more beers out.
“What would you have done with the beer if I’d said no?” Kirk asked Mac.
Mac laughed. “Drank it anyway.”
“No one says no,” Eagle said. “That’s why she’s Ms. Jones. She picked you.”
For a surprising third time Ms. Jones cut in. “And do you know why I picked Mister Eagle, Mister Mac?”
Mac didn’t hesitate. “He’s a fucking great pilot, Ms. Jones.”
“He is indeed,” Ms. Jones confirmed. “But great pilots are easy to find. He’s also a superb navigator. The combination of those two is still relatively common in the big scheme of things.”
Moms looked at Nada questionably. Nada just shrugged.
Ms. Jones continued. “Did you know that London cab drivers have a larger hippocampus on average than most other people so they can memorize the maze of streets upon which they ply their trade? Eagle has a hippocampus that puts theirs to shame. That is why he has arcane knowledge such as the Kobayashi Maru and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch as well as his technical skills. He also has quite a bit of useful knowledge in his brain.”
Now it was Eagle’s turn to flush, the scars on the left side of his face pulsing darker with blood.
Moms stood close to Nada and whispered so only he could hear. “Something’s wrong. Ms. Jones has never spoken this much.”
“I know,” Nada said. “We’re screwed.”
Ms. Jones finished: “Drink your Pearl, gentlemen and Ms. Moms.”
Kirk stared at the can of beer in his hand. “How’d she know we were drinking Pearl?”
In the darkness of her real office, lying in her hospital bed, Ms. Jones listened through the speaker as the team wrapped up the naming ceremony with more beers. She turned off her microphone and the holographic image generated by the machine in the chair in her office.
And she worried about things she had no control over and things that others couldn’t even conceive of.
Because that’s why she was Ms. Jones.
The Courier made it through the Rockies and just past Salt Lake City at dark. He pulled into one of those huge truck stops to get gas, pee, and grab some coffee and something to chow down on. He gassed up, parked away from any other vehicles, got out, then set the three separate locks and alarm systems on the van before heading over to the bright lights of the station.
As he was peeing he noticed the condom machine on the wall, which naturally got him thinking about the tight ass on that student at UC. Daddy probably footing her bill through school, while people like him ended up in the ’Stan. Conveniently forgetting, of course, that his father had paid for his solo year, then yanked the plug when he ended up with four incompletes.
He was still thinking about the student’s ass, and not the realities of his own life’s shortcomings, as he made his way back to the van. He laboriously pushed the codes that disarmed and unlocked the thing, then got in. He perched his cup of coffee on the dashboard. There was no cup holder. The computer that ran through the GPS display took that slot. She’d had a nice rack, too, he remembered as he unwrapped the hoagie he’d bought. He was just about to take a sip of coffee when a rap at the window caused him to slosh some over the side and onto his pants.
“Damn!”
With his free hand—his off hand, as his gun hand was still holding the coffee—he scrambled awkwardly for the Glock. He was a contortionist for a moment, trying to put the coffee back down and trying to get the gun, which was still in his holster and not in his lap, where it was supposed to be as per Protocol when in the vehicle, when he saw that the rappee was a cute young girl with long, dirty-blonde hair hanging out of a knitted wool cap and a lollipop dangling out of the corner of her mouth. If he’d thought it through, he, like anyone else with common sense, could have come up with Nada’s Yada about pretty young hookers at truck stops:
They don’t exist
.
He didn’t think it through. Not
“What would you have done with the beer if I’d said no?” Kirk asked Mac.
Mac laughed. “Drank it anyway.”
“No one says no,” Eagle said. “That’s why she’s Ms. Jones. She picked you.”
For a surprising third time Ms. Jones cut in. “And do you know why I picked Mister Eagle, Mister Mac?”
Mac didn’t hesitate. “He’s a fucking great pilot, Ms. Jones.”
“He is indeed,” Ms. Jones confirmed. “But great pilots are easy to find. He’s also a superb navigator. The combination of those two is still relatively common in the big scheme of things.”
Moms looked at Nada questionably. Nada just shrugged.
Ms. Jones continued. “Did you know that London cab drivers have a larger hippocampus on average than most other people so they can memorize the maze of streets upon which they ply their trade? Eagle has a hippocampus that puts theirs to shame. That is why he has arcane knowledge such as the Kobayashi Maru and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch as well as his technical skills. He also has quite a bit of useful knowledge in his brain.”
Now it was Eagle’s turn to flush, the scars on the left side of his face pulsing darker with blood.
Moms stood close to Nada and whispered so only he could hear. “Something’s wrong. Ms. Jones has never spoken this much.”
“I know,” Nada said. “We’re screwed.”
Ms. Jones finished: “Drink your Pearl, gentlemen and Ms. Moms.”
Kirk stared at the can of beer in his hand. “How’d she know we were drinking Pearl?”
In the darkness of her real office, lying in her hospital bed, Ms. Jones listened through the speaker as the team wrapped up the naming ceremony with more beers. She turned off her microphone and the holographic image generated by the machine in the chair in her office.
And she worried about things she had no control over and things that others couldn’t even conceive of.
Because that’s why she was Ms. Jones.
The Courier made it through the Rockies and just past Salt Lake City at dark. He pulled into one of those huge truck stops to get gas, pee, and grab some coffee and something to chow down on. He gassed up, parked away from any other vehicles, got out, then set the three separate locks and alarm systems on the van before heading over to the bright lights of the station.
As he was peeing he noticed the condom machine on the wall, which naturally got him thinking about the tight ass on that student at UC. Daddy probably footing her bill through school, while people like him ended up in the ’Stan. Conveniently forgetting, of course, that his father had paid for his solo year, then yanked the plug when he ended up with four incompletes.
He was still thinking about the student’s ass, and not the realities of his own life’s shortcomings, as he made his way back to the van. He laboriously pushed the codes that disarmed and unlocked the thing, then got in. He perched his cup of coffee on the dashboard. There was no cup holder. The computer that ran through the GPS display took that slot. She’d had a nice rack, too, he remembered as he unwrapped the hoagie he’d bought. He was just about to take a sip of coffee when a rap at the window caused him to slosh some over the side and onto his pants.
“Damn!”
With his free hand—his off hand, as his gun hand was still holding the coffee—he scrambled awkwardly for the Glock. He was a contortionist for a moment, trying to put the coffee back down and trying to get the gun, which was still in his holster and not in his lap, where it was supposed to be as per Protocol when in the vehicle, when he saw that the rappee was a cute young girl with long, dirty-blonde hair hanging out of a knitted wool cap and a lollipop dangling out of the corner of her mouth. If he’d thought it through, he, like anyone else with common sense, could have come up with Nada’s Yada about pretty young hookers at truck stops:
They don’t exist
.
He didn’t think it through. Not
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