Issue #27 RRP $8.95 Rory Douglas Abel Aliette ... - Upgrade Systems

50
Douglas A Van Belle
Slag looked at her, looked into her eyes with the intensity that only a psychotic
could muster and said, “Thunder.”
“What?” she asked as she started to slide off the chair.
“You were thinking that Mitchell isn’t the name of a linebacker, but Thunder
Mitchell Fairmont is.”
Instead of lots of running and screaming, she glanced at me, smirking.
“Thunder?”
“Hey, at least I got Mom’s maiden name for a middle name and didn’t end up with
something really stupid like Slag Thrust Fairmont?”
“At least it wasn’t Ford.” She still didn’t relax, but she finally did sit on the damn
chair.
“Fairlane. The car’s a Fairlane,” I said. I didn’t offer the fact that we had just left
the decrepit remains of a 1978 Ford Fairlane station wagon grazing in the lot outside.
“But we do live near Freemont.”
She almost smiled.
“I take it you have a name?” I said.
She looked at me a long moment, then said, “Susan. Susan Louise Johnson.”
“A nice normal name,” I said. “Be sure to thank your mom on Mother’s Day.”
“Her parents are dead,” Slag hissed at me as if I should have known better than
mention her mother.
Susan was off the chair and I actually had to jump to get between her and the
door.
“So you’ve got me all scouted out, huh?” Susan was wavering at that point just
short of yelling. The intensity was there, but not the volume. “Got my credit report,
sister’s name…”
“You don’t have a sister,” Slag chimed in.
Susan ignored him. “…traffic tickets, my permanent record from elementary
school, every detail you could find and now you think you can work me?”
“It’s the way that you work people that interests us.”
That stopped her.
“Who the hell are you?” she hissed.
“Hard to say,” I said. “Something somewhere between Aquaman on The
Superfriends and that monkey that uses sign language.”
“Chimps are not monkeys,” Slag said.
Susan scowled at us so hard it went past ugly and started to look almost cute.
“We’ve got a business proposition for you. That’s it, I swear. Just give me a few
minutes to make the pitch and you can decide if you ever see us again.”
“It’s not like you’re thinking,” Slag said, trying way too hard to be reassuring.
I frantically waved at Slag, trying to get him to shut up before he chased her away,
but she was waiting, silently demanding more.
“The cops, or a cop who is sort of a friend, sometimes hires us to generate leads,”
I said.
“I’m psychic,” Slag said suddenly.
It took everything I had not to smack Slag with the big glass full of red slush I
was still holding. I had yelled at him often enough that he knew better than to say