"It won't be easy--the virus will be locked away, closely guarded. A lowly tech like you won't be left alone with it unless you've got a damn good reason. You might even have to sleep with someone." Wolf-grin. "Think you can manage that?"
* * * *
They give him a fortnight to familiarise himself with the world of 2152 and his part in it. He memorises the layout of the Scottish complex and the faces of Angela's colleagues, grainy stills captured from the now-ubiquitous CCTV cameras.
There's CCTV footage of Angela herself, from which he learns her facial expressions, her brisk, bouncy walk, and her habit of flicking her straight black hair out of her eyes with the middle finger of her right hand. He learns how to dress himself. Getting used to the fashion of the time is no harder than wearing woman's clothes would have been for him before; in fact things are easier now than they would have been back in the day. Tights have gone out of style, while bras are now a single band of translucent, stretchy fabric that fasten with the stroke of a finger.
Lib Schafter, the officer who's been assigned to bring him up to date on the new political and geographical landscapes, must need a heavy-duty bra, perhaps with a double layer of the elastic stuff, but he makes himself ignore that and pay attention. One slip--an unguarded reference to the Royal Family rather than the President, for instance--would doom not only himself but sixty percent of the population.
He's been moved from the hospital wing, but he doesn't roam far and goes nowhere without Tim or another member of his team. Security on this operation is tight. He can't see much from the window of his room; a few new houses in a foreign-looking style, with sharply-pointed roofs, and a canal. He's been told he's in Northumberland, but it looks nothing like the place glimpsed from the motorway on childhood holidays. Water has risen, taken much of the coastline, then been tamed by dikes and channels. Mountains have been razed to build up the land and snatch it back from the sea's embrace.
During his short hours of rest, he gets to know Angela's body. After all, she won't be using it again. He coils the straight flat hair around his fingers, explores his small nose, strokes his eyelids and the plucked and shaped brows. Strangely, the inside of his mouth is hardest to get used to. It's so healthy--no fillings, no nicotine residue.
Angela Wing is twenty-eight, her figure and muscles toned from her hobbies--tennis and karate. Her hair and face are from her mother while her above-average height comes from her father (both now deceased). Mark, lying on his back, places his hands on his breasts and squeezes gently. When his thumbs pass across the nipples they harden. He taps and flicks with his forefingers for a while, then transfers the right-hand finger to his mouth, licks the tip, and moves it between his legs.
He parts the dry folds of labia and locates the warm little nub. When he touches it, the pit of his stomach and the insides of his thighs seem to flutter while the spot where his finger rests feels like ice. He tries a forward and back motion first, then small circles, increasing the pressure of his finger against his clitoris.
Knees up, he slides his finger further back and into the hole while his left hand cups his breast. With every forward-and-back thrust of his finger, he clenches and unclenches his buttocks. He strokes faster, and finds space for a second finger in the warm, wet corridor. He can feel that he's reaching orgasm and he pursues it as he'd tail an enemy agent: now following closely, now dropping back to allay any suspicions. The final, successful capture comes in warm ripples that spread outwards from his loins.
When he's finished he falls asleep with his hand still clasped between his thighs, like a child holding a teddy bear against the terrors of a dark bedroom. The next morning, they take him to Scotland.
He travels in the back of an ambulance, snug in a stretcher made from some kind of foam that moulds itself to him. The interior of the ambulance is completely noise- and vibration-proof, so he doesn't experience the anticipated halt at the border. Nor does he see the high fence that marks the vast research complex, or the miles of flat parkland within it.
Mandy, the ambulance driver, leaves him at the gatehouse. She wishes him goodbye and good luck, tells him to ring Dr. West--code for Tim--if he has any questions or problems, and leaves him. The security guard keeps his gun trained on the ambulance until it's out of sight.
"Welcome back," he says, holstering the weapon. "I was sorry to hear about your accident." He's scanning Mark's retina and fingerprints as he speaks. "There! You haven't been replaced with a robot after all! On you go, love."
Mark knows that to leave the complex is very unusual. Angela was accompanying one of the directors to a conference when their car was struck by another vehicle--a chance in a thousand, these days, with fewer cars and advanced AI in the ones that do run. The director and driver were killed and Angela was rushed by helihover to an English hospital, Tim's hospital, before the complex could claim her and tuck her away in its own sanatorium.
Working from the map he's memorised, Mark walks to Angela's block, staying off the travelators to spin out the journey. There are signs to restaurants, bars and one of the two 3D cinemas; elsewhere, he knows, are crèche, school, pan-denominational place of worship.
He glances casually about him at emergency exits, cleaners' cupboards and windows onto the inner courtyard garden, thinking about escape routes, hiding-places and disguises. He gets a few smiles on the way, but nobody stops to talk. His first challenge comes when he's found Angela's neat little room, unpacked, and prowled off to the floor's communal kitchen in search of coffee.
When he gets there it's occupied by a woman of around sixty, with hair the colour of iron filings. Intelligent eyes and good cheekbones keep her face young. He smiles to buy time while he sorts through the profiles he's memorised.
"Angela! Good to see you--how are you feeling? Tea?"
Got her. Joan Waites, project lead, his neighbour and line manager.
He's about to ask for coffee, remembers just in time that tea is Angela's poison. "Please. White, no sugar." Does he sound too curt for Angela?
"I do remember, Ange! It's only been a month!"
Make that neighbour, line manager and friend. Mark needs to tread carefully. Dig for information without attracting suspicion. He's always despised gossip; time to make it work for him.
"So, what's been going on?" he asks, taking the insulated mug. Remembering a secretary of his, he adds "What's the goss?"
Fifteen minutes later his tea has gone cold and he has a wealth of new information to digest. Petty rivalries, fallings-out, one engagement, two breakups and a pregnancy. He hopes he's given the right response to everything. On the surface none of it is useful, but he's getting a picture of his colleagues--especially Joan--that he couldn't glean from the files.
Pleading tiredness, he returns to his cubicle and bed. He goes back through his conversation with Joan, sifting again for any significant news items, but instead finds himself focusing on the dry humour in her gravelly voice and the smile in her brown eyes. If only she was thirty years younger, he thinks, before remembering the other, larger obstacle of his sex. When he falls asleep with his hand between his thighs, his mind is on Joan rather than any of the women from his past. But since coming back he hasn't liked to think about the people he once knew, all as dead now as his own body--which, he realises, was about Joan's age.
Bluffing his way through his first day as a research assistant leaves him exhausted, but he makes no errors--at least, none that elicit comment. His job involves little more than fetching this, holding that and making notes on the other; if he's sometimes a little hesitant or slow, Joan and the others blame it on his absence. Lucas Black, the director of Angela's group, even tells him not to worry his pretty little head about it when he picks the wrong test tube from a rack. Behind Lucas's back, Joan's expression is of amused sympathy.
He's identified the room containing the virus from the respect with which everyone treats it. There are code cards, retina scans and a lengthy procedure of mask, goggles and gloves. Now
to select his target, the person who will get him into the lab. It must be either Joan or Lucas, he decides. His--no, Angela's--friendship with Joan would make her the obvious choice, but Lucas's vanity, patronising attitude and terrible ties--he's the only man in the place who still wears one, though they're popular with women now--make Mark long to trick him and puncture that confidence.
He takes another day to wait and observe. He laughs at Lucas's jokes and stands close beside him, sometimes accidentally brushing his long-fingered hand against Lucas's arm or flicking his hair in the Director's face. He's using Angela's perfume and makeup, but not overdoing it, the way Lib showed him during his training.
His colleagues, naturally, accept him as Angela--at work, in the canteen and in the women's loos. He's never really had female friends; now he finds himself surrounded by friendly, chatty company. It would be rather pleasant if it wasn't for the strain of keeping his cover in place.
He's used different identities before: false passports, the appearance and age close enough to his own to slip past Customs in pre-scan days. Never that childish business of wigs and false noses--not until now and this bone-deep façade.
Back in the Cold War, sleeper agents were placed in hostile or potentially hostile territory and left to grow roots. Some became so wedded to their false lives that they almost forgot about their former selves. When the call came, some of them refused to betray their adopted home for a native land whose memory had become hazy. But nobody, not even the sleepers who stayed in place for decades, has ever assumed a cover as deep as the one Mark has acquired in the space of a couple of weeks.
His own emotions surprise him: the blushes that heat his cheeks, the squirts of adrenaline when Lucas raises his voice. Sometimes, usually when he's thinking about his past life, he feels tears trying to start and has to bite his lip with his alien little teeth.
It's not surprising that on the day he plans to spring his honeytrap, using Lucas to get at the virus, he's particularly keyed up. There are tears at the back of his eyes and a throb in the pit of his stomach, but he ignores it all as he showers, towels briskly enough to make his skin sing, carefully shaves his legs, armpits and what was once called the bikini line with an infrared razor. As he tests the cool, smooth flesh with his fingers, he offers an apology to Angela for the use he'll soon be making of her body.
He slips into the dress he's chosen: short and lightweight in a fabric that feels like linen, but with a shimmer to it. It's the sort of thing that would have appealed to him, once, but is it right for this age? He wishes he could ask Joan her opinion--Joan? He means Lib, of course. Careless of her not to advise on seduction-wear.
When he's pulled on Angela's shoes he wonders if he's wearing them right, such is the pain from the high heels and narrow instep, but a glance in the mirror assures him that they look perfect. He twirls sideways to admire himself in profile, twists his ankle and collapses on the floor.
Limping slightly, he makes his way to the fifth-floor corridor and pays a final visit to the Ladies' a couple of doors down from Lucas's office. When he pulls down Angela's smallest, laciest pants, he discovers that he won't be seducing anyone today.
Why did nobody think to warn him? And why, why didn't Lib brief him on this, he wonders bitterly as he dithers in the pharmacy, trying to decide, without appearing too conspicuous, what to buy and how much of it he might need. At last he has a brainwave and returns to his room, which he ransacks in search of supplies. Sure enough, Angela kept a stash, and he's able to experiment in private with twenty-second century sanitary products until he comes to a satisfactory arrangement.
The waiting is agony; every day increases the chance of a slip and discovery, or the release of the virus. One night Joan invites him to the cinema and he accepts, scared of blowing his cover but unable to face another evening of pacing around his room. He's seen the film before, but now it's been converted to 3D, the long-dead actors looking real enough to touch and the explosions kicking off all around him.
Sitting in the dark, he glances sideways at Joan's profile and her wonderful cheekbones as she laughs. When she looks back at him he shifts his own gaze to the front, and their conversation as they walk back to their block together is limited to discussion of the movie.
"I love those old spy films," Joan confesses, "but they look so silly now."
Mark agrees solemnly.
Back in his room, he hooks Angela's phone behind his ear and tells it to call the number he's been given. Vibrations through the bones of his jaw let him hear and speak. The device is smaller than an old-style radio bug, but it's still an unsecured line and the old protocols still hold.
"Dr West? It's Angela Wing."
"Angela! How are you feeling?"
"I've been having a few headaches."
"Have you been taking your medicine?"
"No, I've been too busy catching up at work."
"Angela, you need to take that medicine as soon as possible, OK?"
"Thank you, Doctor. I will."
Tim couldn't be more clear: time is running out for Mark to 'take' the 'medicine'. He smiles, enjoying the game, and Angela's pulse beats faster. Calm down, dear, he tells himself, you'll give us away.
The next day he's ready, both physically and otherwise. When they break for lunch, he brings Lucas a coffee without being asked. The Director is wearing an especially garish tie, Mark notices: orange with green pinstriping. He allows the backs of their hands to touch as he sets the mug down. He leans forward, the neckline of the shimmery dress revealing the little line of freckles that march down Angela's cleavage.
"How are you getting on now, Angela?" Lucas asks. "You seem, er, much better."
"Oh, a hundred and twenty percent," Mark assures him. "But I'm still having trouble catching up with everything I've missed. I know I must be really stupid, but..."
"Oh, no, no, no," says Lucas. "You just need a little help to get on top of things again." Their eyes meet and they smile at each other, speaking in the same code. "Perhaps I could give you a one-to-one this afternoon."
"I'd like that," Mark lies, and they both stand up. But when they reach the door of Lucas's office, he puts his hand on the Director's hip.
"Wouldn't you rather go somewhere you won't be disturbed?"
Lucas pauses, hand on the door. "Where did you have in mind?"
"Laboratory 12."
It's the virus lab. Mark sees surprise flicker across Lucas's face, then a frown as he considers the risks. Mark's hand slides to the Director's waist and down; there's already a slight bulge at his crotch. Got him, thinks Mark. Fucking in a danger zone; the power-fetish types always go for that.
He's crazy with impatience, now the thing is within his grasp, but that's all right: his eagerness will flatter the Director's ego. Angela's high heels click along beside Lucas, never stumbling. Go on, get it over with, get the stuff, get out!
Lucas is gazing into the retina scanner, his pass poised to swipe across the reader, when Joan arrives.
"Ah, Angela, there you are! Had you forgotten you were helping me out this afternoon?"
Before Mark can protest, Joan has swept him off down the corridor. The lab door unbolts for Lucas, who kicks it closed again.
Instead of Joan's office, she takes him to the kitchen in their accommodation block, switches the kettle on, and folds her arms.
"Aren't you going to thank me for delivering you from the clutches of Lucas?" There's a chuckle in her voice, and one eyebrow is raised. He notices how they've stayed dark while her hair has turned grey.
She's ruined his chance, doomed two-thirds of Britain. Mark should be furious--but he feels relief flooding through him now he won't have to go through with his plan. He'll get another opportunity--he'll make one. It's what he does, why they brought him back. Meanwhile...
"Well?" Joan says.
He puts one hand on her waist, the other to the back of her head, and he kisses her.
She gives a surprised, reflexive jerk back before lea
ning in to him and touching her lips to his. He runs his thumb along the line at the base of her neck where the hair is cropped close and down her jaw, taking her chin between thumb and index finger. Her arms wind around his back and press him gently just above the curve of his bottom, pushing his hips towards hers.
"I never thought you were interested," she says, pulling away and studying his eyes.
"Maybe I've seen the light." This is where he should pick her up and carry her to bed, but Angela's body, toned though it is, isn't up to the task. So he takes her hand and they drag each other to Joan's room, which is a larger, executive suite, and throw themselves onto the single bed. Two pairs of shoes hit the floor in a quick series of thumps.
Before he can work out what's supposed to happen next he's climbed on top of her. His hair brushes her breasts and he thrusts his groin down against hers. When they touch it sets off the tingle in his loins and he presses harder, grinding up and down her pubic bone. Now he's started, he can't seem to stop. After a few slow strokes he builds up speed until his quick, firm nudges bring him to orgasm. Then longer and more leisurely on the way back down. He sits up, shuddering, hands on her ribcage below the bosom.
"Sorry!" he gasps, flicking back his hair in Angela's gesture and squeezing Joan's chest with his thighs. "Selfish of me! Can I do anything--"
She shows him. Pulling him down beside her, she guides his finger to her clitoris. He uses the same movements and patterns he's learned on himself; he's done this to a woman before, of course, but never from a position of such experience.
Joan squeaks and wriggles at first, then thrashes her legs so that he has to concentrate hard to keep his finger in the right place. He wraps his own leg around her knees, locks his free arm around her neck and kisses her, pushing her head back into the pillow. Now he can make progress--transferring his thumb to where his finger was and his fingers inside her. She twitches under his weight and moans into his mouth, at one point managing to bite his lip, but he holds her still until she jerks as if galvanised and pulls her mouth away, gasping.
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