WATT HADN’T BEEN in Leda’s bedroom for almost a year.
It was different, he thought—hollower, with new blank spaces on the walls and shelves. Leda had meant it when she said she had tried to sweep away all the detritus of her former life.
But she was still Leda, still the girl he loved, standing before him—slight and trembling, yet not fragile at all. Watt knew the implacability of her strength, like a blade that was whip-thin but sharp.
“Leda,” Watt said softly. “We don’t have to, um . . .”
In answer, Leda grabbed Watt’s shirt to pull him closer, and kissed him.
They fell backward onto her bed in a feverish tangle. Leda fumbled with the hooks and fastenings of Watt’s jacket, tossing it aside. He reached behind her to pull the zipper of her dress. “Here, let me,” Leda said impatiently, tearing herself away from him just long enough to shimmy out of it. It fell onto the floor with a hiss.
Then she was facing him in nothing but her wispy bra and underwear. Watt felt his heartbeat echoing in the space between them.
He reached up tentatively to trace her smile. He adored Leda’s mouth, the eager fullness of it. He adored everything about her: the arch of her neck, the softness of her arms, the way she fit so perfectly tucked into his chest. Everywhere they touched seemed to explode in a white-hot friction.
Watt regretted every moment of the last year he hadn’t spent with her. He regretted every kiss that he had ever given to anyone who wasn’t Leda, because he knew now how much a kiss could mean.
He loved Leda—for her wildness and her inner fire and her fierce, stubborn pride. He loved that she was more ruthlessly alive than anyone he had ever met. He wanted so desperately to tell her that he loved her, but he didn’t dare, because he was terrified it might send her running. Instead he kept kissing her, again and again and again, trying to pour his love into the kisses.
He hoped, desperately, that she loved him too.
Early the next morning, Watt leaned on one elbow, glancing down at Leda with unadulterated wonder.
She shifted on the pillow, which was warm and slightly perfumed from where she’d slept. The dim light gleamed on her earrings, which Watt realized were shaped like a pair of tiny crescent moons. He wondered if they had some meaning: if Leda had bought them on a trip, maybe, or if they’d been a gift. He felt hungry for every last detail about anything that mattered to Leda.
He fought back the urge to reach out and touch her, to check that she really was here. That last night wasn’t just a dream.
Watt realized with a start that she was awake, her eyes fluttering open to shine in the darkness like a cat’s.
“Watt,” she breathed, and he leaned in to kiss her.
“I hate to say this, but I should get back.”
“I didn’t think you were the type to run off,” she murmured, teasing.
“Trust me, the last thing I want is to leave. I just don’t want to be the guy who gets you in trouble with your parents.”
“You’re right.” Leda let out a breath and sat up, letting the sheets spill forward off her shoulders. “Watt?”
He paused at the door to look back at her. “Yeah?”
“Will you go to the inauguration ball with me tonight?” She gave a hesitant smile. “I know we’ve had a few ups and downs at formal events, but I thought this time . . .”
Watt grinned, pretending to deliberate. “I’m not so sure. I mean, last time you only invited me because you wanted access to Nadia.”
Leda rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not how it—”
“But I can’t say no to you, Leda,” Watt finished. “Of course I’ll be there.”
The whole way home, he kept Nadia off. She had powered herself down while he was with Leda, the way she always did when Watt was with a girl, and for some reason he wasn’t ready to break the silence.
Which was why he didn’t get any warning that there were police officers at his apartment.
“As I told you, my son is out at a friend’s house.” Watt’s mom had planted herself sturdily in the doorway, her voice lifted in outrage. Before her stood a pair of police officers: a squat man with a moustache and a bright-eyed woman who couldn’t be much older than Watt.
Quant on, Watt thought furiously, watching as Nadia ran facial-reg on them. She quickly put name-identification boxes below their faces: Harold Campbell and Lindsay Kiles.
“It looks like he’s back now,” Officer Kiles said flatly as Watt approached the door. She lifted an eyebrow, as if to question why he was showing up so very early on a Saturday morning, looking distinctly rumpled and stale.
Officer Campbell butted in. “Mr. Bakradi, we were hoping you would come answer a few questions for us.”
“Absolutely not,” Watt’s mom insisted. Her hands were planted on her hips, her jaw set in a grim line.
Watt felt bewildered, and a little afraid. Nadia, what’s going on? I thought the police didn’t have any concrete evidence. All they knew was that Mariel had been stalking them, which didn’t prove anything.
Nadia seemed as nervous as he was. I’m trying to see what this is about, but as I’ve said before, I can’t hack the police’s system without being on-site.
Watt wondered if Rylin and Avery would be questioned too, or if this was just about him—about his hacking. Or worse, about Nadia.
“It’s okay. I’m happy to come, if I can be of any help,” Watt said as politely as he could, ignoring the angry protests of his mom. He ran a hand through his unruly hair before following the officers back toward the main thoroughfare.
He felt a stab of dismay at the sight of the blue police hover pulled up at the corner. For some reason he’d expected that they would take public transit. It didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence, being forced to ride in the back of that hover, where the doors didn’t open from the inside. It felt as if things had gone in fast-forward, that he had already been tried and found guilty.
Watt lifted his hand to the bump where Nadia was located, to reassure himself that she was still there—a risky gesture, but he tried to make it look as if he were scratching his head. At least he would have Nadia with him during the questioning, he thought, with a fevered gratefulness.
But the moment he followed the detectives into the station’s interrogation room, Nadia set off an alarm bell in Watt’s mind. There’s an infrared sensor in here to detect active tech.
That’s for tablets and contacts! It’s okay, my brain is supposed to show up hot, Watt assured her, because the thought of doing this interrogation without Nadia made him want to throw up.
Not safe. I’m going cold, she told him, and with that she shut herself off.
Shit. Watt would actually have to go through with this alone.
He took the metal folding chair across the table from the detectives. Should he sit up straight or slouch? Maybe lean an elbow on the table? He needed to strike the right balance between nervousness and confidence; because wouldn’t an innocent guy be somewhat blasé about all this, knowing he had done nothing wrong? Or would an innocent person be quaking with fear?
Why couldn’t he make even a decision about his posture without Nadia’s input?
Officer Campbell spoke first. “Mr. Bakradi. Did you know a girl named Mariel Valconsuelo?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Watt replied, perhaps a bit too emphatically. If there were infrared sensors in here, were there also lie detectors? But the detectives couldn’t run a real lie analysis without putting biosensors on him, could they?
Campbell nodded at his colleague, who tapped a screen, causing a hologram of Mariel to flare to life before them. She looked angry and uncompromising, her head tilted upward, as if it was a terrible imposition that she was being asked to take an ID picture.
“Mariel was dating Eris Dodd-Radson before Eris died,” Officer Campbell said significantly. Watt didn’t answer.
The officer lifted an eyebrow. “You didn’t ever meet Mariel?” she asked again.
“Not that I can recall.”
“Before she died, Mariel was gathering information about you.”
Watt tried his best to act shocked by that revelation. Officer Campbell leaned farther forward onto the table, as if determined to occupy more space. “You don’t have any idea why?”
“Maybe she had a crush on me?” The moment he saw the officers’ faces, Watt knew that irreverence hadn’t been the right way to go.
“I can assure you that she did not,” Kiles cut in drily. Watt bit the inside of his cheek. Nadia would have kept him from saying that.
The officer waved, and the hologram grew watery and dissolved like rapidly melting snow. “How do you know Avery Fuller?” she went on, abruptly changing tack.
“Avery is a friend,” Watt said warily.
“Just a friend?”
Did they know he’d taken her to that University Club party, last year? “I wanted it to be more but, you know, Avery is basically unattainable,” Watt quipped, and he could swear he saw a ghost of a smile on Campbell’s face.
Officer Kiles was less amused. “What about Leda Cole? Are you ‘just friends’ with her too?”
“What does my love life have to do with this, exactly?”
The young officer stared at him levelly. “I’m trying to understand how you became so intertwined in it all.”
Watt understood the subtext. How had Watt, a seemingly ordinary downTower guy, become entangled in the lives of girls from the 103rd to thousandth floors?
“I guess it just . . . happened,” Watt said inadequately.
The detectives exchanged a ponderous glance. Finally Officer Kiles lifted her hand, palm up, in an ambiguous gesture that might have meant good-bye or might have simply implied a lack of trust, as if she didn’t quite buy Watt’s story.
“Thank you, Mr. Bakradi. You’re free to go. For now,” she added ominously.
Watt didn’t need to be told twice. He stood as quickly as he could and hurried toward the door. Before he could reach it, though, Officer Kiles asked him one more question.
“By the way, Mr. Bakradi—do you know anyone by the name of Nadia?”
Watt felt a sudden chasm opening inside him, a black hole of fear so immense it seemed to have a gravity all its own.
For a single breathless moment, he considered confessing. Trying to cut a deal in exchange for telling them everything—that Mariel had been stalking all of them, that Leda had accidentally killed Eris, that she might have killed Mariel too, but he wasn’t sure; he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Before Watt got tangled up in all this, the world had seemed so simple, so binary, divided crisply into black and white, 1s and 0s. Now he knew nothing for certain.
But everything in Watt recoiled at the thought of hurting Leda. He stumbled back a step, hoping his face didn’t look as stricken as he felt.
“I don’t know anyone named Nadia.”
The instant they were outside the police station, he turned Nadia back on abruptly and filled her in on everything that had happened. We’re in trouble, he concluded, with a heavy, sinking feeling.
They don’t know anything except that the name Nadia was scrawled in that notebook, she reminded him.
But what if there’s other evidence? I’m terrified that they’re going to keep digging and digging, that they won’t rest until they find something. And we both know there’s a lot to find, he thought helplessly.
I’m so sorry, Nadia replied, which was ridiculous, since none of this was her fault. It was his.
Watt knew what he had to do.
There was only one way to find out for certain what the police knew or why they had questioned him this morning.
I’m going to hack the police station, he decided.
Nadia’s response was a swift NO, written in flashing red letters so large that they obstructed Watt’s vision. He ignored her.
It had been a long time since Watt had to go all James Bond and sneak Nadia somewhere for an on-site hack. Actually, the last time he’d done it was the day he met Avery—when he was working for Leda, trying to figure out who Atlas liked. It felt like a million years ago.
But Watt wouldn’t feel safe until he knew for certain what the police knew. And the only way he could find that out was from inside their infrastructure.
Absolutely not, Watt! It’s too dangerous, Nadia replied, and he could hear her silently shouting. This isn’t a tollbooth. This is the NYPD headquarters we’re talking about!
But Watt couldn’t handle this state of uncertainty anymore. It’s the only way for us to find out the truth, he insisted, trying to ignore the way the hairs on the back of his arms lifted with fear at the prospect.
I refuse to approve of this! If you get caught, you could end up in prison!
He set his jaw, determined. And if they know the truth about you, I’ll definitely end up in prison.
She stopped arguing after that, because they both knew that Watt was right.