Friends In Spy Places

by Diane Henders

  “So we’ll basically just be sitting here not knowing what’s happening or whether you need help.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged, trying to convince everyone including myself that it was no big deal. “And even if you know I need help, there’s still nothing you can do.”

  “It sucks,” Spider said tremulously. “I hope you’ll be able to find Rebecca, and…” He swallowed. “I hope she’s still okay. She’s been in there nearly three days…”

  He trailed off and we both shuddered.

  “I hope dumping her out a portal will throw her back into her body,” I said. “If it doesn’t…” It was my turn to trail off.

  “You’ll figure out something,” Spider said. “You always do.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better.

  He went on, “I pinpointed a few potential IP addresses based on what you told me about the last time you collided with Rebecca, and I’ve been monitoring them ever since. They could be ’way off base, but at least it’s a place for you to start looking for her.”

  “Okay.”

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  “So are we going to do this, or what?” Holt demanded.

  As I clenched my network key in my fist and leaned back on the sofa, Spider sprang up and hurried over to fling his arms around me. He was trembling.

  “Good luck,” he said shakily. “Come back safe.”

  “Thanks.” As he stood back, I turned to Holt. “Let’s go.”

  When we stepped into the white void of virtual reality, an unsettling buzzing hiss surrounded us. Half-formed shadows undulated at the edges of the void.

  Holt spun, his gaze snapping from one to the next as they writhed and vanished like smoke. “What the hell is this?” he barked, his gun already in his hand.

  “Just my nightmares,” I said grimly. “Come on.” I visualized the file repository for all I was worth, and it sprang into being.

  Holt glanced warily around us. “This is freaky.”

  “Yeah.” I probably should have said something to make him feel more comfortable, but I was fresh out of reassurance. I grabbed his hand. “Wish me luck.”

  “Luck.”

  I dissolved into invisibility. For a long moment, I floated in the familiar traffic of Sirius’s internal network gathering my courage.

  I could do this. Really, I could. I’d just go and find Rebecca and somehow convince or coerce her to materialize inside the VR network created by Stemp’s portable generator, and then I’d walk her avatar to the portal and shove her out. Easy-peasy.

  Fortunately I had no body or voice inside the internet, because my whimper would have been pitiful.

  Just shut up and go.

  Bracing myself for the devastating impact of collision, I slipped out into the internet.

  The first IP address yielded no result. Nor did the second, nor the third. Dammit, I had only memorized four of the complex numbers Spider had given me. I’d have to go back and get the next batch if-

  Millions of hurricane-driven razor blades shredded my consciousness in a fraction of an eyeblink.

  One instant I existed. The next-

  too-much-LOUD-make-it-stop-WHERE-WHY-getoutgetout-TOO-MUCH-stop-stop-TOO-MUCH-please-make-it-stopstopstopstopSTOP ear-bleeding shriek of a turbine driven far past its limits gut-wrenching moan of failing steel soul-shattering wails of the damned writhing in eternal torment-

  Then nothing.

  Chapter 47

  I floated.

  Gradually I became aware of data packets hurrying past me, leaving me bobbing gently in their slipstream.

  Almost afraid to try, I sent cautious probes throughout my consciousness, nudging here and there as if testing for broken bones.

  I seemed whole.

  Or maybe I had been so thoroughly destroyed that I didn’t even know pieces were missing.

  At last I turned my attention beyond myself, extending fearful tendrils down the data tunnels.

  Where was I?

  When was I?

  All sense of time had fled. Rebecca’s terror had magnified her electronic exile into eternity, and I had no time reference.

  One of my tendrils encountered something and jerked back.

  Something… familiar.

  Me.

  But I was here/now. How could I be there/then?

  Oh God no…

  Dread slowed my progress to a crawl. Data packets flicked by like schools of tropical fish pursued by sharks.

  Shrinking into myself, I pushed out my trembling tendril again.

  The Thing was closer now. Ahead of me, unmoving. It still felt like me, but not me. Like an amputated limb lying cold and dead.

  At last mere data bits separated me from the Thing. With no eyes to see, I could only flow around it, sensing.

  It was me.

  A lump of me.

  And yet…

  I sent a questing tendril deeper-

  TOO-MUCH-make-it-stopLOUD-

  Recoiling from the shock of pain and terror, I jerked into a fetal ball of data bits.

  She was in there. Rebecca was in there. In me.

  Or in a piece of me.

  Flowing fearfully back, I surrounded the Thing again. After a few more terrifying probes that flayed my tendrils, I retreated again.

  Somehow I had completely encapsulated Rebecca inside a vessel of my own consciousness and then detached the vessel from myself.

  What did that mean?

  Were we stuck here forever?

  Panic crackled through me, but I beat it back.

  I wasn’t stuck. I could still move.

  But the Thing…

  I tried to nudge it forward, but my data bits simply flowed around it.

  The Thing wouldn’t move.

  The Thing was me.

  Stuck forever in this place that might cease to exist in an eyeblink if a line went down or a server turned off. Obliterated…

  Panic swelled again, and again I fought it.

  If you panic, you’ll end up like Rebecca.

  Don’t panic.

  Think.

  I couldn’t push the Thing.

  Could I pull it?

  Flowing past it in the data tunnel, I imagined a magnetic force drawing it along with me… no! Magnets destroy data!

  Yes, idiot, but you’re not creating actual magnetism. You’re just visualizing the same attraction that holds data bits together in packets…

  I tried again.

  The Thing moved.

  If I’d had eyes, I would have wept in relief.

  Towing the Thing behind me, I crept down the data tunnel, aiming for Stemp’s VR network and hoping it was still active.

  What if I’d been in here for days?

  What if they’d given up?

  What if…

  Don’t think about it.

  Just keep searching.

  Creeping down another seemingly interminable data tunnel, I nearly missed the sudden glimmer of the VR node.

  But was it the right one?

  It shouldn’t matter. I should be able to go into any VR network, step out any portal, and end up back in my own body at Sirius.

  Pulling the Thing behind me, I slipped through the node and willed myself visible.

  An involuntary scream ripped from my throat as I sprang back, reeling.

  Falling.

  Unable to stop myself.

  Both my arms had been torn off at the shoulders, leaving only thin gory strings of twitching muscle. Arterial blood sprayed in fierce gouts with the pounding of my heart.

  Rebecca was horribly deformed, my own missing arms somehow woven into the mutated lump of flesh topped by her distorted shrieking face.

  Blackness swooped in.

  Blood loss.

  Only a moment left…

  No, it’s a sim. I’ll only die if I think I’m dying.

  No matter how hard I visualized, my arms refused to rejoin my body. The whole void dripped with my blood.

  My control fading
, I imagined a giant scoop whisking down from the virtual ceiling. It wobbled, but solidified and shoved the Rebecca-Thing across the void and out the portal.

  She was gone.

  My dismembered arms vanished with her.

  My mangled body still pumped blood.

  Screams strangled me. Blackness suffocated-

  I dove back into the internet.

  Safely inside the data tunnel, I hung vibrating in sheer horror.

  My arms. My arms were gone.

  Why couldn’t I visualize them back into existence? Had something terrible happened to my physical body?

  No-no-no…

  I had to get back to Sirius.

  But Holt’s tether was long gone because my arms were gone, omigod, omigod…

  Calm. Down.

  Of course my physical body still had arms. It was sitting safely in my office in Silverside, Alberta, and no amount of virtual reality could make my actual arms disappear.

  Unless there had been a bomb blast that ripped my body apart and that was why my consciousness couldn’t recreate it…

  I rocketed down the data tunnel, frantically questing for Spider’s searches.

  Oh, please let him still be alive and sending searches…

  Aydan-Kelly-Aydan-Kelly-Aydan-Kelly…

  Redoubling my speed, I fled along the lifeline and burst into visibility in the blessed familiarity of the Sirius file repository. Tumbling across the room, I screamed again at the sight of my blood cartwheeling along with me.

  No arms no arms omigod…

  “Jesus Christ!” Holt sprang across the file room as I fell in a blood-drenched heap. “Hang on, Kelly!” He stripped off his shirt, wadding it up and jamming it into my gaping wounds.

  “GET HER OUT!” Spider’s frantic voice boomed out of the virtual ceiling. “BRING HER OUT THE PORTAL, NOW!”

  Holt hoisted me into a fireman’s carry and ran. As the portal loomed up Spider yelled, “SLOW-”

  The rest of his words burned away in an inferno of agony.

  “Aydan…”

  The voice was distant but familiar.

  “Wha…?” I mumbled.

  “Aydan, wake up…”

  “No, Mom. S’not time for school yet,” I slurred.

  “Aydan, wake up.” The voice sounded terrified.

  Not Mom.

  I knew that voice.

  I bolted upright. “Spider, what’s wrong?”

  He let out a sobbing laugh. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong now.” He flung his arms around me and I hugged him back.

  Hugged him.

  With my arms.

  “Oh, thank God!” Now I was watery-eyed, too, gulping air and barely clinging to control. “Thank God!”

  “What happened?” Spider demanded. “Your physical body started twitching and you were making these weird noises, but you were still unconscious. I thought you were having a seizure or something, but I was afraid to call the ambulance in case…” He trailed off. “I just… didn’t know what to do.”

  “I think a small part of my consciousness went through the portal with Rebecca and came back to my body before the rest of me,” I said.

  “Never mind that,” Holt snapped. “You’re fine now, and we have to report to Stemp. We just wasted twenty minutes waiting for you to wake up.” He glared at Spider, who flushed but raised his chin defiantly.

  “I don’t care,” Spider retorted. “You brought her through the portal too fast and she was going through hell. I wasn’t going to let her suffer like that.” He turned to me. “I’m sorry, I panicked. My hands were shaking too hard to get a dart out and break it open, so I just shot you.”

  I took in the spent tranquilizer dart lying on the coffee table with my trank pistol beside it. “Thanks, Spider. Let’s call Stemp.”

  Stemp picked up on the first ring. “Status?” he barked.

  “Is Rebecca conscious?” I snapped back.

  “Ah.”

  It almost sounded as though he’d sighed in relief at the sound of my voice; but that couldn’t be right. Stemp didn’t show emotion.

  “Yes,” he added. “Ms. Stile is conscious. And you are well, I presume?”

  “Not one of my more pleasant trips, but I made it.”

  “Good. And what is your evaluation of Ms. Stile’s mental state?”

  I hesitated, swallowing hard. She was absolutely bugfuck crazy. But if I told Stemp that, he’d execute her as coldly and efficiently as I would swat a mosquito.

  But if I didn’t tell him, she could run amok. A giant security breach just waiting to happen…

  “Agent Kelly?” Stemp prompted. “Were you successful in removing classified intel from her mind?”

  Something dark and heavy lodged itself where my heart used to be.

  “No.” The death warrant issued from my lips in a monotone. “I couldn’t even find any coherent thoughts in her mind. She was… completely insane. I couldn’t get near her without getting torn apart. I… I tried…” I had to stop and draw a calming breath.

  “Kelly barely survived,” Holt said flatly. “She was torn to pieces when she got back to our sim. Literally… dismembered.” His expression was impassive but his voice vibrated on the last word. Old ghosts darkened his eyes.

  Silence hung heavily on the line.

  “I see.” Stemp’s two words said it all.

  Despair bowed my back.

  All that effort; all that pain; for nothing.

  My bruised heart tore at the futility of it all. Right now Rebecca’s poor parents would be celebrating her return to consciousness, but they would lose her to death in mere minutes. It would have been kinder if she’d never woken.

  “Thank you for your service, Agent Kelly,” Stemp said quietly. “Go home and get some sleep.”

  In the silence after he disconnected, Spider stared at me, his eyes wide and dark in his pale face. “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t speak.

  Didn’t need to.

  His face crumpled. “He’s going to kill her, isn’t he?”

  Chapter 48

  Spider’s question echoed in my mind while I struggled to say something comforting that wasn’t an outright lie.

  I found nothing.

  Spider hid his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

  I dragged myself to my feet and went over to rub his back.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice came out clogged with unshed tears of my own.

  “It’s not… your fault.” His words jerked out between sobs. “I just… she was innocent! I was hoping… so hard…”

  He trailed off and I kept rubbing his back.

  Holt hissed out a breath and rose. “Sorry, Webb,” he said gruffly. “We have to move on.” He braced his hands on his hips and arched his back, grimacing at the cracks and pops that emanated from his spine. “Kelly, are you riding with me and Grandin and the security team tomorrow?” He glanced at his watch and sighed. “No; in a couple of hours.”

  “No.” My voice came out completely flat. “If I have to look at Grandin this morning, I’ll puke.” I didn’t mention that I might puke anyway. “I’ll drive myself.”

  “Okay. Just remember to come to the staging area at ten, not the drop zone.” Before I could speak, he flung up a defensive hand and added, “I’m not saying you’d fuck up; it’s just a reminder. We’re both wiped out, and we can’t afford mistakes.”

  “It’s okay. I’m too tired to get mad.”

  We exchanged grim smiles, and he left.

  Spider sat up, sniffling and mopping his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so…”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” I squeezed his shoulder. “Go home and get some sleep. I’ll email Dermott and tell him I put you on stress leave, so he won’t expect to see you in the morning.”

  He turned a tearstained face up to me. “But you don’t have the authority…”

  “That’s between Dermott and me. You have your orders.”

  He drew in a hitching
breath and stood. “Thanks, Aydan. I’m…” He hesitated, fatigue in every line of his trembling body and pale face. “Just… stay safe, okay? I… I can’t…” He hugged me fiercely, then turned and fled as tears flooded his eyes again.

  I should be crying, too.

  But the dark weight in my chest absorbed all emotion. Nothing remained but leaden weariness and a slow deep current of rage.

  I fired off a terse email to Dermott and plodded out the door.

  As I descended the stairs to the lobby, the entrance door opened and Reggie strode in. As usual, his confident gait belied the prosthetic legs concealed by his pants, but a memory-flash of blood and torn-off limbs nearly folded my knees. My hand flew to the railing as I stumbled and regained my balance.

  “You okay?” Reggie called across the lobby.

  The truth jumped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  “No.”

  As concern flashed across his face, I added, “I need a favour. Two favours. Can I talk to you in your lab?”

  He nodded, his brow furrowed. “Go on down. I’ll sign in and be right behind you.”

  Giving silent thanks that he understood my need to be alone in the cramped time-delay chamber, I cranked my lips into a semblance of a smile and headed for its door.

  Inside, I counted down the long thirty-second delay, forcing myself to stand with my hands at my sides instead of flailing wildly. My prison cell would be about the same size as this…

  Don’t. Even. Go. There.

  Clamping down on my thoughts, I mentally recited multiplication tables. One times one is one. One times two is two…

  That carried me to Reggie’s lab. Unwilling to face any other early-bird employees, I loitered outside the door until Reggie strode up.

  “Can’t you get in?” he asked.

  “Didn’t try. I was just waiting for you.”

  He flashed his prox card at the reader and opened the door for me, and I preceded him into the lab.

  “You’re here early,” I said, making an effort at normalcy.