Chapter Thirteen

Turbulence



"The Coed is here."


Scott paused and looked up at Zoraida, who had removed him from the dresser drawer where she'd stowed him.


"What?" Scott replied, shocked. "You must be mistaken."


"I am not mistaken. I've met her. Liz Anderson, right?"


Scott paced back and forth. How was that possible? She was on the thirteenth floor, for God's sake! "Why is she here?" he asked, blandly.


"Don't know. I just know that Leah was really glad to see her."


"I'll bet," Scott said glumly. He cursed his own stupidity. He had thought Liz was reformed, but obviously not. Unless Sarah sent her…


No. His wife would never be that reckless.


"You know her story, right?" Scott asked.


"The short version."


"Let me tell you the longer version," said Scott. "It's important you know it."


* * *


Meanwhile, in a hotel room in Zurich, two pairs of underwear were being pulled on by two halves of a couple. And in each pair, two people clung tightly, scrambling quickly out of the way.


"We have to get Lil and Ráichéal out of there!" Lloyd cried as he and Sue were pulled into a forest of pubic hair.


"Wait a minute, we need to think," said Sue, grabbing hold of Erica's bush and holding on for dear life. "We may need to do something, but we need to be smart. The longer we can hold off using any powers, the better the chance we get through this in one piece."


"But they don't even know we're in Switzerland. Surely —"


"We need to keep it that way! Look, do you think I like being in the panties of an oversexed giantess? At least Lil and Ráichéal have something interesting to check out. I already have one of these things," she said, gesturing to the chasm that separated her and Lloyd at the moment.


"You're selling them short," said Lloyd, but he clung nonetheless.


Meanwhile, in a pair of briefs, Ráichéal and Lil had pulled themselves up onto the underside of an enormous scrotum.


"Well!" said Ráichéal, as they held fast, both to each other and to the ball sack, "Everyone I sleep with forever is going to be smaller than this."


"Too true," said Lil. "I think we're best of staying here as long as we can. Even if he sits down, it should be safer than messing with the giant above us."


Ráichéal looked at Lil in the rapidly diminishing twilight, and said, "Have you ever tried this with Lloyd?"


Lil shook her head. "No, largely the opposite."


"Pity. I think a day in a lad's undies might be fun. I can think of a few things I might do."


"Well," said Lil, "assuming we survive this, you'll probably get your chance with someone down the line."


"Do you think your fiancé is going to whisk us out of here?"


"If he does, I'll kill him. He needs to keep a damper on his powers until he actually needs to use them."


Out in the macroscopic world, Mike and Erica moved together before they headed out for the dance.


* * *


"I see," said the Vice President. "Well, update me when you have a locus. Damn it to fucking hell!" he yelled, slamming the phone down in its cradle. "We've lost Invest One."


The rest of the master control room was quiet, until the Vice President thundered, "Well, are you all just going to sit there with your thumbs up your asses? Damn it, damn it, damn it, this is fucking terrific."


"He's just off the grid, like he has been for the past few weeks," offered one staffer from the front, but the Veep shook his head.


"No, Jenkins, he's hooked up with Sue Kensington. That's Sarah Kensington-Chelgren's sister. It's only a matter of time before he gets to the Society now. And then we're hosed. Best chance at an adept and he slips through our fingers, damn it, I never should have sent Bigg to do this, I knew he'd fuck it up, I knew it."


"Mr. Vice President, why do we need an adept?"


"Michaelson, that's maybe the dumbest question you've ever asked. We need an adept to keep up with the Society and the League."


"We have conventional munitions. And unconventional ones."


The Vice President strode quickly over to Michaelson and stared him down. "You know damn well that the Chelgrens managed to shrink a thermonuclear warhead down to nothing. Going after them militarily without having some access to GTS is like going against the Red Army with spears and arrows."


"Well, they haven't made it to the Society yet," said a man in the corner of the room, "or I would have heard something. Besides, I think you're overthinking this. Sue Kensington's a non-factor. She and her sister weren't that close in age, and besides, she's just a college kid. And she's not gifted with the whole GTS thing anyhow. Doesn't have powers, Sarah even said so, once. At best, she calls in her sister, and frankly, I think they know we're watching, so she'll probably steer clear. We haven't lost Invest One yet, and with luck, maybe we won't."


"Too bad I can't send you, Stuart," said the Vice President, "but you're more valuable to us here. Which reminds me," he said, checking his watch, "you'd better get back to your conference. Wouldn't want to arouse suspicion."


Stuart Little bowed slightly, turned tail and headed out. Michaelson, meanwhile, scribbled idly on a piece of paper. "It's stuff like this that makes me wish Beanstalk would have worked out."


"Yeah, well, it didn't," the Vice President said. "One interesting accident was all we saw for eight hundred million."


"If he hadn't escaped, we'd have the key. We would have had the key before the Society, even. Damn Finney anyhow."


"Who's Finney?" asked Jenkins.


"Jake Finney. The unlucky grad student. His sweet-assed girlfriend and I tried to talk him into staying, but he wasn't willing to listen. Of course, he was probably right, from his perspective. But he hurt his nation that day."


Ted Jenkins furrowed his brow. "Beanstalk was at Ames, right? Iowa State?"


"Huh? Yeah. Why do you ask?"


Jenkins turned back to a terminal. "I remember something from our last data dump. A scientist who was working for the League at Laughlin. He just sort of appeared at his wife's side out of nowhere. Iowa State guy, remember that because my Jayhawks were beating the Cyclones' brains in the night I tripped across the guy. Let's see…if I remember right, there was a big gap in his records. Nothing on his social for seven years, then suddenly he reappears. Here we go," he said, printing out a dossier. He grabbed it and carried it to Michaelson. "This your guy?"


Michaelson stared at the grainy photo for some time, before his face broke out in an odd, lopsided grin. With slightly trembling hands, he picked up the paper and leafed through it. "Wife Jane…both of them went to work for FletchCorp directly after the Laughlin raid, so they must have thought he was trustworthy…and he probably was for what they wanted. Yes…yes! God fucking sonofabitch, yes!"


He spun happily. "Mr. Vice President, I want your permission to take him. He could hold the key to why Beanstalk failed, and what can make it succeed!"


The Vice President turned to Michaelson, bemused. "So you found your white whale, eh? All right, Michaelson. Go get him. The NSA will back you up. Just don't fuck it up. Got it?"


Michaelson smiled widely. At last, he had a chance to put this right.


* * *


Mike and Erica embraced, and pulled each other close, and kissed, hard.


This did not go unnoticed by the people currently hiding in their respective undergarments.


"Oh, that's probably not good," said Lloyd, noting the slight condensation on his hostess' pussy lips. "You don't suppose they're thinking about a quickie, do you?"


"No," said Susi. "I think they'll go dancing, first, because that sounds like the more painful option."


There was a sudden force on the front of the panties, pushing them both into skin.


"Well, they're a close couple," Lloyd said. "Bugger…I suppose this is old hat for you, though, right?"


"No," Susi said, "actually, I've never shrunk before. I try not to use my powers if I can avoid it."


"Ever?" said Lloyd, breathing easier as the pressure subsided, and the world began to sway back and forth slightly, as his hostess began to walk somewhere.


"Ever," Susi said, clinging tightly. "I don't trust myself with them. I think…look, I've spent a lot of time studying, reading, learning about it. I know the theory cold. But a couple years ago, I shrunk a guy.


"He was a jerk, and he was being a jerk, and I shrunk him, and I almost killed him. I easily could have, and I wanted to…I really, really wanted to."


Susi sighed. "My sister told me, back when all this was new, that she'd had moments where she worried her powers were too big for her to handle. That she worried she'd overstep her bounds, lose her humanity in the power. I almost did in that split-second, and I didn't want to tempt myself ever again."


Lloyd looked across the dim chasm, and said, "I'm sorry, then, that I got you mixed up in this."


"Not your fault," Sue said. "Probably fate's way of telling me it's time to get in the game. It didn't give my sister a choice, it's not going to give me one. But I don't have to like it. And I really don't have to trust it."


"Bollocks," Lloyd said. "You didn't use them for two years, right? That was a decision, right there."


"Yeah, but if I cut lose –"


"—then you still don't kill people. You want to, but you don't. Look, I don't know much about the whys and wherefores of this power, but I know that if you wanted to hurt someone, you could've just turned yourself into a fifty foot woman and smashed things. You didn't."


"I wish I believed that," Sue said.


"Tell you what," he said. "If we live through the discotheque, and the post-discotheque activities, you teach me all the theory and background I need to control my powers, and I'll try to convince you that you can use these powers without killing humanity. Do we have a deal?"


"I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to crawl across this woman's labia to do it. How do you think our friends are doing?"


"Well," Lloyd said, "I imagine they're hanging out by a giant penis. Not much exciting in that, I suppose."


"Speak for yourself."

Meanwhile, a foot and a half away, Lil and Ráichéal were trying to find a comfortable, safe spot. The scrotum had pulled taught earlier, as their host grew semi-hard while grinding himself against his wife, and they'd dropped unceremoniously into the briefs below. Lil thought that would be safe, but the penis, once flaccid, slid about occasionally. So now they were trying to scale it, to get up into the man's pubic hair, which was problematic, because every so often, he would manually rearrange himself, likely because of the two female insects climbing his junk. This would, occasionally, knock them back down into the briefs, and they'd start their journey again.


"Just wait until the dancing starts," Lil said, as she rested briefly where the head of the penis met the shaft. "Then we're in for a world of pain."


"Well," Ráichéal said, looking back up the shaft, "at least I can say this is the biggest hand job I've ever given."


"You're wicked," Lil said. "I must say, when I decide I'm finally up to doing this for Lloyd, I want another three or four inches in height. If you could embrace it…now that might be fun."


Ráichéal laughed. "Who's wicked now?" she said.


Suddenly, the air, already steamy, grew more so, and sounds from the outside world invaded the underwear prisons. All four passengers groaned as the thumping bass reached them.


They were at the club at last.


* * *


"Your husband's an idiot. A brave idiot, but an idiot nevertheless."


"Thanks, Teri," Sarah said, picking at her sandwich. "Still, if he is at league headquarters, he might be able to operationalize Operation Orion."


"Should I move us to alert condition red?"


"We'll discuss it in the staff meeting tomorrow, but probably not; yellow alert is likely enough for now. No good invading until it's time to invade."


"Right. So that's one loved one accounted for. What about Susi?"


"Still nothing," Sarah said. "And I'm starting to get worried. Taran reported a few hours ago that the seekers appeared to be spiraling in on the university – and given the readings…."


"I thought Susi didn't have any powers?"


Sarah drummed her fingers. "That's what she's said. She's only nineteen; I figured she could be a late bloomer. Maybe she is."


"Or maybe she lied to you," Teri said.


"Yeah," Sarah said, "I think that's more likely, really. That's my fault – I think I scared her off a few years back, right after Madison. I opened up about some of my own concerns...."


"The kid thing?"


"That, and the God thing. Not that either thing has disappeared, mind you."


"Right, Sarah. If you've got a God complex, it's one of the most complex complexes ever known, since it manifests in concern for others and general unselfishness."


"Still, the temptation's always there. Anyhow, I'm not sure I didn't scare her into deciding to refuse the cup she would eventually be given. I've tried since then to loosen her up, but…I don't know. Maybe Karen could have talked to her better than me."


"Maybe," Teri said. "So you're thinking your little sister is into something?"


"Could be," Sarah said. "What do you think?"


Teri pulled out the deck of cards. "Queen of Wands would be her significator, I think. Let's see."


* * *


The pulse of the beat reverberated through the sweat-soaked hammock that was Lloyd and Sue's current location.


"So," Sue said, clinging tightly to the swaying panties, beneath the swaying vulva attached to the swaying woman, "are women's panties always this damp?"


"Don't have much data to go on," Lloyd said, "but no, not usually. This is not a particularly fun ride."


"At least you didn't end up over in the guy's shorts," Sue said. "More to dodge there."


"Yes, and I'm worried about them. Are you sure that they're okay?"


"I'm trying to do occasional claris spells; they seem okay so far. I'm just hoping these two get so worn out clubbing that they go to sleep."


"A nice dream," Lloyd said, "but I'm not counting on it."


* * *


She flipped the cards out, choosing almost idly to go cross-and-triangle. It felt appropriate. She flipped the Devil over above the significator, and let out a squeak.


"Well…she's up to something, Sarah, I think I can say that much."


"I'm guessing," Sarah said. "But what does that mean?"


"The Devil is a powerful card, and it's about fear and temptation. In this position, it acts on her reason. Susi is afraid of her power, and tempted by it. The next card suggest creative energy…Knight of Wands. Suggestive of travel or escape, a new visitor leading her on a quest."


Sarah drew her lips tight. "Go on."


"Knight of Cups, reversed. Immaturity, selfishness, insecurity. This describes Susi's emotional state."


"Has she been turned?" Sarah asked.


"What?" Teri asked, looking up in surprise.


"Has she been turned by the League?"


Teri sighed. "Patience, Sarah. The cards only suggest, and we're not through our reading. The next card, her position in life – Four of Cups. Surrounded by love, but not aware of its depth. Dissatisfied with her current position but unsure of where to go next.


"The cross is complete. We begin the triangle with the first of two opposing forces. Nine of Pentacles, reversed. Elitism, eroding security. I always view this as a very male card, incidentally. The next opposing force, the Queen of Swords." Teri couldn't help but laugh.


"What's so funny?"


"That's what I've always used as your significator, Sarah, and I assume this refers to you, or possibly the Society in general. The reconciler of the conflict is the Page of Cups, a new relationship, a greater understanding of the world. It can signify the birth of a child, or the rebirth of a soul. No, Sarah, Susi hasn't been turned, but she is in trouble. And she's caught between this elitist force and the Society."


"How does it resolve?" Sarah said.


"The Sun, reversed," said Teri, flipping the last card onto the pile. "Uncertainty. Outcome unknown. Reply hazy, try again."


"You always reassure me so," Sarah said. "So you really think –"


But Sarah was interrupted by the sound of her cell phone. She picked it up, and hit speaker.


"Titania, I've got Isis here as well, go ahead Ops."


"Master Kensington-Chelgren, this is Looking Glass. I've got a report from Heidelberg."


"Go ahead."


"It's personal, ma'am."


Sarah went white, but said, "Understood, Alice. You can talk to Teri too."


The two women could hear the pause, as Alice Richardson gathered herself. "Ma'am, the German internal security folks, their version of the NSA, has locked down the likely locus of the incident; it's a dormitory room in Heidelberg. They aren't being cooperative, even after Hans-Peter reminded them of the Treaty of Harrisburg, but…"


"Cut to the chase, Alice," said Teri.


"The incident apparently occurred in a dorm room registered to two exchange students, one from Ireland, the other an American named Susan Kensington. The BFV is telling us they believe that the incident killed both women."


Sarah sat silently for a moment, before she said, quietly, "Bullshit."


"Ma'am?"


"They would know," she said, "if it had killed anyone. Had they recovered bodies?"


"Our operative Taran got as close as he could, he said that there was no evidence of any struggle, or anyone injured at all, much less killed. But –"


"Right," said Sarah, standing up. "I'm coming into ops. I want an all-points bulletin issued for my sister, as well as her roommate – I think her name's Ráichéal Gallagher, but you should confirm that. Get it into the field now that the German authorities are not being cooperative and we cannot assume they are trustworthy."


"Ma'am? Are you sure?"


Sarah looked at Teri. "Am I sure?"


Teri looked back at Sarah, and smiled. "She's not dead. There wouldn't be uncertainty if she was."


"I'm sure, Alice. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Coming, Teri?"


"Yes. What's going on with the Germans?"


"Don't know," Sarah said, "but if they've hurt Susi in any way, there'll be hell to pay."