Tara shifted, then blinked up at him. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He bent to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, getting to her knees so she could remain with him even when he sat up.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Jacob.” Even half-asleep, she remembered the microphones, used his Chosen name. He couldn’t have asked for a better partner.
“Mmm?”
She stroked his cheek. “It’s going to be okay. I know you’re worried about failing the Leader, but you’ll figure it out.” She looked away for a minute. “I have faith in you. I love you.”
His couldn’t breathe. I love you. What would he give to hear her say those words for real? Had it only been a few hours ago he’d wondered whether he loved her? How could he have questioned it?
He kissed her again, just a brush of his lips against hers. “I love you. Always and only you.”
For a heartbeat, she froze. Did she understand him? Her arms tightened and her breath hitched slightly. Confusion? Comprehension?
“Jacob . . . ”
He laid a finger over her mouth, watching her blue eyes widen in the predawn light. Exerting a little pressure, he pushed her back down on the bed. She’d put on a T-shirt and panties before falling asleep, and he knelt between her knees and pressed his mouth to the spot where the two items of clothing met. Her belly contracted at the swipe of his tongue against her skin, and he grinned. So responsive. So sweet. So much better than anything in his life had ever been.
He kept his movements slow and deliberate as he kissed his way up her body, pushing the cotton out of the way inch by inch. When he reached her breasts, he lifted her slightly to strip the shirt off entirely so he could pay them proper attention.
His dick ached, but he felt no need to hurry. Which was crazy. Not that he’d ever rushed a woman—he always made sure they were satisfied—but sex hadn’t been about savoring, either. With Tara, he just wanted to explore. To taste every part of her, to slide his fingers over the textures of her body and memorize the dips and curves, the soft fullness of her breasts, the oddly giving circles of her areolae, the stiff buds of her nipples. The sweet, musky scent of her satisfied something deep inside him.
And though she squirmed beneath his ministrations, Tara didn’t push for speed, either. She stole his shirt, ran her hands over his shoulders, slid her fingers through his hair. Her breath came in quick little huffs, and he loved the sound of it, the feel of it against his lips when he made his way up her body to kiss her.
When at last he slid inside her, he felt complete, whole. It occurred to him that what he’d found with Tara was more than a relationship. It was home—and he’d kill, or die, to defend it.
Chapter Nine
BETWEEN CALEB AND Bea’s departure and the fire, Jake expected the Chosen to be riled up at breakfast, but they were surprisingly calm. Extra-strong tea? Or were they just that complacent, that secure that their Leader would protect them from anything that might go wrong in their lives? How did people let themselves become so dependent on others to tell them what to do and how to think?
As for him, despite—or because of?—the night he and Tara had enjoyed, his nerves were wound tighter than usual. When they’d separated at the entrance to the dining hall, he hadn’t wanted to let her go, and throughout the meal he’d had to stop his leg from bouncing with impatience.
He noticed the new camera the minute he entered the computer room. They hadn’t even bothered to hide it. Large, round, white—with a bright blue light that shouted, You’re being watched!—it hung at the juncture of the ceiling and wall, facing the computer monitor. No question how Jason Norman would react to such a thing—Jake stood on the desk chair and twisted the camera up to face the ceiling, then turned on the computer and waited for the reaction.
It didn’t take long. Samuel stormed in before the computer even finished booting up.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What you asked me to do. But I don’t appreciate the evil eye hanging over my shoulder. If you want to see my work, you can. I’ve got nothing to hide. I showed it to you yesterday. But that’s not my gig. I told you that about any kind of surveillance in my cabin. It’s not happening.”
“And if we insist that we need to be able to see work that takes place on the computer? It is highly sensitive. Far more so than any of the work others of the Chosen do.”
“Then you can do it yourself. That damned camera isn’t even hardwired into a security system. It’s just a wireless cam—anyone could tap into the stream if they wanted to, and that’s not how I roll. You want to keep an eye on the computer when I’m not here, that’s cool. I’ll put it back in position when I leave for the evening. But if you insist on spying on me, we’re done. I’ll just take my girlfriend and go.” Samuel’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched briefly, but then he smiled and, without another word, left.
Jake figured he didn’t have long before the man came back, so he opened all the disguising documents, copied out the loophole code onto paper, and then, with the screen busy with cover work, ported into the server he shared with Ethan.
Reading didn’t improve his mood.
Picked up good chunk of data from yesterday’s dump. Haven’t had a chance to go through it all, but if we’re lucky we got what we needed. Problem, however: HS involved. JTTF. FBI has lead and they want in now. You don’t have long. Doubt they will wait for weekend. HS JTTF claiming drug could be bioweapon. Lucy and I have no contacts, no in. We can’t push them to wait. Work fast.
Well, hell. Any time Homeland Security or a Joint Terrorism Task Force got involved, things went to shit quick for those with boots on the ground. They were great ideas, and when they functioned properly, they saved a lot of lives. But all too often the whole thing turned into a clusterfuck. With a little luck the Trojan horse he’d inserted into the system would download the formula for the drug and for the antidote while it was grabbing all the rest of the Chosen’s data. But he wasn’t leaving without samples a lab could experiment on, too, just in case the antidote wasn’t there, wasn’t downloaded, or wasn’t effective.
Hands moving quickly over the keys, always aware of the other cameras—the ones he wasn’t supposed to know about—Jake fed Ethan the information he and Tara had come up with the previous night and asked for further research into all the apostles, then shut down the server connection and went back to working on the Chosen site.
Samuel returned and stepped right behind Jake’s shoulder to see what he was doing.
“I haven’t touched the loophole yet,” Jake said. “You didn’t tell me whether you wanted it shut.” He handed Samuel the piece of paper with the code written out. “I think this is the whole thing, though. I don’t see any harm to the site in pulling it out.”
“Did you trace it?”
“Far as I could. Basically, it looks as if someone at this IP address”—he pointed to a line he’d written on the paper—“is using your credit card authorization portal. I can’t see what happens beyond that because I’m damn sure not hacking a credit card acceptance company. If I had to guess, though, he’s embezzling funds from you, too. Diverting them from your account to his own.”
“And you think you can stop it.”
“Sure. If I pull out that piece and reload the page, it should stop working for him, but your customers shouldn’t see any changes. Is that what you want me to do?”
“Not yet. Can you set it up to flag any time that back door gets used?”
“Sure. You want it to send you an e-mail?”
“That will work.” Samuel gave him an e-mail address and Jake wrote it down.
“This will probably take me a couple hours if I don’t want him to realize what’s going on. I’ll have to bury it, in case he’s looking at the code.”
“That’s fine. But it can wait till after
lunch. Right now, you need to come along to the office to see the Leader.”
“Ooookay.” Jake made a show of getting up and tidying the desk before following Samuel out and across the main floor of the house to Owen’s study. Once again, the man sat behind his big desk, fulfilling his role as father figure and commander in chief.
“Jacob,” he said, gesturing to a chair placed in front of the desk. Hesitating just long enough so as not to seem cowed, Jake sat. As he had before, Samuel went to stand behind Owen. This time, Jake wondered whether the position was an intentional reflection of the man’s actual status—was Samuel the power behind the throne?
“Samuel tells me you are considering leaving the Chosen.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He says you are uncomfortable with the restrictions on your life among us.”
“That’s not it. I don’t like being spied on. Either you trust me or you don’t. I won’t be watched all the time.”
“We could say the same. You don’t appear to trust us. Samuel tells me you accused him of planting video cameras in your bedroom.”
“Not him in particular. But look at what’s going on in your server. Someone here is up to no good. How can you expect me to overlook that?”
“I suppose that’s fair. But we do trust you. And to prove that, I’m going to explain why you don’t actually want to leave.”
Jake leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk. “Tell me.”
But instead of an explanation, Owen began with a question.
“Why did you come here?”
“We’ve been over this. I came for Tara. Serena.”
“And she is happy here.”
He shrugged.
“Think about it, Jacob. Remember what she was like at home, remember what you were like together, and tell me she’s not better here.”
“I guess. She’s less volatile. More accepting.”
“Exactly.” A wide, creepy smile spread across Owen’s features. “Now imagine if the whole world could be like that. More accepting. Calmer in spirit. Less dependent on outward displays of ‘success’ or materialism for their happiness. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”
“Well, sure. But what’s that got to do with me staying here?”
“That is what the Chosen work toward every day. In implicit ways, yes, but in explicit ways also.
The Powers want us to be happy, but they do not make us happy. That is for us to figure out. And we are figuring it out. Women need protection, food, and shelter to be secure, and work to make them feel worthwhile. Men need sex, food, shelter, and work. We provide those things. But we are also developing an herbal happiness supplement, a compound that allows you to see the world in its true glory and all the benefits you have to be grateful for.”
“You mean a drug?”
Samuel took up the conversation. “You might call it a drug. We don’t. It’s more like a vitamin. Taking it makes you healthier, but in spirit not in body. People notice it right away, and when they stop taking it, the effects can be devastating. Suddenly, the world is not as bright, their work not as worthwhile, their relationships not as fulfilling.
“Your girlfriend has been taking it for a month.”
“She has not! She would have told me.”
“We serve it to the women here in their tea.”
Jake wanted to howl and scream, to put his fist through Owen’s smiling face, but he tamped the desire down. Jason Norman wasn’t a warrior. He was a thinker. He’d be pissed, but wouldn’t react physically. “You’re drugging the women without them knowing it?”
Owen laughed. “You make it sound so sordid. I promise you, it’s not. They are happy. You said so yourself. They’re much better off here with us than they were in the Outside.”
“In that case, what about the ones who ‘go on a mission.’ Why would any member of the Chosen kill herself if she was taking a happy drug?”
Owen sighed deeply and shook his head. “Unfortunately, we can’t save everyone. Some are too damaged when they arrive. Serena’s friend was one of those. We tried, but she took her life even before she’d been here long enough to fully assimilate.”
“And you’re working toward making this ‘vitamin’ universal?”
“Absolutely. Imagine a world without the dullness of the daily grind, where ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is a thing of the past, where people only take what they need and leave enough for others.”
Jake let his eyes slide from the fervor of Owen’s to the flatness of Samuel’s. Let a little gleam of greed show through. “I want in.”
“Suddenly you don’t care that your girlfriend is taking drugs without knowing it?”
Jake shrugged. “It won’t hurt her, right?”
“Not unless she tries to leave,” Samuel said.
Jake frowned. “What do you mean?”
Owen leaned across the desk and covered Jake’s hand with one of his own. “Seeing the true beauty of the world is like being wrapped in a cocoon of brilliant color. If she stops taking the tea, all that will go away. It can have devastating effects on people.”
“Like how devastating?”
“Let’s just say you don’t want to find out. And you won’t have to. She can keep taking it as long as you two are here, and your relationship will keep getting better. We’ve heard from several of the Chosen, both men and women, how much less inhibited they feel freed from the shackles of other peoples’ opinions. And that’s always a nice side benefit.”
Bile rose in the back of his throat, and he swallowed hard.
“You can’t think the whole world is just going take up drinking your particular type of tea.”
Owen waved dismissively. “Samuel and Aaron are working on that right now.”
Jake rubbed a finger between his eyebrows. “Look, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been around. You can call it a vitamin or an herbal supplement or anything you like. But it’s a drug. I’ve got nothing against drugs, per se, but don’t you worry about what will happen when people start taking too much?”
“We haven’t seen any negative side effects yet, even at quite concentrated doses, and we are well into the second generation. Kids now two years old who were born while their mothers were taking the supplements.”
“Yeah, but if it makes them happy and they want to be happier?”
“Fuck, man, you ever hear of anyone OD-ing on antidepressants?” Samuel asked.
“No, I suppose not.” Jake allowed himself to be convinced. “Still, I don’t imagine you’d want anyone knowing what you’re doing here.”
Owen and Samuel exchanged looks. “It would be a shame if we had to stop before we could make the world all it could be,” said Samuel. “We were hoping you’d see it that way, too. There are benefits to being among those who are helping free the world from the shackles of despair.”
“Oh, really? Do tell.”
“For starters, you’d need to be closer. You’ve already discovered a problem with the computer system in sales. There’s a chance we might have another. So we’d move you and your girlfriend into John’s old suite.”
“Private bedroom and bathroom?”
“Absolutely.”
“That would be nice.”
“Naturally, you and she have to keep working. That’s part of the life the Powers have laid out for us here on earth,” Owen said, “but in the evenings you will be alone. If things work out over the next few weeks and we can clear up any security breaches, you’ll even be given your own laptop.”
Of course, he’d be long gone before that happened, but Jake made appropriately excited noises.
Owen nodded, satisfied that they were done. “Samuel, why don’t you show Jacob to his new quarters. He and Serena can move in after dinner tonight. Then we can put a pair of women who are doubled up from the fire
into their space.”
“Very well,” said Samuel, and ushered Jake out.
• • •
FOLLOWING SAMUEL UP the stairs up to the second floor, Jake examined everything as thoroughly as he could without being obvious. The stairs led to a balcony with heavy wooden doors all along it, and all the doors were shut.
“John’s old room is down here.” Samuel led him to the very far end of the balcony. The room was cool and dark and empty. Heavy shades kept out both light and heat, and someone had stripped the bed and thoroughly cleaned the space.
“Give it to me straight,” Jake said to Samuel. “You’re not really planning to make the world a better place, are you? I mean, I get that the Leader is, but you seem a lot more practical to me.”
Cool gray eyes assessed him. “I believe in making the world a better place. But I don’t see why I shouldn’t get something out of it myself at the same time.”
Jake nodded slowly, then turned his attention to the large bedroom. He remembered Tara’s words about Samuel questioning John’s loyalty. “You know I am gonna search this one for audio and video, too. Especially after finding that loophole in a program John ran every day. For all I know, he put it there himself and put cameras all over this place that are exporting out through the network.”
“I expected nothing less,” Samuel said. “I’ve already spoken to Deborah. One of the house girls will bring up fresh sheets and towels. She’ll make up the bed. In the house, that is no longer your responsibility. But don’t mistake the fact that you’re in this bedroom for a decree of complete freedom. None of us has that but for the Leader. When you go to bed at night, you will stay in bed. There will be no wandering around the house as you do outside.”
Keep your enemies closer. At least he understood why they were letting him into the inner sanctum.
“Deborah as in the one who runs the infirmary?”
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