The Operator

“Shall we go?” he finally said as the sirens became loud, gesturing to the nearby bright lights at the corner and the dance club.

I am such an idiot. “You first,” she said, and amendable to that, he turned on a heel, taking a moment to stomp the snow off his shoes when he reached the salted sidewalk. She’d lost her scarf somewhere, and it was cold.

“I want to apologize for darting you with Amneoset,” he said as she came even with him, staying a little behind and to the left. “But you wouldn’t have listened if I had just walked in and ordered a coffee. Besides, I had to find out who was better, you or Michael.”

She said nothing, her eyebrow going up as she looked askance at him.

“Okay, you’re right,” Bill conceded as they passed under a streetlight. “But you have to admit he has skills.”

“Skills? He’s psychotic. You should have thrown him back into whatever psych ward you got him from,” she muttered, knowing that most drafters were found there. She’d been an exception, her wealthy mother overreacting to a small incident, her fuss getting Peri recognized by Opti and brought in before she was labeled insane by well-meaning health-care providers who had no capacity to accept that what she was experiencing was real.

“You, though, are the best,” Bill said as if she’d said nothing. “My best operative I’ve ever had the privilege to train. No, the best I’ve watched evolve, because this is who you are, Peri. You are perfect. Beautiful, deadly, perfect. She wants you for the live trial. To make sure it works before accelerating the rest. I just want you back where you belong.”

She. He had said “she.” Someone else was pulling Bill’s strings, funding him now that the government wasn’t. That van had looked rather tatty for Bill.

“I want to make you into a god,” he said, and she snorted in disbelief, stoically crossing against the light when they reached the corner. But Michael had seemed to believe it was possible, so possible that he had been incensed that she was getting it and he wasn’t. You couldn’t fake anger like that. Psychotic or not. Perhaps Bill was playing them both, though.

Head down and hands in his pockets, Bill paced quickly beside her, his steps totally out of synch with hers. “I know what you’re thinking, but if I wanted to wipe you and start over, I could have done it already.”

“So you say,” she admitted, glancing back at her coffee shop as the cops drove by, slow with searchlights from the car playing over the scuffed snow spotted with blood. She couldn’t go back, but she’d known that before she’d locked the door and threw the cat carrier full of dishes at Michael. They’d let Carnac go. He’d be okay, but it bothered her. “How did you find me?”

Bill chuckled. “It wasn’t easy. I never thought you’d use a medical facility to hide your radiation marker. It was Allen, and let me tell you, it’s been a test of patience, letting him range as he wanted this past year. I knew he’d eventually bring me to you.”

Allen. But she was glad it hadn’t been Silas who’d blown her cover. Hunching deeper into her coat, she thought of her diary, wanting it back. Before them, noise and laughter spilled into the street as they neared the line of cold women with bare legs and men stoically listening to them complain, waiting for their chance to go in.

“I’m going to need to know if you want to work with him again by the end of the week,” Bill said, adding “Allen” when she looked up, confused. “Personally, I think it’s a mistake, but that could only be my wish to beat the hell out of him. Seriously, if you want him, let me know before I give in to myself. Otherwise, Jack is available.”

“I’m not working with either of them,” she whispered, shivering from more than the wind coming in from across the Detroit River. She stopped. They had reached the front door. “You have nothing I want,” she said, his confidence turning her stomach.

“Yet here we are.” With a cool confidence, he handed the doorman a large bill. The velvet rope dropped, and he crossed it as the crowd complained. He turned when he realized Peri was still on the sidewalk. “We broke the memory barrier, Peri. It took almost forty years, but we can do it.” He hesitated, a thick hand extended. She knew how it would feel, curving around her waist, and she frowned. “Are you coming? It’s just talk.”

Her arm ached where the dart had stuck her, and she felt queasy from the lingering Amneoset, but her foot was by far worse, the swelling in her ankle beginning to make walking difficult, even in her boots. She could run. He had no weapon—apart from the lure of memory.

Head down, she came forward, sidling out of his reach as she went in.

Immediately the feel of the place washed over her, the electronic music with its steady heartbeat soothing her as much as the muggy body heat. It was crowded, people standing at the bar and around small tables. Face paint had been utilized far beyond its original intent to thwart the facial recognition cameras—a fashion statement more than a defiant gesture.

Feeling out of place, she ran a hand down her coat, the expensive material now coated with a grungy film of wet street dirt. Her slacks and sweater under it would make her look like a frump. That Bill was impeccably groomed didn’t help, and she eyed his somewhat water-fat face cleanly shaved and his graying hair dyed black as he gave his outer coat to the coat check and arranged for one of the quieter booths on the upper floor terrace overlooking the stage and bar.