The Magic Circle, Katherine Neville [parable of the sower read online .TXT] 📗

Goddamned Bella—was she writing me up? I knew what a security infraction meant at a nuclear site. It could take hours just to go through the initial review. A security officer’s word was law. If her accusation stuck, I might be suspended from my job. What in God’s name was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I have let it go, just walked through the mantraps and forgotten her? Why did I have to flip her the goddamned bird?

Now the Pod was escorting me to the office of the director of security and I was wondering how on earth, even if I got out of this in time to catch my plane, I would ever get to the post office first to stop my mail. I wondered if you could get an IQ transplant or some kind of hormone supplement that would reduce female aggression. I wondered if I could fall on the floor and pretend I was having a fit.

Peterson Flange, the security director, was sitting behind his desk when we came in. Since I’d never seen Peterson Flange when he wasn’t sitting behind his desk, I’d often wondered if he had any legs.

“Officer Behn,” said the security director, scowling at me, “an extremely serious charge of security infraction has been brought against you this morning.”

The Pod looked at me with raised brows, clearly wondering just how I had incurred a serious infraction when I’d only been on the premises a few moments. I was wondering the same thing myself: I’d definitely flunked another intelligence test. “Behn is scheduled to leave this morning on a critical project,” he informed Flange, checking his watch. “Her plane leaves in less than an hour. I hope this isn’t as serious as you suggest.”

“The security officer who reported the infraction is being relieved right now at her post, and will join us shortly,” Flange said.

Just then Bella came storming in. “You flipped me off!” she screamed, waving one long mauve lacquered fingernail in my face the moment she saw me.

“I did exactly what you’re doing right now,” I pointed out. “Only I might have used a different finger.”

“What is this woman taking about?” the Pod asked, indicating Bella. He had that dangerous don’t-mess-with-me edge to his voice as he glared at the security director.

But I knew I was in trouble. Though the Pod was head of the whole nuclear site, security personnel reported directly to the FBI’s National Security wing. Peterson Flange could override the Pod and stop me cold if he decided to make it an issue, and that would incense the Pod with me too, since he’d have to lecture me and fill out reports and a lot of other nonsense. I really had to think fast.

“Officer Behn,” said Peterson Flange, “our security officer here has charged you with making an obscene and threatening gesture to her through the security camera in the mantraps, when she, in her line of duty, was only trying to ID you against your badge.”

“I have it on film,” Bella sneered at me, “so don’t bother to deny it.”

Her attitude really pissed me off. I turned to Peterson Flange and asked pleasantly, “What exactly did your security officer think that, by my gesture, I was threatening to do to her?”

He stared at me in astonishment, jumping to his feet. So he did have legs, after all. “Security is the most serious business of this site, Officer Behn!” he stormed. “It’s hardly a subject for levity!”

I was trying to recall exactly what levity was, whether it was something heavy or something light, when the Pod interrupted our interesting chat. “What is it you did to her, Behn?” he asked me directly.

“I flipped her the bird through the security camera, sir, when she wouldn’t let me in through the mantraps,” I said. “She was being a pain in the ass, and I was afraid if we screwed around much longer, I might be late for my plane.”

“A pain in the …!!!” Peterson Flange was hyperventilating. He collapsed back into his chair—so maybe he just had springs under there.

Pastor Dart was staring at me with his hand covering his mouth. If I didn’t know better, I might have guessed he was laughing. Finally, things settled down and the Pod took command.

“My opinion,” he announced in his best screw-with-me-and-I’ll-fuck-you voice, “is that Officer Behn deserves a verbal warning but nothing more. Speaking privately, I feel I must mention that she’s just had a death in her family, only to return from the funeral and learn she was scheduled to leave in one week for an important assignment overseas in support of Doctor Hauser, our liaison with the IAEA. She pleaded not to go on this assignment, but I—” He stopped, for Bella had thrown herself across the director’s desk and was screaming in his face.

“You have to let me write her up! You can’t let her go on this trip with him!”

Peterson Flange shot Dart an embarrassed look and waved his hand. “I’ll look into this further myself,” he conceded, as the Pod and I turned and went out the door.

“Behn, you’ll explain this later to my satisfaction,” said the Pod, “but you’d better be on that plane this morning with Hauser.” As I was leaving, the Pod shook his head with a grin. “I really can’t believe what you did. But please, just don’t try it again.”

I had only twenty minutes to get from my office to the airport, which was a good ten minutes away not counting the detour I still had to make. I screeched up to the front of the post office and didn’t bother to park. I jumped out of my car and ran up the steps. George the postal clerk was behind the counter when I came in, but there were a few people already standing in the queue.

“George, I have to stop my mail for a few weeks,” I called over their heads. “I’ll just fill out the form,