I lifted the edge of the curtain and peeked out. Grandma was almost right about our visitors. There were two cars—both white—and a box van, also white but armored up with plate metal and reinforced glass that looked strong enough to keep the lid on a fission bomb. The wheels were heavy enough to get them through what passed for roads out here, and likely easily switched out for the smoother, more modernized highways.
There was a driver in each car, both men, and one woman driver in the van. The van had a male passenger too.
The sheep would have to wait. House White would be on my porch and through my door any minute.
Not going to happen.
I pulled a sweater off the hook by the door and tugged my sleeves down as low as they would go, then untied my hair so it would fall to hide my stitches.
It had been a long time since I’d faced a city dweller. I just hoped all the blockers we had in place held.
I opened the door and strode outside.
Too late, I realized I’d forgotten my gloves. Stupid. If they were smart—and since they were flying Medical, I figured they weren’t dumb—they’d notice the stitches along my thumbs and palms.
I quickly shoved my hands into the pocket of my overalls, and swore there’d be no reason to take them out again as long as I was in their presence.
I strolled out to the edge of the porch and stood at the top of the stair.
Two women stepped out of the passenger’s sides of the cars.
“Are you the property owner?” The first woman asked. Her voice was strong but it was not kind.
She was tall and thin as a stem, her black curly hair forced back into smooth waves. Dressed in a white jacket and slacks, she gave me the overall impression of someone who enjoyed announcing terminal prognosis to patients.
The vehicles were fully equipped with scanners, probes, and recording devices, new enough to not only catch every move I made, but also to sift through the house for signs of life and pull up our vital signs and House registry.
I didn’t know what other sorts of detecting devices the people might have on them.
Quinten had built blockers for just these sorts of technological advancements and updated them every time he came home. I’d been scrupulous in keeping them maintained. Neds had pitched in too; he was handy with tech. Upgrading had been one of the first things he’d done, taking several trips into the city to get the newest and best improvements for us.
If she scanned the house for life, it should read three people: just me, Neds, and Grandma, unless I set it to read otherwise.
Grandma and I both read human, even though that was stretching the truth on my account. But Neds threw weird vital readings from being the sort of man he was, so anything a little out of sorts could be blamed on him.
“I’m not the property owner,” I said. “I just help out here.” I lied like it was my second nature, which I supposed it was. I couldn’t just go hide up in the barn when trouble came walking, like I had when I was a child. And stabbing intruders in the eye worked only for the dumber sort of creatures that roamed my property.
Now that I was an adult, I did my hiding in plain sight and tried to keep the stabbing to a minimum.
“Old Grandmother Case owns the place,” I said.
“You work for her?” The second woman asked.
She was stern lady’s opposite. Short and generously rounded at the hip and bust, her white came in a knee-length dress, stockings, shoes, and the jacket of their official uniform. Her hair was also white and cut so it cupped just beneath her ears.
All together it made her look cute and harmless. Except for the gun on her hip.
Since when did Medical make house calls with guns? Since when did Medical make house calls at all? They didn’t come out into the dirt, and it showed. They were tightly uncomfortable with the raw and wild of the place.
“Yes,” I said, putting on the cheerful. “I help in the kitchen and keep the place clean.”
They hadn’t moved more than a few paces away from their cars. Probably thought I had a gun trained on them.
I didn’t, but I liked that they might think I did.
“What House are you?” the taller woman asked. “Gray? Your . . . appearance is not up to code.” She gave me a scathing once-over, like I was wearing dead animals instead of relatively clean denim and wool.
Color. It was the cover by which a book was judged.
