Eliza tried to sleep, but the ride was rough. So she spend as much time watching Ms. Adams as listening to her. She was no ordinary pencil pusher, that was for sure. She had what Eliza would guess was a RGP (Rail Gun Pistol) strapped to her ride side under the jacket, thought it was almost disguised by the bulge in her jacket caused by her breasts. Eliza was staring straight at the woman’s chest when she heard Veronica’s voice.
“Impressive, hunh?”
“What?” was Eliza’s brilliant response.
“My weapon,” Veronica said. She opened up her jacket, made sure the pistol was powered down, then handed it to Eliza.
“Yes,” said Eliza, trying not to let on that it wasn’t the weapon that she found impressive. “I didn’t even know the new M5 model was out yet.”
The two of them chatted about firearms for a while, and Veronica proved she knew her stuff. Eliza asked about her background, under the guise of wanting to know the resources at her disposal. Actually, she just wanted to talk to someone. Veronica had actually trained to be a police officer in New York, then had briefly worked with a S. W. A. T. team there. Then the government had approached her about doing envoy duty.
“They felt that I looked non-threatening but could take care of myself in a pinch. It turns out my superiors had recommended me for a transfer. They said it was because they thought I would be good. I think it was because I shot them all down when they hit on me.” Then Veronica quickly changed the topic. Eliza found herself wondering about Veronica’s last statement. It seemed like sort of an odd thing to mention.
Finally, they arrived at the island. They were deposited, their gear was unloaded, then the boat left. They were stranded. Veronica led them to a central courtyard. There was a group of about one hundred people waiting there, all of whom quickly stood at attention. Apparently, radio silence also entailed not being able to tell the home fort when people would be arriving. There were soldiers, cooks, medics and technicians in the mix. A couple of soldiers had dogs on leashes. All of them looked at the party as they approached, and a number of them almost took a step back when the eight-foot troll came into view.
“Eliza, this is Captain Donald Corbin. All military personnel will report to him, and he will report to you.”
“Captain,” Eliza said formally.
“Ms. Eliza,” he responded. He was a veteran of combat for sure. He had a no-nonsense air about him. He appeared to be in his early forties and build like a brick shithouse. Eliza, with her vampire strength, might have been able to overpower him, but she got the distinct impression that it would be better that she not ever try to. “Did you want to address the troops?”
“What all do they know at this time?”
“Everything,” the Captain responded.
“Then I’ll just introduce myself.”
The Captain cleared his voice loudly. “Okay everyone, this is . . . Eliza.” Her not having a pronounceable last name or title temporarily baffled the man. “She is the one in charge now. She’s the one who actually GUARDED the Heaven’s Eye, not the one who let it slip away,” he added, trying to give her a bit of a boost in the eyes of the troops.
“Thank you Captain,” she said, then turned to address the throng. “As Captain Corbin just mentioned, my name is Eliza. This is Thug, Wyrm, and Dennis and Allyson Murgo. We are security specialists. Now, I’m not going to waste your time telling you how to do your jobs. I’ve got a feeling none of you would be here if you weren’t very good at what you did. If you trust me to do my job, I’ll trust you to do yours. If you have any suggestions, please take them to the Captain first if at all possible, but I promise that I will take such suggestions seriously. I don’t pretend to know everything, and we will need all of our wits and our experience to keep our responsibility safe. Now I’m sure the Captain has assignments for everyone, so I’ll turn the floor back over to him.” Before the Captain wandered off to dispense assignments, Eliza told him she wanted to meet with him and Ms. Adams as soon as he was done.
When the Captain wandered back over, Eliza had gotten a gadget from Wyrm.
“What’s that?” Veronica asked.
“I’ll explain in a moment. Captain, where is the Dead Man’s World now?”
He led them to what had once been the prison’s main office. There were six armed guards present. Eliza asked that the guards be dismissed from that post and sent to patrol the perimeter. The Captain looked confused, but complied. Eliza had also grabbed a copy of the blueprints for the prison and had looked them over. She grabbed the jewel and led Veronica and Captain Corbin into the heart of the prison. There were several small cellblocks in the prison, and one huge one running right down the center. There were a few guards patrolling in there, but she got the Captain to order them out.
“What’s going on?” Veronica asked.
Eliza held up the gadget she had brought. “This is a Tri-Lock. It can only be opened by the simultaneous transmission of three transmitter keys emanating from within five feet of the lock. We are going to place the Dead Man’s World in one of these cells and place this within the lock for cell with the jewel. It will automatically expand to fill the lock, preventing it from being opened until the transmissions are received. Each of us will hold onto one transmitter key. We three will be the only ones who know where the prize is being kept. Just like your superiors said,” Eliza said while looking at Veronica, “the fewer people who know, the better. The cells will then remain locked at all time. These cellblocks will be patrolled no more or less than anywhere else.”
“Shouldn’t we have someone keeping an eye on it at all times?” Veronica asked.
The Captain was looking at Eliza with a measure of respect. “If we looks like we’re guarding something, then the enemy will know where it’s hidden.”
Eliza looked at the envoy. “One thing I learned is that you never hide your valuables in a safe, because that’s where everyone is going to look. Actually, we are going to post guards in another location. This will be a distraction. If the Purity shows up here and wants to go room by room and cell by cell through the entire prison, it will mean they’ve already killed us all. And I’d at least like to really inconvenience them if that’s the case.” That got a hearty chuckle out of the Captain and a nervous laugh out of Veronica. Eliza looked around and randomly picked a cell. They unlocked the steel door, wrapped the World in a plastic bag wrapped it in a towel and placed it in the toilet. The way the shadows were cast, it was completely invisible from outside the cell. The three of them walked outside, closed the door, and Eliza pushed the Tri-Lock into the keyhole. It was actually a putty-like substance that reacted to the transmissions given up by the keys. Each pressed one of the two buttons on the key cylinder, and they heard a “swooshing” sound as the putty expanded. Now the door wouldn’t open by conventional means.
“That’s a neat device,” Veronica said. “One of these days, you’ll have to tell me where you got it. Particularly since they haven’t been officially released to the private sector,” she added with a grin.
Eliza looked back at her innocently. “As soon as you tell me where you got your gun.”
—————- —————–
The next evening . . .
—————- —————–
Eliza had met with all the members of her security team and given out assignments. Dennis and Allyson were set up in guard towers with some of the best sniper rifles in existence. Wyrm was actually making modifications to the closed-circuit surveillance system on the island, and Thug was skulking around, being unobtrusive and trying not to scare anyone. Eliza had checked in with the Captain, then grabbed a warm cup of blood from the kitchen and headed up to an observation tower on the roof. It was dark up there, and she had a beautiful view of the night sky and all the stars. She stirred her blood with a stick of cinnamon. She had grossed Allyson out the first time she had done that, but the Eliza loved the taste of cinnamon. She raised the cup to her lips and drank.
“Captain Corbin told me I might find you here,” came a voice from the stairwell as Veronica came into view. “Mind if I join you?”
“As long as you brought your own drink,” Eliza said. “Mine probably isn’t to your taste.”
“I’ll be fine with coffee,” the other woman said with a smile. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Are you hiding up here or just thinking?”
“I usually have to do the former before I can do the latter,” Eliza said. She took another sip, glad that Veronica didn’t look at all repulsed by the vampire’s drink. “I’m just trying to figure some things out.”
“Like what?”
Eliza frowned. “Who’s idea was all this? This location, hiring us . . .”
Veronica looked confused. “Well, the location was handed down by a member of the Chief of Homeland Security, and the troops were picked by the Pentagon. I was assigned due to my personal interest . . .”
“Personal interest?”
Veronica flushed red and looked away. “I have a sister trapped on Terra right now.”
Eliza’s heart went out to the woman. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel.”
Veronica took a deep breath, then continued. “Hiring you was my idea. I was given a budget and told to get professional help. That funding also came from the Pentagon. I meant it when I said that I don’t think whoever these guys want anything to do with you.”