by Ruth Owen
She didn’t have to ask what that conclusion was. It burned in the depths of his silver gaze, and in the effortlessly seductive smile that pulled at his mouth. His mouth, she thought, undone by the memory of his kisses, and by the damning fact that she wanted like hell to kiss him again. For starters. She swallowed, shoving a host of dangerous images from her mind. For God’s sake, he’s living with another woman. “I need to be getting back to work.”
“Stay,” he said, his voice thick with soft, subtle hunger. “Please, stay.”
The simple request pierced her heart like an arrow. She saw his jaw tighten, and knew that inside he was fighting valiantly to keep his emotions under control. Behind his impassive façade, Ian Sinclair was as confused as she was about the feelings growing between them—and just as capable of being hurt by them. Damn, why couldn’t he be just another handsome, arrogant SOB? Why did he have to be so uncertain, so vulnerable, so … human?
She was startled from her thoughts by a sharp rap on Ian’s office door. Jillie swung toward the sound and saw the door open, admitting the angular form of Sadie Hedges. The cyberengineer was apparently too absorbed in the computer printout she was holding to notice that the doctor hadn’t asked her to come in.
“Doc, I’ve got a few questions about the interface between the imaging generators and the new topological environment Felix and I are setting up for tomor—” Her words dwindled to astonished silence as she lifted her head and caught sight of Jill and Ian standing within inches of each other. But her initial surprise lasted only a moment, and was quickly superseded by a wise smile. Sadie was nothing if not quick on the uptake. “Sorry. I’ll come back later.”
“No,” Jill blurted out. Sadie’s arrival had broken the spell between her and Ian, and given her a chance—perhaps her only chance—to escape. Without daring to look at him, she spun around and headed for the door. She knew she was taking the coward’s way out, but she couldn’t afford to be choosy. If she didn’t leave now, she was going to break that long-ago promise she’d made to her mother—and get her heart broken in the process.
She was almost to the door when he said her name. “Ms. Polanski.”
She paused in the doorway, powerless to disobey him. “Yes?”
“I just wanted to remind you that I’ll see you in the simulator tomorrow afternoon.”
Jillie gave a perfunctory nod, the best she could manage under the circumstances, and left the room. No longer able to read his emotions, she wasn’t sure whether his statement was a promise or a threat.
“Did you remember to check her calibration modulators?” Ian demanded of Sadie as she strapped him into the egg’s harness.
“Yes.”
“And her life-support monitors? Did you test them as I asked you to?”
Sadie sighed. “All three times.”
“Fine. And did you—”
“Look, Doc, I’ve tested Ms. Polanski’s systems six ways to Sunday. She’s going to be fine. You, however,” she added as she ruthlessly tightened the last strap, “I’m not so sure about.”
Ian stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, come on. This is Sadie you’re talking to.” She stepped back, giving the harness, and the doctor, a sternly appraising once-over. “I saw the way you looked at Jill when she left your office yesterday. And I saw the way you avoided looking at her all through this morning’s simulator walk-through. What’s going on between you two?”
“Nothing,” he stated sourly. “Not a bloody thing.”
Sadie fought hard against a grin, and lost. “Sounds to me like you’d like to change that.”
“Why, that’s absurd—” he began, but stopped as he caught sight of Sadie’s skeptical expression. She wasn’t buying it. Why should she, since the explanation he’d been about to offer wasn’t anything close to the truth?
He’d known Sadie and her husband for years, almost since the day he’d arrived in America. If anyone knew him, she did. If anyone deserved the truth, it was her. Grimacing, he rubbed his jaw with the back of his stiff DataGlove. “It doesn’t much matter what I think. Ms. Polanski doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Sadie’s skeptical smile melted into indulgent compassion. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered telling her how you feel about her.”
“Good God no,” he said, bristling at the suggestion. “You know I’m not good at … expressing my emotions.”
She picked up the HMD helmet and set it on his head. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Doc,” she said as she adjusted the leather chin strap. “No one is good at expressing their emotions. But it’s a risk you have to take when you care about someone.”
When it came to science, Ian was confident and courageous, but when it came to matters of the heart … well, that was another matter entirely. He could easily decipher the intricate hieroglyphics of binomial equations. He could postulate complex Boolean tables in his sleep. But women were completely beyond his understanding, and one woman in particular was driving him to distraction.
The scene in his office the day before had almost been a repeat of the night in her living room. One minute she’d been so close he could feel her warm breath on his cheek and see the flecks of golden light in her lovely brown eyes. The next minute she was running from him as if he were the devil incarnate. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she wanted nothing to do with him. A sensible man would have seen how hopeless the situation was and walked away with his ego intact.
But you aren’t sensible where Jillie is concerned.…
“What happens if I tell her how I feel, and she still wants nothing to do with me?”
Sadie’s smile sobered. “There are no guarantees, Doc. But I know that sometimes you have to risk a lot to gain a lot. No guts, no glory, as they say. And anyway,” she said as she snapped his helmet visor down over his eyes, “there might be something Felix and I can do to help things along.”
“Such as?” Ian asked, turning his blind gaze in her direction, but he received no answer. Instead, he heard the telltale whoosh of the outer door sliding down, sealing him in the lightless, self-contained universe of the simulator’s egg.
Doubly blind because of his virtual visor and the egg’s darkness, he turned his sight inward, mentally reviewing the strategies he’d developed to help him locate Einstein. But his thoughts kept straying to another subject, a brown-eyed woman with a hesitant smile whose deceptively fragile appearance masked an iron will and a determined heart. And an absolute talent for running away from him when he most wanted her to stay.
Well, perhaps it is better this way, he thought soberly. He was a man of science, not passion. Six years in a loveless relationship had taught him that truth all too well. Oh, he’d started out believing in all the starry-eyed fictions of marriage—home, children, undying love. He’d clung to those foolish beliefs much longer than he should have, even after Samantha informed him that she had no interest in his scientific career, that she wanted to travel, not be tied down to a single home, and that she had no intention of ruining her life or her figure by having children.
Jillian Polanski was nothing like his ex-wife, but the risks of entering an emotional relationship were just the same. There were too many variables, too many unknowns. As Sadie had pointed out, there were no guarantees. As a scientist he’d been trained to view the risk of an endeavor in relationship to the outcome. No self-respecting scientist would enter into an experiment with so little possibility of success.
His thoughts were distracted by a steadily increasing electronic hum, an indication that the egg was powering up. He gripped the stabilizer handles, mentally preparing himself for the transition to the virtual environment. Watts, amps, diodes, microprocessors—these were the things he understood. He’d replaced his foolish dreams with sound scientific knowledge. He’d built a life for himself as complete and self-contained as the interior of the egg.
And there was no room in it for a certain en-chanting cybertech, even if her kisses d
id turn his blood to fire.
Jill opened her eyes slowly, battling the momentary disorientation she experienced while her physical senses shifted over to the simulator’s sensory input array. Gray un-fog surrounded her, the shadowy nothingness that marked her entrance into the virtual world. Yet even as she watched, the nothingness began to change—to solidify into recognizable forms, like a fuzzy movie image coming patiently into focus.
She saw a chair take shape beside her right leg. She watched as a glass tumbler congealed next to her left elbow, followed immediately by the appearance of the table that supported it. Other images formed in the gloom—a clutter of chairs and tables, scarred plaster walls, tile-decorated archways, and several large, slowly revolving ceiling fans. People began to form as well. They crowded the tables, dressed in old-fashioned elegance. Dim lighting etched their sharp, distrusting features as they glanced furtively around them, and spoke in low, clandestine whispers.
Jill drew a deep breath—a virtual breath, she reminded herself—and watched the vaulted room take shape around her. Even before the transformation was complete, two thoughts struck her, both equally fantastic.
The first was that this virtual environment, though sharply defined and complete in every way, was entirely in black and white. The second, no less startling, was that she’d seen this place somewhere before.
A grotto room, made over into a decadently elegant nightclub … palms in brass pots, oriental screens, concealing shadows barely disturbed by the grotesquely ornate wall lamps … an oppressive heat that hung in the air despite the obviously late hour, and the unspoken promise of love, death, or freedom, all available for the right price.
Even her outfit looked familiar, a cloud-soft white blouse with elegant long sleeves and a deep V neckline that somehow managed to be subtle and provocative at once. Below she wore a patterned, flowing skirt that suggested the womanly curves of her body without blatantly revealing them. Her clothes, like the sophisticatedly clandestine room she stood in, hinted at its secrets without giving too much away. Dammit, she knew this place.…
“Drink, mademoiselle?”
She turned and found herself looking into the angular features of a Russian bartender. Sasha, her mind supplied. But how did she know his name? “Uh, sure. How about a diet soda?”
“Diet?”
Right, Jill. This decor predates diet drinks by a couple of decades. “Er, just make it a Coke,” she amended hastily. “With ice.”
“Coke, I got. Ice, I don’t got,” the bartender replied with a shrug. “You must be new in town, or you’d know that ice is scarcer than diamonds in Casablanca.”
“Casablanca? She whirled back to stare at the room, realizing now why it seemed so familiar. Sadie’s topology had put them smack in the middle of the famous forties movie Casablanca, or, more precisely, in the middle of Rick’s Café Américain. The detail was incredible, and more authentic because of its black and white coloring. “Good grief, I’m in Casablanca. Marsha is never going to believe this!”
Sasha the Russian glanced at the Coke bottle in his hand, then back at Jill. “I think maybe it’s good you’re not having anything to drink.”
Jill barely heard his comment. She glanced around the room, delighted at being transported into one of the greatest films of all time. She scanned the crowd, hoping to find a glimpse of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Instead, she saw something that replaced her pleasure with fear.
The nightclub was packed with German storm troopers.
Casablanca was one of her favorite movies, but the time period, the beginning of the Second World War, was fraught with danger. Casablanca was still a free French province in Morocco, but it was about to be overtaken by the Germans. From the looks of things, they’d already overtaken Rick’s café. The place was full of nasty-looking B-movie Nazis carrying nastier-looking German Lugers. Last time there’d been only one orc with one club, and it had still almost killed Ian—
Ian!
Once again she scanned the crowd, but she couldn’t find a trace of him. What if something had happened during the transition … She took a deep breath, refusing to panic. “Control, where is Dr. Sinclair?”
Sadie’s voice answered. “I’m not exactly sure. The readings we’re getting are cluttered by the other people. I’m sifting through them now—”
“You are looking for Dr. Sinclair?” a nearby voice said.
Jill whipped around, and found herself staring at a short, beady-eyed man with an unctuous smile. Lord, the guy looked like he’d sell out his mother for a dollar. “I might be,” she said cautiously. “Do you know where he is?”
The man’s face broadened into an obsequious smile. “He paid me to find you. Said I should look for the pretty lady with the lost look on her face. He told me to tell you you shouldn’t worry about him, but should complete your mission, whatever that may—”
“Where is he?” Jill demanded.
The little man shrugged. “Well, until a moment ago he was standing over by the potted palms. But that was before the gestapo officers took him upstairs for questioning.”
EIGHT
“I suggest that you attempt to cooperate with me, English,” the Nazi said with a menacing sneer. “Otherwise things could become … unpleasant.”
Ian fought the powerful urge to plant his fist squarely into the center of that sneer. It’s only a projection, he repeated inwardly. But, virtual image or not, the smug bully was damn hard to take. “I am trying to cooperate,” he stated through gritted teeth. “I’ve been trying to cooperate for ten minutes, ever since you brought me into this godforsaken closet.”
Once again Ian glanced around the small room. The brass light on the table he sat at was so dim that he could see the faint lamplight filtering in between the shutter slats of the tightly secured window. It was dark, depressing, stiflingly hot, and it reminded him of a prison cell. He suspected that the similarity was intentional. “Just tell me what you want to know and let me out of here. I can’t afford to waste time.”
The Nazi’s weasel eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And what is your hurry? Are you planning to meet someone? To purchase, perhaps, some letters?”
“Letters? What would I want with a bunch of bloody correspondence?”
The SS officer leaned closer, fixing him with his monocled stare. “Do not joke with me. Everyone in Casablanca wants those letters.”
“Well, I don’t,” Ian stated as he plowed his hands through his hair, his frustration growing. This simulation was fast becoming a nightmare. He couldn’t afford to waste precious minutes fending off the veiled threats of a virtual Nazi. Yet for the moment at least, he had no choice. Despite the officer’s unpleasantness, there was a chance he might know something about Einstein. And even if he didn’t, there was still the matter of the automatic pistol lying so innocently on the table between them, just within reach of the German’s blunt-fingered hands.
Ian knew that Sadie could transport him out in a hurry, but not quickly enough to dodge a bullet. He would have to wait until the officer grew tired of his questioning, or determined that Ian was telling the truth. But from the threatening expression on the officer’s face, Ian doubted that either of those things would take place soon.
He pulled at the collar of his elegant evening clothes, untying the constricting white bow tie and loosening the top buttons on his silk shirt. His frustration was becoming almost as oppressive as the heat. He glanced at his gold-banded wristwatch, watching the precious minutes tick by. The only good thing about this mess is that Jillian is well out of it. At least she’s safe—
A knock sounded on the room’s door.
The officer gripped his gun and signaled to the soldier by the door. The sentinel nodded in acknowledgment, then opened the door just a crack to see who it was. He cursed solidly as the door was unexpectedly thrust forward into his face.
“Out of my way, you big baboon!”
No, it couldn’t be …
But it was. Jill marched in
to the room as if she had a column of allied soldiers behind her. She ignored the assortment of guns and Nazis and walked straight up to Ian. “You wouldn’t believe the number of rooms this place has, or what’s going on in most of them. Sadie has a very vivid imagination.”
At the moment Ian didn’t give a farthing for Sadie’s imagination. He rose from his chair, torn between admiration of her courage and fear for the danger that courage had placed her in. He grasped her elbow, placing himself between her and the officer’s gun. “I told you not to follow me.”
“I know. But you also told me that we were supposed to stick together. That’s one of the main rules of the simulator, isn’t it?”
“Not when there are Nazis involved!” He pulled her close and lowered his voice to a stern whisper only she could hear. “Dammit, Jillie, couldn’t you obey a simple order? These men are crazy. They keep going on about these letters—”
“The letters of transit?” she asked.
The Nazi officer fixed Jill with the same malevolent stare he’d so recently bestowed on Ian. “You know of these letters, Fraulein?”
“Sure. Bogie’s got them. Rick, I mean.” She glanced back at Ian, apparently reading the concern in his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen this movie about a million times. I know who’s got the letters.”
The officer spoke a quick string of German to his subordinates. Then he turned back to Ian. “My men tell me that Herr Rick has gone to the airport. We will follow him, and check out the woman’s story. If she is telling the truth, I apologize for any inconvenience. But, if she is lying …” He let his words trail into ominous silence as he and his men headed for the door. “Incidentally, my men have been instructed to keep you both under surveillance—for your safety, of course. So many unpleasant things can happen to one in a rough town like Casablanca.”
“And I’ll bet he’s responsible for nine tenths of them,” Jill muttered as the storm troopers left the room. “Casablanca’s a lot more dangerous than it looks on the screen. Still, it’s exciting, don’t you think?”