April by Mackey Chandler

was kind of handy though," she admitted, quickly jumping back to her story like she regretted getting so serious. "They award the jobs based on a point system, which includes education and not many of the other cooks had a doctorate."
    Ruby applied herself to finishing up the meal and there was still ten minutes to the end of the hour, but she said, "Gotta get to work Girl," and hurried away.
    April sat with her thoughts, finishing her coffee. She had two other classes she needed to catch up on at home. She could spend time on them and turn in some work before going to meet Heather and Jeff. It felt good to contemplate some normal things not involving guns or spies. But she wasn't going to forget Ruby's brief warning either.
    * * *
    Later, at home she was still polishing her material to submit for class, when the com chime sounded and an icon in the corner of the screen announced she had a live call. The interruption decided her, you can fuss with something too long, so she clicked on send, to submit her class work and went to the call.
    Heather was looking at her from a console seat, looking anxious and Jeff was hovering over her shoulder leaning on the chair back. "Are you still meeting us for supper?" she wanted to know.
    "Sure, I told you I'd call if I missed. I'm looking forward to it." Thinking about it, she felt a little hollow already.
    "Have you tried your scanner out yet?"
    "Oh yeah. It works just fine. I taught it a new word and heard some neat chatter. I'll need an optical port on it however. I have it listening through an external antenna my dad has right now."
    "Well, bring it along please. There's a transmission Jeff and I heard through ours, that doesn't make sense and we hoped yours might have picked it up better."
    April thought about it a moment. "Why don't we link the scanners on the 'net and if one is closer to a transmission, or has a better signal for any reason it can get it off the best machine?"
    "Thanks for offering, but if we get in trouble for something and you are tied so closely to us, you could get sucked into our problems."
    "It works the other way also," April pointed out. "You guys are at risk for my behavior. No risk, no gain,"  she quoted one of her brother's favorite phrases.
    "Yes, but Jeff and I have some big problems already, I don't even want to get into describing. You don't deserve to be dragged into our troubles."
    Alarm bells went off in April's mind. Could her friend have big troubles, the same time as all her own problems the last two days and it not be connected in their little world? Let's fish a little and see , she decided.
    "Would you say your troubles involve - snooping?" she intimated.
    "Yessss," Heather hissed. She put both hands on the console and leaned forward, dismayed. "How could you possibly know?" Jeff behind her, gripped the top of the chair like he needed the support, looking suddenly sick.
    "I've had a few similar problems myself, the last couple days. Let's talk about it face to face, not on com," she suggested. "We can compare notes and maybe I can help you. See you then," April said, feeling a little strained to be cheerful. She was the one who signed off, so she missed Heather's sig. file.
    Two hours until she had to leave, she noted, looking at the clock. She wondered if that was enough time, to research on the 'net how secret organizations and conspiracies were organized? It seemed to her she might need those skills the direction things were going.
    April was still reading about cells and complicated spy craft, when the alarm she had set put a flashing icon on the screen. She used an alarm a lot, because she could lose all track of time when she really got engrossed in something.
    Almost nothing she had found fitted their resources or situation on M3 and the worst case scenarios she imagined. She loved spy novels, but the fictional things she read assumed a whole different set of circumstances than what she had. There was no maze of city streets to lose a