seemed satisfied.

The exit was just across the shop. Connie slinked behind a rack of apple-themed T-shirts and coffee mugs toward it. She was almost there when Tony stepped in front of her.

“I believe you had some questions earlier, Miss Verity.”

“No, I'm good,” she said.

She kicked him in the nuts, and he fell over.

The female guide dove at Connie. Connie danced aside, elbowed her in the throat, and smashed a pie-shaped cookie jar over her head.

“I didn't think questions were allowed.” Connie stepped over the groaning guide.

The old lady behind the counter glared but wisely did not make a move to stop Connie.

One of the tourists, a fat man in a plaid shirt and shorts, socks, and sandals, grabbed her by the arm. She punched him in the face. He wobbled but didn't let go.

A woman in sensible mom jeans and a turquoise cat blouse got Connie in a headlock. As she struggled to free herself, the rest of the tourists closed in around her.

Damn it.

She really hated Kansas.

I
t was almost endearing how pleased Thornton was with himself.

“We got her,” he said with a satisfied grin.

“You're an idiot,” said Bonita Alvarado.

His smile fell.

“Your orders were to find and capture her if necessary,” she said. “Notice I said
if necessary
. If you'd caught her at the self-destruct controls or on the verge of gathering information we'd rather she not have, I'd say job well done. But you caught her escaping.”

“Yes, ma'am.” His blank expression told her he still didn't get it.

“She was leaving, nearly out the door. All you had to do in that case was let her go.”

“But I don't understand, ma'am.”

Bonita glared at him. A few years before, she would've executed him for his incompetence. He was standing over where the trapdoor to the shark tank used to be. The door had
been covered over, and the tank was now a flowered atrium where the employees ate their lunch.

Executions weren't the best way to discipline employees. It was difficult to learn from one's mistakes after being eaten alive. It didn't do morale much good, either. Still, there was something terribly dissatisfying about a verbal warning and a write-up in a minion's file. She understood it wasn't smart to go overboard on the executions, but once in a while, she was convinced it was a good idea.

Bonita explained slowly, almost as if to a child. But not really, because she liked children, who were brighter than given credit for and had a decent excuse when they weren't. It was only Thornton's round, cherubic face, giving him the appearance of youth, that prevented her from shooting him on the spot, policy reforms be damned.

“I wanted her captured to keep her from doing any damage while she was here,” she said, “but she was leaving. She was practically gone. She wasn't going to do any damage once she was out the front door.”

“But wouldn't she just come back later?”

“She most certainly would have, but by then, we'd have set things up properly. We'd have left behind a few pieces of evidence for her to find that would lead her where we wanted her to go.”

They would've also relocated all essential personnel for the better-than-average chance that Constance would activate the self-destruct on her way out. Thornton wouldn't have made the cut.

“Can't you still do that?” he asked.

She opened her desk drawer, removed the gun, and shot him in the foot. It made her feel better but didn't have the same oomph as hearing an idiot being sliced into pieces by a grid of high-powered lasers.

He crouched on the floor, whimpering, bleeding on her carpet.

“Thornton, the problem you don't seem to be grasping is that because of your overzealousness, Constance Verity is still here, and as long as she's here, everything has a very good chance of going to hell.”

“Can't we just let her go?”

Bonita walked around the desk, sat on it, put the gun beside her. “Is this your first day?”

“No, ma'am.” He stared at the pistol.

“Constance isn't a moron. Don't you think that would make her suspicious?”

He bit his lip. Sweat dripped down his face.

“Well, don't you?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Very good, Thornton. A suspicious Constance Verity is exactly what we don't want. We have dedicated decades to making certain that doesn't happen. No easy task, all things considered. And you, in one moment of idiocy, have jeopardized everything. Now I have to figure out a way to unbotch what you so determinedly botched.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, it's fine. We all make mistakes, and you've been an adequate head of security up to this point. I suppose I might have overreacted, myself. My job is harder, but if it was easy, anyone could do it. Even you.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Get that foot looked at. I'll think of something. I always do.”

He limped out of her office. She went to the interrogation room. She got lost along the way.

They'd never used the room. They'd never had anyone in the cells, either. The pie factory was the heart of the operation, but nothing troubling was supposed to happen here. Now Constance Verity, handcuffed to a table, sat in a small, white room behind a one-way mirror, and Bonita had no idea what to do with her.

Bonita studied Constance through the glass.

“All she's been doing is sitting there,” said Peterson, the guard assigned to watch her. In the old days, he would've been just another faceless underling. Now policy asked she take time to get to know the people who worked for her.

He asked, “Shouldn't she be doing something? Like trying to escape?”

“She's just waiting for her chance,” said Bonita. “She can be patient.”

“Doesn't look like much, does she, ma'am?”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Bonita entered the room.

Connie smiled at her. “Hello, Mrs. Alvarado. It's been a while.”

“Please, Connie. Call me Bonita. No need to be formal. This isn't school. I'm not your teacher. And you're a grown woman. And what an accomplished woman, I might add.”

“You look the same,” said Connie. “What's your secret? Fountain of youth? Anti-aging serum? Vampire?”

“I take care of myself.” She sat across from Connie. “I suppose you must have a great many questions.”

“Is this the part where you reveal your sinister scheme?”

“Perhaps. If you answer some of my questions, I'll endeavor to answer some of yours. And, as a show of good faith, I'll even answer one of yours first.”

“And I'm supposed to trust you?”

“I doubt that very much, but I can only promise you I won't lie. At the worst, I'll omit, which is sort of like lying.”

Connie said, “Okay. Why do you want me to go to the Muroid homeworld? Is there something waiting for me there? Or is it only to distract me while you carry out your plans?”

Bonita considered her reply.

“We don't want you in outer space. We like you here. Not here, specifically. But on Earth.”

“Then why go to all the trouble of setting it up?”

Bonita held up her finger. “Ah, ah. It's my turn. How did you find us?”

“I found notes at Area 51. Pretty sloppy, if you ask me.”

“Of course you did.” Bonita laughed. “I knew our association with those idiots would bite us on the ass eventually.”

Connie said, “You're not with them?”

“We were. No longer. A schism in our agendas. Happens all the time. I'd forgotten all about them, but apparently their sloppiness is still inconveniencing us. But that's the way it is. You can't plan for every contingency. We must adapt, and it can hardly be surprising that you're here. We did our best to hide it from you, both personally and that adventure-seeking spell of yours. There isn't anything especially nefarious going on here. It's all very boring, intentionally so. The idea was that while this might be where things are run, it's not the place one finds any sort of adventure. The hope was that its very dullness would keep you from discovering it. So much for that plan.”

“What does this have to do with me?” asked Connie.

“That's two questions in a row for you,” replied Bonita, “but I'll answer it. This has everything to do with you, Constance. This entire operation is about you and your life. Thousands of people have been employed to shape you into the woman you are today, using every tool available. The utmost care has been taken to ensure that you become who and what you need to be.”

“Bullshit,” said Connie. “Conspiracies never work the way they're supposed to. I've busted enough secret societies to know that.”

Bonita smiled, adjusted her glasses. “Oh, there have been hiccups along the way. A great many. My own direct involvement in your life, for example, wasn't Plan A. We were never supposed to meet. But the operative who was supposed to be
your teacher came down with a head cold. We improvised.”

“What could you possibly gain from becoming my teacher?”

“It wasn't you directly. But there was a young man you had a growing infatuation with, and we were worried he might screw up your priorities. By then, we'd lost two-thirds of our candidates, including the most promising ones, and we couldn't risk losing another. So, I became a teacher to manage the situation.”

“I don't remember any boy.”

“That's because I'm good at my job, but if I hadn't been there, you most likely would've started dating him, and there was no room in your life for boys at that moment. He was a difficult little shit to get rid of. I eventually had to have an affair with his father, leading to a divorce. Then his mother was offered a lucrative job out of state. A job she never would've been able to take if she'd been married. Problem solved.”

“You've been screwing with my life that long?”

“Longer,” said Bonita. “Even before that enchantment kicked in, it was our job to see to it that you were ready for it. In a way, you should be thanking me.”

Only Connie's handcuffs kept her from leaping across the table and strangling Bonita.

“Thank you for what? Ruining my life?”

“Oh, don't be so dramatic. You have a life, and what a life it has been.”

“You like it so much, you take it.”

“Would that I could.”

“I don't believe it,” said Connie. “If there was a conspiracy controlling my life—”

“Not controlling,” corrected Bonita. “Guiding. You were still on your own path. We just kept you from wandering off of it when necessary.”

“Yeah. Still not buying it.”

“It would be a poor conspiracy if you did.”

“Yes, but this is me we're talking about. I know conspiracies exist. I've discovered dozens of them over the years. I'm not easy to fool.”

“This is about more than your bruised ego, Constance.”

“Screw you.”

Bonita stood and paced around the room. “My dilemma is what to do with you now. I would like to let you go, but I'm not sure how that would work. Now that you've seen our operation, I'm not so certain it can escape your attention again. You do have a tendency to screw things up. I don't suppose I can ask for your word you won't come back here and cause any more trouble?”