I don’t know. All I know is that when the spotlights turn off and the media has their furor over this, that I’ll be able to go home. Wyatt and Miral, and even Zachariel, don’t have to fear for their lives from Moloch and company any more.
Somehow we managed to survive him, something I didn’t think possible. Now, I just have to figure out how to move forward in a world without Gehenna looming over my shoulder and without the crutch of my father’s legacy to stand on. Or to protect.
It’s strangely freeing and terrifying all at once.
The Sterling Cybernetics lab looks very different with Dr. Brodsky’s “devices” in it.
Not only does he have the fleshy pink tube that I helped him test before, but there’s a whole host of squishy collector creature-things in all shapes and sizes, along with a giant scanner he uses to control them. And that doesn’t count the Akulife people, with their crude mechanical life energy battery that looks like a poor imitation of Brodsky’s more creeptacular devices. Maybe between the two sets of innovators, they’ll develop something that will work without the disgust factor. I certainly have enough life energy now to supply whatever experiments Brodsky can dream up.
“We need to expand the lab,” Miral says. She’s standing next to me in her clean-room-white bunny suit, inspecting the movers as they shuffle and cram in all the boxes from Brodsky’s low-rent laboratory space he’s been keeping on the east side, along with Akulife’s cobbled-together garage-level equipment.
“I suppose you’ll want an increase in the budget for the lab as well?” I ask.
“You expect me to do all this without a budget?” Miral throws her hands up in the general direction of Dr. Brodsky and his lumbering form. He’s showing off his device to some of the younger cyberneticians, who are all saucer-eyed at his creations.
“You let me know what you need, Miral,” I say softly. “I’ll make sure you have it.”
She nods sharply, like this is the only appropriate response.
I grin, but she misses it as she shuffles forward to tell the movers not to move something of hers, just because Brodsky wants to put crates of bio-devices there. I shake my head and glance at my palm screen.
I had better move. I don’t want to keep Zachariel waiting.
I stride through the lab, avoiding crates and people and things—Miral’s right, we’ll have to expand soon. A couple of the cyberneticians give me a nod on my way to the elevator. I return it with a smile and a friendly wave.
We’ve been back from Sacramento for a week, and I’m trying to make up for lost time. I’m a regular in the office now, so I’m wearing my standard corporate clothes: designer skirt from some big name that I’ve forgotten, plus a loose silk blouse that I hope isn’t too intimidating. If I’m going to change my father’s company and have life energy tech in the basement, I need to be approachable. Someone people can trust. The Board was, of course, easily persuaded to the new direction, but convincing the employees has been a different story. And getting to know them, each and every one, is the only way to know which select ones I can bring in on Sterling’s true mission going forward.
Our public face had to take a black eye so that Sterling’s private mission could continue.
As far as the public knows, bringing life energy tech in-house was a broad strategic move to haul Sterling Cybernetics into the future. With the disbanding of Lifetime, and Sterling’s official distancing from it, the mission of Sterling as an anti-debt-collection crusader has faded—at least in the public eye. Privately, I have no intention of letting any of this debt-collection tech out of the lab. Yes, Brodsky is working on his technologies, and the young thinkers from Akulife, too, but that’s as far as it will go. Unless and until those devices can be used for good in the world… and decidedly not however Gehenna wanted to use them.
If only I knew what that purpose was.
Meanwhile, Lirium continues to work out of Madam A’s church-turned-hospice, at least for the moment. I’m donating my services there as well, mostly as a supplier of life energy. But once he’s cleared the decks of the last of the sick kids, I’m bringing him in-house as well. He said something about needing to keep a low profile, and that’s something I understand. Plus his ability to heal is a trick I want to learn. I have a feeling that potent mixture—Lirium’s skills, Brodsky’s technology, and Sterling’s facilities—will be vital in the road ahead.
It’s a road that’s fuzzy at best to me now, but one thing is clear: the sacrifice of Lifetime only means my father’s legacy will have to continue underground. Inside the safe base of Sterling Cybernetics, the fight will continue to clean up the corruption that debt collection has wrought on this city—and the state and beyond. The destruction of Lifetime saved ten thousand people whose records were tampered with, but every day some fresh corruption is happening that will never see the light of day. And Lifetime was never the right tool to fight it—public advocacy won’t work if the government is willing to let people die in order to keep the life energy complex running. Fighting shadows with shadows is the only way to root out the corruption that Gehenna has spread throughout the system. And we need to be in fighting form in case someone else in Gehenna’s ranks resurrects Moloch’s ugly crusade.
The elevator whisks me to the exec suite.
When I stride into my office, Zachariel’s waiting there, right on time. He’s impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, like the ones he’s been wearing all week. He cuts a fine silhouette against the expanse of my hundredth floor windows looking out on the brightly lit city below.
I check my palm screen. “Sorry I’m late,” I say, slightly breathless from having hustled through cubicle-land. “I hope you didn’t have lunch without me.”
He doesn’t turn or say anything, which makes my heart lurch as I arrive at his side. I scan his face. He’s squinting at the sun-drenched city, but he’s as handsome as he ever was—more so with the massive dose of life energy I transferred from Moloch to him. Only today there are tiny lines creasing the corners of his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and every fear I have about Gehenna resurrecting like some undead phantom from the deep comes rushing back.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says, but he doesn’t look at me. “You know, the city’s downright beautiful from up here.”
I don’t believe him—something’s definitely wrong—but I mimic him by folding my arms and pretending to take in the city’s sparkling towers and clear blue skies.
“Don’t be fooled,” I say. “It’s a damn mess down there.”
I peek sideways, and I’ve earned a smirk from him.
“I’m going to miss that,” he says.
“The view?” I ask, but my heart is clenching. What does he mean he’s going to miss it?
He finally turns to me. “Your smart mouth.”
My heart twists even more as he looks at me with those soft brown eyes. His gaze holds mine for a moment, then travels down to my lips, only to bounce back up to my eyes again.
“Well, I’ll be extra witty at lunch today,” I say, but my heart is sinking. He’s leaving. I can see it in his eyes. “All the smart mouth you can want for the price of a sandwich.”
“Who said I was buying?” He smirks.
It makes me grin. Hope bounces up that this isn’t the time when he’s going to say goodbye. I’ve been waiting for it, ever since we returned. Waiting for the day I show up for our standing lunch date… and he doesn’t. The day he disappears from my life. Because I know it’s coming. And I can’t seem to find a way to stop it from happening.
He sighs. “I’m going to have to pass on lunch today, Wraith.”
And like that, my heart sinks to my shoes. “Have a hot date you’re bumping me for?”
He lets out a short laugh. “You were my hot date.” Then the humor leaves his eyes. “But I wasn’t quite lucky enough to keep you.”
I have to look away. We haven’t talked about us—him and Wyatt and me—none of us have. We’ve been too busy dea
ling with the fallout, getting back to normal, and tiptoeing around the intensity of that time fighting and surviving Gehenna. We never sorted out who went with who, much less why. But I’ve already died once with regrets… the next time I run out of life energy, I don’t want to take any with me.
So I pull my gaze from the gauzy city and peer up into Zachariel’s eyes, jumping right into that conversation we’ve been avoiding. “I don’t want you to leave.”
He smiles a little. “I like hearing you say that.”
“I mean it. I’ll find a place for you here at Sterling. You don’t have to go—”
He tilts his head, and it freezes my rambling. “I can’t stay, Wraith. You know that.”
I do know it. For the same reason he couldn’t come to the press conference: there are too many people in LA with too many axes to grind that would just as soon see him dead. I simply don’t want to admit it… and I keep hoping to find some loophole, some way to keep him here. But the truth is, he doesn’t want to stay. Not if it means we’re friends… and only friends.
I drop my gaze. My hands find each other and twist. “Is it because of Wyatt?” I don’t want to give voice to that, but I have to. Even though I haven’t said anything to either one of them, I think Zachariel knows: that I can’t be more than friends with him as long as there’s the possibility of being more with Wyatt.
“Well, I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt to lose out to a guy who can’t even give you life energy boosts.”
The words make me cringe, but when I look up, there’s humor in his eyes. “I won’t pretend that I won’t miss it.”
He tips his head back like I’ve just delivered a blow. “Now you’re just being cruel. I’ll be thinking about that all the way to Florida.”
“Florida?” The solidity of an actual destination makes it somehow much worse. “Why there?”
“My handler’s there. I thought he was the one who blew my cover, but it turns out he was one of the few on my side.” He looks out the window, and his arms are crossed again. “My transfer request came in. Given that Moloch’s dead and Lifetime’s disbanded, it seems the bureau’s willing to overlook the fact that I never actually was brought back in through normal means.”
“So Eleanor worked the transfer for you?”
He nods then finally turns back to me. “I’ve got a flight to catch this afternoon.”
My shoulders drop. It feels so final, like once he gets on that plane, I’m never going to see him again. And that idea is tearing around inside me and hurting parts I didn’t know could hurt.
It must show on my face, because he unfolds his arms and brushes back my hair. I wear it loose now, all the time. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been able to tie it up again, once it was set free.
“Hey now,” he says softly, edging closer. He touches my cheek, and a little tingle of life energy trickles from his fingertips. “You won’t miss me that much.”
I give him a smile but it hurts. “Miss you? What’s your name again?”
He smiles. “You really want to know?”
I perk up a little. “You mean your mother didn’t give you that awful Z name?”
He chuckles and leans close, ducking his head to whisper in my ear. “My name is Zach.” Then he pulls back, humor in his eyes.
I swat him on the shoulder. “Oh come on!”
“I swear.” He’s holding out his hands, like he’s innocent of pulling my leg. I completely can’t decide if he’s telling the truth or not.
“You’re a terrible liar.” I scowl at him.
“I’m a terrific liar,” he says with a grin, then it fades. “But I’ll tell you something true.”
My heart goes back to breaking. Even if I can’t have him for a lover, I think I love Zachariel in the ways that matter: a love of friendship. Of kinship. Of that thing that binds people together when they are like-minded souls and save each other’s lives and have hot sex. I’m not sure what that is, but it’s something more than just friends.
“What’s true is that I don’t want you to leave.” I can feel the tears coming, and I can’t decide if I should let them fall. Maybe they will convince him to stay.
A rumble of emotions pass over his face. He touches my cheek again and says, “What’s true is that you don’t need me. And I can’t stay, and you can’t come to Florida. You’re too important to go and hide away with me, Wraith—I think I knew that even when I asked you the first time. I’ve always known you were the kind who could change things. And I wasn’t wrong about that. I’m just not the person to stand by your side through all of it. I hate to say it, but I think Wyatt probably is.”
He’s right. But it doesn’t change anything.
“Will I see you again?”
A smile breaks through. “Maybe.” He frowns. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you before I go.”
His serious tone sobers me for a moment, banishing the tender feelings in my bruised heart, which absolutely loathes this goodbye we’re having. “What’s that?”
“It’s probably nothing, but when I was watching InTense undo his trick, I noticed something… odd… about the setup. The slash was into government records, and the code was planted deep inside the structure of the data mining protocols, but there was something more there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I can’t explain very well,” he says, “because I only got a glimpse of it. I’ve been trying to convince myself ever since that it wasn’t really anything at all. Just a figment of the flashing data streams.”
I frown. “I trust your intuition. If you saw something, it was there. What do you think it was?”
He takes a deep breath and peers out at the city. “It was something structural. And something small. But what bothers me is that it wasn’t anything related to the slash. It was entirely independent, on the periphery.” He looks back to me. “It’s as if the entire slash was just a cover for this one piece. And I only know one kind of slash that looks like that: back door codes.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a slasher, Zach. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
“It’s like a trap that’s meant to be found. You leave a tempting slash, out in the open. When it’s found, it triggers another set of instructions that snatches all your access codes then skips away, unnoticed.”
I lean back. “Access codes? You mean… InTense could slip back in, anytime, and tamper with government records.”
He nods. “And it wouldn’t be just those records, the ones he tapped the first time. It would be all records. Everything in the system. At least, that’s how back door codes work. I don’t know if that’s what I saw, Wraith. But it could be.”
“But with Moloch gone…” My mind is spinning.
“Maybe there will be no one to exploit it.” He shrugs. “And it may be nothing at all. But I didn’t feel right leaving you here without at least giving you a heads up.”
I nod. “Are you really leaving this afternoon? Maybe we could still have lunch?”
His eyes crinkle up again. “I’m already late.”
He hesitates, then he touches my face again, cupping my cheek and looking into my eyes. I think he might kiss me, but before I can decide how I feel about that, he leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead. It’s a sweet, electric kiss, with a boost of life energy to go with it.
“Goodbye, Wraith,” he says softly, whispering it against my skin.
Then he turns and strides out my door.
I close the door to my office and spend the rest of the day alone.
I cry myself out of tears, then I watch the city bustle and move under my feet. It’s not a bad city, not in the way I’ve been thinking up until today. It’s simply broken. There’s a darkness underneath it that will chill your soul if you peer into it too long, and I’ve been living up against that darkness, holding tight onto it, like I belonged to it simply because of what I am. Now I know there’s far more to life than that dark side—more than lif
e energy hits and mercy payouts and guilt-ridden attempts to wipe away the dark spots on my soul.
There’s more to life than simply not dying.
The fifty million souls that live and work and love in this city already knew that. I think I’m finally ready to join them. I’ll do as Zachariel expects and try to change it—I’ll fix the broken parts and fight the corruption that eats away at the lives and souls of the people who live here. But there’s more to life than even that… and I want a piece of that kind of living. The kind that wakes up in the morning and has somewhere to be and someone to love.
As the sun slowly sets, it paints the walls of my office blood red and casts shadows of death. I’ve had enough blood and death to last me a lifetime, so I finally rise up from my chair and get ready to leave. Just as I’m striding up to the door, it slides open.
Wyatt looks startled to find me already in the doorway.
“Hey,” he says. “I thought you left already.”
“No, just moping.” I give him a bright smile. “But I’m done with that now.”
A frown settles on his face, and he comes the rest of the way inside, punching the button to slide the door shut behind him. “I heard Zachariel left.”
“He said goodbye earlier this afternoon.”
“Are you okay?” He looks like he wants to hug me, but he’s holding himself back.
“I am now. Mostly.”
Wyatt dips his head, then stares at the floor. My heart aches a little to watch him struggle. There’s something he wants to tell me. I’m not at all sure what it is, but I give him space to figure it out.
“I can see why you like him,” he says, finally lifting his gaze to meet mine.
A smile too strong to resist fights its way onto my face. “You think he’s hot and sexy and has sizzling tech skills, too?”
He give me an oh, you’re so funny look. “I was thinking more along the lines of him saving your life, but… maybe that’s the same thing.”
“Close enough.” I’m still grinning, but Wyatt’s face quickly loses its humor, and he ducks his head to stare at the floor again. It drains my smile, just as potent as a life energy pull. Funny how that works, when the people you love hurt, it’s like the pain lives inside you as well. “Zachariel isn’t the only man who’s saved my life.”
The Debt Collector (Season Two) Page 37