Borderless (An Analog Novel Book 2)

by Eliot Peper

  ALSO BY ELIOT PEPER

  “True Blue” (A Short Story)

  Neon Fever Dream

  Cumulus

  The Analog Series

  Bandwidth

  The Uncommon Series

  Uncommon Stock: Exit Strategy

  Uncommon Stock: Power Play

  Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Eliot Peper

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503904729 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503904725 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503904736 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503904733 (paperback)

  Cover design by The Frontispiece

  First edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  AFTERWORD

  FURTHER READING

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Our secrets define us. Diana felt the truth of that in her gut. Secrets were the dark matter whose mysterious pull shaped people’s grandest dreams, deepest fears, and sense of self. Unspoken truths inspired visceral passion and brought down entire nations. They were the crux upon which the world turned. Diana knew that the only material worth reading lay between the lines.

  That was the reason there was no future for her and Dag. Or a reason anyway.

  “Breakfast is served.” He padded toward her with a lopsided grin, bare feet slapping on the bright tiles of the mosaic path that curled from the back door of the cottage to where she sat at the center of the greenhouse. She curled her own toes against the tile, remembering how her back had ached for days after laying the path under the hot sun of a Berkeley summer.

  She had built the entire greenhouse herself, constructing the roof and walls to extend the lines of the cottage into a single rectangular structure that housed humans in the front and plants in the back. Spiraling tendrils of vine hung from the ceiling, rough trunks supported a verdant canopy, and dozens of blooming flowers formed islands of vibrant purple, saffron, and periwinkle against an ocean of green. Many specimens were souvenirs from clandestine missions, calling to mind dead drops under rattling metro tracks, games of cat-and-mouse with countersurveillance along Dutch canals, and that time she’d exfiltrated a blown agent out of the jungles of Mindanao—and later watched with quiet pride as he opened a small croissant bakery in Minneapolis. The humid air, filtered light, and sweet smell of freshly watered Michelia champaca grounded her, reminded her that this small corner of the universe was her domain.

  Dag unloaded the heaping tray onto the table and sat across from her. The feast featured a steaming stack of buttermilk pancakes prepared with fresh milled grain, a small cask of grade A maple syrup, a French press brimming with fragrant coffee, a plate piled high with crispy bacon, and a bowl of seaside strawberries.

  Diana sighed theatrically. “Monsieur, I’m walking a knife’s edge between hungry and hangry. You know, outside the bedroom, it does pay to finish fast.”

  “My sincerest apologies, madame. Is discipline in order?”

  “A flogging at the very least.”

  “Someone woke up in fine form.”

  “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

  “Never!”

  She snorted and served them both, buttering up the pancakes and drizzling a generous amount of maple syrup on top. Dag might not be able to cook much else, but she couldn’t deny that his pancakes were mouthwatering.

  “Thank you,” she said. “This looks delicious.”

  As they both tucked in, she studied the man who had somehow managed to sidle into her life. Since his abrupt retirement from high-stakes political lobbying a few years ago, Dag had let a short beard grow out to complement his floppy dark hair. A loose linen shirt hung across his shoulders. And there was something about his face, the lines around his eyes, that had softened. The desperation that had hovered just below the surface of his every move had faded to a chic worldliness. There was less of an edge to his gaze, fewer moments when the armor of ambition snapped into place.

  His contentment drove her crazy.

  Cynicism she could do. Fatalism, even. Her grandmother had lived that one to the fullest. But contentment? It was too assured, too passive. It left the scratch unitched, the question unanswered. For someone like Diana, who hunted, kept, and traded secrets for a living, it was anathema.

  Couldn’t she just be happy he was happy? She was. Of course she was. At the very least, he deserved a welcome respite after what he’d gone through. But then again, she wasn’t. Her annoyance burned brighter because it was so patently unjustifiable. She resented herself for resenting him. It was a vicious cycle that she didn’t know how to reverse.

  As the stack of pancakes dwindled and the food coma set in, their conversation waned. Dag told her about the new series of drawings he was working on, sketches capturing the multiyear fire that had consumed all of Southern California. His enthusiasm for the project was ardent, fueled by guilt over how he’d helped others profit from the historic disaster. But Diana put her side of the conversation on practiced autopilot and surreptitiously scanned headlines on her feed.

  Seasteaders were buying up distressed oil and gas assets, converting abandoned offshore drilling platforms into tiny sovereign communities. The acerbity of their overlong manifestos suggested that actually trying to live the libertarian ideal wasn’t much fun after all. Disney was holding a press conference at their Singaporean headquarters, announcing a Star Wars reboot that would extend the franchise into a new trilogy of immersive feed dramas. Foreign policy forums still bristled with debate over the questionable legal basis for Commonwealth’s terms of service update that had implemented a global carbon tax three years prior. Leading scientists pointed out that it was the first international regulatory effort that had actually resulted in declining emissions, enforcement guaranteed by the threat of losing access to the feed. But President Lopez had harshly criticized the move in a recent interview, sparking renewed speculation that the US was preparing to
take a firmer hand with the tech conglomerate that ran the feed.

  In Diana’s own feed, Lopez leaned forward in his chair to deliver a talking point, earnest and intense. The squat man with his conservative suit and thick gray hair invoked a host of conflicting memories for Diana. He was one of the few politicians who genuinely strived to make people’s lives better rather than boost his own polling numbers. Sure, he had a healthy ego. That was guaranteed in every candidate who had ever stood for election. But Lopez had been steadfast in supporting evidence-based policy even when the tide of public opinion turned against him. If the ultimate judge of character was action taken under duress, Lopez wasn’t all bad. He had served as vice president under Freeman until the heart attack that had resulted in the mother of all promotions. Years later, Lopez had campaigned and won a second term. He was the kind of leader Diana would have been proud to serve during her tenure at the CIA.

  Too bad she knew more than she cared to admit about his ascent to power.

  Diana couldn’t see Lopez without thinking about Helen. Helen, who would have so much to say about Diana’s present predicament. Espionage requires sacrifice. Her Southern accent had garnished the words like powdered sugar. We are the shield that guards the innocent, the shadow passing in the night that allows others to sleep in peace. Within these walls, America is our only soul mate. Fuck who you like as long as it doesn’t endanger the mission. Love if you can’t help it. But trust? Never. Helen, with her ready maxims and unflinching confidence. Helen, who had taken Diana under her wing when she emerged green and eager from covert-action training. Helen, who was the mistress of a secret history Diana could never quite escape.

  Diana’s stomach turned, the remains of the rich meal suddenly nauseating.

  “Who knows? Maybe we could go off-grid, start over,” Dag was saying. “Find a little beach town somewhere.”

  Diana grunted noncommittally.

  “In the meantime, I was thinking we could drop by the nursery together today,” said Dag, fingering the fiddlehead tip of a fern frond. “We can pick up some seeds and you can coach me. I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever tried to grow.” He shrugged wryly. “I’m not going to earn a green thumb cooking pancakes.”

  “What? No.” The words came out harsher than she had intended. She backpedaled. “I mean, don’t you need to get back to your project? You said the La Jolla piece is almost done.”

  He had already taken her to bed, moved into her home, invaded her life. Wasn’t that enough? The greenhouse, the garden, the plants, they were hers.

  Hers.

  Instinctively she summoned her feed to check soil humidity, pest density, nitrogen levels, temperature, and environmental stressors. Nothing out of the ordinary range. Her wards were thriving.

  “Sure, but we’ve still got time this morning.” Dag grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to have an assistant for the yard work? Like a sous chef but with dirty fingernails?”

  She stood abruptly, the chair legs scraping against tile.

  “I have to go,” she said, fighting to keep the strain out of her voice.

  “Is everything okay?” His concern was as sweet and sickening as the syrup-smeared plates.

  Before she could say something she’d later regret, Diana strode up the path and through the back door into the cottage. The kitchen was covered in the evidence of Dag’s industry, cast-iron pan filled with bacon grease, griddle speckled with little blobs of batter, sink full of dirty dishes. Her handsome and generous boyfriend had prepared her a beautiful brunch. The least she could do was help tidy things up. But she kept moving, self-reproach at abandoning the mess quickening her stride. She pulled on boots and headed for the front door, passing Dag’s drafting table on which a half-finished sketch was mounted.

  This was her home. Her sanctuary. There was a good reason she had never brought clients here, or anybody aside from the occasional plumber. Now there wasn’t an inch of the place that wasn’t contaminated by Dag’s presence.

  Stupid. Spies didn’t have real relationships. Spies didn’t deserve real relationships.

  Closing the front door behind her, she set off along the sidewalk at a brisk pace. The fresh air and sunshine began to calm her frayed nerves. Oaks, redwoods, and craggy outcrops of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock peppered the yards of her North Berkeley neighbors. Tectonic uplift, volcanic activity, and the Hayward Fault combined to make the East Bay a geological melting pot, and the dramatic features helped it earn a reputation as a gardeners’ paradise. She could glimpse the bay through gaps between the picturesque period houses. Onshore wind kicked up tufts of white on the swell. Across the water, a complex system of marine walls and levies protected the soaring graphene skyscrapers of Commonwealth’s headquarters in San Francisco from rising sea levels.

  Exile from DC had its perks.

  Diana took a deep breath. It wasn’t Dag’s fault. She was being unfair to him, displacing aggression, lashing out. Worse, losing control like that was unprofessional. Helen would have chewed her out to hell and back. But fuck Helen. Diana hadn’t had a real puzzle to sink her teeth into for too long. That was it. She was wound up tight, energy fizzing and sparking inside her. She needed an outlet.

  She needed a mission.

  Summoning her feed, she began cycling through her secure caches. It was hopeless. Her current stable of clients was always trying to buy her time, but there were only so many mistresses she could unveil, cryptographic keys she could pilfer, disinformation campaigns she could execute, and competitive negotiations she could penetrate before Diana wound up stuck in a rut. During her most recent gig, the assigned intermediary in Santiago hadn’t even attempted a surveillance detection route before their meeting in Parque Forestal. She shook her head. Once you ran Langley’s gamut, freelancing was a demotion to the minor leagues. Busywork, no matter how lucrative, wasn’t going to cut it. She wanted something really interesting, or at least something new.

  Once you acquired a taste for secrets, nothing else could satisfy.

  Ping.

  An inbound meeting request surfaced in one of her caches. New client, claiming referral from a Bogotá-based financial investigator she’d met a few years prior while working a money-laundering case. They wanted to brief her ASAP. If people got to the point of approaching her with a project, the schedule was always ASAP.

  But what the hell, it was new blood. And if her instincts hadn’t entirely deserted her, some of it might already be in the water.

  CHAPTER 2

  Diana had always liked the way Analog stood apart from the surrounding buildings. Unlike the glistening superstructures or meticulously maintained Victorians that defined the San Francisco aesthetic, the club was the kind of postindustrial stronghold a Viking might build if transported to the present. The hulking black building seemed to absorb all the light unlucky enough to touch it. Bouncers blocked the massive wooden doors, arms crossed and suits straining to contain overdeveloped biceps and deltoids. The name was spelled out in wrought iron above their shaved heads. The place glowered out at the city with self-conscious insolence.

  The fact that Haruki wanted to meet here meant one of two things. Either this was such a sensitive mandate that it required a high level of paranoid tradecraft, or he was so enamored with the prospect of a covert operation that he had mined obscure forums, geeked out on espionage dramas, and couldn’t wait to play the part. Either way, she wasn’t going to take any chances.

  It hadn’t been hard to trace the supposedly anonymous address from which he’d posted in her secure cache. Once she’d cracked it, it was even easier to link it to Haruki’s public identity on the feed. Then it was just a matter of connecting the dots to his employer, interests, and associations. She aggregated, indexed, and cross-referenced his public data. Pictures of Haruki danced around her field of vision alongside his résumé, tagged posts, group affiliations, demographic profile, music preferences, social graph, and some indiscreet footage indicating a penchant for experimenting wit
h psychedelics. This guy lived on-grid, which could mean a lot or a little. Truth was always the best cover.

  “Gerald, Sam, you’re looking sufficiently intimidating today.” Lightning quick, Diana poked both bouncers in their bellies as she stepped between their bulky frames.

  The men guffawed, and Sam leaned over to open the door for her.

  “Aww, come on, D,” said Gerald. “You’re ruining the effect.”

  “Even mighty warriors have to relax sometimes,” she said. “Stop taking yourselves so seriously.”

  “People taking us seriously is our entire job.”

  “Then you need to do a better one, cuz I don’t.”

  “I could toss you out of this joint with my pinkie.”

  “Oho, I’d like to see you try.” She balled her fists and hopped around like a boxer as she backed through the doorway. “Show me what you got.” Despite their opaque aviator sunglasses, she knew their eyes were rolling as the heavy door swung shut.

  “Harassing the staff again?” said a cool voice.

  Diana turned. “Nell,” she said. “What the fuck? How is it that you look so damn stunning every single time I see you? It’s like you have no regard for us regular humans who have mediocre genes, appalling style, and wake up with bedhead. Really it’s just rude how gorgeous you are.”

  “Always with the sweet talk.” Nell shook her head, but her pale-gray eyes twinkled, and the corner of her mouth quirked to reveal perfect white teeth. With her pageboy haircut, smooth dark skin, and impeccably cut black dress, she could be the envy of any feed fashion star. A small pin featuring a retro air force insignia was fastened over her heart, and knee-high suede boots completed an aesthetic that was sophisticated and idiosyncratic. “It’s good to see you.”

  Nell stood behind a polished wooden podium that was the anteroom’s main feature. A slim vase held a bouquet of lilies of the valley, their delicate white blossoms hanging like tiny bells off bright-green stems. Behind Nell, plush red satin curtains separated them from the club proper.

  “Likewise,” said Diana. “How are the girls?”

  “Jorani’s going through a bit of a manga phase, but they’re good otherwise.”