The Braintrust by Marc Stiegler

Author:Marc Stiegler [Stiegler, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2017-12-13T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

A Family Matter

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Alan Kay

Jamal praised Allah once more under his breath. They’d been so close to her this entire time and still couldn’t find her. But that time had passed—they owned her now.

Marjan had spotted her coming out of the police station, as he’d surmised, wearing the bright yellow shirt of a peacekeeper. At first he’d been worried that Jameela would spot them, but realized it was unlikely indeed. Who would expect a respectable Pakistani man to be here wearing these outrageous clothes?

The promenade was too crowded for his liking in this final confrontation. A couple witnesses would be acceptable, even desirable given that the video cameras would record his vengeance anyway, unless he could force his way into her cabin. He’d briefly considered breaking into her cabin, but all the walls and doors in this place were solid steel; he couldn’t just batter his way in. He had to deal with her elsewhere. Ideally he’d deal with her now, but he’d wait until Jameela moved to someplace a little quieter than the promenade. Then he’d teach her respect.

A young girl wearing glasses and a white lab coat met her with a hearty greeting by a restaurant. The two of them hugged; had Jameela turned to lesbianism? It didn’t seem at all farfetched to Jamal, though the other girl seemed a little young for that. Who was she? The only explanation he could come up with was that the girl was the daughter of one of the many doctors here on the Chiron, and she was wearing one of her father’s coats.

In any event, the girl did not affect his calculations. She was hardly a threat.

Jameela and the girl turned and strode to an elevator. No! He would lose them in the other twenty-five floors of the ship. Jamal rushed to the elevator with no clear plan. Should he kill her right there? No, Marjan was too far away to catch up in time to join him; the confrontation would have to wait.

As Jameela turned to poke the button in the elevator he dodged to the side fast enough, he thought, so she could not see his face.

And then his salvation came. Another woman, already on the elevator, asked Jameela where she wanted to go. And another voice—presumably the young girl’s—answered, “Appalachian Spring, please.”

The other woman spoke. “Appalachian Spring it is. That’s a gorgeous deck, don’t you think?” The elevator door slid closed before he heard any response.

Jamal waved Marjan to another elevator which was just opening, and up they went to Appalachian Spring.

They arrived just in time to see a peacekeeper uniform and a white coat turn a corner. Jamal and Marjan ran to meet their destiny.

This was apparently a residential deck. Underneath the admittedly remarkable murals the cabins were dully, monotonously the same, one after the next. They passed a handful of people who watched them in surprise as they rushed by, probably startled to see tourists on this deck.

Jameela and the other girl were laughing as Jamal and Marjan pulled even with them.

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