by Kim Harrison
Head down, she slipped her arms around him and leaned closer, breathing him in as her eyes shut. “You were right. I needed to see what I forgot,” she whispered.
Emotions long suppressed eked out of the cracks of her resolve as his hold on her tentatively strengthened into a raw vulnerability. He was warm and solid, and with the clear light behind him, a knot around her soul eased. She took a deep breath, and they exhaled together.
Lungs empty, she pushed back to see the light in his eyes teasing a smile from her. She never felt comfortable alone, despite her year of self-imposed exile. But it was more than that. She might not remember it, but he was an anchor, a fixed point of stability. And she trusted him, not just to tell her whether Bill’s drugs were what he claimed, but trusted him.
God knew why, even if she didn’t.
“I didn’t expect you to come all the way down here,” he said, his hand rising to hover over the soft swelling on her jaw, gained last night. “You found the card I left you, then?”
Peri winced, taking his hand before he could touch it. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Silas’s focus shifted, scanning the faces behind her. “Is it Jack? Is the construct breaking apart?”
Her mind jumped to the vial and capped syringes behind her shirt. “Jack is fine,” she said softly. “I’m in trouble, so he’s in and out, but he’s not aggressive and feels stable. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Silas sighed. “When are you not in trouble? My office.” Hand on her shoulder, Silas directed her through a second tunnel, dodging strollers and schoolkids lingering over the smaller exhibits. The lobby was even more crowded with the dolphin show getting out, but his touch was familiar as he angled her to a service door. “Hey, I’m sorry about the car show. I shouldn’t have surprised you like that,” he said as he unlocked it and they went up a sterile set of stairs. “Have you, um, read it?”
Guilt washed through her, then relief as the door shut and sealed them in a new quiet. “The first couple of pages,” she said. “Can you look at something and tell me if Bill was lying?”
“Bill!” Silas barked out. His steps faltered on the stair, and he drew her to a stop, eyes again going to her jawline, this time anger behind them. “He found you? Jesus, I’m sorry, Peri. I was so careful. Why do I suck at this!”
“It wasn’t you.” Bottom lip between her teeth, she strode up the last stairs and pushed open a fire door to enter a wide corridor. “Everyone found me.” The hall was empty, and she slowed as he caught up. Tugging her shirt out from her pants, she found the vial and syringes. “What do you know about these?” she asked as she held them out. “Bill called the pink one an accelerator. He said it would let me remember. Without an anchor.”
Silas’s jaw dropped, his eyes darting from the syringes to her. “Bill . . . Peri, did Bill inject you with this? It’s not supposed to exist.”
His rush of fear hit her hard, and the first tendrils of disappointment that it wasn’t safe tightened her chest. “He tried to,” she said. “The blue one is some kind of maintenance drug to stave off the paranoia.”
A soft scuff jerked her attention to the end of the hall, but it was only Jack, leaning against the wall to look sexy and mildly threatening. Silas had followed her attention to the empty corridor, and she shook her head to tell him it was nothing.
“Let me see it.” Calmer, Silas took the vial, reading the label as he started them back down the aisle again. “It’s probably the same stuff I read about in my graduate classes. Opti developed it in the sixties, then shut it down when everyone in the live trials died of paranoia-induced suicide. You say the blue one is a maintenance drug?”
Fear settled to a slow burn. “He called it Evocane?” she said, hoping it might mean something to him, but he shook his head. “It’s Bill’s latest attempt to convince me to come back,” she added, and Silas’s hand clenched around the vial. “He thinks that if I don’t have to trust an anchor, I’ll run right home to him.” She shoved her anger down, anger that Bill would try to use her again, try to lure her back with promises of her past, the power and above-the-law status she had enjoyed. Guilt swarmed out, smothering it. The things she had done . . . There was no rationalization that would justify her actions. Ignorance was not an excuse when it was willful. “He also implied Evocane was addictive,” she added softly.
“No doubt.” Silas jiggled the vial in his hand as they walked, tucking the capped syringes into a shirt pocket. “If it’s addictive, you’ll be less likely to draft when your levels are low and avoid any mental issues. I’ve got a few basic chemical tests in my office. Let’s check it out.”
“Thanks,” she whispered as he stopped before a wide door. It looked like a closet, but DR. SLEY was written on a piece of curling masking tape stuck to it. “Sley?” she questioned as he used a card to unlock it.
“My aunt’s married name,” he said as he opened the door and gestured she go first into the long, narrow room stuffed with equipment and stacked boxes. “I’m using her son’s social security number. I’ve been in hiding, too.”
Nodding in understanding, she gave Jack a look to stay out before going in deeper. Everything was organized. It only looked cluttered because there was so much stacked to the ceiling. Why he was here was obvious, though. The end had a round window onto that same big tank. The flickering, soft light spilled over his untidy desk and rolling chair. A stained, empty cup of coffee sat beside the edge, almost falling off. The space was small, but it didn’t feel cramped.
Silas was silent, the soft click of the door shutting behind him, obvious. “Have a seat,” he said as he took a bottle of test strips from a drawer. Peri perched herself on the edge of the desk chair, rolling it back to give him more room. Her eyes strayed to the porthole, her angst rising. What if it was true? It would make her refusal to go back to Bill even harder.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Silas said, his voice holding warning as he rested his rump on the corner of his desk and shook out a test strip. “But it was nasty stuff in the sixties, and in Bill’s hands, it’s probably been made worse.”
“That’s why I’m here, Doctor,” she said sarcastically, her interest sharpening when he carefully decanted a drop from the syringe onto the test strip and grunted in surprise.
She scooted closer to the edge of the chair. “What?”
Squinting at it, he frowned. “Most neural addictors fall in a narrow pH range, which, I’m sorry to say, it does. But the real nasty ones have a faint nitrite level.” He pointed to a second test strip. “This one takes a while.”
She sank back. It was like waiting to see whether the pregnancy test strip would turn blue. Not that she’d had much experience there. In the tank, a diver swam by, fish following him to eat the algae he was scraping from the wall. Her suspicion pinged, and then she quashed it. If Bill had tracked her here, he wouldn’t be looking for her from the wrong side of two feet of glass.
Still sitting on his desk, Silas pushed back until he hit the wall. Now it felt cramped, and she scooted her feet under her chair. “So . . . how have you been doing?” Silas asked.
Her eyes flicked from the test strip to him and she shrugged as his worry went right to her core and settled. He still loved her. Too bad she didn’t remember loving him. “Okay, I guess.”
“Seeing anyone?”
Seriously? “No, but I stole some guy’s car last month for a joyride. Does that count?”
Silas chuckled. “For you it does. Nice?”
He looked comfortable and content, and her gut tightened. “The guy or the car?”
Shrugging, he took the test strip and compared it to a chart on the bottle. “Which one attracted you first?” he asked, the idle question anything but.
Pulse fast, she leaned to look, but the colored squares meant nothing to her. “The car.”
Anxious, she waited as he studied it. Big hand scrubbing his mouth and chin, he shook his head. A sensation of obstinate demand blossomed. She wanted to reme
mber, damn it. “Maybe the side effects aren’t that bad,” she said, and Silas stiffened.
“Bill’s been tweaking this for who knows how long, tweaking it to control drafters,” he said as he threw the strip away. “The most dangerous people on the face of the earth. You aren’t touching this until I’m sure it’s not going to kill you if you stop taking it.”
Her lips parted at the new thought. “He wouldn’t dare,” she said, not sure whether she was more angry at Silas as he tucked the syringe back into his shirt pocket and out of her reach, or Bill for trying to con her into taking it. “We’re too valuable.”
“Not if you go rogue.” Wide shoulders slumping, he lost his anger. “Sweet Jesus, Peri,” he said softly. “There’s nothing wrong with you the way you are, but if you want this, give me the time to check it out and make sure you’re not selling yourself to whoever has the best lab.”
Nothing wrong with her? She could reset time, but not remember it. Bitter, she turned to the tank, arms over her middle as she toyed with the idea of shoving him into the clutter and taking her drugs back. The ability to remember her drafts was in his pocket—and she wasn’t a coward. “Thanks for your input,” she said. “Can I have my stuff back, please?”
Jaw slack, Silas stood. But then his resolve grew. “Sure. You mind if I come with you to put the pieces back together again when this blows up in your face?”
Shocked, she hesitated. “You want to come with me?”
The desk phone rang, and she jumped. “Peri?” he questioned, ignoring it. “Don’t think. Yes or no. Will you slow down enough so that I can keep up with you and keep you alive when you do something stupid?”
He wanted to come with her? “Uh,” she fumbled, turning to the hammering on the door.
“Silas!” someone shouted, and then the door beeped and opened, and a young man all but fell in. “Silas. Tod is looking for you.”
Peri backed up into the shadows as Silas casually lifted the ringing phone from the cradle and set it back down. “Mark, this is Peri. Peri, Mark.”
“Hey. Hi. Silas, you need to get your butt downstairs. Tod is freaking out. The CIA is here. They say you’re part of a terrorist . . .” Mark’s eyes shot to Peri. “Holy shit! She’s a terrorist?”
Peri sighed. The CIA? Damn it, Allen. I am capable of making my own decisions.
The phone was ringing again. Wrapping the cord around his thick hand, Silas yanked it out of the wall. The need to leave swelled. Peri eyed the bumps the syringes made in Silas’s pocket, wanting them back. She edged past the desk, and Mark scrambled backward into the hall to make room. “Is there a service entrance out of here?” she asked.
In the hall, a bored, feminine voice called loudly, “There is. We’ll be leaving through it shortly, Agent Reed. I’m Special Agent Beam, CIA. Could you come out with your hands where I can see them, please? You, too, Dr. Denier.”
“You have the wrong man,” Mark said to the unseen woman. “That’s Dr. Sley.”
Peri looked at Silas, his hands clenched and his jaw set in frustration. “This is so bad for my asthma,” he whispered, and she started at her familiar phrase coming out of his mouth.
Mark yelped as he was yanked out of the doorway. “Go. Downstairs. Now,” the woman said, and then the soft patter of sneakers on the tiled floor followed by the squeak of a door.
Silas sighed. “Allen?” he guessed.
She nodded. “He came to see me a few days after you. He’s working for them in the mop-up, and apparently he thinks I should, too. Sorry. I think I blew your cover.”
Silas’s fists eased, but anger lingered. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go first.”
“No, I’ll do it.” Mood bad, Peri strode forward. Her hands weren’t in the air, but they weren’t near her body, either. Opti had been an autonomous agency in the U.S. military, so it was no surprise the CIA was fronting the cleanup. The CIA, like the rest of the world, had been oblivious to the unique talents that Opti fostered, hiding them under lies and need-to-know. And no one had needed to know—until now.
Her eyebrows rose as she found only one official-looking woman waiting. Allen was beside her, an odd expression of grim persuasion on his face. One? They’d sent one agent? That was either really insulting or flattering as all hell that they might actually treat her like a person.
“Thanks, Allen. You’re a real peach,” Peri said dryly as the African-American woman in her ugly black skirt and white top eyed her, feet spaced wide and sidearm unsnapped. “If you think I’m going to let you talk me into this, you are sadly mistaken. I forget things. I am not stupid.”
“Peri, this is Agent Harmony Beam,” Allen said, clearly trying to smooth things over, but Peri could tell he was worried she might blow this all to hell. “She’s part of the new WEFT program. World Enumeration Federal Taskforce?”
Harmony? Isn’t that a little flowery for the CIA?
“Agent Reed?” As if knowing her thoughts, Harmony gestured. “We have a car waiting.”
Peri grimaced as the woman looked her up and down in evaluation, attention lingering on her scraped jaw. “Same old Allen,” Silas said, his thick arms crossed over themselves. “She told you no, and you dragged her into it anyway.”
“This is not my fault,” Allen said, angry.
Peri looked askance at Silas. “Notice how it’s never his fault, but he’s always front and center of it?”
“It’s not my fault!” Allen exclaimed. “The CIA has always known where you were. I’m the one who’s been keeping them off your back.” His eyes narrowed in affront. “Both of you. They know about the Evocane and accelerator,” Allen added. “They’ve been able to look the other way until Bill tried to snag you—”
“You didn’t tell me he tried to abduct you,” Silas interrupted, his gaze returning to the scrape on her jaw, and Peri shrugged. It hadn’t seemed important.
“But when Bill tried to snag you,” Allen said louder, “they had no choice but to bring you both in. Peri, they need your help,” he added, softer now. “Bill isn’t the only option here. They have the facility to re-create Evocane. Will you be reasonable and listen for once? Not all my ideas are bad.”
But reasonable wasn’t one of her favorite words, and not when she wasn’t wearing the only gun in the room. Lips pressed together, she weighed the risk of drafting and forgetting the last few minutes against her need to run and disappear. She’d worked for the government before. All it took was a well-placed dart and a handgun to her gut to get her in a cell. And once there, there she would stay, trotted out to do their bidding when they needed her if she wasn’t outright erased. “I’m retired,” she said flatly. “End of story.”
“Yes? Someone thinks they can fix that.” Harmony’s low voice held disdain. “I need an answer, Reed. Are you with us or not?”
Temptation rose at the thought of a secondary source of Evocane. But it was too easy to use her. She could trust no one, especially the government. Then Peri stared when Silas cleared his throat and dipped into his pocket. “Silas,” she seethed. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Allen is right.” Eyes averted, Silas handed the syringes and vial over to Harmony. “I need the lab, if nothing else. I won’t let them wipe you. If it’s between Bill and the CIA, I take the CIA.”
Allen was nodding, but they both seemed to have forgotten door number three existed, and her desire to run swelled. That is until Harmony dropped the drugs into a belt pack. “Thank you, Dr. Silas. Agent Reed?” Harmony prompted.
Peri looked at the hallucination of Jack, alone and unseen by all but her a short distance down the hall. He was rubbing the bridge of his narrow nose, but as if sensing her attention, he dramatically gestured for her to make a break for it. For three long heartbeats she considered it, eyeing Harmony’s hard calves. She could obviously run. Her hair was clipped too short to grab, and her body was built for endurance and speed. And there was that handgun.
“Please,” Harmony sa
id insincerely, her dark eyes glinting.
Peri eyed the pouch where Harmony had stashed the syringes. That she might never forget again almost hurt; she wanted that freedom so badly. “You said you had a car?”
It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either, and Harmony gestured for her to go before them down the hall. Silas fell in beside her, then Allen. Harmony was last—at least until they passed two more agents who filed silently in behind them.
Not so on her own, then, Peri thought, finding a compliment in there somewhere. “Thanks a hell of a lot, Allen,” she said, giving him a dark look.
“Right. Like you had a lot of options once Bill found you,” he said.
“You’re a security threat, Reed,” Harmony said as they continued down the hall. “Once Opti ID’d you, we could no longer let you pretend you were a barista. Personally, I think this entire exercise is a mistake. If I had my way, you’d all be permanently jailed in a purple hell.”
No doubt. But that Harmony knew that a particular shade of purple stunted her ability to draft only solidified that this was the remnants of Opti remake. “I’m not a barista. I’m an entrepreneur providing a needed service.”
“You are a risk,” the woman insisted as they picked up two more suits who radioed in their position. “Able to be programmed and erased at will. Allen Swift said you might be amenable to helping us, and we will investigate that option until you prove it to be the error it is. That we have something you need is not much of a comfort to me.”
“Help with what?” Peri questioned, but she had a good idea.
“We’re having difficulty acquiring a drafter named Michael Kord,” Harmony admitted as Allen bobbed his head, clearly encouraged by Peri’s interest. “He’s aligned himself with the remaining corrupt Opti faction, and it’s proving difficult to bring him in.”
Michael again. “Sending a drafter to get a drafter isn’t a good idea.”
“It’s not my call.” Harmony’s jaw was clenched. “If it was, I’d open the door and let you walk.” Harmony pushed open a wide double door, and cool, cement-scented air blew in to shift her hair. There was a black car idling in the middle of the emptied lot. Beyond it was Atlanta, already hot in the afternoon sun. Smiling like an evil cat, Harmony gestured for Peri to do just that. “Please.”