by Kim Harrison
“Where’s my bag of magic rocks,” she whispered, watching her lips move. There was no bag of magic rocks. There was an old fable of a lazy man regaining his dwindling wealth by throwing magic pebbles into the farthest corners of his holdings every morning, in essence, catching the thieves who were nibbling away at his wealth. Lazy, she’d become lazy and complacent, and she didn’t like it. Something was going on and Jack wasn’t talking.
The lift dinged, but she stayed unmoving when the doors slid open and the translucent light of the gym, warm with the western view of the sunset, cascaded over her. “Good evening, Ms. Reed,” the attendant said cheerfully as he looked up from his screen, already knowing it was her by way of the card tap. His smile hesitated at her black eye, then steadied. “Will it be the Caldas Novas hot springs or the Jordan Hot Springs in the Sequoia National Forest tonight?”
His question hung unrecognized in Peri’s mind as a hundred inconsistencies swirled and condensed into one clear realization.
Something was very wrong.
“Um,” she hedged, the feeling she’d made a mistake growing heavier. “I forgot my flip-flops.” Peri forcefully hit the button for her floor and the doors slid shut, sealing her in a Frank Lloyd Wright box. She didn’t want her flip-flops. She wanted Jack to talk to her. Now.
Finally the elevator doors opened. Pace fast, she strode to her apartment, the need to get back to Jack a sharp goad. Her card was soundless, but she gasped when a scared Carnac ran out over her feet, then was gone in three seconds.
“She’s upstairs!” Jack was saying, spinning her head back around, the anger in his voice stopping her cold. “Everything was fragmented. It’s under control. Get off my case, Bill!”
Peri shoved the door all the way open. “Bill!” she exclaimed, seeing him inches from Jack, almost shoving him up against the wall beside the big windows. “What are you doing?”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Bill spun, and Jack slid out from between him and the wall, lurching into the kitchen. Fear rose through her as the bigger man’s anger vanished behind a pleasant mask—and her skin crawled when he moved to where he could see them both. “Peri!” he exclaimed, arms spread wide as if she might come right over there and give him a hug. “Thank God you’re okay. Jack said you lost six weeks.”
Jack wouldn’t look at her, hunched and angry, fixing his hair. She glanced toward her knife, still in her boot and halfway across the room. For a fleeting instant, confusion reigned. She shouldn’t need her knife. Bill was their handler. This was their home.
“I did,” she said as she came in. “I’m fine. I went upstairs for a sauna and forgot my flip-flops. What’s going on?”
Jack straightened, but his ears were still red. “We had a misunderstanding is all.”
Peri stiffly shut the door and dropped her apartment card on the table. She could almost taste the tension in the air. Bill wasn’t in uniform, but he might as well have been, with his white hair in a bristly flattop cut and the stiff formality with which he carried himself. He was half military, half CEO, and more clever than a cornered snake. Though older than Peri by several decades, Bill worked hard to keep his shape, but you could see his age in his lumpy nose and veined hands.
Bill’s welcoming smile faltered. “I’m sorry, Peri. I was worried about you.”
“I went to take a sauna,” she repeated warily. “Twelve hours in a car. Now, is someone going to tell me what’s going on, or do you boys want to play charades?”
Again, neither man said anything, and the tension coiled tighter. Peri pulled her face into a mask of balanced poise as her intuition sparked.
“Bill thinks you need a full workup in the hole,” Jack said, voice flat. “I disagreed.”
“The hole” was one of the nicer terms for the underground medical floor where drafters went when they had . . . issues. The walls were a horrid purple and bounced back a specific light wavelength, which caused the release of a hormone that hampered the ability to draft. Opti went further to pump a steady 741 MHz from the speakers. Both prevented drafting, both were as annoying as hell, but they were required safety precautions when someone might freak out and MEP.
She could hear the lie in Jack’s voice, but long association told her to go with it. “Full workup,” she said, pretending to relax. “I lost six weeks, not six months, Bill. Jack already brought back the rewrite. I’m fine.”
Jack took a too-casual sip of his wine. “See,” he said, but his face was pale and she could smell his sweat. “I told you she was okay.”
“Good!” The enthusiasm was one hundred percent Bill, but the recent sight of him pinning Jack to the wall was too real. “I’m glad to hear that. What about the memory knot?”
“It untangled with the defrag,” she said simply. Bill seemed genuinely relieved to see her, and when he strode forward with his usual sparse motion, she forced herself to smile as if she hadn’t walked in and found him threatening Jack.
“Whoa, who gave you the shiner, kiddo?” Bill said, reaching to touch it.
“The man I left bleeding his life out on the thirtieth floor of Global Genetics,” she said, leaning out of his reach. Why do they always try to touch it? It hurts, damn it!
“No-o-o . . . let me see,” Bill cajoled, and she grimaced, not moving as his rough hand encompassed most of her face, concern thick and honest on him as he looked it over. “When my best drafter takes a deathblow, I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“I’m going to have a lousy night trying to find Carnac, but I’m fine,” she said for the third time. “Jack took care of me.” She looked at Jack, his hand steady as he topped off his glass. His other hand was in a fist on the counter, and he opened it as he saw her notice. “Are you here for the data? I thought we were meeting at Overdraft tonight,” Peri said, casting about until she saw Jack’s phone on the counter. Is that what this is about? Bill thought I’d left with it?
Pace fast, she went to get it, ignoring Jack’s uncomfortable umm when she snatched it up and went to stand toe-to-toe with Bill. Everything she knew said Bill was her confidant. Everything she’d spent the last five years doing had strengthened that trust. He gave her the chance to prove herself, and she rewarded him by giving him all she had. But if there was one thing Opti psychologists drummed into their drafters, it was to listen to their intuition. Emotion was never forgotten, and it lingered to guide them until enough new memory was laid down.
“Here you go,” she said, not liking her new mistrust as she extended it, and he took it, Jack’s phone small in his thick hands, misshapen from being broken too many times in his martial arts practice. “Task accomplished.”
Bill took it, his smile a shade too wide. “Thank you. Well done.”
She fought the urge to back up. “Jack was the one who found the file,” she said, to keep the silence from becoming awkward.
“Then thank you, Jack,” Bill said jovially, and it felt even more wrong. “I’ll get your phone back to you tonight.”
“Great. Thanks.” Jack poured another swallow into his glass and downed it.
Still standing in the middle of their apartment, Bill tapped the phone against his palm and tucked it away. The Opti logo on it meant it probably did more than her phone did. The memory of Jack’s face, pale from the city’s lights, flashed before her. “You don’t want to do the entire debrief now, do you?” she prompted.
“No. It can wait until tonight,” Bill said. Peri stiffened when he reached into an inner coat pocket. But he was only after his driving glasses, and she mentally kicked herself. She was on high alert, and she couldn’t say why.
Jack was pouring a new glass of wine. “That’s for me, right?” she said to try to ease the tension and pretend everything was okay. “Bill, can you have a glass, or are you working?”
“I’m always working,” he said, halfway to the door. “I know you just drafted, but if Sandy and Frank green-light you tonight, we have an emergency. Everyone else is out on task.”
“Delayed.” He opened the door. “If Sandy okays you, will you work or not?”
If she didn’t, she’d be in the hole having a full psych review. “This sucks, Bill,” she said since she had a right to be pissed if they made her work this soon after a draft.
Bill hesitated at the open door. “Yes, it does. I’ll see you tonight for your full debrief.”
“Tonight,” she echoed sourly.
Nodding, Bill stepped into the hall and closed the door. She didn’t move until she heard the fire exit door bang. Peeved, she went to stand at the balcony. The small visitor lot was right under her window, and if Bill looked up, she was going to flip him off whether he could see her or not. The sun was setting, and the towers’ shadows seemed to stretch all the way to the city’s rebuilt, redesigned, and renewed core, miles away. The glow of the raised magnetic train wove like a ribbon through the neon-rich common, making it into a glorious pendant. Behind her, Jack heaved a frustrated sigh.
She was done wasting time. “Jack. What was Bill here for?”
“Global Genetics’ latest biological nightmare.”
Her hand went to her hip, and she stifled a flash of anger. Something had happened up in that corner office and Jack had destroyed it, wiped it clean from her mind, erased it from her memory—something he shouldn’t have done. He had said as much right before she’d walked in. “Bullshit. Why was he here?” she demanded.
Distress crossed him, real but not moving her. “It doesn’t matter, Peri. Forget about it.”
He came out from behind the counter, and she put up a hand for him to keep his distance. “Screw that. You fragmented something you shouldn’t have. What was it?”
Jack took a breath as if to protest. He looked torn, desperate. Her eyes narrowed, daring him to stay silent. And then he exhaled, his eyes pleading. “I only wanted to stay with you. Bill said if I kept quiet about the list, did a few jobs on the side, nothing would change.”
Jobs on the side? “What list?”
“Um.” Jack looked away, then back. “A list of corrupt Opti agents.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked out the window in time to see Bill get into a black Opti car and be driven away. “How . . . ,” she started, then sat down as a flush of cold washed through her. I just gave Bill a list of corrupt Opti agents?
“Peri,” Jack pleaded. “It’s worse than you think. The list is Bill’s personal stable of drafters and anchors. He’s giving it to his superiors after he takes his best agents off it. He’s cleaning house. I got us on the right side of things, but we’re on borrowed time and the interest is stacking up.”
My God. He knew? How long? Her outstretched hand faltered and she turned, the blood falling from her face. Bill was dirty? Their handler was corrupt?
Seeing her understanding, Jack nodded, head lowered as he took up her wineglass and came forward. Shocked, she sat there, trying to figure it out. “You kept a copy, right?” she whispered.
Jack hesitated, but when her gaze sharpened on him, he set their glasses down beside her and reached for his wallet. “It’s in your wallet?” she exclaimed.
“I haven’t had time to squirrel it yet.” He sat down, metal-woven wallet in his hand. It was impervious to scanners. Her favorite handbag was lined with a similar material. Breathless, she sat beside him, light-headed as she took the hotel stationery he extended. “I, ah, decoded the chip while you were in the shower,” he said as she scanned the list of eight names. Every one of them was familiar, every one of them in high-profile tasks.
“I don’t get this,” she said, looking it over. “Nathan and Chris? I’ve known them my entire Opti career. And you’re telling me they’re corrupt?”
“Remember when they ended that three-week grounding of international flights by exposing a terrorist cell? There were no terrorists, only scapegoats.” Jack took the list from her, and she scooted closer so they could look at it together. “It was a planned shutdown to keep the U.S. clean while that smallpox outbreak in Iran ran its course. A non-Opti task.”
Peri’s eyes widened as she recalled thinking it was a bit of luck that the shutdown had happened right before the first smallpox case surfaced. “Please don’t tell me Opti caused the outbreak, too?” she said, and Jack pointed to Brandon and his anchor, Julia.
“Also a non-Opti-sanctioned task. We thought it was an accident until recently,” he said. “And the brain-Web interface trials? The innovation that was going to give us a direct link to Internet everything through the new glass technology?”
It was supposed to have been the biggest breakthrough since the vacuum tube, having everyone from those in Washington to religious leaders around the world in an uproar at the possible culture upheaval. “They failed. Everyone died of brain hemorrhages from the implants,” she said, and Jack tapped Gina Trecher’s name, his finger lingering on her anchor, Harry.
“Oh, they died all right, but not because the technology was bad. The company behind wave technology wanted it buried, knowing if people could see the Internet in their heads, it would make their product look like it was from the Stone Age. Not Opti-sanctioned.
“Nina and Trey didn’t end the Africa uprising in 2026,” he continued, and Peri held her breath, remembering how pissed she was when the older couple got the high-profile task instead of her and Jennifer. “Opti sent them to help the transition from the existing government to one the U.S. approved of, but what they were being paid the big bucks for was to install an extremist faction instead. That the extremists went on to slaughter everyone with white skin was . . . not a surprise.”
Peri sank back into the cushions, remembering the horrific newscasts coming out of the tip of Africa. They had called it the White Plague, and it had been little more than organized murder. No wonder Nina wouldn’t talk about it.
My God. This is real. “What were we really doing at Global Genetics?” she whispered, and he folded up the list.
“Getting this, but I didn’t want you to know. Bill threatened to take you away from me if I—we—didn’t do a few jobs for him. It’s gotten out of control. We have to run.”
Her head came up as she started to think again. They couldn’t run. The same patterns that kept her sane would make her easy to find. Besides, Opti had the backing of the U.S. government, and they had no proof tying the corruption to Bill. It was his word against theirs. “We have to do something with this.”
“You mean give it to someone?” He flung a hand into the air. “Who? You think Bill could do this on his own? He’s a cog. Someone else is pulling his strings, and if we take it to the wrong person, we’re dead.” His head drooped. “We might be dead anyway. Or I might be. They’ll always need you.”
A new fear slid through her. She was reasonably safe. Rare. One in a hundred thousand. Jack, though . . . She stifled a shudder as she remembered Bill threatening him. But it all made sense now, and her lingering distrust of Jack vanished: his pensive mood, the conversation with Bill he hadn’t discussed with her, her gut telling her that something was wrong. She stood, frustration replacing her panic. Their only option was to find the root of the corruption themselves. But if they blew the whistle too soon, she’d lose everything. Everyone in Opti knew how to smother the guilt of a cold-blooded killing. That it might be one of their own wouldn’t slow them down at all. Did Nina really facilitate genocide? For money?
“I can’t lose you,” Jack whispered, and she blanched at his heartache. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have told you right from the start.”
“Yes, you should have.” Her brow furrowed. “Running is out,” she said, knowing it would be futile. “Bill thinks I’m in the dark, right? Let’s do a few of his jobs.”
“You�
�d do an illegal task?” Jack said, and she searched his face.
“It will be our cover as we figure out how far this Opti corruption really goes,” she said, heart pounding. Running would be a fast death; staying and ferreting out the depth of Opti’s sickness would be a long game of cat-and-mouse. Same ending most times, but occasionally the mouse got away. “Once we know who’s running it, we can go to the alliance.”
“The alliance!” Jack’s expression held a moment of shocked fear, and then it was gone. It hit Peri like a slap and she fumbled, trying to figure it out.
“They can give us protection if nothing else,” she said, and Jack violently shook his head and pulled from her grip.
“Peri, the alliance is nothing but a vigilante group trying to wipe Opti out of existence. Good and bad. Everything. We can’t trust them.”
Fear. He was afraid, and Jack was afraid of nothing. “They’re made up of drafters and anchors themselves,” she said, suddenly unsure. “They won’t turn us in, and they won’t tell the world about us or they’ll end up as science projects as well. Jack, they’ll help us root out the corruption if we give them the proof. It’s all we have.”
Brow furrowed, Jack looked at the kitchen. It was where he stashed most of his firearms, but they couldn’t fight their way free, and he knew it. “Opti knows everything. They’ll find out.”
Frustrated, she bit her lip. “Then we minimize. You said there was a chip. You didn’t give it to Bill, did you?”
“No, of course not,” he said as he teased a tiny, pinky-nail-size chip from his wallet.
Her hiding things was a bad idea, but his keeping it in his wallet was even worse. Peri crossed the room to her knitting bag, feeling like this whole unfolding mess was somehow surreal. It was as good a place as any, better than most, because if she forgot, she’d eventually find it. As for the list itself? She could knit herself a message tonight in the tail end of the scarf like a modern-day Madame Defarge.
Needles clicking, she found the blue size 8. It was fairly large, and it was unlikely she’d lose it since a half-knitted scarf resided on the second needle of the pair. Fingers shaking, she wedged the cap off the blunt end and dropped the chip in. Unhappy, she gave it a shake until it wedged itself and was unmoving.