The Drafter

Silas shrugged, not liking that he was telegraphing his mood so loudly. “It just means you’re comfortable,” he said, hiding behind a sip of his drink. “And if you’re comfortable, it’s a good bet that no one is sitting in the stands watching us.”

Peri scanned the nearby stairs, but there were only fans to look at. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Jack manifests when you think something is wrong. He’s not infallible, since he only knows what you suspect, but I trust your intuition more than, say, … Allen’s word.”

She chuckled at that. “Yeah, I don’t trust him either,” she said. “He knew my ass was LoJacked.”

Silas smirked, and she turned to him, head shaking. “Good God,” she said, not angry at all. “You’re happy I don’t trust Allen?”

He couldn’t help his laugh, and her smile turned real. “I can’t keep anything from you, can I? But you’re not done yet with your hot dog.”

“Yes. I am.” She shoved the last bit in her mouth. Chewing fast, she swallowed, washing it down with a gulp of water before turning to face him. Silas’s pulse quickened, but just then the inning ended and he looked past her to the suddenly moving people. The announcer’s voice was almost lost amid the thousand conversations starting all at once.

“Getting under the alliance blanket is going to be a little tricky,” Peri said in the new noise, glancing darkly at the man knocking into her on his way to the food court. “Opti found out I removed the tracker and made me ingest a new radiation marker.”

Silas’s head snapped around. “What!”

“It’s not that big a deal,” she said, almost amused as she leaned closer to be heard. “Don’t freak out, okay? I can muddle it when I want with a little barium syrup.”

“They knew you were gone and didn’t scrub you?” he asked, trying to wrap his head around this.

Peri’s expression twisted wryly. “No.”

Silas’s hands clenched so hard on his water bottle the cap cracked. She was chemically tagged? What the hell was he supposed to do now? They were using her, blatantly using her to get to the alliance. Cold flowed through him, and he ran a hand under his cap, scanning the moving people for black suits and sunglasses. “This is really bad,” he said softly.

“So I take a low-dose of barium syrup to mask it,” Peri said, her eyes narrowing as her confidence wavered. “Or wear a tin hat. It isn’t anything we can’t work around. Opti doesn’t know I’ve broken their memory implants.”

Which was exactly what she would say if she really was working for Opti to bring the alliance heads in on a platter. Silas’s chest began to hurt. Fran had told him Peri couldn’t be trusted and to bring her in for “retirement.” He didn’t want to believe it. He wouldn’t.

But then Peri jerked to look behind her at that recently vacated chair. “Ahhh, shit on a shingle,” she whispered.

It had to be Jack, and a slithery feeling crept through his spine as she watched something that wasn’t really there. “What is he saying?” he whispered.

Peri’s eyes scanned. “That something is wrong and I have to go. I’m tending to believe him. Thanks for the hot dog. It was nice. Which way to the car?”

She stood, and he rose as well. “Uh …,” he said unintelligently. But he had no plan, no thought other than to take her and go. And with the chemical tag, the alliance was doubly out.

Peri looked him up and down, his fear feeding her own. “I gave you Jack’s list. You’ve got what you want.”

Silas’s brow furrowed, and he took her elbow. “What you brought us wasn’t Jack’s list.”

Her face went white. “Yes, it was. It had to be,” she insisted as the music blared. “It was on my cat. His collar is the only thing that survived my apartment.”

Silas shook his head. “It was a listening device.”

Her lips parted, and he saw her world fall apart in the sheen of her eyes. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “They heard everything.” Her eyes shot to his, panicked. “They know everything we said! That I’m lying to them!”

A part of Silas was relieved. She was afraid. She was telling the truth. “No they don’t,” he tried to soothe her, but her arms were stiff under his hands. “The unit was damaged. You said you got it off your cat. Well, those things can’t take being outside for long. Opti hadn’t had a chance to change it out. They didn’t hear us, but Peri, it wasn’t the list, and the alliance won’t trust you.”

Peri’s wandering attention came back to his. “They’ll never believe me,” she said, and his fear swelled when he saw her new determination. She was going to run. She was going to try to do this on her own.

“I have to go,” she said, pulling away from him.

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” she said. And then she simply walked away.

“Peri!” he called, but someone had cut in behind her, and he had to wait. In three seconds, she was gone, out the way she’d come in.

“Move!” Silas pushed past the man on the stair, ignoring the angry protests as he shoved through the tight inflow of people. Peri’s slim form slipped gracefully past the throng like water while he was more like the rock everyone else was crashing against, but finally he was through the crush and in the cool underbelly of the stadium.