by Ruth Owen
“Exciting?” Ian gaped down at her, fighting a distinct urge to strangle the woman beside him. “You recklessly disobey my direct orders and jeopardize this mission, and you call it exciting?”
Jill’s smile crumbled into ruin. “I was worried about you.”
“Well, that isn’t your job, Ms. Polanski,” he said curtly. He dropped her arm and headed over to the room’s mirror, and began to relace his bow tie. “You’ve wasted valuable minutes that you could have spent looking for Einstein.”
“Yes, and you spent those valuable minutes almost getting shot,” she cried. “You should be thanking me, not arguing with me. Why are you so angry?”
Why indeed, he asked his reflection. He’d been furious ever since Jillie had entered the room and stepped into range of the storm troopers’ guns. But he knew in his heart that he was far angrier with himself than with her. He was in charge of the mission. He should have protected her. Instead, he’d exposed her to a danger that could have easily taken her life.
If anything happens to her, I’ll take this bloody machine apart bit by bit.
The violence of the emotion stunned him. He’d known he was powerfully attracted to her physically, but this … this strange, fierce protectiveness that hit him with an almost physical force was something he’d never experienced, not even for Samantha. To feel this way about a woman he barely knew—it made no sense.
Confused, he studied Jill’s reflection in the mirror, watching her without her knowledge. She stood with her arms clasped protectively around her, her usually defiant shoulders bent in defeat. Cast in tones of sepia and shadows, she looked lovely as a china doll, and just as breakable. Guiltily, he realized that he didn’t need Nazi bullets to harm her—he’d done that job himself. So much for protecting her. “Ms. Polanski, I—harrumph—I think—”
“I know what you think,” she stated as she walked stiffly to the door. “And I won’t jeopardize the mission any further. From this moment on I’m looking for Einstein—period. And if the Nazis decide to question you again, Doctor … well, I’d be more than happy to stand aside and let them shoot you.”
God definitely has a sense of humor, Jill thought as she threaded her way through the glittering, gaudy customers who packed the tile floor of Rick’s Café Américain. Here I am, in one of the most romantic movie settings of all time, with a man who has the emotional sensibility of a crustacean! Someday I’ll probably look back on this and laugh.
But she didn’t feel like laughing then. Instead, she swallowed a bitter lump rising in her throat and blinked back stinging tears. It’s all this stupid virtual cigarette smoke, she told herself. It has nothing at all to do with him. I don’t care what he thinks of me. I’d be a fool to care.…
“Ms. Polanski, slow down.”
Jill halted. It was the lesser of two evils. If she continued walking, he might think—incorrectly—that she was running away. “Make it quick, Doctor. I’m trying to look for Einstein.”
“Well, I doubt you’ll find him barreling through this crowd like a water buffalo.”
“Charming comparison,” she said icily.
“I didn’t mean … oh, bloody hell!”
He plowed his hand through his hair, mussing the dark curls into rough-and-tumble disarray. Jill’s heart fell to her shoes. Ian was dressed in the same impeccably tailored white suit coat and bow tie that had made Bogart’s battle-weary, cynical antihero the heartthrob of millions of women. But the sophisticated Bogart had never been one tenth as attractive to her as Ian was with his messy hair and his slightly askew tie. Dammit, why can’t I stay angry at this man—
“I meant only that we need to remain inconspicuous,” he continued as he came to her side. “Somewhere in this sector is a clue to your missing AI computer. But we must allow the program to play out as normal, in order for the incongruencies to surface.”
He was right, of course. If Einstein were able to leave some sort of message for them in this sector, it would be in the guise of something that didn’t quite fit. “All right, but I don’t see how we can blend in. Any suggestions?”
“Just one.”
Before she realized what he was going to do, he reached out and circled her waist, and swept her effortlessly onto the dance floor.
No! The situation may have been virtual, but Jill’s reaction to the doctor’s touch was all too real. Memories of the other times Ian had held her seared through her, creating instant panic. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“The fox trot,” Ian answered with the ghost of a smile. “Am I doing it correctly?”
“Yes. No. Stop it,” she said, struggling against his hold. She placed her hands against his chest and shoved. She might as well have tried to move a brick wall. “Let me go. Ian, I don’t want to dance with you!”
His smile died, replaced by an expression so grimly cynical that for a moment Jill thought she was dancing with the world-weary Rick. “I’m well aware of that fact, Ms. Polanski. But we have only thirty-two minutes left to locate Einstein. I suggest we make the most of it.”
They danced in silence. Jolly forties tunes filled the air, music written to make the people of the world forget the war on their doorstep, but Jill heard none of it. Inside, she was fighting her own battles. Her common sense reminded her that Sinclair was an arrogant, deceitful man who was perfectly capable of making love to her while he was living with another woman. She’d seen his kind before—her mother had had an absolute talent for finding them. But while her mind urged caution, her body drove her in another direction.
Dancing with Sinclair in the virtual world was as maddeningly seductive as dancing with him in the real one. Like water wearing at a stone, she found herself unable to resist. She felt the strength of his fingers laced through hers, sending tiny firecracker explosions down her arm and through the rest of her body. She felt the gentle pressure of his hand against the small of her back, guiding her through the dance with almost unholy ease. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him using his gentle strength to guide her through another kind of activity.…
Her step faltered.
“Jill?”
“I’m fine, fine,” she said hastily. “I’m just worried about Einstein. We have … so little time.”
Sinclair’s dark gaze searched hers with searing intensity. For an instant she felt the magic flow between them, the strange, inexplicable awareness that joined them despite their differences. Shaken, she looked deeply into his eyes and saw a flash of the man behind the cynical façade, the gentle, hidden heart. This is what Ilsa saw in Rick’s eyes. But is it real, or just another part of the Casablanca overlay?
“You must care for him a great deal,” Ian said.
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Einstein. “Yes, yes, I do,” she said quickly, dropping her gaze before he caught the disappointment in her eyes. “He’s more than a supercomputer. He’s sweet and kind … and just a little bit crazy. He loves anything to do with reggae and Jamaica—he even has a signed picture of the Jamaican bobsled team on his wall. But that’s nothing compared to his obsession with the shopping channel,” she added with an indulgent smile. “He has no self-control. One time they hosted a Star Trek memorabilia show and he ordered every item on it—in triplicate!”
“He sounds far from perfect,” the doctor observed.
“It’s his imperfections that make him lovable.”
Sinclair arched an eyebrow in wry humor. “I only wish my imperfections were as lovable.”
Jill stiffened. “I wasn’t aware that you admitted to any imperfections.”
“I’m not quite that vain,” he replied, his expression turning serious. “I’m sorry that I criticized you for coming to my rescue. I know of few people who would have had the courage to walk into that kind of trouble—and fewer who would have done it for me. You did a brave and noble thing. I was wrong to chastise you. I knew it then.”
“Then why did you?” she asked quietly.
He smiled again,
but this time there was no cynicism in it. “Well, Ms. Polanski, I suppose I was worried about you too.”
Sinclair wasn’t the only one with a tough hide—Jill had developed her own suit of armor over the years. Though she had many friends and acquaintances, she let very few people into her heart. She’d kept the door firmly shut against Sinclair, never intending to let him inside. But as she looked up into one of the first honest smiles she’d ever seen on his face, she realized that he’d somehow managed to work his way in already. When had it happened? When he’d freed her from the brambles? When he’d taken such complete delight in petting her cat? When his kisses made rainbows inside her …?
It didn’t much matter when it happened. The important thing was to get him out of her heart as soon as possible. “Dr. Sinclair, I—”
“I know what you’re going to say. That we’re always at odds, that we have nothing in common, that we can’t speak three sentences to each other without arguing. I know all that.” He stopped dancing, ignoring the music and the crowd that pressed around them. He stepped back and took her hands in his, staring down at their joined fingers with a mixture of embarrassment and reverence. “Truth is, I admire you a great deal. I’d like it if we could be friends.”
The simple, heartfelt words were almost as destructive to her as his caresses. She’d thought of him as an iron man, confident in his power and position, arrogant in the extreme. Like Casablanca’s Rick, he’d isolated himself from the world, living by his own rules, closing himself off from distractions like pain, joy, and love.
I admire you, he’d said. Simple words, but she felt she’d never received higher praise. Suddenly she was someone special despite her ordinary appearance and her far from ordinary upbringing. She’d never considered Ian needing something so simple as a friend. She’d never considered him needing her.
You, whispered a wormwood voice in her mind, and the other woman who shares his bed.
She pulled back her hands as if they’d been dipped in fire. “We can never be friends,” she said hoarsely. “Never.”
The disappointment in his eyes cut her to the heart.
“Why not?” he asked with soft determination.
Because you’re in love with someone else! Jill tried, but found she couldn’t even begin to put that painful reality into words. “Because … because I’ll regret it. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my—oh, God, now I’m even beginning to sound like this movie.”
Bright rainbows had turned as stark and hard as the black and white world around her. Like an animal struggling to get free of a trap, she pulled herself away from him and slipped between two nearby couples into the concealing safety of the crowd. She heard him call out her name, but she didn’t look back. Instead, she wove her way through the sea of close-packed nightclubbers, blinking back tears that had nothing to do with the cigarette smoke. Uncaring, she pushed on, ignoring everything around her, until she reached the front of the crowd.
She saw, for the first time, the nightclub band.
Their music was from the forties. Their champagne-white suits were from the forties. The trumpets and clarinets they played on were from the forties. But their Jamaican hats and Rastafarian dreadlocks were definitely from the nineties.
NINE
“Einstein,” Jill murmured as she stared at the band. “It’s got to be a message from Einstein.” Her spirits soared. It was the first clue she’d seen since she entered the virtual environment, and it meant that the AI computer was still alive. At least, she hoped that’s what it meant.
She approached the bandstand cautiously. Blend in, she reminded herself. After all, they may not want to talk to strange—
“Be you Jillian Polanski?” the band leader asked.
Then again, I could be wrong. “Yes, I’m Jill. Do you know what’s happened to Einstein? Can you tell me where he is?”
The Jamaican shook his head sadly, his natty dreadlocks swinging. “Ah, pretty lady, I be wishin’ I could. But dis mon be only a partially realized spacial rendering program, don’t ya know. My working-storage area can’t hold dat much information. But this I know—dat little Einstein, he be in big trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” a deep, British-accented voice asked.
Startled, Jill turned to find the doctor standing close behind her. “How did you get through the crowd so fast?”
A corner of Sinclair’s stern mouth curved up. “You aren’t the only one capable of behaving like a water buffalo. Now,” he continued as he faced the bandleader, “what kind of trouble is Einstein in?”
“Huge trouble, mon. Big as whale,” the bandleader warned. “Einstein programmed me to tell you not to come after him. Too dangerous—for him, for you, and for your pretty lady. Better you leave him be.”
“But we’ve come so far,” Jill cried. “You’ve got to tell us how to find him.”
“Like I said, I don’t know where he be. Now, my information dispensing subroutine be at an end, so I’ll be sayin’ good-bye to ya both.” And with those disheartening words he tipped his multipatterned hat and turned back to his band.
“But you’re all we’ve got,” Jill said, her voice dwindling to a whisper. They’d come so far—only to run full tilt into another blind alley. Only this time she’d allowed herself to hope. She looked up at Ian, not even attempting to hide the disappointment in her eyes. “We can’t give up now, can we?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” he promised. Striding forward, he grasped the bandleader’s arm and spun him around to face him. “Listen, I built this bloody machine, and I know that every called program in this topology has to have had a point of origination. You may not be able to tell me where Einstein is now, but you can damn well tell me where he was when he brought you on-line.”
“Well, you don’t got to be such a nasty man about it,” the bandleader complained. “Me start command came from the airport. Now, if you’ll pardon dis mon, I got to play some music.”
“By all means,” Ian said, releasing his arm. He returned to Jill, expecting to see a smile on her face. Instead, he saw that her jaw was still drawn tight in worry, and a tiny crease of distress had appeared on her brow. He had an intense, extremely unscientific urge to kiss away that crease. For God’s sake, the woman can’t even stomach the thought of being friends with you.
“Ian, the airport’s miles out of town. We’ll never reach it in time.”
She lifted her eyes to his, her beautiful, expressive eyes that were filled with compassion—for everyone but him. He ignored the sting of disappointment, reminding himself that he had no practical use for compassion in his efficient, ordered life. “Recently Sadie and I have done some research into the practice of transporting people within the virtual environment. Theoretically it should work.”
“Theoretically?”
“Well, we haven’t exactly tested it yet. And there is the danger that we’ll rematerialize in one of the environment’s solid objects. But I’m willing to try it if you are.” He stretched out his hand, offering her his upturned palm. “Are you game, Ms. Polanski?”
For a moment she simply stared at his hand. Then her lips curled into a soft ghost of a smile and she raised her eyes to his, meeting his gaze with the undaunted courage that had made him respect her more than any woman he’d ever known.
“Try and stop me, Doctor,” she challenged him as she slipped her hand in his. “Just try.”
It was not like Jill’s other transitions. One second she was standing in the noisy, crowded nightclub; the next she was surrounded by the vast fog-cloaked emptiness of the Casablanca airport. Her senses reeled from the startling change, and she stumbled, clinging to the nearest object at hand for support. Which just happened to be the lapels of a raincoat covering a broad, muscular chest.
“Jillie, are you all right?”
Jillie. Why did he have to say her name like that, in a way that played along her skin like a virtuoso performing piano scales? And why couldn’t
she seem to find the energy to extract herself from her intimate position against his chest?
“I … I guess we made it.”
“Presumably,” he agreed, raising his hand to thump the metal skin of a nearby airplane wing. “We’re at an airport. But where the devil did all this fog come from? It’s rarely this thick on the Thames, and Morocco is a desert country.”
“Casablanca is a port city. Besides, the fog is part of the movie. It adds to the romance and mystery.”
“There’s nothing mysterious about water condensation,” he stated bluntly. “And romance is no excuse for inaccuracy. I’ll have to speak to Sadie about this.”
A crustacean. Without the shell. Sinclair may have been cast in the part of the romantic hero, but inside he was still Dr. Doom. She pulled herself out of his arms, trying not to notice how drop-dead gorgeous he looked in the well-worn raincoat and sloping fedora Sadie had given him. Okay, so the guy could give Bogart macho lessons. That doesn’t mean I’m going to just swoon into his arms.
She turned away, conveniently forgetting that she’d already done just that. “Control, how much time have we got left?”
“Twelve minutes and ten seconds,” Felix replied. “Better get a move on.”
“No kidding. But where do we start?” The airport was much larger than it looked on the movie screen, and the layers of fog concealed much of it from view. To their left was the airport office, its sole light casting eerie shadows through the shifting gray curtain. To their right was a line of planes, silent and empty as a row of ghosts. She rubbed her hands along her arms, shivering with apprehension. The last time she’d felt this way, an orc had stepped out of the trees.…
“The office,” Ian stated, interrupting her thoughts. “The light makes it an energy source. Einstein would need energy to transmit a program.” He settled his hat firmly on his head and started to walk toward the office, motioning for her to follow. “This way, Ms. Polanski.”