“You could have told me before the mission.”
“It was unverified intel.”
“It could have saved lives, Bostic.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, showing a glimmer of remorse. “But that’s the price we pay for keeping secrets from each other, isn’t it?”
Bostic studied her reaction closely, obviously hoping to shake something loose. He knew Lea was holding back—but that also meant he didn’t know everything.
“You have to earn that kind of trust,” she said.
He nodded in slow agreement.
“Starting now?”
Lea gave no indication one way or the other. It was time for him to give.
“Very well,” Bostic said, putting it all on the table. “The Assembly agrees with my position that the Inru are dead in the water. They ran all the figures and concluded that it no longer makes sense to expend so many resources on a group that has been reduced to little more than a general nuisance.”
“That’s a hell of a way to look at the people who’ve sworn to bring them down.”
“The Assembly no longer considers that a possibility. Therefore, with my recommendation, they’ve decided to reassign the Inru matter to conventional security forces. Starting now, T-Branch will no longer have jurisdiction over those operations.”
It took all of Lea’s effort to remain still.
“You’re dissolving my team.”
“The team is already dissolved, Lea,” Bostic said, with a strategic measure of sympathy. “That last mission came at a heavy cost. I’m sorry you lost them—but at least you can know that their sacrifice counted for something.”
Thanks a lot, you bastard.
“You wanted the truth,” Bostic reminded her.
Lea stepped away and paced the room, trying to gather any thoughts that didn’t involve killing him. She still wasn’t sure what Bostic wanted—but if he was in the mood for truth, Lea was going to take advantage.
“What happens to my people?”
Bostic considered it.
“If they choose, support staff may continue at CSS in some other capacity. They’re still the best forensics unit in the business. Military personnel, of course, are subject to whatever new orders command has for them.”
Lea looked down at the floor. “Where does that leave me?”
“Full-time on the bionucleics project,” Bostic told her. “With your considerable talents focused there, the Assembly expects you to make remarkable strides toward finally stabilizing the unit.” After a moment, he added, “That is where you want to be—isn’t it?”
Lea stood far enough away, her face concealed in shadow, hoping to hide the panic that sparked behind her eyes.
“Yes,” she drew out. “But there is one other matter.”
Bostic folded his arms in anticipation.
“Avalon.”
His expression hardened.
“That battle is finished, Lea. Let it go.”
“I can’t. Not as long as she’s still out there.”
“Leave that to Special Services. Sooner or later, they’re bound to catch up with her.”
“Yeah,” Lea scoffed, “and we’ve all seen how that works out.”
“Unless I missed something, you haven’t done much better.”
Bostic’s remark had the intended effect.
“You see why I prefer lies,” he pointed out. “It’s much easier in our world.”
Lea couldn’t argue with him. “Then tell me one.”
“Deep down, I’m really a nice guy.”
“You really go for the throat, don’t you?”
“It’s not personal,” Bostic said. “It’s just business.”
She searched him for clues, but found him inscrutable. Bostic was leading her, but had some twisted need for Lea to go the rest of the way herself.
“That simple, huh?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“And chasing these people is what I do,” Lea replied. “I know firsthand what Avalon is capable of, Bostic—and I can assure you, she will not stop until the Assembly is destroyed. For her, it is personal.”
“Sounds like you two have something in common.”
Lea walked over and sat on the side of his desk. She used everything—her gaze, her posture—to convey her seriousness.
“Avalon is dangerous. Even more now that she’s up against the wall.”
Bostic studied her closely.
“So are you,” he said.
“Then you know I won’t be worth a damn to you until I finish this.”
“It seems that way.”
“Then what’s it going to take?”
“That depends on what it’s worth to you.”
All Lea could do was threaten him.
“You’re taking a big chance with the Inru,” she said. “It’ll be your head on a spike if you’re wrong.”
Bostic wasn’t impressed.
“I live with that possibility every day,” he said, getting up and going back over to the window, surveying Manhattan as if it were his very own. “It’s the risks that make the reward so worthwhile. If you’re here long enough, you’ll come to understand that.” He turned toward her again. “I like you, Lea. Your work has raised my corporate profile beyond even my expectations. You and I could achieve a great many things together—that’s why I’m offering you a way out.”
“You sound like a man about to make some moves.”
“There could be a few ventures on the horizon,” Bostic said cryptically. “Someone with your unique skills could be useful when the time comes.”
Lea shook her head. “Too many strings.”
“I can wait for you to come around.”
“What makes you so sure I will?”
“Everybody does,” he assured her. “Eventually.”
Lea slid off the desk and made her way to the door. Bostic had left the key in the lock—leaving it up to her whether to stay or go. That was just like the devil, to give her a choice. Lea surprised herself by hesitating.
“One week,” Bostic said.
Lea stopped, looking back at him across the gloom.
“If you can’t find Avalon by then, it’s over.”
Bostic then glided past her without a word, rejoining the party as if nothing had happened. Lea remained behind, taking shelter in isolation for a while, before starting for the exit. Bostic ignored her for most of the way, except for one last look before she slipped out the door.
His message was abundantly clear: I made you. I can break you just as easily.
Lea got out of there before she had to scream.
She left all her gear at the Chancery, flagging down the nearest auto-cab to get the hell away as fast as she could. Only after she got past Midtown did Lea remember the cluster of jewels around her neck, suddenly heavy and conspicuous. Bostic had probably borrowed them for the occasion, which made Lea want to tear the necklace off and throw it out the window—anything to cause that bastard trouble, feeble as the effort might be.
By then, the cab had stopped at her apartment building. Storming out, Lea forgot about her petty vengeance, wanting nothing more than to get upstairs and get herself clean. She made a beeline for the elevator, peeling off her shoes on the way up and leaving them behind, casting aside anything that might slow her down. The biometric lock on her front door clicked open as soon as she touched the knob, but even that wasn’t fast enough. Enraged, she practically kicked the door in, slamming it shut as soon as she got inside. The violence sated her, but not by much—and soon, Lea found herself prowling the confines of her living room.
“Bad night?” a voice called out of the dark.
Lea tensed into combat mode. She mapped out the multitude of weapons she kept in her apartment, deciding which one she could reach first—until the light came on in her bedroom and Eric Tiernan emerged from the doorway.
Lea released a breath.
“That’s a good way to get yourself killed, Lieutenant.”
“If it makes a difference,” Tiernan said, “I tried calling first.”
“And you just let yourself in,” Lea finished, heading toward the bedroom. She noticed his stare as Tiernan got a look at her gown. “Remind me to ask the super to change the locks.”
“I’ll leave a note on the fridge,” he said as she squeezed past him. “So what happened? Looks like you took a trip downtown with the fashion police.”
“Don’t ask.” Lea detoured into the bathroom, where she pulled off her earrings and let down her hair, checking herself in the mirror to make sure nothing else had changed. Tiernan’s reflection kept watch behind her, protective in that unassuming way of his. Lea suddenly realized that she hadn’t talked to him since their return from Ukraine—and just like that, her cool was broken and awkwardness took its place. “So how are you doing?”
“The docs gave me a clean bill of health. Couple of nurses tried to get me to stay on for a few more days, though. I think they might have had a little crush.”
“You’re a real heartbreaker, Tiernan.”
“What can I say? I learned from the best.”
Lea flashed him a sideways glance and slipped away from the mirror, moving in close to him. “So what did you say?”
She meant to coax him, but Tiernan stood his ground.
“To who?”
“The girls at the hospital,” Lea said.
This time, Tiernan leaned in toward her. “I told them I had other plans.”
“That’s assuming a lot.”
“Not from where I’m standing.” Tiernan took in the length of her body. “I like the dress, by the way.”
“Really? All I want to do is get out of it.”
“Maybe I can help you with that.”
“Take your best shot.”
Lea shivered at the familiar sensation of Tiernan’s hands on her skin, his fingers gliding down her shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lea stopped him.
“No words,” she said. “No games. I’ve had enough games tonight.”
Eric Tiernan awoke from the depths of sleep, conditioned to instant consciousness by his combat training but still oblivious of how much time had passed. The scratch marks on his chest made him flinch, pain tempered by sheer exhaustion. Tiernan couldn’t recall anything like it, even during the other times he had been with Lea. Tonight, there was something savage at the heart of it—a deep, hidden fury that she had turned loose on him without a hint of restraint.
Sitting up, Tiernan sensed the dark and immediately knew he was alone. He reached over to Lea’s side of the bed to make sure, but wasn’t surprised to find it empty. Part of him wondered if she was ever really there, for all the distance she put between them during these encounters. As many times as Lea had put her life in his hands, intimacy remained out of the question. Tiernan didn’t really know any more about her than before all this got started.
You asked for it, pal. You knew damned well she wasn’t just going to let you in.
He gave his head a little time to clear, then pulled on his shorts and wandered over to the bedroom door. Lea had left it open on her way out, just enough to admit the trickle of sound and light that had stirred him from sleep. He listened through the crack to Lea’s nocturnal pursuits: the quiet rustle of limbs against clothing, the electric vibe of photons in an excited state, the heavy, measured breathing of controlled exertion. He could have stood there for the rest of the night.
Quietly, he stepped into the living room. There, as he expected, Tiernan saw Lea illuminated in virtual light, absently riding an Axis gateway on a portable console. The tiny display floated above an antique table while she lounged back on her couch, staring through the transparent mist and directly at him.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
“Too wired,” Lea replied, dividing her attention between Tiernan and the display. She worked the console manually, leaving the electrodes in a tangle at her side, banking tangents through logical space faster than he could follow. “You okay?”
Tiernan looked down at himself. Even in the pallid glow, he could see why she had asked.
“Nothing another trip to the hospital won’t fix,” he said, going over to join her. He sat down behind Lea, wrapping his arms around her as she nestled against his shoulder. It felt good holding her like that, when she seemed so open and vulnerable. But as always, Lea was multitasking: only part of her was there, the rest adrift on some remote tether. He motioned toward the display. “Anything interesting?”
“Just checking out some old haunts,” she told him. A dense latticework of encrypted conduits crisscrossed the field in front of them, linking subdomains that shone like distant stars, infinity compressed into the framework of the Axis. “I like to see if my revenant signature still shows up—find out if the hammerjacks are still talking.”
“About Heretic?”
“Yeah.” Lea dived down one of the lines, following a bright bolt that carried information between two of the domains, pulling away before she got too close to a dead zone that displaced the plethora of background chatter. “Traces are getting harder to find. They’re already forgetting.”
“It’s tough being famous.”
“Try being infamous.” Lea carefully skirted the void, careful not to cross the event horizon. Tiernan didn’t understand much about crawlers, but her evasive maneuvers told him she’d just found one. “Everybody’s out gunning for you. Good guys, bad guys—it doesn’t matter.”
“I guess it’s true, then,” Tiernan suggested. “Crime doesn’t pay.”
“On the contrary, it pays very well.” She dissolved herself out of the display, powering the console down. “It’s only when you get caught that you have problems.”
“Too bad. Sounds like it might have been fun.”
“It had its moments.” Lea sighed. She slipped her arm around him, more tenderly than he expected. “Sometimes I wonder if that life was ever real. Then something happens and it all comes back. That’s when you realize no matter how much you try to get past it, you’ll always be a criminal—and that’s all people will ever see.”
“It’s tough to leave that kind of life behind, Lea.”
“Especially when you never really do,” she admitted. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve been so good at this. Even when I was fighting the Inru as Heretic, I never stopped being one of them. I just pretended to be someone else.”
“You’re a survivor,” he reassured her. “You did what you needed to do.”
“That wasn’t enough to erase my sins.”
“The hell with that,” Tiernan scoffed. “You can spend forever trying to give some payback, but it won’t make a difference. Not to the people who care about you.”
“Most of them are dead because of me.”
He took a chance and reminded her. “Not everyone, Lea.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
Tiernan decided to make the move. “What happened tonight?”
There was a long silence.
“Trevor Bostic made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“So what did you do?”
“I was tempted.” She looked up at him again. “Does that make you think twice about me, Eric?”
He struggled, but couldn’t find a way around that one.
“It’s okay,” Lea said, getting up from the couch. “I’ve been asking myself the same question all night.” She tightened her robe, walking toward the kitchen—and just like that, her barriers snapped back into place. Tiernan knew it was her way of giving him an out if that was what he wanted.
“You didn’t take the deal,” he said. “That counts for something.”
“That may not matter. Bostic’s shutting us down.”
Tiernan froze. “He can’t do that.”
“It’s already done,” Lea said, still filled with nervous energy. “Bostic cleared it with the Assembly. He’s convinced them that the Inru no longer pose a significant military threat.”
“He
’s out of his mind.”
“He’s also the man in charge.”
“I don’t believe this,” Tiernan snapped. He got up and paced around the apartment, unable to keep still. “The Inru are hardcore terrorists. They won’t go away just because some prick in an Armani suit says so.”
“Special Services has the ball,” Lea told him. “It’s their problem now.”
Tiernan shook his head over and over, while he whispered a stream of harsh epithets. He kept pouring on more volume and intensity, until he stopped cold on Lea’s quiet expression. Tiernan couldn’t recall ever seeing her look so defeated.
“What’s our play?” he asked.
“I wish I knew, Eric.”
He went over and took her hands into his. “You need to trust me.”
She squeezed him back. “I want to.”
“Then let it go. You don’t need to be alone.”
She lifted his hands to her lips, kissing them like a rite of passage. Then she raised her eyes to meet his.
Lea told him everything.
Lea and Tiernan talked into the thickest recesses of night, falling asleep together on the couch only a few hours before dawn. Lea awoke before he did, careful not to disturb him as she slipped out of his arms. Proceeding in silence, she went into her bedroom and put on a fresh change of clothes, returning to find Tiernan just as she had left him. She wanted him to have that peace, temporary as it was—especially now that she had burdened him with the truth.
Lea didn’t envy him that, for there was no way Tiernan could have understood what he asked of her; but now that he knew, she experienced the selfish stirrings of relief—and gratitude. There was no turning back for either of them, but at least she had someone to stand by her side. Someone flesh and blood, who could touch her and be touched back.
So how could that be wrong?
Her misplaced conscience supplied the answer.
Cray.
Lea turned that notion over in her head again and again, all the way up to her building’s landing pad, where a pulser waited to take her over to the Works. During the brief flight, she wondered why she suddenly felt guilty over her affair with Tiernan. The two of them had been together for months, at her own instigation—but until last night, the relationship had never ventured beyond their physical liaisons. It was easier without the emotional quotient, or so Lea had always believed. But now that things were different, she began to understand. Cray had always been the one she confided in, the one who knew her better than anyone else. In sharing that part of herself with another—a living, breathing man no less—her actions amounted to a betrayal of that trust. Lea had, in essence, moved on.
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