by C. B. Salem
When had he gotten that muscular? Had she just not paid attention before? She tended to prefer muscular, working class guys she met at the gym when she let herself think about guys at all. Here was this guy who worked in an office all day and he had a serious ass on him.
She caught her breath in Recall. Focus.
Even when everyone else in the room looked like some version of him, he stood out easily. His posture signaled ease with the world around him, as if it only existed with his permission. Vivid, controlled expressions met everything he took in.
His smile lit up as he entered the room and was approached by a pair of party guests, both of them eager to please. Near-clones or not, nobody else in the room had anywhere near his gravity.
A moment later her last-night’s-self had been back to focusing on Fordelli and the brunette stripper. Tatum became a blur at the periphery of her vision.
She kept an eye on that blur, though, as the night progressed. Watched him move from near-clone-guest to near-clone-guest, politely turning down multiple strippers’ attempts to get him into a private booth. A skeptical smile, those dark slashes of brows arching up, and they would leave. It was like telepathy.
The party shifted again. She wracked her brain; this had been when Totti had arrived. Guests came over to greet him; performers came over to have the first crack at giving him a lap dance. As she drifted over with her drink tray, she tried to keep her eye on the blur of the real Tatum.
A stripper in a pink wig approached him and said something to him at the group’s periphery. His brows arched and he gave her a quick nod. Then she was gone like the others.
Kristina’s breathing became shallow, each breath ending high in her chest. That had been different. She cursed silently—that is, she thought of a curse—as she watched herself run out of drinks and go back to the bar for more. What had that been between Tatum and Ms. Pink? She would need to keep an eye on her as well.
When she came back from the bar and began circling the room again, everyone had shifted into a new configuration. The brunette stripper was still in the corner with Fordelli, who seemed to have not moved even when Totti the birthday boy came into the room. But other than that, everything had changed. Three men occupied the leather chairs in the guest of honor area, with one man—she presumed it was Totti—getting a two girl lap dance right there in front of everyone. A couple of men in the area laughed. Someone in the corner lit up a cigar—something technically illegal. Nobody batted an eye as the pungent scent of the old world filtered around the room.
Tatum approached in the maelstrom of the party and came to a stop in front of her. She winced inwardly as she remembered what was about to happen.
“Can I offer you a drink?” she asked, raising her tray up to him.
His brows shot up, and she got lost in his dark, searing eyes. Eyes like black holes, with a source so hot the heat still, somehow, escaped.
He cracked a small smile. “You can, thank you.” And he took one from her, but did not turn away. Nor did she. She couldn’t. Last night or now.
Keeping his eyes on hers, he took a brief sip of the champagne. “Have I seen you before?”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe so, Mr. Tatum.”
Even knowing it was coming, her breath caught in her throat. Listen to that. Mr. Tatum. Like she was a nervous English servant. What was the matter with her? Her brothers would have laughed up until they cried. Hell, Anna would have laughed in her face.
“You know my name.” It was a statement, not a question.
Her last-night’s-self licked her lips and shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“That seems a bit unfair.” He leaned forward almost imperceptibly, closing the gap between them so that she caught the briefest trance of his scent. She was more into this than she wanted to admit. “What’s your name?”
And here—thankfully—she’d loosened up a bit. She said the words in her head as she heard them aloud. “Do you want my stage name or my real one?”
That wasn’t a bad line. She’d snapped out of it quickly enough, anyway. Tatum smiled full-on now, and the effect was half charming, half-titillating. “I didn’t realize the women wearing your outfit got on stage.”
“Not tonight,” she bluffed, her voice low and throaty. She’d really been getting into it, hadn’t she? More people needed to watch themselves flirt in Recall to see how ridiculous they were. “But maybe if you come back another night you can see me up there.”
“Is that so? You know, I don’t make my way to this club often. Do you do private shows?”
She bit her lip. “I do a lot of things, depending on how badly a man wants it.”
Good lord, Kristina thought. She hoped Tatum didn’t recognize her from this night whenever they met again. If they met again.
His eyes narrowed as the corners of his mouth turned up. Then they left to look at something over her shoulder. It was only an instant, but something shifted in him. She saw it even more this time.
“We’ll see how badly I want it later,” he said, raising his glass. “For now, maybe I’ll see you in a little while for another drink. At the very least. In the meantime you can decide which name to give me.”
“I’ll do that,” she said.
He turned away and was gone.
She breathed in and out deeply.
Her eyes had focused on Fordelli again at the time, but she paid attention to Tatum in the Recall as best she could. He popped in and out of the edge of her vision, but even when he was mostly a blur she was able to keep track of him pretty well.
After another few minutes, Ms. Pink approached him, her hands by her side. Their bodies brushed together, with Ms. Pink’s hand right at pocket level. It moved.
Kristina’s heart rose. It was out of focus, but that had looked like a handoff.
Tatum walked away and patted his pocket once. Kristina smiled inwardly. He may be the richest man in Chicago, but he wasn’t the smoothest operator when it came to street moves. At least, not for someone who knew what to look for. Someone trained. Come to think of it, anyone else in the room who had been watching probably noticed the same thing. She scanned her vision quickly to see if it looked like anyone was paying particular attention to Tatum, but nothing jumped out.
A little while later, Fordelli left, and Kristina followed. She felt a tug at her shoulders as she was following. She was slipping out of Recall.
As she came out, she had one thought on her mind. She needed to talk to Ms. Pink as soon as possible. This was the kind of lead she’d been looking for.
CHAPTER FOUR
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, the disorientation of coming out of Recall swirling in her head. Whatever had happened in there with her hallucinations, it hadn’t stopped her from doing her job. She’d found the drop: Ms. Pink. This was it.
The sterile, over-bright lights of Tom’s office caused her eyes to water. She rubbed them and sat up, trying to adjust. The IV from her Recall was still in her arm, the CAP still on her head. The spot where the needle went into her arm felt tender and sore. It would probably be sore the rest of the day.
After a few seconds her sense of reality came back and she turned toward Tom’s desk to ask him if he could take it out.
Sitting where Tom had just been was Tatum. Again. But wearing the white lab coat that Tom had just been wearing moments ago. It even still had Tom’s nametag at the breast pocket.
A cold dread crept through her stomach. She gasped. It was still happening.
“What the hell is going on?” she cried. Her heart was absolutely throbbing in her chest.
Tatum shot up out of his seat, his eyes opened wide with panic. “Jesus, Kris, keep it down. What’s the matter?”
Her breath came in short bursts. Her mind was on a runaway treadmill, running through one thought again and again and again: it was happening outside of Recall. Whatever had happened hadn’t worn off when she woke up.
“Tom,” she gasped. “It’s Tom, ri
ght?”
Tom/Tatum nodded nervously, his face white as if he’d seen a ghost. It felt like she was watching herself watch him. Even worse than the effects of the Recall pharm on a Recall newbie. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like soldiers marching in step, its reverberations coursing from her chest to her throat to her temple.
She took a deep breath, trying to get a grip. “I think I’m hallucinating, Tom.”
Her voice was unsteady, and she wasn’t even sure if she’d actually said the words or just imagined she said them.
It was a relief when she got a response. “What do you mean?”
She looked around her brother’s office, saw all the equipment. The IVs. The pharms in their bags and metal canisters. Everything so sterile. Messy, but just as Tom had left it. This was real. She wasn’t dreaming all this, as much as she wished she could feel a tug at her shoulders and wake up. This was something she would have to deal with.
“In the Recall,” she said breathlessly. “They all looked like Tatum.”
“What do you mean, ‘they?’”
“The men,” she said impatiently. She caught herself and reigned in her tone. Good lord, she was wound tight. “At the party. Strip club. They all looked like Landon Tatum.”
He ran his hand across his face, a gesture characteristic of her brother that looked strange when it was Tatum. ”Shit.”
She stared at him, trying very hard not to panic.
His eyes flew around his office quickly, seemingly searching for what tool to use next. He settled on his tablet and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” he said. “When did this start?”
She closed her eyes again and tried to steady herself against the dizziness that was starting to settle in. “Maybe this morning?”
Her voice sounded distant to her even coming from her own mouth. Still, she pressed on.
“I thought I was just imagining things,” she continued. “It came in full force during the Recall, though. For sure. I don’t know why.”
He went to his tablet and began tapping and swiping silently. She opened her eyes and watched, trying to come to terms with what was happening. Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere, and she had gotten caught up in it.
Tom cleared his throat, stirring her from her thoughts. She blinked and turned toward him.
“You said there were a bunch of mobster types there, right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
Another deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Might be a street pharm. Might be an implant they hit you with without you knowing. I’m going to need to take a vial of blood from you and then get it analyzed. Could be a while before I’m done. There’s definitely been some run with some illegal pharms lately that exhibit characteristics similar to what you’re describing to me now.”
Kristina closed her eyes briefly, trying to come to grips with Tom’s words. It wasn’t just an after-effect from the Recall. Tom’s computers hummed as she thought. The ventilation fans turned on, choking to life. She wondered what kind of aeros the management ran in a police department building. Maybe nothing.
She’d been drugged or implanted, as unlikely as that seemed. Now she was talking to her brother in Landon Tatum’s skin, when she was supposed to be searching for Landon Tatum. If she didn’t find Tatum, she was going to lose her job.
Someone was seriously messing with her and making it personal. Her jaw hardened. That wasn’t something she appreciated.
With a deep breath, she opened her eyes saw her brother was in front of her. She gave him a short nod and held her arm out. Tom, in Tatum’s skin but with her brother’s characteristic careful, quick motions, took a few drops of blood from her other arm in seconds. She barely registered any feeling at all.
“Did you find anything in the Recall?” he asked, as he took the vial away. “Anything that will help, even with this...handicap?”
“Kind of.” She bit her lip. “I need to go back and talk to one of the performers.”
“Stripper, you mean?”
She glared at him. “Yeah. Or maybe drink girl, I’m not sure. Does that bother you?”
“Just curious.” He shifted on his feet. “Well, let me just recommend driving and staying away from crowds if you can. If it’s the kind of pharm I’m thinking it is, the disorientation can get nasty. Might lose your lunch.”
“I haven’t had lunch.”
“Breakfast then.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, already contemplating the train ride she was going to have to take. Hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as he said. “Just let me know when you have more info, okay? And come up with something good about Totti.”
He blinked and nodded solemnly. “Of course.”
CHAPTER FIVE
They were everywhere.
She looked around the train from where she stood, near the doors, and gripped the vertical pole running from floor to ceiling tighter. The world went topsy-turvy. Nausea washed over her, stronger even that it had been in the lab. It was all she could do not to throw up.
So many versions of Landon Tatum. All around her. Sometimes, it felt like he was closing in. She’d never felt claustrophobic before this moment, but now it was overwhelming.
It was worse than it had been in Recall. She’d never had to think about the gender split on the average Red Line train in Chicago before, but here it was presented starkly. So many men. In clumps, it seemed. Dressed in monochrome suits or brashly colored street clothes. Reds, yellows, greens and blues. Strong, primary colors, garish patterns. Too many logos for her to deal with in that moment.
A man by the other train car door wore a white tank top and green shorts that showed off the lean muscle of Tatum’s legs. It felt like a violation to see his body like that without his permission. This was going to be distracting.
A fresh wave of sickness crashed over her body and she looked down at her black shoes. Tom had been right. She absolutely, positively should have taken a cab.
Finally, the train came to her stop and she hurried off. The station wasn’t much better. A big crowd surging for the exit. She stopped to look at a Tatum Pharmaceuticals ad and breathe in the calming aeros, just for a minute while the crowd thinned out a little bit. The ad was for headache relief. Sounded pretty good right about now. She wished her situation could be fixed by just taking a pill. For all she knew, maybe Tom would tell her it could. She didn’t know how long she could put up with these hallucinations.
Once her stomach had settled and the crowd wasn’t quite as overwhelming, she left the soothing pharms of the ad and exited the station. As she popped up into the relatively fresh air at street level, she looked up at Chicago’s strong, powerfully designed buildings and began to settle down.
Cars flew by almost silently, both those driven by humans and the automated cabs that had been introduced a few years ago. A wave of some enticing aeros wafted her way from a bakery door, promising her fulfillment if she would just come in and have a croissant. Maybe she just smelled the croissant and attached that feeling to the aero. It was hard to separate sometimes. Either way, she could practically feel its flaky, buttery goodness in her mouth.
She hurried away and the feeling was gone. As she walked, she dug her comm device out of her pocket and called her brother Kevin.
Kevin had come back from the marines when she was fifteen after leaving six years earlier. He was nine years older than her, the lone offspring of her dad’s previous marriage. Technically that made them half-siblings, but Kevin was the closest thing to a role model she’d ever had in her life. Without him, she would have been even more lost than she ended up being.
When she graduated high school, she began working for him as a private investigator while she went to community college to take classes toward her degree in criminal justice. She’d begun working for him full-time after she graduated, until she’d managed to land the job at Dunn-Brantley. That had been five years ago, to the month.
He picked up within seconds. “My f
avorite sister,” he said, though she could hear the tension in his face. “Everything alright?”
“Not really. I was hoping you could look into something for me.”
“I’m listening.”
She licked her lips and watched another version of Tatum walk by, this one wearing a bright red tank top with bright white piping and navy blue, mesh athletic shorts. Those were some seriously strapped arms he had. Good lord.
“I need to know if anyone else was working that party I did last night,” she said, turning away from the eye candy walking by. “Undercover, I mean.”
“At The Velvet?”
The screaming siren of an ambulance approached as she came to the street corner opposite her office. “Yeah,” she said loudly, plugging her other ear. “Particularly a tall brunette. Something really weird is going on and I’m trying to get an idea of what it is before it gets too good an idea of me.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Just keep it quiet. I’m going to talk to Teddy in a little while.”
There was a pause on the other end. “This too sensitive for me to drop a line to him? I know him better. Might be a little easier for me to get what you want.”
She considered his proposition. He had a good point. The walk sign lit up and she stepped off the curb and crossed the street. The screaming ambulance and gradually the noise level returned to its previous level. “Yeah, try that. Just keep it vague, okay?”
“Won’t be hard with what you’ve given me. I’ll be in touch.”
The call over, she continued her walk back to the office, doing her best not to look at people’s faces. It was hard, though, when she saw so many of a face she recognized.
The city she’d lived in her whole life felt like a different place. A different world, even. The residue of her time in Recall wouldn’t quite leave her, coloring everything she looked at. Even when she wasn’t seeing near-clones of him, he seemed to be there. When she looked at a green street sign hanging over a traffic light, or even down at her comm. Everywhere.