Callahan's Place 09 - Callahan's Con (v5.0) Read Online Free Page A

issued fighting words.   I considered feigning offense, as a stalling tactic.   But: stalling until what ?  
    Damn it, I might as well bite the bullet.
    I sighed deeply and brought my watch up.   I pressed the mode button on the lower left and the display changed to a dormant stopwatch labeled “Chrono.”   I pressed it again and the watch became an alarm clock awaiting instructions.   Another press, and the watch offered to tell me the time in some other time zone, arbitrarily designated “T-2.”   On most watches, the fourth press would have reverted it to default, the current-time readout.   On mine, the fourth press caused it to display a crude but recognizable picture of a ladybug.
    I hesitated for several more seconds, trying to think of a good way out of this.   Then I pressed the button on the upper right, once.   The ladybug began flashing—
    Erin materialized, immediately between me and Field Inspector Czrjghnczl.   “Hi, Papa!” she said cheerily.   “What’s up?”   Her pitch dropped several notes.   “Why are you holding your face in your hands like that?”
    Behind her, there was a large, loud splash.
    Part of it, of course, was that Erin was hovering about a foot and a half over the bar, with no more visible means of support than a bass player.   Another part of the problem was probably that she had just Transited—traveled home from some other ficton, some other place-and-time.   For technical reasons I don’t understand, living and dead matter can’t Transit in the same load…so those who travel that way necessarily arrive stark naked.  
    But I think the icing on the cake must have been that whatever ficton Erin had just been visiting, they had a war going on there—well, that doesn’t rule many out, does it?—and she was soaked with blood, apparently so recently spilled that it still qualified as living matter.   Even I found the sight unnerving, and I knew for sure that none of the blood was hers.  
    Small wonder Field Inspector Czrjghnczl suffered system crash and fell over backwards into the pool.
    Other people hurried to pull her out.   I was way too busy.   I had five or ten seconds max to bring Erin up to speed.   This was going to get ugly, now, and fast.
    Fortunately my little girl has always had a tendency to hit the ground running.   “Tell it, Papa.”
    “That splashing behind you is a government employee—”
    “Which agency?   NSA?”
    “No, no, state educa… why would you expect the NSA ?”  
    “Later, Pop, later.   She’s here about home-schooling, then?”   She got the hose, adjusted the sprinkler head to hold still, and began sluicing blood off herself.   “But why?   We’re current with the state.”
    I shrugged.   “Beats me.   You know I don’t speak Bureaucrat.”
    In another year or two, long hair would become very important to her, but at thirteen she was keeping hers cut short enough that rinsing it took no time at all, and afterward all she needed to do was shake her head and let the sun do the rest.   Clothes appeared next to her, Transited from her nearby bedroom; she began dressing.   “How bad is it?”
    “She started out by talking about maybe removing you from our custody.   From there, the situation deteriorated.”
    Erin grinned, visualizing it.   “She demanded that you produce me forthwith, and then when she suddenly found my bare bum in her face, she went for a swim.”
    I nodded.   “You have the thing in a nutshell.   Be careful: surprises frighten her.”
    “You said she’s a bureaucrat.   What’s her name?”
    I told her.
    Erin frowned.   “Accent on the ‘rjgh’?” she asked, and I nodded.   “Aha,” she said.
    I heard her, but it didn’t register right away; I was distracted.  
    God damn it.
    I   really don’t want anyone but friends in my pool.  
    No, I mean I really really don’t anyone but friends in my pool—and certainly not enemies.
     
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    “ There’s a