After her debut on the pitcher’s mound, however, she was not going to the owner’s private box, as most visiting dignitaries would do. Her next stop would be the Zumwalt’s bridge, where they could use the night game at the park as a cover to test out the ship’s new power systems.

She actually had to fight for this one.

At Local, a nightclub off Ala Moana Boulevard near pier 1, Carrie nearly caused a brawl trying to get this marine to dance with her. The Russian prostitute he was with looked like a junkie, and all it took was a discreet and well-placed foot to send her sprawling on the dance floor. Local’s security, off-duty Directorate forces, whisked the prostitute out before she even had a chance to get back to her feet. It was her pimp that was the problem. He took Carrie for competition and grabbed her by the back of the neck to pull her off the dance floor. A roundhouse kick from her dance partner sent the pimp into a group of Directorate sailors stuffing money and pills into a naked table dancer’s scuffed white boots.

After another close dance, she asked him to take her somewhere they could be alone. That turned out to be an eight-wheeled armored assault vehicle that looked exactly like one of the vehicles she used to see around her fiancé’s air base. Cocooned inside the welded steel hull, the two sat facing each other in the compartment that was big enough to carry up to seven soldiers. A monitor’s faint red light shone down from the opening to the wedge-shaped 105 mm cannon turret above them. With the stench of sweat and stale food inside, the Directorate marine must have felt like he was trying to get laid in a dumpster, but apparently he didn’t care.

He turned his back to her and reached forward to the music player rigged between the front seats. She could see the muscles in his shoulders ripple and looked at the four rainbow-hued tiger tattoos that covered his back and upper arms. His shaved head revealed a Morse code of scars, a lot for someone who couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“I have jazz,” he said. “Chinese. Okay?”

Carrie laughed. “Sure.”

Through the open rear hatch, she could hear the faint lapping of the water just beneath the pier where the vehicle was parked.

“Your English is good,” she said.

“My parents made me learn since I was two,” said the marine. “For business.”

Carrie raised a shot glass of the baijiu he’d poured for her. It tasted like shitty vodka.

“To your parents,” she said. “But this is not business. A thank-you for your rescuing me… I think you should shut the door now.”

“The hatch,” he said and squeezed past her to shut them inside the vehicle. The heavy steel and the layer of reactive armor affixed to the exterior suddenly made the soundproof space they shared feel very small.

She climbed forward on all fours with a feline fluidity and straddled him. She still wore the black silk cocktail dress, but her high heels hung from a gear rack. He wore only the sheer black pants that seemed to be the Directorate off-duty uniform for nightclubs and bars.

The piano playing on the speakers was barely acceptable; it sounded kind of like Art Hodes, if he were a half-drunk robot and had a stim pump running on overdrive. Carrie’s father had come from Gary, Indiana, in Chicago’s shadow, and had taught her about the beauty of jazz and the horror of men.

She kissed him, tasting only alcohol, then she arched her upper body away from him.

“Do you have any restraints?” she said.

“I’ll do anything.” He grinned.

“Of course you will,” she said. “I mean like a rope.”

“Can I record it for my feed?”

“This is for us, nobody else. No viz, okay?”

She leaned forward and kissed the nape of his neck and then his ear, careful to let her nipples move their way toward his face.

“Over there, in the bag,” he said. “There should be something for prisoners. Careful.”

She pulled out a roll of fluorescent-yellow nanopore tape used to bind wrists. It leached its bright color into the skin, creating a visual trace that announced you’d been nabbed; the substance was also rumored to be traceable by Directorate sensors.

In the red light, the tape glowed bright, and it unrolled silently as she began to bind his left wrist to the honeycombed aluminum base of one of the jump seats running along the interior of the carrier.

“Whoa, I thought we were going to tie you up,” he said.

“Are you scared?” she asked. “A big guy like you?”

She stepped back, tape still in hand, and slid out of the dress, now fully naked. “Frisk me if you want, there’s no weapons on this insurgent.”

“Okay, but only my left hand,” he said. “Leave the other free. You may be beautiful, but you’re still an American.”

She responded by stepping forward, kneeling before him, and placing a kiss on his navel. Seeing him nod in pleasure, she continued to tie his left wrist to the seat post. She kissed him again and then abruptly stopped. A look of pity came over her face, followed by her gleaming smile washed in the red light.

She reached back into the bag where she’d found the nanopore tape and pulled out a folding knife with a five-inch blade.

His right hand started to reach out fast, but before he could grab her wrist, she placed the knife in his open palm, the blade still locked shut.

“See, nothing to fear,” she said.

She kissed him, starting with his ears, then his chin, and then his neck, drawing out her progress until she stopped at his belt buckle. She reached up and held his free hand, still holding the closed knife. The metallic snap of the blade flashing open was easily heard above the rhythmic piano.

“What are you doing?” he said. The knife was open in his right hand, and her fingers wrapped around his, closing his fingers around the handle.

Their two clasped hands together, she raised the knife to right in front of her eyes, admiring the sharp edge from up close, its black anodized blade reflecting none of the red light.

Then she drove their clasped hands down, directing the blade’s tip toward her chest.

She stopped the blade’s descent when there was just the faintest pressure on the skin right above her heart. A light prick drew a single drop of blood. It happened so quick, he was too surprised to scream, and he sucked in air that should have come out in a howl but could not. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, seeming to savor the moment.

“See, it’s okay,” she purred. “You can trust me.”

“I don’t think so…” he said.

“Don’t be scared, you’ll always have the knife to do whatever you want. I just need my hands free now for something else, a little more fun. See, I’ll even make sure you don’t lose your long knife in all the… excitement.”

He nodded. And she began to wrap the tape around the hand that held the knife, the blade emerging out along the pinkie finger. Then she took that hand and pointed the knife at her neck, poised just above her jugular vein.

“See, just like your army, you’ll be in control,” she whispered.

The blade in his hand then followed her down the same path she’d taken before, always an inch from her neck, until she stopped at his belt buckle. She looked up at him and smiled.

With a movement so fast it was hard to see, her hands brought the knife in toward him, and the blade slashed through the leather of his belt; his pants fell to the APC’s floor.

“You’re going to have to explain this one to your commanding officer,” she said.

He laughed. “Let’s stop the games. Come here.”

She slid forward and up again onto his naked body. Leaning with all her weight, she pressed her body onto his, his arm with the blade now wrapped behind her, pulling her in close. Her hands caressed his face, and he started to say something.