“I didn’t think Command cared about morale.”
“She doesn’t. But she does care about efficiency. Ratings are up six points, a new high. That means we get the pick of the new recruits. Command won’t exile you. Not right away. She’ll at least appear to let you go. I’d say you’ve got a four-hour head start after you leave here.”
“I’ve got to see Gianni,” Anika said. “Can you get me access to — ”
The door opened and two interrogators stepped inside.
Anika recognized the woman, who had the face of a grandmother and the heart of a psychopath. The second interrogator looked like her nervous grandson. His Adam’s apple bobbed with every swallow.
“You were told to wait in the other room.” Psycho-grandma frowned at Evan.
Evan stood and adjusted her breasts. “Sorry.” Her mouth lifted at one corner, discounting the apology. “These tits cloud my memory.” She sashayed past the young man whose wide eyes tracked every wiggle.
Anika steeled herself for a harsh session, but the pair didn’t use any of the techniques she expected — threats, body blows, drugs. They didn’t even hook her up to the machines when the questions started. She stuck to the basic story she had given Command and Second, varying her word choices and sequencing just enough to sound unrehearsed.
Rounds of questioning were followed by gardenia-scented gas piped into the room. Even though she fought the drowsiness, the gas always won. Partway through the seventh round — or maybe it was the eighth — the guards who had taken her to Command’s office returned and the interrogators left.
Anika sucked in a breath, uncertain what to expect. A blow to the head? Escort to the exile chamber?
The guards took up their previous positions, with the brawny red-headed one on her right and the leaner dark-haired one on her left. They led her into an elevator that traveled sideways and opened up into an unfamiliar area with baby-blue walls and a sponge-like floor. A marker on the wall read “D zone.”
Anika stiffened and her throat squeezed shut.
D zone. Where Command had threatened to send her if she refused the solo. Where Gianni was now, if Evan was right. Oh sweet God.
Both guards slid their hands to the lasers strapped to their thighs. A hallway stretched in front of them, with windowless doors on either side. A door on the left swished open and a man in a calf-length lab coat stepped out. Rhythm-and-blues throbbed into the corridor followed by a high-pitched scream. Then silence. The door shut and the man stood back to let them pass.
Anika’s footsteps slowed.
The guard on her right pushed her forward.
Her sandals squeaked in the sudden quiet.
The hallway dead-ended at yet another door. The red-haired guard waved his hand across the wall panel and the door opened.
“Please step forward.” A man called out from inside.
Both guards moved back.
Anika narrowed her eyes to peer through the dusky light. Soft music filtered through the air and pricked at her ears. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. The door brushed her shoulder blades as it shut behind her.
Her gaze swept the room. A column of light stood seven meters ahead. Inside its golden circle sat Gianni.
Relief and anxiety clashed inside her. He’s still alive, but for how long? She strained to get a better look, but he was angled away from her. She could only make out a sliver of his profile.
The urge to run to him swept through her, but survival instinct held her in place.
I’m in the bowels of the nightmare now. If I show any weakness, I’ll never make it out alive. And neither will Gianni.
She took a cautious step forward. Then another.
Her sandals sank into the floor as if she were standing on gel-filled pillows. She reached out to steady herself, but the same squishy material covered the wall. She snatched her hand back. She didn’t like this space.
A soprano’s voice soared through the air. Not just any music, Anika realized with a tightening of her chest. O mio babbino caro. Gianni’s favorite Puccini aria. The last time she had heard it, Gianni had been cooking for the two of them. Ossobuco alla Milanese.
The room’s walls, ceiling, and floor appeared to be made of the same translucent material. It flowed from one plane to the next with no seams, no hard corners to mar the smooth contours. The ceiling arced, the floor dipped, and both ends of the room tapered. It was like being inside a … giant goddamned egg!
The man who had spoken to Anika stood at the far end. The crook of his arm cradled a handheld three times the normal size. His fingers alternated between tapping on the screen and tugging at one of his bushy eyebrows.
Gianni was unnaturally still, like a statue in the virtual museum tours she had yawned her way through as a first schooler.
Rhythmic percussive beats threaded through the music. It took her a moment to identify the sound.
Heartbeats.
Not hers.
Her heart raced like a greyhound on the home stretch.
These beats were slow, steady.
She walked toward Gianni until she stood within an arm’s distance of the light. The room brightened as if an invisible hand were adjusting a switch.
Despite the room’s mild temperature, goose bumps broke out on her arms and neck. She stood in front of Gianni. No response. She swallowed back the metallic taste in her mouth.
He sat in a chair that rose up from the floor in a single curving “S.” Rainbow colored filaments, pulsing with activity, snaked through the chair’s frame. Sensors attached to his temples, neck, wrists, and ankles.
A pale gray jumpsuit sagged around his neck and waist. The pants’ legs almost covered his feet. His bare feet, she realized with a sickening start. Gianni never went barefoot. Now, his feet were exposed and defenseless.
His cheekbones etched razors along his skin and his hair hung limp and uncombed. But it was his eyes that made Anika’s stomach cramp. Like a doll’s eyes, vacant and lifeless, they stared over her head at the wall behind her. Every now and then, they flickered as if watching a series of images. To her, the wall appeared empty.
“Gianni.” She started to lift her hand toward him when a commanding voice broke through the music.
“Don’t touch the subject.”
Anika spun away from Gianni, arms sweeping out from her sides in protection. She swiveled her gaze around the room and tried to pinpoint the direction of the voice.
“What have you done to him, Second?” Anger overtook fear.
The aria grew louder and the singer’s voice swelled with passion.
She turned back to Gianni, unclenched her fist, and extended her hand. A resistant force, like compressed air, met her skin just before she touched the light. She pushed against it.
At first, the contact felt gentle, like the pleasant tingle from a lover’s touch. Then the tingle turned to fire and shot up her arm. The force lifted her and flung her back against the floor. The lush material absorbed her fall so easily it took her a second to realize what had happened.
Through it all, Gianni didn’t flinch. His eyes tracked her movement, then skimmed over her, through her, and returned to the wall, drawn there as if by a magnet. The beat, beat, beat of his heart remained steady.
“You were told not to touch him.” The technician didn’t look up from his handheld, but kept tapping his fingers in an even rhythm. Seconds passed and his fingers stilled. “Memory amputation complete.”
The aria faded, then began again.
Anika stood up on shaky legs. What have they done to you? What have I helped them do?
“That will be all. You’re free to go.”
The door slid open. The two guards loomed outside.
Anika didn’t move. She couldn’t leave him. Not like this.
“I want to stay.” The words burst out of her. “Do you hear me? I said I want to stay. Just stop what you’re doing to him. I’ll be the best damn operative you’ve ever had. Tell Command. I want to
stay.” Returning her gaze to Gianni, her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want to stay.”
Slow and steady heartbeats pulsed through the air.
Second’s voice returned, flat and dispassionate. “We’re giving you what you want. Your freedom. Now go.”
This wasn’t freedom. Not the way she had dreamed about it, hungered for it. All her years of longing to escape transformed into a fierce longing to stay.
She swayed a little, not wanting to leave, not knowing how to stay. She thought she could take down the two guards, but she couldn’t fight everyone in the complex and get Gianni out. Not now. Not without a plan.
A sensation of warmth lingered near her left breast. She wondered if the contact with the light force had affected her heart. Then she realized what had caused the sensation — the St. Jude medal. It was still warm from the jolt that had rocketed through her.
She recalled their moment on the plane. What she had wished for as he stared with unblinking focus at the medal. Her eyes brimmed over. It had been a sweet crazy dream to believe he could just run away with her.
The forces against them were too strong. They had stolen the dream as surely as they had stolen his memory of her.
She loved him more than ever, more than their first time together when she had been tipsy from champagne, more than when he had nursed her after the mission in Budapest, more than when he had helped her through the solo. She loved him more than her own freedom.
“Remember,” she whispered.
Then she turned and walked away.
Chapter 35
Anika cut the jetbike’s engine and coasted into position at the mouth of the alley. If she were claustrophobic, the mega-rise buildings that lined the narrow passage would be causing heart palpitations. She tried not to think about the fact that this set-up area was enormous compared to the space she was about to enter.
She quick stepped down the alley, removed a fake slab of granite from the side of the building and tossed a handful of phosphorescent dust through the grate. The interior of the temperature duct brightened. The dust would stay active for thirty minutes. That was long enough. It had to be.
She removed the prototype flex-laser from the case. Its dull gray barrel measured inches thicker and degrees cruder than the U.N.I.T. invention she had used — or almost used — during the museum mission in Ohio.
Jorge’s team had followed her specs for the weapon, including an added feature of her own design. But it had been a rush job and, in the end, the aesthetics had suffered. Although Jorge had curled his lip at the flex-laser’s clunky weight and feel, Anika didn’t give a damn about how the thing looked. As long as it worked.
She fired short laser pulses at the bars of the grate and created an opening large enough to slip through. Then she pulled the silver chain out from under the unisuit, brought the St. Jude medal to her lips, and kissed it for luck. The medal went back inside and the suit’s hood cinched tight around her head. After a final breath of fresh air, she slid the weapon and case through the opening and followed them on her belly into the duct.
She pointed the micro-camera atop the laser’s nozzle at her face and adjusted the focus until the image grew sharp. The sight of her artificial round eyes, apple cheeks, and bow-shaped lips made her stomach turn. Though Jorge had assured her the look was among his most popular, she didn’t care for it. But she hadn’t been able to wait for a custom package.
She had run out of time. Or rather, Gianni had. U.N.I.T. had moved up his relocation to today. Evan hadn’t been able to discover where they were taking him, but at least she had learned about the change soon enough to alert Anika who had raced back to New Angeles.
She uncoiled the laser’s barrel and depressed the green button on the control band. The barrel powered forward and snaked left at the curve. She switched to the monitor. Dark brown fur skittered across the screen.
She hit more buttons and the barrel reared up. Its tip jerked right, then left, pinging against the sides of the tunnel.
The rats ran for cover.
“Beasts,” she muttered. Even though they were a critical part of her plan, she hated the sight of them.
The barrel turned and twisted down three levels until it approached the section that paralleled Clinic’s isolation rooms. There, she slowed the weapon down even as her pulse quickened.
In the first room, a woman lay on a wall bed and stared at the ceiling. Restraints bound her neck, torso, and limbs.
Anika didn’t recognize her.
The second room stood empty. So did the third.
Come on.
She propelled the weapon toward the next room, then stopped. Her pulse spiked and her finger froze on the button of her control band.
Gianni sat in a straight-backed chair, the lone piece of furniture in the small room. He wore a dark suit and leather shoes polished to a high gloss. Her heart deflated at the vacant look in his unblinking eyes, the streak of gray that started at his left temple and ran the length of his hair. His arms and legs were free of restraints, but he sat as still as he had in D zone.
If she were in his place, she’d be pacing like a caged tiger.
“Hold on,” she whispered. “I’m here. It’s almost over.”
She backed the camera away from the vent, lowered the barrel to the floor and moved it forward, then down another two levels. More rats huddled together in a corner.
Wake up, little beasts. Time to go to work.
She set the laser to the alternate chamber, the special feature she had designed. She took aim and hit the trigger.
The liquid compound streamed a crisscross pattern over the rats. It solidified on contact with the animals’ body heat. The more they struggled, the more friction they generated and the stronger the material became. In a few seconds, they were trapped in an inescapable net.
Despite its crude aesthetics, the laser had worked perfectly. A good trade for the intel she had fed Jorge.
“Relax, beasts. You’ll be free soon enough.”
She retracted the barrel, then moved it close to the center of the end wall. The weapon’s laser fire burned a hole large enough for the trapped rats. She wound the barrel around the makeshift net and edged them through the hole into the decontamination chamber.
They formed a wriggling mound of dark fur and white netting.
Stop moving already.
But the rats kept up their frenzied dance.
Blowing out an impatient breath, Anika programmed the weapon for its lowest laser setting and fired. The blast stunned the rats into stillness.
She calculated she had ten minutes — 250 fast breaths — before the rats’ body temperatures cooled and the solid strips dissolved.
When the rodents regained consciousness, they would be free to roam throughout the white-tiled room and spread their germs across its pristine surfaces.
Before that happened, she needed to manually jam the duct’s three lockdown points that stood between the entrance and Gianni’s room.
Anika slipped the case over her shoulders, engaged the suction disks on her gloves, and belly crawled down the narrow passageway, following the barrel’s path. The slits in her unisuit released the phosphorescent dust that marked the return route.
When she had crawled to within a few meters of Gianni’s room, the rats began to stir. The compound had melted.
Anika licked a salty drop from her upper lip. Despite her suit’s temperature-regulating material, a film of sweat coated her body.
She waited until the rats were rousing from their laser-induced stupor before retracting the laser. As the barrel rounded the last bend in the duct and hissed toward her, the computerized voice of U.N.I.T.’s alert system sounded its warning.
Decontamination chamber breach. Lockdown initiated.
Anika visualized the security protocols activated in response to the lockdown — the computer sealing all ingress and egress points to isolate any contaminating or hostile agents, ’bots swarming through the compound, operatives
reporting to their assigned stations, shields lowering around Command’s office.
She inched the barrel forward until she had a good view of Gianni.
He hadn’t moved. His forearms still lay on the chair arms and his feet rested at the base of the chair legs. His eyes remained fixed on the wall.
A sharp stab daggered through her heart. It was agony to see him this way, oblivious to his surroundings, even to the two operatives that had taken up positions in the room.
Kent, her teammate from the Midway mission, crouched in the far corner, weapon trained on the door. The other operative had his back to her, but there was no mistaking the extra broad shoulders and the Gospel quote tattooed down his triceps.
Anika set her laser to maximum stun. Took a practice sighting on the security cams and the operatives, then fired.
Kent toppled forward and Mac hit the floor with a thud.
Lockdown complete. Stand by for further instructions.
A quick backward glance told her the phosphorescent dust was still working. She eased herself through the vent and dropped to her feet.
Gianni hadn’t budged — not during the laser fire, the removal of the vent, her entry into the room. Only his eyes had moved. His stare had shifted from the hologram of nature scapes on the wall to her.
She pushed her hood back and slipped the St. Jude medal over her head. She fisted her hand to quell the shaking and looped the chain around it so the medal swung freely.
His gaze didn’t leave her face.
She swallowed, ran a tongue over her lips and spoke the words from her heart. The ones that he had told her he would remember. No matter what.
“Run away with me.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.
Gianni didn’t respond.
Why isn’t it working? Is it because of the voice chip?
She cleared her throat and repeated the words.
His gaze travelled. From her eyes. To the medal. And back.
Please, please, remember. She pleaded with her eyes. But not with her voice. The only words she would speak were the ones they had agreed to on the plane.
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