Off Topic
"Hellscape," she said after the door closed.
"You can call me Heidi, you know?"
"Yeah. But I kind of like the nickname."
Hickman's smile was enough to let her know that Heidi Hickman, too, liked the name.
Manning, the Bikini Krill's Director of Public Outreach, turned off the communications clip, and slid the note sheet she had taken to the meeting onto her desktop, and joined the other two, pouring water from the decanter into three of the four glasses sitting at the coffee table's center. Sipping the water, she took in the man. He was young. Sharpley dressed. White shirt, tastefully trimmed in Bikini Blue and orange-red. His eyes were clear, his gaze sharp.
"Meet Dag Johnson," Hellscape said.
"Pleasure to meet you," the man said. His voice was as smooth as his skin.
Marie caught Heidi's glaze. "Does he know the deal?"
"He does, in fact, know the deal," Dag Johnson said for himself. "He knows that he's going to be assigned to look after a member of the Krill as they tour the country, and that means his first job is to take care of everything the guy needs. And he knows that this means he'll often attend certain perfunctory meetings in and around baseball facilities around the world, and that his second job requires this personal assistant to be creative and to dig through those facilities to find, let's say issues. It is this second job for which he is particularly well suited."
Johnson paused to sip water.
"I see," Marie replied, feeling chastised.
"He comes outfitted with internal sensors and recorders, a direct link to a series of interconnected processing centers that ... um ... Hellscape has provided me accounts under, and a collection of automatic shields and jamming systems that should keep me under the radar screen, so to speak," Dag Johnson continued, "and," he seemed prepared to finish, "he knows that certain reports are to be filed via secure protocols that only he has access to, and that they are to be addressed to you " he cocked his sharp-featured head "and you alone. He knows, also, that the player he'll be assigned to is one Keith Williams. Who, he knows, but you do not, happens to be his favorite player on the Bikini Krill."
"I'm sorry for not addressing you directly," Marie Manning said.
"Not a problem," Johnson said, his smile, again smooth.
Yes, Marie thought. It seemed certain that Dag Johnson was the man for the job she had in mind.
"Dag is a fully operational guy," Heidi said, confirming her thought. "We're going to run a series of tests with him just to be sure the kinks are out of the system. But I've got others lined up for the rest of the Karavan. I think we should be ready to go in late November."
"When can I meet the rest?"
"The next few days," Hellscape said. "I'll run them past you as we get them prepped."
"Perfect," Marie Manning said.
Her supervisor, Monica Green, Assistant to get General Manager wanted information, so information she was going to get.
