“Call me if you need me,” I added. My voice came out sounding husky, and I realized I’d licked my lips unconsciously.
I lost what little breath I had left when Kane’s eyes darkened. His hand moved as though he would reach for me, but he gripped the doorknob instead, his knuckles whitening. He stepped quickly out the door and closed it behind him without a backward glance.
He revved the bike, and I watched him spray gravel and disappear down the lane before I collapsed into my chair again, knees trembling. Goddamn, he was hot. And if I didn’t keep my hands off him, Sirius Dynamics would take him down right along with me when the time came.
Life just wasn’t fair.
Chapter 5
I trailed into Sirius Dynamics on Monday morning with a significant lack of enthusiasm. When I realized my office was already crowded, I jerked to a halt in the doorway, surveying the occupants.
Kane and Spider were present, as expected. I kept my expression neutral at the sight of Charles Stemp, Sirius’s civilian director of clandestine operations.
Stemp looked up as I entered, his reptilian features unreadable as always. “Ms. Kelly, you have a new team member, effective immediately.” He indicated the fourth man in the room. “He will be joining your team in an attempt to analyze the unique interaction of your brain with the network key’s circuitry.”
My cynical inside voice finished the unspoken sentence: “…so we can figure out how to decrypt things for ourselves and kill you as soon as possible.” I shrugged off the thought. Same old, same old.
Stemp continued as I reached to shake hands with the newcomer, “This is Dr. Sam Kraus.”
A shock of recognition paralyzed me with hand outstretched, mouth gaping. My stunned gaze took in the short, roly-poly white-haired man smiling at me. The red shirt and full, curly white beard. The twinkling, vividly blue eyes and rosy cheeks.
My voice emerged as a feeble croak. “…Santa Claus?”
He laughed, and his belly shook like… a bowl full of jelly…
“Hello, Aydan. Have you been a good girl lately?”
“No way! You’re kidding me!” I stared at him some more. “Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
He glanced down at his red-clad belly and chuckled again. “I’m sure you planted this idea in my subconscious mind and I fulfilled it,” he agreed. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me, though.”
“I might not have made the connection if you didn’t look so… so…”
“So much like Santa Claus,” Spider finished for me, grinning. “I thought so, too, but I didn’t want to say anything.” He eyed us eagerly. “Tell me the story.”
“When I was a kid, Dr. Kraus used to come by the house a couple of times a year,” I began.
“Call me Sam,” the doctor interrupted. “I think we can dispense with the formalities under the circumstances.”
I shot him a smile and continued. “I was pretty young. I can’t even remember how old I was when we first met.”
“You were four,” Sam supplied. “You’d started kindergarten a year early.”
“And you thought he looked like Santa Claus,” Spider prompted.
Sam chuckled. “No, when I first met Aydan I was about your age, and just as skinny as you.”
“Oh. Right, I guess that was a long time ago.” Spider flushed. “Sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean you’re old… Either of you. I just meant…”
“It’s okay, Spider,” I assured him. “No, he didn’t look anything like Santa Claus. But the first time he came, it was right around Christmas, and I didn’t have a really clear concept of Santa Claus at the time. So when he told me his name was Sam Kraus, I got all excited and blurted out ‘Santa Claus’ because I knew Santa Claus was coming soon, and it sounded so similar. It became a family joke, and I always called him Santa Claus after that, even when I was a teenager.”
“Talk about a small world,” Spider exclaimed.
“Yeah…” A faint thought nagged at me, but it fled as Stemp addressed us.
“You’ll carry on with your normal activities, and Dr. Kraus will observe. You’ll be working in the secured facility where the doctor has his lab set up.”
Spider’s head jerked up, his mouth opening, but Kane spoke first. “You know that’s not acceptable. Aydan can’t work in the secured facility.”
Stemp waved an irritable hand. “I realize it’s not feasible for the long-term.” He turned to face me. “As soon as you begin to have difficulties, we’ll find an alternate solution. But I know you can deal with it in the short term, and by then, Dr. Kraus may already have the data he needs.”
Kane made as if to speak again, but Stemp overrode him. “This is not open for discussion. You have your orders.” He turned and left.
Sam’s bright eyes darted from Spider’s expression of pure dismay to Kane’s scowl to whatever might be showing on my face. Abject terror, probably. I wrestled for calm.
“What’s the problem?” Sam inquired with concern.
“No problem,” I told him. “I’m claustrophobic, so I’m not very happy in the secured facility, that’s all. No big deal for the short term.”
“Aydan, the last time you worked in the secured facility, you nearly died! Twice!” Spider sprang to his feet and began to pace, his lanky limbs flailing awkwardly. “He can’t make you do this!” He whirled and turned a pleading face to Kane. “Can’t you talk to him? Or talk to General Briggs? Make Stemp change his mind?”
Kane twitched a shoulder. His face was composed again, but the gunmetal grey of his eyes gave away his mood. “Briggs won’t override the civilian director unless it’s military-related. We have our orders. Until Aydan has a problem, we’ll follow them.” He turned to me. “Aydan, now isn’t the time to be a hero. The instant you lose control of the sim, the instant you can’t sleep or start having nightmares, you tell me. That’s an order. Got it?”
“Got it,” I agreed.
Sam’s jolly demeanour had evaporated while he followed our exchange, and he turned to me with a crease between his bushy white eyebrows. “You nearly died in the sim? I didn’t think that was possible. What happened?”
I sighed. “How much do you know about the virtual reality network?”
“I know the basic structure and operation of the computer side of the network, but my area of expertise is brainwave patterns and frequencies, and their interaction with the fobs that provide access to the virtual reality network. It’s my life’s work.” He eyed me with interest. “That’s why I’m so interested in your brain’s interaction with this mysterious network key that lets you sneak around undetected in any network and decrypt files that are supposedly secure.”
Kane blew out a breath and frowned. “That’s part of the problem. Aydan has to use the special key to decrypt files. If she uses a standard fob with a brainwave modulator, she can’t do it. And when she uses the key, it hurts her every time she exits the network.”
“A lot,” Spider put in unhappily.
“And this is life-threatening?” Sam prompted.
“No,” I said. “It’s just a nuisance. The life-threatening part happens if I get too tired or stressed and I don’t control my thoughts inside the sim. If you believe you’ve died inside the sim, you actually die in real life.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he worked his stubby fingers through his beard. “I’d heard rumours of that. I didn’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Kane said grimly. “I personally know of three people who have been killed inside a sim. The cause of death looks like a heart attack when their physical bodies are autopsied.”
“That changes things…” Sam frowned at me. “But why would you think you were dying inside the sim? And why couldn’t someone just wake you? Pull you out of the network? It only takes a touch or a sudden noise to do it.”
“That’s the other complication,” Kane explained. “When Aydan’s using the key to access the network, you can’t wake her unless you actually hurt her. A
nd if that happens, if she’s forcibly woken from the network, she goes through hell.”
“It’s awful,” Spider quavered, his eyes haunted. “It’s like she’s being tortured. She screams, horrible screams like she’s being burned alive, and her whole body thrashes around, and you can’t do a thing to help her, and it goes on and on…”
“Anyway,” I broke in, thoroughly embarrassed, “I only lose concentration in the sim if I’m overtired. And if I’m in the secured facility when I lose control, my claustrophobic anxieties tend to take over the sim. That’s when I have problems.”
“Little problems. Like your heart stopping,” Kane added.
“Well… yeah. But I should be fine for at least a week before it starts to get bad,” I reassured them.
Sam eyed me. “Are you sure?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really, at this point,” he said regretfully. “I just spent the last several weeks getting my lab facilities set up downstairs. Some of the equipment can’t be moved easily. And this whole operation is so highly classified that it shouldn’t be outside the secured facility at all.”
I blew out a long breath. “Okay. Well, let’s get at it, then.” We all rose and trooped down the hallway.
My steps slowed as we approached the heavy steel door. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll follow you.”
Sam shot me a piercing glance. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “It’s just that the time-delay chamber is so small. It gets pretty crowded.”
“Okay,” he agreed, and stepped up to allow the scanner to read his retina. When the latch released, the three men entered the chamber, and I hung back in the lobby, breathing deeply.
When the indicator light showed the chamber was clear, I approached the door reluctantly. The secured facility contained nothing but bad memories and despite my best efforts at calm, my heart pounded.
I placed my face next to the scanner and started belly breathing when the latch released. In. Out. Slow like ocean waves.
I stepped into the cramped chamber, twitching when the door locked behind me with a muffled click. I let the next door sensor scan me, then stood with my eyes closed, breathing and counting down the long thirty seconds until the next latch released.
My knees wobbled at the sight of the featureless concrete tunnel of stairs, and I sucked in a shallow breath that tried to turn into panicked panting. With an effort of will, I let my breath out slowly and hurried down, clutching the handrail. At the bottom of the stairs, I snatched the door open.
I managed to contain a jerk and a yelp at the sight of Kane, Spider, and Sam clustered near the door. Kane scanned my face and immediately stepped away, pulling the other two men with him. They stood a couple of paces down the hallway and three sets of eyes surveyed me anxiously.
“Fine, I’m fine,” I gabbled breathlessly. “Let’s go. Where’s the lab?”
Kane eyed my shaking hands. “You don’t look fine. You look like you’re on the verge of a panic attack. I told you, don’t be a hero.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, trying to convince myself. “It’s just that damn time delay and the stairwell that gets me. I’m okay down here with all the glass and the air moving.” I forced myself to concentrate on the white corridor, the openness of the glassed-in labs, the flow of air from the cooling system. Fine. I was fine.
I took another deep breath. “Let’s go.”
“This is stupid!” Spider’s eyes were dark with distress. “This isn’t going to work, we know it won’t work, and Aydan’s going to end up getting hurt. Or killed…” He turned a beseeching face to me. “Aydan, just say you can’t do it.”
“I can do it for the short term. And the sooner we get started, the sooner I can get out of here, so let’s go do it already! You guys are just making this worse!” My voice came out tight and shaking, and I gulped back my agitation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“It’s all right.” Kane turned to Sam. “We’ll try it. For a while. Lead the way.”
Chapter 6
In the lab, Sam ushered me to a chair surrounded by electronic gadgets I couldn’t identify. I probably didn’t want to know anyway. More adrenaline spiked into my system at the sight of the sturdy straps on the chair arms and at the feet.
“I’m not sitting in that.” I backed toward the door, my hand reflexively twitching toward my concealed holster.
Sam made calming gestures. “It’s okay. The electronics just look a little intimidating.” He eyed me worriedly. “I just need you to sit here while I attach some electrodes to your forehead…”
“I’m not sitting in that. I don’t care about the electronics, I’m not sitting in a chair with restraints. No fucking way.” I jittered in the doorway, ready to fight or run while cold sweat drenched my armpits.
“Oh! No, I’m sorry, those aren’t for you!” Sam’s face cleared, and he detached the straps from the chair and tossed them into a drawer.
“Who are they for, then?” I glared suspiciously around the room. “I’m not doing this. I could go into the network and never know you were tying me up until I came out.”
“Aydan, I wouldn’t do that to you. Don’t you trust me?” Sam’s brow was furrowed, a sorrowing Santa.
“Fuck, no, I don’t trust you. I don’t even know you. I haven’t seen you in what, thirty years? Why the hell would I trust you?” I could feel my composure slipping as my voice rose, and I held onto it with difficulty.
I twitched when Kane made a move toward me, and he stopped and took a slow step backward instead.
“Aydan, if you can’t do this, let’s go. Just turn around and go out.” His voice was deep and soothing. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do this. You’re not trapped here. You can just leave.”
I brought my breathing under control again and clasped my hands in front of me to still the tremor. “Can I just sit somewhere else?”
“You can sit anywhere you like,” Sam replied quickly, his tone suggesting the indulgence one might offer a dangerous lunatic. Appropriate, under the circumstances.
I sidled toward the chair he offered, trying to simulate rational behaviour. As I seated myself shakily, my paranoia erupted in spite of me. “Promise you won’t let him tie me up,” I demanded.
“Nobody’s going to tie you up,” Kane reassured me.
“Promise!”
“I promise,” he said.
“You, too,” I begged Spider.
“I promise, Aydan,” he said. “Don’t worry, we won’t let anything happen to you.”
I breathed deeply some more. “Thanks.” I turned sheepishly to Sam. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually such a basket case. I’ve just spent ‘way too much time tied to chairs lately.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I read the reports. I know what you’ve been through. I’d probably feel the same in your place. Just tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable, and we’ll stop right away.”
“Thanks.” I held myself still while he secured a band festooned with trailing wires around my forehead.
“That’s it,” he said. “Go ahead and do what you usually do.”
“Hold on,” Spider cautioned. “Just give me a minute to get set up.” He busied himself with his laptop, and turned a worried face to me a few minutes later. “Okay, I’m ready whenever you are.”
Kane pulled up a chair beside me, grasping the fob that would give him network access. “Go ahead, Aydan.”
I closed my eyes and stepped into the void of the virtual reality network, concentrating fiercely on open spaces.
Sam’s bemused voice floated down from the wide blue virtual sky. “What is this?”
“It’s not part of my decryption,” I assured him as Kane’s avatar popped into existence beside me on the mountaintop. “If I’m feeling anxious, I create this sim to keep my mind focused and help myself relax.”
My hair whipped around my face and I pawed it into a rough ponytail. I stood for a few long moments, breathing t
he scent of spruce and gazing down the long, misty valley between mountain ranges, soothed by the ceaseless echoing song of the wind. Kane stood patiently beside me while I took a few deep breaths.
“Okay, I’m ready now.” I dissolved the mountain sim, and Kane and I strode down the virtual corridor to the file room.
Some time later, I folded over in the chair, clutching my head and muttering profanities between gritted teeth. When I finally opened my eyes and straightened, all three men were regarding me with concern.
“Is this normal?” Sam demanded as he slipped the headband off.
“Yes.” Kane stepped behind me and his strong hands began to work out the knots of pain in my temples.
Sam turned to his computer, tapping keys and frowning at the tracery of lines on the screen. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “What were you decrypting in this session?”
“Just some tedious, useless emails, as far as I can figure out,” I griped. “There’s no way to tell whether something’s important or not unless we actually have some other evidence that comes in from other sources. I end up wasting a lot of time.”
“But you were actually reading those emails in real time. Encrypted emails that are completely uncrackable, as far as anybody else in the world knows.” Sam’s eyes were alight with excitement. “This is fabulous. This is better than I’d ever dreamed.” He turned back to his screen, scrolling through data.
After a couple of minutes of watching his intent profile, I spoke up. “Do you still need me?”
He started as if he’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room. “Oh! No, you can go. Thank you. I have enough here to keep me interested for a while.”
“Great.” I jumped up and hurried for the door.
When the time-delayed door finally released, I clamped down on the urge to leap into the lobby flailing and shrieking. I took a few steps and stood staring into middle distance, controlling my breathing. Slow and steady. Ocean waves.
Tell Me No Spies Page 4