And I thought waiting for news about west-coast baseball games was bad...
This is even more nuts-making. The search for Carter and Alexei is going on out there, but Mo and I are here, and since we're not needed on the scene (and can't afford to fly out there, since we each had to pitch in a couple hundred dollars of extra rent this week), we just take what information we can get.

Nat is home, now. Although I suppose the Patriot Act might allow the Feds to hold her for more than twenty-four hours, Agent Jones isn't quite ready to bet that doing so with a single mother from a wealthy family because of a threat he can't describe without sounding foolish isn't career suicide. There's probably a tap on her phone, too, which explains why, when I asked her what had happened to Alexei, she just said she hadn't seen him since he ran out on her. Wouldn't want to contradict the line she fed Khalil Jones.

That line being that the private detective who found Alexei and recovered the laptop unfortunately lost him while attempting to bring him to Federal authorities. The laptop and vials, she said, was in the hands of Carter Drummond (aka Samantha), since it was obvious she had the most reason to use it.

This is, of course, complete crap. I know "my" voice, and even with a Russian accent, that was the body of Martin Hartle talking to me on the phone two weeks ago. I know Nat has to try not to incriminate herself, but unless Carter finds some man who'd rather be a woman to take the Samantha body and lets Alexei go, well, someone is eventually going to talk unless someone dies. And while I can imagine Alexei deciding that leaving a wild card like me running around again is a bad idea, I think Carter and Nat are better people than that.

Nat seemed kind of distant when she was talking to me. I mentioned it, and she said that she had really thought that I'd jump at the chance to be myself again. Not just because the pregnancy, with the mood swings and lugging a bunch of extra weight around and having her breasts suddenly become more than fashion accessories, had somewhat soured her on womanhood, but other things. She admitted that she had a fantasy of living happily ever after with the father of her child, and that if I were in Martin's body again, that would be ideal. If, of course, Alexei hadn't escaped, wink wink (yes, I can hear her winking over the phone).

I told her that it wouldn't be me, just someone a lot like me who remembers being me, and she says she gets that but doesn't quite get it, that it takes too much thinking for something that should be instinctual. I see her point, and that frustrates me, because I want to say, I'm me, Martina Hart, born 19 July 2003, but I do keep thinking of Nat's baby as mine in some way, or otherwise feeling proprietary about my pre-Martina experiences.

So, anyway, the Feds are looking for Carter and Alexei, and have told Maureen and I in no uncertain terms to call them should Carter show up here.

-Martina
- posted 10:09 PM - - (archive use only)