“It does,” I groaned. “Don’t stop.”
He began again with gentle hands and I slumped forward, letting him gradually work out the pain and tension.
By the time I was able to look up, Spider was engrossed again, his posture telegraphing confidence. I sighed and rolled my shoulders. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Spider looked up from his work. “I’m ready for you in the network now.”
I bit back the self-pitying whine that tried to escape. Something must have shown in my face, because he grimaced. “I’m so sorry. If there was another way…”
“I know. It’s okay.” I cracked my neck. “What do you need me to do, exactly?”
“Just go in and gradually undo whatever you did. I’ll watch from here, and we can message back and forth so you don’t have to come out again until we’re done.”
“Thank God for that.” I ran my hands over my face, procrastinating, and then sighed. “Screw it.”
I lay down on the floor. After all the kicking and screaming I’d done recently, dignity was nothing but a distant memory anyway. I stepped into the network and got started.
It took a lot longer to unravel the layers of protection than it had taken to create them. At long last, I spoke to Spider through the network interface. “Okay, that’s the last of it. I think.”
His voice came back reassuringly. “That looks fine from here. Now I have to hook up the external connections again. I need you to watch and block absolutely everything, incoming and outgoing. Then I’ll sort through it.”
“Okay.” I braced myself, trembling with nerves. I had a feeling this was going to be like playing squash against dozens of opponents simultaneously. Or maybe like a video game.
I’d always sucked at video games.
I sighed and tried to let go of that unproductive thought.
True to my mental image, a barrage of squash balls hurtled at me seconds later. There was no way I could possibly respond quickly enough to block each of them. I did the only thing I could think of. I stretched my virtual body into an enormous net and took the beating.
Approximately an eternity later, Spider spoke again. “Okay. Let go now.”
I collapsed to the virtual floor and lay still. There was no reason for me to feel so exhausted and battered. This was a sim. I should be able to feel pain-free and full of energy.
I tried.
I failed.
“Good,” Spider’s voice roused me. “Try the tunnels now.”
I crept to my virtual hands and knees. The sim wavered around me. Hooker the cat padded toward me, his yellow eyes alight with intelligence, tail waving like a question mark. “Mow?” he inquired.
I shook my head vigorously and he vanished. Blood spattered the floor. I willed it away, forcing myself to concentrate. My brain dragged itself though a vat of viscous fluid. I reached into the vat and scooped it out, holding the rubbery organ in my hand.
Whoa, bad trip.
I shook myself again and the sim firmed around me. Stay focused. Just one more thing to do.
I couldn’t summon up enough energy or concentration to go down the tunnels simultaneously, so I selected one at random.
The slow attenuation of my virtual body smothered higher thought. I quested blindly through the tunnel like a mole on downers until my virtual nose thudded into a solid wall.
Trapped.
Enclosed in the tunnel as it shrank around me…
My panicked shriek echoed in the void as I snapped back.
“Aydan!” Spider’s frantic voice boomed through the sim.
“I’m okay,” I gasped. “Just a dead end on one of the tunnels.”
I hyperventilated for a few seconds, trembling with the adrenaline pulsing through me. Well, that was one way to regain focus. The sim’s detail was razor-sharp around me now.
I chose the next tunnel and went down it more easily. This one was open all the way, and I quickly made notes of the IP addresses as I passed through. Snapping back to the sim, I pushed the IPs to Spider, and headed for the next tunnel.
By the time I entered the last tunnel, I could barely hold the virtual image. The walls were ghostly while I pushed my leaden consciousness forward. The thump on my virtual nose at the end of the blocked tunnel was almost a relief. I was done. I slithered lethargically back into the sim and lay in a formless puddle.
Hellish nightmares swirled around me while I cowered in the void. I knew these things lived in my subconscious. I knew they were constructs of my own exhausted brain as I lost the ability to guide my conscious thought. I curled into a ball. The monsters fed greedily on my fearful cries.
A blip in the sim and a small stab of pain.
Kane.
Signalling me.
The portal was so far away.
I crept toward it, but the cage closed around me. Heavy bars contracted, crushing me. The last of my intellect fled as screams and blood spewed from my throat.
Chapter 44
I was still screaming. My flayed throat burned, and I clenched my teeth and panted silently instead. Agony raged through my head and body while dizzying colours swooped and spun.
The deafening noise in the background resolved itself into Kane’s insistent voice, calling my name. Pain reverberated in my head, the pounding synchronized to my racing heartbeat. My eyes wouldn’t open.
I didn’t care.
Maybe he’d just go away.
He didn’t.
Finally, I flailed one arm out blindly and croaked, “Stop.”
His voice continued, urging and cajoling. Irritation flooded me. I summoned up the energy to open one eye. “Goddammit…”
“She’s swearing. Thank God.”
My gaze tracked sluggishly to the source of the sound and slowly focused on Spider’s frightened face hovering over me.
I groaned. “Somebody please… kill me.”
I managed to pry open my other eye at the sound of Kane’s relieved chuckle. “No such luck,” he said.
I moaned when his hands found the red-hot knots in my head and shoulders. For a long time, I lay inertly while he rubbed away the pain.
At last I made an effort to sit up. The room turned slowly around me. I blinked muzzily at the two Kanes who were regarding me with concern. When I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them, the twins were gone, and the single remaining Kane was frowning.
“What happened? Why were you screaming inside the sim? Why didn’t you come out?”
I groaned. Too many questions.
“Aydan? What happened?”
“Too tired. Couldn’t get out,” I mumbled.
“Can you stand?”
I started to shake my head but desisted when the room spun vigorously. “Don’t think so,” I whispered. Sweat sprang out all over me as my stomach lurched. I closed my eyes to banish the vertigo.
“Webb, get the door.”
The dizziness intensified as Kane picked me up without apparent effort and carried me out.
“Put me down,” I murmured, my eyes still closed. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so. What do you weigh, anyway?”
“One-sixty.”
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s it. I can’t carry you, then.” His steady stride never faltered, and his voice betrayed no hint of effort.
“Just tell me if you’re going to drop me.”
“I’m dropping you now.” My eyes flew open as he laid me gently on a sofa. “Kidding,” he added.
“Funny,” I muttered. I clutched my head with both hands as it attempted to float away. My impossibly heavy arms shook with the effort.
“What happened?” Hellhound’s rasp was full of alarm.
“We couldn’t wake her. We had to trigger the worst-case scenario again.”
“Shit!” Hellhound knelt beside the sofa, stroking his hand over my clammy forehead. He eyed my tremors with suspicion. “Aydan, wh
en did ya eat last?”
“Um…”
“Seven o’clock this morning,” Kane supplied.
“Shit! It’s damn near four! And ya been makin’ her do that trance thing? Ya know what that does to her!”
“Aydan, I’m sorry,” Kane began, but he was interrupted by Germain’s voice.
“Kane, we need you again.”
“Go,” Hellhound told him. He stroked my hair back from my face. “I’ll find ya somethin’, darlin’. I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled to empty air. I felt horridly vulnerable lying on the sofa, but it was all I could do to hold my eyes open. I hoped everything was truly as secure as Kane said.
Several minutes later Hellhound was back, carrying some oranges. “No juice, but these oughta do,” he said. He sat on the floor beside the couch and peeled one of the oranges. As he fed it to me section by section, the dizziness and nausea gradually abated.
By the time I’d eaten the second orange, I felt strong enough to drag myself into sitting position. Hellhound hoisted himself up and sprawled beside me on the couch, laying his head against the back of the sofa and closing his eyes.
Deep grooves of pain and fatigue lined his face, and my heart squeezed with sympathy. His experiences in the sim alone would have been enough to bring most men to their knees. I knew he was grieving Hooker as well. I took his hand and stroked it, offering what little comfort I could.
His eyes opened, and he smiled at me. “Sure glad you’re okay, darlin’.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, too.” I leaned my head against his shoulder.
When I opened my eyes again, Kane was standing in front of us. He gazed down at me in concern. “Are you all right?”
I dragged myself up from my slumped position against Hellhound’s shoulder. “Yeah. Arnie found me some food. I’m fine.”
“Good.” He frowned. “You know, you should get your blood sugar checked.”
“I have. There’s nothing wrong with me, I just have an ultra-fast metabolism. I’m fine most of the time, but when I have to really exert myself on an empty stomach, and especially if there’s a lot of adrenaline in my system, I just run out of steam.”
“All right,” he said doubtfully. “Can you walk now?”
“Yeah, I should be fine.” I stood up shakily and stretched. “All better.”
Kane turned his gaze to Hellhound, taking in his strained, exhausted face. “What about you?”
“I’m good.”
Kane reached a hand down, and they clasped each other’s forearms as Kane pulled Hellhound to his feet.
“We need to debrief back at the RV, and then you can both head back to the city,” Kane told us.
We followed him wordlessly out to the gas company van. Kane ushered me into the passenger seat while Hellhound climbed into the back.
“There’s blood back here,” he observed as he sat.
“Oh!” I turned to Kane. “I meant to tell you I’m sorry. How’s your hand?”
He briefly surveyed the purpled bite mark. “Fine.”
“Ya bit him?” Hellhound demanded.
“It was an accident.”
“Kinky.” Hellhound winked with a shade of his old ribald humour.
Kane glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. “What happened? How did you end up at Harchman’s?”
Hellhound’s expression darkened. “I made a coupla stops after I left base camp yesterday mornin’. Got back to my place a little after noon. I knew somethin’ was wrong when Hooker didn’t meet me at the door.” He paused, and I knew he was composing himself.
“Coupla assholes hidin’ inside my place,” he continued levelly. “I got a coupla hits in, but they nailed me with a Taser an’ shot me up with some shit. Knocked me out. Didn’t know where the hell I was when I woke up, an’ then that fuckin’ bitch showed up with her goddamn knife. Dunno how long she worked on me. Long time, off an’ on. Askin’ where the key was, an’ who I was workin’ for. The key, that’s the thing you’re carryin’?”
I nodded, and he continued. “I didn’t tell her dick-all. Dunno what I woulda done if ya hadn’t told me about the mind thing earlier, though. It felt… real.”
He went silent again.
“But then she dragged Aydan in. That was some ugly shit,” he added quietly. “An’ I cracked. Sorry, Cap.” He turned to me. “I thought ya were gonna die. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I assured him. “I’m pretty sure we contained it. And you didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. Except for where the… um… technology was. And I’d moved it from there anyway.”
He rubbed his hand over his face, looking old and tired. “Sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Kane told him firmly. “Aydan and I both understand what you went through. Nobody could have done better.”
“Thanks,” Hellhound said simply.
“What I want to know is why they came after you in the first place,” Kane said.
“I can answer that,” I told him. “They caught Arnie and me on camera at the road. You could see the plates on both the bikes in one of the views. They must have had access to the registries database, so they’d have gotten Arnie’s name and home address. They’d also have been able to trace the Honda back to the dealership and find out that it was rented by Kane Consulting. And your cover was already blown. They would have jumped on anything to do with Kane Consulting.”
“So we’re all up shit creek,” Hellhound said gloomily.
“No. I locked everything down,” I told him. “I’m absolutely positive that information didn’t go outside of the people who were at Harchman’s.” I turned to Kane. “As long as you picked up everybody at Harchman’s, we should be okay.”
He nodded slowly. “It was a clean strike. We had everybody rounded up at the building site in a matter of minutes. The outlying guards took a little longer, but there wouldn’t be any way that the information could have been communicated to them.”
“So you’re safe,” I comforted Hellhound. “We’re all safe. Or at least as safe as we’re likely to get, anyway.”
Kane drove up to the RV, and we got out of the van. “Hellhound, why don’t you go for a walk,” Kane suggested. “I need to debrief with Aydan.”
“Feed her first,” Hellhound grunted as he turned away.
We stepped into the RV, and Kane eyed me inquiringly. “What do you want to eat?”
“I’m really not hungry. I’ll just snack.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out an apple. I still felt a little queasy, and I couldn’t face the thought of more canned chili or stew.
“All right.” Kane wedged himself onto the bench of the dinette while I ran myself a glass of water. When I slid in opposite him, he pulled his notebook closer and fixed me with a steady gaze. “Tell me everything. Start to finish.”
I blew out a long breath while I organized my thoughts. “After I finished giving you those names, I discovered groupings of files. I found records of their operation in March, and that’s when I realized they were syncing with other sites. I could trace the tunnels to six of them.”
I sighed with irritation. “By the time I got in again with Spider, only two were still active. Piss me off.”
“Don’t knock it,” Kane assured me. “If we can identify two sites, that’s a tremendous accomplishment. And it’s valuable just to know of the existence of the others.”
“I guess. Oh!” I exclaimed as another thought hit me. “Did you get the prisoner out?”
“Yes. He was uninjured. Physically, anyway. No wonder you couldn’t find him when you searched the local database. He’s an agent from the States who was undercover with Fuzzy Bunny, trying to track that arms deal. Stemp is going to come out of this looking like a hero for retrieving him.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Mr. Wait-A-Little-Longer. He’d have been in deep shit if that agent had died.”
“Probably not,” Kane said seriously. “Under
cover work is always dangerous, and that agent knew what he was getting into. I don’t always agree with Stemp’s approach, but he gets results. By waiting, he got the whole package, all nicely wrapped up.”
I sipped some water, trying to soothe my abraded throat. “Yeah. At the expense of other people’s suffering.”
Kane didn’t respond, and after another sip of water, I went on with my narrative. “Anyway, by the time I finished snooping around in the network, this other file had appeared with all our information in it, and I realized how screwed we’d be if that got sent out. And that’s when I realized they had Arnie, too. So I killed the sync routine and went back out of the network to warn you.”
I eyed him quizzically as I crunched my apple. “How did we get busted?”
“Remember how I said you were rocking the whole van? One of the guards noticed. Harchman has some good people there. Usually those rent-a-cops are completely oblivious.” Kane looked disgusted. “Wouldn’t you know, we get the one that’s on the ball. He made Germain open up the van.”
“Just as I came out of the network kicking and screaming,” I completed his sentence.
“And biting.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. So you were coming out to tell me what was going on, but you couldn’t because we were discovered.”
“Yeah. So I told Germain to get out of there and go to Plan B. And I tried to convince the guard to hold you down at the parking lot. I was hoping the police would arrive and take you away before you got dragged up to the house and identified.”
“Aydan,” Kane said, sounding frustrated. “I’m supposed to be protecting you. Not the other way around.”
“You’ve been protecting me since March,” I told him. “Payback’s a bitch.”
Kane threw up his hands. “Since March, I’ve failed to protect you from being abducted, tortured, drugged, or manhandled by perverts. And as a special bonus, I’ve forced you to undergo intense pain on a regular basis and withheld food from you until you collapsed. With friends like me, you don’t need enemies.”
“Yeah, but it’s been such fun.”
He snorted. “What happened after you went up to the house?”
“The guard took me up to the house, and I hid in the bathroom and got into the network again. I checked to make sure the sync was still dead, and I went in to make sure Arnie knew it was a sim.”
The Spy Is Cast Page 30