Spider stiffened. “No.”
“Bull. I studied the schematics. That’s how the hardware is designed.”
“It is, but… Aydan can override it.”
Brock’s metal-studded eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Seriously? You mean she can control you?”
“No.” Spider hesitated. “But she can… break the control.”
Brock scrutinized me, dubious lines scoring his brow. “How?”
“Well, um…” Spider gave Stemp a questioning look and received a nod in return. “By killing the controller,” Spider said apologetically.
Chapter 12
“What?” Brock stared at Spider. Then he swivelled his unbelieving look toward me. A heavy silence hung in the room.
“This is, like, um… theoretical, right?” he asked after a few moments. “You mean, like, a kill-switch in the software, right?”
“No.” Spider shifted, his gaze darting over to me before returning to Brock. “I mean, like, the guy who tried to control her dropped dead.”
Brock’s eyes went wide as he reared back in his chair. “Holy mother of God!” He turned an accusing glare toward Stemp. “Dermott didn’t tell me this was dangerous! He said it was-”
“An analyst’s position; that’s correct,” Stemp said smoothly. “You won’t be working with Kelly. Ms. Mellor has never entered the network without being controlled. She isn’t aware of your control in the first place and even if she was, she has no ability to break it nor any reason to try.”
“That you know of,” Brock snapped.
Stemp acknowledged that with a tiny dip of his chin.
Shit, if Brock backed out, Stemp would probably try to force Spider to take his role. As far as I knew, there weren’t any other analysts with a high enough security clearance.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ve been inside Tammy’s mind,” I offered. “And I’m quite sure she won’t fight back.”
“You’ve been inside her mind…” Brock sounded as though he couldn’t decide whether I was joking.
“Yes, when two super-users meet inside a data tunnel, they instantly assimilate each other’s memories,” Spider explained. “That’s why Aydan won’t usually be in the network with Tammy. It’s a huge strain for her to keep Tammy from seeing inside her mind. And as Tammy’s controller, you’ll be able to read everything in Tammy’s mind, too, unless you put up a mental shield.”
He didn’t look at Kane or me, and I suppressed the guilty urge to glance at Kane. Thank God Spider had shielded himself from my mind as soon as he accessed the topmost of my memories. And thank God he was a good enough friend not to blab about the hot sex Kane and I never should have had…
“So you’ve done this before. With her.” Brock jerked his chin in my direction, apparently unwilling to look me in the eye. “And she didn’t kill you.”
“I was fine,” Spider said. “And it was really fun.” His face lit up at the memory. “It was so totally cool, it was like… like… I was part of all the data in the world, just riding around in a big rollercoaster of data and I could read everything…” He trailed off, grinning. “I can’t explain it. But it was so totally cool! You’re going to love it.”
Brock lifted a superior brow. “‘Totally cool’? Cool is fin. You’re so midtown.”
The words made no sense to me, but the insult was clear. Spider’s sparkle vanished and spots of colour reddened his cheeks.
I locked my teeth together. Time to have a little heart-to-heart with Brock. With no witnesses.
Brock studied Kane and Germain, who formed an imposing wall of muscle beside Stemp. “So why are you guys involved?”
“We protect Aydan inside the network,” Kane began, and Brock stiffened. “From herself,” Kane hastened to add. “If she doesn’t stay focused when she’s inside the virtual reality…” he hesitated, obviously searching for a non-scary way to say I was likely to kill myself and everyone around me. “We just help her stay focused,” he finished lamely.
“Aydan doesn’t really need me at all,” Germain added, deftly diverting the conversation. “I’m normally based in Calgary, but I’ve been posted here for the last couple of weeks working on an op and doing the annual agent requalifications. I’m just helping out with Aydan’s project in my free time.”
“Okay…” Brock sat back, eyeing us suspiciously.
I willed my blandest expression. Come on, Brock, you lily-livered little shit…
“I want to practice with Kelly before I meet Mellor,” Brock said finally. “I don’t want to take a chance that Mellor will realize what I’m doing.”
My words came out dead flat. “If you ever try to control me, I’ll k-” I bit my tongue. “It wouldn’t be safe for you,” I finished instead.
Brock blanched and everyone except Stemp shifted suddenly in their chairs.
I didn’t look at Stemp. We’d already had this conversation. And even if I didn’t kill Brock the instant he took control inside the network, Stemp would execute him afterward, as dispassionately as he’d killed the last man who had read my mind. I wondered if Stemp’s wife and little daughter in Bulgaria knew exactly how far he was willing to go to protect the secret of their existence.
Hell, did I really know? Maybe getting Tammy on board was just Stemp’s first step toward turning me into daisy fertilizer.
Spider’s hurried voice interrupted my dark thoughts. “Your key isn’t customized to Aydan’s, so you couldn’t control her even if you wanted to.”
“Okay…” Brock perched nervously on the edge of his chair, his gaze darting toward the door as if he was about to make a run for it. “So… how would we do this?”
“You’ll just go into our internal brainwave-driven virtual reality network,” Spider said cheerfully. “Then you pick Tammy up and go into the external network.”
“And she’ll be in the network at the same time as me?” Brock gave me an apprehensive look, and I tried to feel guilty about enjoying his fear.
Guilt eluded me, and I gave him a hard stare. You hurt Spider. You’d better be scared, you little shit.
“Don’t be so lame,” Spider scoffed, and I clamped down hard on the grin that tried to seize my lips. Spider was the sweetest, most tolerant person I knew, but he’d obviously reached his limit.
Spider flushed, apparently taken aback by his own effrontery, but he continued with lofty disdain, “I told you, most of the time it’ll just be you and Tammy. And your controller chip can’t even connect to Aydan’s, so get over it.”
Brock straightened, colour flaming into his pasty cheeks. “Fine,” he snapped. “Let’s do it.” His show of resolve was somewhat marred when he fumbled and dropped his man-purse twice in quick succession. When he finally straightened clutching it, he shot a glare around the room, but met only straight faces.
I silently congratulated myself on my restraint while we all filed out the door.
Didn’t laugh at his discomfiture. Only threatened to kill him once.
Go, me.
Stemp led our little procession down the hall and into the office next to mine. As he motioned me to precede him through the door, a voluptuous brunette rose from the couch to step forward, hand extended. “You must be Aydan. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jill Francis.”
“Hi, Jill, it’s nice to meet you, too.” I accepted her firm handshake, appraising her with interest.
I had half-expected a butch female counterpart to Kane’s and Germain’s breath-taking physiques, or maybe a willowy, dangerous femme fatale. But Jill was a few inches shorter than me and much curvier, her glossy dark hair framing sparkling hazel eyes and a mouth that looked accustomed to smiles. An elegant scarf draped casually over her soft-looking sweater, and chunky jewellery finished her outfit to perfection.
Great, just what I needed. Another gorgeous, fashionable co-worker.
At least her companion’s unstyled greying auburn hair and rumpled clothes showed she spent about as much time on her grooming as I did on mine.
> Then again, she was blind.
I repressed a sigh.
The small, round woman surged forward, passing her white cane to Jill and extending her hand, her dark glasses trained in my direction. “Hi, Aydan, I’m Tammy Mellor! We’re going to be working together!”
“Hi, Tammy-”
I had just accepted her handshake when she stepped closer, her small soft hands patting up my arms, across my shoulders and up my neck to skim over my features and stroke down my hair. I held myself still, barely suppressing the urge to recoil from the invasion.
Heedless of my discomfort, her hands skimmed back down to squeeze mine again. “It’s so nice to meet you, oh, you have beautiful hair, I’m so excited we’re going to be working together to power the sim, this is so much fun for me to meet all these new people and it’s so exciting to start a whole new career but I miss my Terry so much, he would have been so excited about my new job, we shared everything, you know, and it was just a tragedy when he died, I miss him so much but thank God Charles was here for me and he’s been so lovely and I just can’t tell you how grateful I am…”
I extricated my hand from Tammy’s chummy grasp to edge away, but I couldn’t resist a glance at Stemp. Nobody ever called him Charles.
No reaction, as usual.
Tammy reached out again before stopping herself. “Oh, I forgot. Dr. Rawling said sometimes people don’t like being touched if they don’t know me. But you don’t mind, do you? We’re going to be such great friends and I always do that, it’s just me, it’s just the way I am. It’s so complicated to be around new people, there’s so much to remember, it was always just me and my Terry before and it’s so funny to think that some people don’t like being touched, but you know, I was just saying to Dr. Rawling…”
Stemp slid smoothly into the miniscule gap caused by her need to breathe. “Ms. Mellor, Charles Stemp here. Your other team members are with me. This is Clyde Webb…”
Spider stepped forward to shake her hand. “Hi, Tammy! It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Spider.”
“Hi!” Her hands fluttered up his arms, and he folded his beanpole six-foot-two obligingly as she stretched up. She giggled. “Oh, thank you for coming down where I can reach you. I just know I’m going to like you. Why do they call you Spider? Do you like spiders? When I was a little girl I thought spiders were icky, but that was when I could see them, but now I can’t see them anymore and they don’t bother me at all-”
“…and this is Tyler Brock,” Stemp interrupted.
“Hi, Tyler! I’ve been so looking forward to meeting my new knight! My knight in shining armour!” She beamed about two feet to the left of Brock, holding out her hand.
Brock stepped up and took it reluctantly, grimacing as she patted her way to his face.
When she touched his first piercing, she jerked her hand away. “Oh!” Her forehead scrunched up. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you? Did you have surgery or something?”
He wasted a sullen glare on her, obviously forgetting she couldn’t see it. “No. Those are piercings.”
“Oh…” Her busy hands returned to categorize the hardware. “You stuck these things in your face on purpose? Why would you do that? I can’t imagine how that must have hurt… Ooh, what’s that in your ear…?”
Brock pulled away scowling and took a seat on the opposite side of the room. Her hands floated down forlornly, her dark glasses searching the air in his direction.
Stemp’s voice drew her attention back. “Carl Germain and John Kane are also here. They work with Ms. Kelly.”
Germain stepped forward first, taking her hand. “Hi, Tammy, I’m Carl.”
“Hi, Carl!”
He stood patiently while she patted up his arms. When she reached his bulging biceps, she let out a little cry of appreciation. “Ooooh, you’re really muscular!” Her hands danced up to his face and hair. “I bet you’re really handsome, Carl!”
The mischief glinting in Germain’s eyes belied his solemn tone. “I’m hideous. Children cry when they see me. Women run screaming.”
She giggled, her hands drifting down to skim across his powerful shoulders and chest. “Oh, I bet you’re fibbing, I can tell when a man is handsome, my Terry was handsome, too, that’s what he always told me, but he might have been fibbing just a bit, and he was much older and not nearly as strong as you, but he was my knight in shining armour and-”
“Tammy, let go of Carl. You’re invading his space.” Jill’s reproof was delivered with quiet humour, and Germain gave her a grin and a wink as he withdrew from Tammy’s clutches to offer Jill a handshake, too.
She returned his smile and kept the handshake short, but she looked as though she wouldn’t have minded subjecting him to a little handish inquisition of her own. Hell, any woman in her right mind would. And Germain and Kane together in the same room? Serious eye candy.
And speaking of Kane…
“Hi, Tammy, I’m John,” he rumbled.
“Hi, John, oh, you have such a sexy voice…” There went the hands again. “Ooh…” A little indrawn breath when she encountered his biceps.
I could relate. The memory of those smooth hard muscles under my hands was enough to make me suck in a breath, too.
“You’re really muscular, too! And I bet you’re just as handsome as Carl!” She was already stretching to her full height just to reach his shoulders. Those massive, ever-so-tasty shoulders…
“Oooh… oh, my… you’re…”
Kane stooped and her hands traced the strong square planes of his face.
“Wow. You’re so… big… and tall.” Tammy sounded a little breathless. “Oh…”
Stemp interrupted. “Ms. Mellor, you can get acquainted later. Kelly, you’ll observe and be ready to enter the network if necessary. Let’s get to work.”
Unabashed, she turned an expression of shining admiration in his direction. “Oh, yes, Charles, it’s so exciting to have work to do again, I can hardly wait…” Her hand searched the air and Jill offered the crook of her arm, handing back Tammy’s white cane.
Tammy reclaimed both, chattering again with apparent relish as Jill led her back to sit on the small sofa. “…you know I was so lost when my Terry died, it was such a tragedy, I don’t think anybody can really understand unless they’ve been through a tragedy like that themselves, you know, I always say people who have never experienced that kind of tragedy just don’t know what it’s like, when I-”
“Tammy,” Jill interrupted gently. “It’s time to stop talking now.”
Tammy beamed in her direction. “Okey-dokey, Jilly-Bean!”
Kane and Germain exchanged a glance, and I could practically read the thought-bubble above their heads: ‘Thank God I’m not assigned to her.’
I sank into one of the chairs, fervently hoping I wouldn’t have to enter the network. One experience of Tammy’s memories was more than enough. I suppressed a shiver of claustrophobia and eased out a long, slow breath.
Spider and Brock held a whispered consultation before Spider rose and crossed the room to stand in front of Tammy.
“Tammy, it’s Spider,” he said. “If you hold out your hand, I’ll give you your network key.”
“Oh, thank you, Spider.” She thrust out a hand to accept the tiny cube. “I’m all ready to work now!” She smiled and leaned back on the sofa. Her body went limp.
Chapter 13
We stared at Tammy’s motionless body for an instant before comprehension dawned. “She’s in the network already!” Spider yelped. “Go, Brock!”
Brock’s eyes widened, then he gripped his key and his face settled into the blank stare that indicated he’d entered the network, too.
“Brock should have Tammy under control now,” Spider said a moment later, his gaze riveted to his laptop. “He should be moving her any time… Ah, there they go,” he finished.
Being on the observing end of a network session was a new experience for me, and it was boring as hell. Kane and Spider must have the patience of
saints to have put up with me for the last nine months. When Brock and Tammy blinked and straightened nearly fifteen minutes later I drew a breath of relief.
Tammy cocked her head. “I didn’t get dizzy this time, so that was nice, but your network is funny, I felt all light and kind of floaty when I first went in! I’m so lucky, all I ever did was get dizzy but poor Patty used to throw up, every single time. It was awful, and her knight was so mean to her, that was Martin Brewster and he was just so mean, none of us mages liked him. And I heard one of the other mages went crazy, that was Irina, but she died before I could meet her. And don’t you think mage sounds so much more romantic than super-user? That just sounds so cold and boring, but being a mage is so much more…”
Shit! She was about to blab the whole story behind our network keys, and Jill didn’t have a security clearance.
I shot a wild-eyed glance at Stemp.
He interrupted Tammy’s babble, as unruffled as always. “Ms. Kelly gets a bad headache when she comes out of the network, and sometimes she loses consciousness.”
“Oh, I’m sorry it hurts you that much,” Tammy said. “And oh my God, you actually pass out? Is that why Betty went into a coma when you were in the network together? I hope not, because I was really hoping I’d get to go into the network with you and see your memories, my Terry said if I ever went into the network with another mage, I’d see her memories and it would be so nice to see again even if I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes…”
“Somebody ended up in a coma?” Brock’s trembling voice broke in. “You didn’t tell me that!”
“It was another super-user.” Stemp’s neutral expression didn’t alter, but I got the distinct impression it was taking some effort for him to hold onto it. “It was a small technical problem, and we determined the cause and fixed it. She recovered with no ill effects.”
Not even the flicker of an eyelid. God, he was a good liar.
“A small technical problem?” Brock’s voice soared to a pitch that made me wonder if his tight pants had caused some long-term damage. “Since when is a coma considered a small technical problem?”
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