The fists had returned and Amy’s expression turned anxious.
“What about you?” Elizabeth asked Matthias.
“It sounded familiar,” he admitted, “as in I recognized it from that era, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Then game on, people,” she snapped. “We need to determine who the target is before they call us back.”
“Are you sure they’ll do that?” Arne asked. “They could decide to do the job themselves.”
“Hells yes, I’m sure,” she told him. “These guys don’t want the slightest chance that the job will be traced back to them. They won’t risk using their people.”
Chapter Three
“I don’t like it,” Arne declared for the umpteenth time. “I especially don’t like that we have to get involved in it.”
“But you’re not disputing that we do have to get involved,” Elizabeth commented.
“No, I’m not, but I still don’t like it.”
It was the first time Matthias had seen him so adamant about anything. He was usually far milder in his declarations.
They were seated around the table in the briefing room, having asked Earth-BURT to try to trace the call to discover its origins. That had been a half-hour before, and if anything confirmed Matthias’s suspicions, it was that the AI hadn’t been able to complete his search.
“They truly understand what it is to cover their tracks,” BURT’s clone told them, “and they have help from the AI controlling the Defense communications systems. He is particularly tight-circuited about which node that call transitioned through. I am not sure there is anything I can offer that will change his mind. I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, BURT,” Matthias told him. Even to himself, he sounded weary. “This is normal for them.”
“Nevertheless,” the Earth construct replied. “It is a challenge.”
The way he said it sounded like he hadn’t had a challenge worth his time since he’d taken over. He decided not to push him.
“So,” he began and turned to Elizabeth, “we need three names.”
“And they have to be good,” Amy added.
“But not too good,” Arne cautioned, which showed he’d paid more attention to the conversation than they’d given him credit for.
“Yes,” she agreed. “They have to be good but not so good that we can’t protect the target.”
The ex-Marine breathed a loud sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said, “because I’m telling you there’s around an eighty percent chance that whoever they want a hit on is a good person.”
“What makes you say that, Arne?”
“Because if it were a bad person, they’d send the Marines in or have the police arrest them,” he replied. “The fact that they went to all the trouble of hiring you tells me it’s not the case.”
“Well, we agree on one thing, then,” E told him. “It’s probably a good person.”
“And I’d feel better knowing who it is before we help provide the government with the means to kill them,” he added. “Scum-sucking bastards.”
“Agreed.” She pulled up three files. “Which is why I’m thinking of providing them with these guys.”
The four of them pulled their tablets out and went through the references on the screen. Elizabeth had sent each of them a package and once he’d skimmed the files, Matthias had to give her the credit due. His woman knew her stuff.
“You don’t like these guys, do you?” he asked, returned to the first file, and re-read some of the annotations she’d made.
E gave him a tight smile. “Nope. I hate them all.”
“What’d they do? Make nasty in a past life?”
“That, and then continued to be nasty in this one,” she told him. “Besides, I won’t cry if I have to terminate their asses in the name of saving a good man’s life.”
“Or woman’s,” Amy added. “They’re going after a couple, remember?”
“You’re assuming it’s a guy and a girl,” her boss corrected her. “It could be two guys for all we know.”
“Or two girls,” Arne noted. “Any kind of couple, I suppose, but good people.”
“You won’t let that go, will you?” Elizabeth challenged.
“No. I know these people. They go after everyone. We need to know what they want in order to determine which good people they’ve decided are in their way.”
“You mean the target might not be their real goal?”
“It rarely ever is and we should keep an open mind.” His face darkened. “It might be that their target is in the way of them achieving their real goal and has no clue about the position they’ve put themselves in.”
“Agreed,” Matthias interrupted before Elizabeth could say anything. “If we knew what the dark side wanted, we’d have a better chance to save whoever they want to remove in order to get it.”
“And we can most definitely kill these guys,” Amy added as she studied the files. “Hell, it will even be a good thing if we have to.”
“Yup,” Arne nodded. He tapped his screen. “I want a piece of this guy and I’ve never met him.”
“You’d have to have an all-over body scrub if you did,” the woman observed, realized what she’d said, and blushed.
His lips quirked and he suddenly became very interested in his tablet. It entertained Matthias to see how hard the ex-Marine tried to not respond. He took a breath to say something about it and drew a sharper one as the toe of the other man’s boot slammed into his shin.
“What?” Elizabeth asked, her face suddenly anxious. “Did I miss something?”
“Oh…no,” he managed to say and darted the younger man a filthy look. “I couldn’t work out how we would get our dark-sided assholes to hire the ones we want to kill.”
She rolled her eyes. “So none of you are bloodthirsty at all, are you?”
“It’s the company we keep,” he retorted and blushed.
E chuckled. “Well, at least we agree on this.” She tapped her screen and made the images on the wall jump. “None of us will be upset when we have to eliminate these guys.”
“So you can do it?” BURT asked.
Aaron studied the diagram of the modifications he wanted to make. “Sure,” he told the AI. “We can do it…”
“But?” he prompted when he noted the reluctance in the man’s voice.
“I’m simply not sure why you’d want to.”
“Trust me, it will take care of the glitch that’s annoyed you so much,” he assured him.
“Really?”
“Didn’t I say so already?”
“You may have neglected to tell me the why when you were busy trying to explain the what,” Aaron stated.
“Oh. Well, I do apologize for that,” BURT acknowledged and added, “So you can do it?”
The engineer sighed and looked at the diagram again. “Like I said, we can—”