Page 4 of Exit Strategy

Rex had been part of my interview, and there had been a bit of pomp, where he had a bunch of nearly naked women come parading through our interview. The men who turned their heads to watch the women had their interviews cut short. The men who didn’t turn their heads were asked questions after the women left. They were odd questions. Some were trick questions, but it was all attention to detail, and quick wits.

Then I was in charge and getting a regular paycheck.

My lodging was part of my compensation package, so I didn’t have to sleep in my truck, or face a three-to-four-hour commute between what Icouldafford and the Hollywood Hills that my charge resided in. I had a small apartment, courtesy of his New Eden Centre. It was some sort of fancy super-green commune plan. Everything was close to self-sustaining – solar panels and solar water heaters on the roof of the apartment complex, green planning, and a communal high-efficiency laundry service.

The place was annoying as shit, and the neighbors were just fucking unbearable.

Work kept me busy, and I didn’t spend much time there.

“Hey, Sarge,” my radio chirped. It was my second, Madeline Oberisk, a tall blonde woman with boxer’s hands and a paramilitary background in SWAT.

“Go ahead for Kurt,” I said.

“Cardinal is inbound, ETA thirty minutes,” she replied.

“Copy that. I’ll expedite housekeeping. You queue up a vehicle for Cardinal and I’ll make sure we’re ready here.” I thumbed the mic.

“Copy for Obe,” she said, and the line closed. Cardinal was Miss Calanthe Quinlan. Like the bird, she was small and red, and tended to arrive in a small aircraft. She probably would have choppered onto the set except that Rex was working on some sort of big-budget time-travel sci-fi thing that involved Roman gladiators, and the set was no fly. A helo setting down would ruin film, sets, the works.

I went to work, checking the perimeter, tagging my men on the ground, and the man posted to the guard tower, watching everything from a portable thirty-foot elevated shoebox. Like the well-oiled machine we were, Cardinal’s driver was directed to one of the service entrances, missing the crowd of snoops and paparazzi who stalked the edges of the set, armed with telephoto lenses the size of sniper rifles.

“Skyfall, is the air clear?” I thumbed my mic again, watching the large hybrid sedan make the turn through the blackout fencing around the set.

“Air is clear, Kurt,” the call came back. “No drones within two miles of the set.”

“Good, let’s get the air clear. We don’t want eyes on Cardinal or Tomcat,” I said.

“Copy that,” he responded.

Moments later, the car pulled up in front of what security considered the headquarters. A cluster of smaller trailers created a partition, blocking cameras that could see above the blackout wall, and pop-up walls made another side, concealing the area from set cameras. The big green walls could be edited out easily with computers. Green room, makeup trailers, and the common area took up the rest. The area had initially also housed a double row of plastic porta-johns, but I got those moved to a new latrine area where we could have sandwiches and smokes without having to smell taco shits and wine piss all day.

The complaints about the long walk were still being registered and promptly discarded. No one was complaining about the common area smelling better. Maybe they were used to that, but me, no. I couldn’t take that stink packing itself in my nose.

I stepped forward, opened the door of the sedan, and offered the passenger inside my hand. I had met Cardinal a few times, but always in passing, and never exchanged anything more than a polite nod or bow of the head. She reached up, accepting my hand, and Ihelpedher rise from the car. That was the role I had to play, almost like SAG rules. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and if someone did bother to notice my existence, it was a good idea to keep everything to five sentences or fewer. Five words or less was better.

“Miss Calanthe, welcome to theSandal Paradoxset.” I smiled.

“Thank you, and I prefer Callie, please,” she said.

“Of course, Miss Callie,” I offered.

“Sandal Paradox?” she asked.

“Working title of the set. The last screenwriter’s meeting I was called into, they still hadn’t settled on a title for it.”

“So, you’re the head of security?” she asked, purely a social nicety. She was always a textbook of prim and proper, always with polite questions that she already knew the answer to.

“Aye, Staff Sergeant Owen Worthington, but everyone calls me Kurt,” I said.

“How do you get Kurt from Owen?” she asked politely. She seemed like the sort who did everything politely and might faint if someone spoke too forcefully in her presence, or, Heaven forbid, let out a bit of blue language. Cardinal didn’t fit her. Those birds were aggressive and territorial, and she looked to be neither. She made me think of the old stories of elves and Fae ghosts, translucent with hair made of fire.

“It’s a nickname I picked up years ago when I was on deployment. I read a lot,” I said.

“Maybe Kurt doesn’t mean what I think.” She raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t have many books on hand, so I was rereading the same ones over and over. Most of the books I had were by Kurt Vonnegut.” I gestured, and one of the security people nodded and waved the car to leave the common area and move down to the motor pool.

“Oh, Kurt Vonnegut…” She paused thoughtfully. “I did readCat’s Cradle, before the library was sanitized.”

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