That was the best he could do for her.
Then he prepared his message for the authorities.
He attached a holo unit to the side door. The unit replayed a recording of the spraying that Shindo had done. The Gyonnese had designed the holo unit. The Gyonnese had kept cameras on the field where their larvae were growing. The cameras were for the parents, so that they could see each moment of their child’s development.
The recording had been edited down to just a few short minutes. First, it showed a wind-swept field under a blue sky. Light seemed thin, washing out the tall grass and the mountains beyond.
A running clock in both alien characters and regular numbers showed time lapsing. A vehicle hovered low over the grass, spraying a liquid.
Then the flying car disappeared and the grass died. The ground was brownish red, but parts of it turned black. The Gyonnese showed up, their whiskers moving in agitation. They bent in half and dug at the dirt, pulling up the dead larvae.
Larvae were usually light brown. These were black and shriveled.
The Gyonnese folded themselves in half, hands raised to the sky in a sign of complete and utter distress.
Eventually the image faded and words covered the screen: Ten thousand died in the first wave. Twenty thousand families lost generations of genetic heritage. This act was repeated twice more. Sixty thousand Gyonnese have paid with their futures.
How has Rhonda Flint paid?
The Gyonnese had set up a contact button at the corner of the image, and that proved the hardest to attach. Because the House’s communications with the rest of Valhalla Basin had been shut off, Yu couldn’t test to make sure he had set up the contact button correctly.
He had to hope that the instructions the Gyonnese had given him were correct.
He finished with very little time to spare. He checked on the girl—she was still unconscious, and she seemed unharmed. He made sure the closet was secured, then he went searching for Nafti.
Yu found Nafti watching a holoshow in the other bedroom. He had sprawled on the bed as if the place belonged to him.
Yu flicked the show off. “You were supposed to be monitoring the House.”
“The House monitors the House.” Nafti stood like a kid who’d been caught in his parent’s room.
“And we shut that off, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Yu had to remind himself that he had hired Nafti for his muscles, not his brains. “We’re going to wait for the woman outside.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to catch her in here?”
It would have been, if Yu hadn’t already shut down a lot of the House’s systems and installed the holoimages in the kitchen. Rhonda Shindo would know the moment she walked in the house that something was wrong.
“Stop asking questions. Just do what you’re told.”
Nafti must have caught the note of exasperation in Yu’s voice because he nodded. They collected everything they had brought, then Yu stopped and directed a housebot to thoroughly clean every room except the kitchen and the closet part of the girl’s bedroom. It wouldn’t prevent the authorities from figuring out who took the woman—especially since the girl had seen him—but it would slow them down and give them time enough to authenticate the message the Gyonnese had left.
That message would turn the attention from him to the Gyonnese. Then he could continue with his quiet life, finding little objects for people who paid him too much money.
He helped Nafti out of the house, found the man a hiding spot near the back yard—one that would be in the line of site from Yu’s hiding spot—and instructed Nafti to move only when he got the signal.
Then Yu slipped into his own hiding spot, not too far from the side door.
Rhonda Shindo arrived five minutes later. She was slim like her daughter, but not as tall. She had the same bronze skin, but her hair was dark and pulled back. Her eyes were dark too. The girl had apparently gotten her striking looks from the father who believed her dead.
Shindo wore a pants suit and heels, conservative like the rest of this place. She carried a briefcase, which surprised Yu. So far, she didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.
He wanted her to just get inside the door before he grabbed her. Then he and Nafti could drag her to the back yard and their vehicle without catching much attention.
But she touched the door before opening it and drew her hand back, as if she had been shocked.
He could hear her speak—and the House answer—but the words weren’t clear. He cursed silently. He hadn’t expected her to talk to the House from the outside.
He crept forward. The House was reciting an ad for an upgrade and Shindo was looking annoyed.
She set down her briefcase as she said, “Just tell me if Talia put the electronics on the door.”
“Not this time,” House said. “The electronics were placed by a man who deleted his identity from my files. He conducted a thorough scrub but forgot to delete the section in which I monitored his deletion.”
Yu silently cursed. What else had he forgotten? Or just plain missed? Could the House still notify security? Had it?
“Would you like me to bring that up on the wall panel to your left?” the House asked Shindo.
She was frowning, deepening the lines around her nose and mouth. “Yes, I would like to see that.”
The visual would alert her to the problem. The element of surprise was slipping away from him, and he wasn’t in the right place to alert Nafti.
So Yu stepped forward. He stopped right beside her. She was his height and thinner. He could probably subdue her himself.
“There’s no need to see it,” Yu said. “I did it.”
She turned. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, the only sign that she was startled. “I don’t think we’ve met, Mr.—?”
Politeness. He hadn’t expected that. He waved his hand beside him, a small signal for Nafti, but he wasn’t sure if Nafti could see it from this angle.
“We haven’t met, ma’am,” Yu said. He could be as polite as anyone else—more polite, even, if he needed to be. “But I know who you are. You’re Rhonda Shindo. And just so that we remain on an even footing, let me tell you that I’m a Recovery Man.”
Her body stiffened. “I’ve never heard of a Recovery Man.”
“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” He was watching her, but out of the corner of his eye, he was hoping to see Nafti. “I recover things. Sometimes I even recover people.”
That last was a lie, at least until today.
He added, “I work for the Gyonnese.”
Her mouth opened. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or not.
“And don’t play dumb about the Gyonnese,” he said. “It’s all on record.”