“We did,” I said, taking a deep breath. “But I always like to be thorough. You have a daughter, after all.”
Claire pulled on a t-shirt and put on her coat. “Yeah, my aunt is probably getting more than a little annoyed I’ve taken this long to get back to her. I love Fiona and wonder if I’m being selfish putting myself on the line like this. Do you have any kids? I mean, can—”
“No,” I said, frowning. “Letters can’t.”
“Oh,” Claire said, zipping up her coat. “Have you ever wanted them?”
“I’d like to have had the choice.”
Truth be told, I’d considered adopting one or two in the wake of the Crisis. I’ve always had a hole in my life where family should have existed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t imagine exposing a child to my life. I was a killer, hundreds of times over, and someone who had no experience with love or giving love. In the end, I’d decided to just donate what money I could to families who were struggling because of the disaster. It was all I could offer, and it felt hollow.
Claire looked at me for a long time. “Goddamnit, Marissa.”
“Hmm?” I looked, up blinking.
Claire rubbed her temples. “Marissa all but told me I should sleep with you when I was here.”
My gaze darkened. “I see.”
“No, it’s not like that,” Claire said, taking a deep breath. “Not to manipulate you, though she might have been thinking along those lines. I’m not ignorant of what sort of person she is.”
“I very much doubt that.”
Claire’s gaze sharpened before she shook her head. “It’s just I have a type. I have a history of guys who are all about the deep brooding tragedy in their pasts yet have a hidden heart of gold. Blame my Twilight fangirl years.”
“Mine is a heart of silicon rather than gold. Also, you’re admitting you’re a Twilight fan?”
Claire pointed at me. “Shut up, I moved on to slasher movies when I was fifteen. Listen, what I’m saying is I have a history with guys like you, and Marissa knew it. It’s part of why I started dating girls exclusively after my discharge. At least until Stephen and Marissa. Man, I really need a cigarette.”
“You were all together.”
“Yeah,” Claire said, looking guilty. “Don’t judge.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I just can’t help but wonder if the fact you… factored into her equations when she sent me rather than one of her other agents.”
“You flatter me.”
I could tell my short answers were frustrating her. Closing her eyes and sticking her hands in her coat, she took a deep breath. “What do you think?”
The truth was I was incredibly attracted to her. Drawn to her, even. Marissa had adopted the persona of someone vulnerable and innocent while she was seducing me. Someone good and pure who I could feel justified in protecting from the Society when she was anything but. Later, Marissa assumed the persona of a hardened professional who was still driven by idealism. Claire’s commitment to stopping Karma Corp, her soldier background, and her own tragedy invoked all those feelings with me. Claire struck me as the kind of woman who wouldn’t turn away from the horrible things I’d done but wouldn’t encourage them either.
It made me suspicious. “I think you could be reading a little much into this.”
Claire opened her mouth, then closed it. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?”
“Do you mind getting me a bottled water from the gas station across the street?” I asked. “The tap water here tastes like it went through the fires of hell.”
After she left, I reached over to my briefcase and pulled out my Madison Technology laptop. They were the most advanced portable computers on the planet and manufactured by one of my former associates. Possibly future associates, if the talk of Atlas and M-T merging had any truth to it. I pulled out its cyberlink cord and attached it to my neck interface before making a video conference call.
Seconds later, the image of Marissa came up. She was wearing a business suit with her hair up like Princess Leia in the Yavin Throne room. I could see the New York City skyline behind her and an Ahab’s coffee mug beside her.
“Hello, Case,” Marissa said, smiling. “Have you slept with Claire yet?”
“Always to the point, except when you’re not,” I said. “Aren’t you going to ask how I got your number?”
“Case, you’re a professional spy. I think you can get my number from Claire. Hell, you might have just asked.”
I’d watched Claire enter her password into her cellphone and swiped it while she was asleep. Not exactly breaking into the new CIA headquarters in Miami (which I’d also done). “Fair enough. Yes, we’ve had sex numerous times. Claire has the suspicion you tried to set us up together.”
“Oh yes,” Marissa said. “I did. Both of you are incredibly tightly wound and needed this. Also, without Stephen, I had less of a hold on Claire. She’s already killed for me, and I have need of that kind of commitment. Getting her involved with you was a ‘kill two birds with one stone’ deal, since everything I’ve compiled about you says you’re still the same lonely man you were when I left you.”
“I’m not lonely,” I said, lying. “Also, I’d be ashamed of admitting I was serving as my lover’s pimp.”
“Sex is a tool,” Marissa said, shrugging. “Just one more exploit in a sea of them which I am willing to use alongside cash, pride, and ideology. A lot of people believe hacking is about technological expertise, but it’s not. The best hackers are social engineers who know the inner workings of the human mind. Once you can take a person apart mentally, their passwords become easy to guess—figuratively or otherwise.”
“You haven’t changed a bit. Did you set her up with your lover Stephen? Am I a substitute goldfish?”
“Claire doesn’t need you to defend her. Sex is a need and providing it for my agents through my other operatives, depending on how and who they want it from, is a way of keeping them happy. Certainly, you never complained.”
“How did Stephen feel about this?” I asked, wondering what he’d thought about his girlfriend setting him up with another woman to control him.
Marissa frowned and for a moment, I saw a flicker of guilt. “I pushed him too hard. He was a member of Task Force-23 and did a lot of things he wasn’t proud of. I played on that and our love until he snapped. In the end, he didn’t have your, or Claire’s, moral certainty to go along with your flexibility. Introducing Claire and her daughter to balance the equation may have actually pushed him over the edge.”
“So, Karma Corp didn’t kill him?” I asked, wondering why she was telling me all this.
Marissa blinked slowly. “No. They didn’t. Stephen’s loss devastated Claire, and I needed to keep her on track. Revenge was a way of doing that.”
“I’m not even surprised anymore. Why do you even want to point them at the megacorporations, anyway? What’s your game?”
Marissa’s expression didn’t change. “I betrayed everyone and everything I believed in while working for Task Force-22 and President Douglas. Then I saw the American people elect and re-elect the walking corpse we’ve got as President during the greatest crisis in human history. I felt the need to make atonement as best I could by heading off the future we’re going to. A future ruled by corporations keeping the people under control through a combination of advanced technology, debt, information control, and war.”
“It sounds like you’re describing the present rather than the past.”
“I did start HOPE six years ago,” Marissa said, frowning. “We’ve had successes: we blackmailed swing voters in Congress to extend the life cycle of the American refugee camps for two more years, forced a basic living standard in all corporate territories, and also stopped using mass data mining to determine which citizens should be allowed to live or die.”
“Is that worth using those you care about?”
Marissa looked down. “I don’t know. I
’ve had to be a chameleon my entire life. When I was a little girl, I had to pretend to be stupid and easily impressed so the Barrio Maya wouldn’t beat or rape me. When I was a hacker, I had to pretend to be an anarchist because it made it easier to move through the circles I needed to learn my skills from. With you—”
“You had to pretend that you loved me.”
“It wasn’t entirely lies,” Marissa said. “Though I know you have no reason to believe that.”
“Seeing how you treat Claire, you’re right.” I decided I would tell her everything and bring down this ridiculous group of Marissa’s.
“I can’t help it,” Marissa said, taking her cup of coffee. “It’s how I’m wired. Which is why I need you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I hack people. Everyone is a bit of code to me, even the ones I care about most. I need someone to keep this organization on the straight and narrow. Well, no, that’s not true. I need someone to help me keep this organization aimed at the people who are exploiting the crisis for their own aims. Who hide behind money and power. I need people like you and Claire.”
I stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“You hate what you do,” Marissa said. “Even though it’s a much nicer business than what you did before, you don’t think you’re doing nearly enough to atone. You also want to look after someone. To have a family. Claire is a new mother and someone who needs support for her crusade.”
“A crusade you put her on.”
“Yes. I need someone who is willing to do what she can’t but who can stop at the end.”
I was silent, knowing she was manipulating me and ready to rebuff her. “Why shouldn’t I tell her? Give her some peace.”
“Do you really think it would? Or would it just devastate her? Remember how you felt when you discovered Marcus Gordon, your father, created you as a weapon to sell to the military? How you felt when you discovered Daniel Gordon, the man you were cloned from, was a psychotic rapist?”
“How I felt when I discovered your betrayals?”
Marissa looked like she’d been struck before closing her eyes. “Yes.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” I said, feeling unclean. “What do you want from me?”
“To become part of HOPE. To be our agent. To love Claire and be her partner. To do the missions which need to be done to bring down the megacorporations. You can even take the information we gain to help your corporation and friends. It’ll be a two-way street since we’ll also know plenty from your role as Atlas’ CSO. Atlas is, after all, security for the best and brightest among the Big 200.”
“You also want me to watch you and kill you if you go insane with power,” I added, reminding her of that.
“I want you to be by my side too.” Marissa’s voice lowered. It became hungry, almost desperate. “I want you in my bed as well as Claire’s, to be my lover and partner. To love me as much as I love you.”
“I could never love you the way I once did.”
“I know, but you can fake it.”
Chapter Ten
I pulled out of the memory, not having any more answers than when I’d begun the event. We were still flying around in E’s car with Claire doing the driving, the black and empty refugee zone of Chicago looking like a forgotten industrial center. Few lights were on, and I wondered how many millions were forced to live there, waiting for jobs and opportunities that would never come.
“What are you thinking about?” Claire asked, looking over at me.
I shook away my remembrances. “I was just thinking about how every time I get close to something beautiful, I sacrifice it for something immediately gratifying.”
I accepted Marissa’s offer and become her lover while I was also Claire’s. Claire had known, and it had made her more comfortable with my presence—allowing her the illusion that what we’d had was simply an arrangement between friends.
I’d kept the secret of Stephen’s suicide for years, even as Claire had dedicated herself to avenging her ex-lover. About the only reason Claire was still talking to me after it all came out was I’d eventually told her the truth—and she’d revealed her own secrets. It bothered me to think I was her Marissa, though I suppose Marissa was also her Marissa.
“Well, that’s depressing.”
“Is it? I take it as one of the signs I’m more human than machine.”
Claire snorted. “Humans are machines. Biological ones designed for replication. The only difference between you and me is you’re the result of humans taking control over their evolution.”
“So, I’m like a dog to your wolf?” I asked. “Only electric?”
“Do you dream of electric sheep to guard?”
I chuckled. “I’d enjoy that reference more if I hadn’t heard a few hundred variants over the years.”
“I’ll stick to Terminator references then. Has Skynet ordered you to kill me yet?”
“Delphi likes you, actually,” I said, thinking of her as the closest thing I had to a mother. Certainly, I barely remembered Rebecca Gordon. I’d made no attempt to contact her in the past ten years either. “Delphi says you’re a good influence.”
“Clearly, your AI doesn’t know me very well.”
“Better a good influence on me than a bad influence on you.”
“The two aren’t exclusive.”
Ouch. “Perhaps.”
Claire paused. “So, you never told Lucita about us?”
“You’re the one who is acting like it didn’t count in the first place.”
“Isn’t she like your best friend and ex-wife? Which is weird, by the way. You’re not supposed to remain friends with your exes.”
“I’m friends with all my exes. Most regularly still show up for sex.”
Claire made a sharp swerve with the flying car and almost caused me to bang my head against the window. “Sorry, wind shear.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you want to be exclusive, just ask. If you want to never see me again, just ask. Don’t keep me in limbo here, though.”
“What do you want?” Claire asked.
I paused, surveying the city below. “I want someone who I can dedicate myself to. Someone I can call family and just find a piece of normality with. Everything else? The wealth, the power, the rush from completing a perfectly planned mission? None of that matters.”
“I don’t believe it,” Claire said.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“No,” Claire said. “Not the part about you wanting all that, but that love is a magical cure-all for your problems. Normality is overrated.”
“Says the woman who has a family.”
Claire stared out into the skyline, which was overlooking the city’s industrial district now. An endless horde of automated black factories shooting up fire and smoke as the United States struggled to produce enough advanced technology to replace its former infrastructure. Most of the owners were Chinese and Russian with a few Brazilian, but the rest were controlled by the megacorporations who had divided the former United States up like a cake.
It would have been worse if not for the dozens of lesser volcanoes and earthquakes that had ignited alongside Yellowstone’s. People were still trying to figure out how the timing on that had worked out.
“My brother Shaun and I grew up pretty much on our own. My aunt Mary and I wouldn’t reconnect until after the Crisis forced everyone to seek out their relations,” Claire said. “Hell, I joined the army less out of a burning desire to serve our country than to get the hell out of the Texas trailer park I grew up in. Life wasn’t too good for a pair of mixed Irish and Comanche kids.”
“You’re Irish?” I asked, faking shock.
Claire rolled her eyes. “Our mother was a drunk and died in a car wreck when we were both sixteen. Never knew our father. He liked to wander, I suppose, or maybe he saw what a mess our mother was. Either way, Sean had my back, and I had his. He believed in the kind of family you did. He also believed the world would be a better place if every
one did their part. Instead of the army, he joined the Dallas police. Ended up becoming a member of their S.W.A.T. unit.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Died breaking into a house with a tweaked-out asshole. I had been in the city to introduce him to Stephen. But you already knew this, didn’t you?” Claire asked.
“You tend to repeat yourself,” I said.
“Yeah, well, it said to me that family is great, but it’s also not worth the pain.”
“You don’t believe that.”
Claire paused. “I don’t want to ruin my daughter’s life the way my mother did ours. I admire the fact you have made up your own family. You don’t get the baggage that comes with being born to a big screwed-up collection of nutters like the rest of us.”
“The man I was made in the image of was a terrorist psychopath who kept his followers’ cyberbrains in their stomachs. I killed his father who also, coincidentally, made me. I used to cyberstalk his ex-wife and child. It’s why I’m here.”
Claire laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I actually knew all that too. Marissa told me you were every bit as fucked up as me, but I didn’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry, Claire, but I’m pretty sure I’m much more screwed up than—” I was interrupted by a harsh siren-like alarm going off in the car. “What did I touch?”
“You didn’t touch anything,” Claire said, going for the dashboard and adjusting several knobs. What followed was the onboard computer showing a screen displaying an AR-29 Whisper attack helicopter along with its armaments. “Please tell me this James Bond-equipped vehicle isn’t saying we’ve got a chopper coming up on us.”
“I’d like to, but I’m trying to cut down on lying,” I said, looking behind me and seeing the vehicle in the distance. “I’m impressed with E’s onboard systems. You wouldn’t think his car could pick up a stealth chopper. Do you think it’s hostile?”
Claire pulled the vehicle to one side as a pair of rockets shot past us within visual distance. “You could say that.”
Much to my surprise, E’s flying car released a pair of flares from the back even as the rockets zoomed back after them before exploding. Claire pushed the car into a dive as she maneuvered between the smokestacks around us while streams of chain-gun fire streaked past us.
Agent G: Assassin Page 10