Source Code by E.M. Rensing

Author:E.M. Rensing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: E.M. Rensing

17

“What’s up?”

“EOD.”

There were a number of people outside the secondary hangar, inside the airfield fence, hanging out under the small rusting pavilion that normally saw service as the smoke pit.

Daelia recognized everybody, a little proud of herself. There were a couple of maintainers and Norris, with a few of his team. Senior Airman Rhineman. Tech Sergeant Kirby.

Neither of them were full time, which meant Sausage had probably dragged them in on state orders too. There was a dizzying array of order statuses that people operated under in the Air Guard, but Daelia got the distinct impression that everyone hated the state orders the most. From what Dad had told her, it paid a lot less.

Rhineman was yawning into his OCP sleeve. Kirby’s bun was messy, haloed with a crown of escaping hair, a far cry from her usually pristine pinned-up French braid.

The other person out waiting was Staff Sergeant Menendez. Lara. From Base Cyber Surety. Daelia liked Lara, though. Another college student, with an understated nerdiness.

Or maybe explicitly nerdy today.

She was hand-stitching a long section of dark gray braid onto a uniform jacket that would have been more at home in the Napoleonic Wars than the Ellington flight line.

“Reenactment?” Daelia asked.

Menendez didn’t look up. “Cosplay.”

“Isn’t it basically the same thing?” Rhineman asked. “Except, you know, more pathetic?”

“Says the man with Batman boxers,” Kirby said.

“That was one fucking time!”

“Do I even want to know?” Norris sighed and looked over at Daelia. “I’m sorry. Did you need something?”

“Came by to see what’s going on.”

Norris waved a hand. “Welcome to the party.”

“We’re just stuck outside until they’re done?” she asked, looking around. “That doesn’t seem right.”

Norris rolled a shoulder, stretching a little. “You’ve heard the old stories about IEDs over in Iraq, right? Where they’d rig them up to go off from cell phone signals?”

She had. Daelia immediately knew where he was going with it and felt mildly embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of it herself. “Dad’s probably mentioned to me.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t want to be poking at this thing without some kind of guarantee that it’s not going to blow up half the base.”

“Can I go in?” she asked, already walking over to the door.

“They asked us to, uhh, wait outside because of⁠—”

“Sure,” she said, and pushed her way in anyway.

Inside, it looked a little bit more like what she’d been imagining this morning. A gaggle of people in various uniforms, all waving instruments around and conversing in hushed tones. From the TMD, it seemed, judging by patches and logos embroidered on polos or screen-printed to T-shirts.

More equipment had been set up, a couple of tall spotlights had been erected, and there was even a low platform set up, with a couple of people working on it.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but you can’t be in here,” a senior enlisted man said, walking up. She didn’t recognize him; his shoulder patch indicated he was from Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth.

She flashed her badge on its lanyard around her neck. “I’m with Bellona Robotics. I helped find this thing last night.

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