The Operator

Michael propped his ankle on a knee, using the pain from the knife jab to center himself. “Why am I here, then?”

“You’re here because you, Michael, are not my best despite your ego-ridden belief, and you need to better yourself. She brought you down with about six skip-hops. When we’re done here, Jack will take you down to a training floor and walk you through it. Listen and learn.”

“Fuck you, old man.” Michael glowered at them, putting his foot back on the floor. Bill wasn’t trying to bring her in. He was seducing her back, toying with her, giving her little bread crumbs so when she did return, she’d think it was her idea. Bill had no intention of accelerating him. And he wouldn’t until she was dead and he had no choice.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Bill chuckled when Jack leaned to take a shot glass and clink it with Bill’s. “So . . . do you think she’ll accelerate herself?” Bill asked, sitting back against his desk to make the wood creak. “She’s got a week’s supply of Evocane with her.”

Jack sipped the old scotch, clearly appreciating it. “Self-administer? Not a chance,” he said, cradling the glass to his middle as if it was his soul. “The woman is scared to remember, scared to forget. And she doesn’t trust you.”

Bill scrubbed a hand across his clean-shaven face, his focus distant. “But she will. Once she calms down, has a good think, and realizes what I’ve given her, she’ll come in.”

Michael unrolled his phone and checked his news feed. Not if I find her first.

“Maybe, but you shouldn’t have let her take an entire week of Evocane,” Jack said.

“You gave it to her, or did she take it?” Michael asked, satisfied when Bill pointed his shot glass at him to be quiet. If I kill her outright, Bill will be so pissed he’ll cut me loose. He’d threatened to do it before when Michael had “accidentally” put a student in a coma during finals. The bastard had been ruining the curve. But that didn’t mean Peri wasn’t going to die.

“You don’t think she’s going to dose herself once she feels safe?” Bill asked Jack.

Jack shifted uneasily. “She’s going to want someone with her to put a clamp on her conditioning against being alone. I’m guessing she’ll try for Silas.”

“Who?” Michael said, not liking that they were for all intents ignoring him.

“Dr. Silas Denier,” Bill echoed, and Michael recalled the bear of a man who had won the genetic lottery to have brains and brawn in equal, substantial measure. He was the one responsible for developing the slick suits they had all trained in, and Michael’s lip twitched, remembering the cramping paralysis that simulated a gunshot.

“He’s not an agent,” Michael said, tapping his knee to make it pulse with pain in time with his thoughts. Kill Peri. Not my fault. Become a god. “He’s not even an anchor.”

“Technically, no, but he can defragment jumps,” Jack said. “And Peri trusts him. But it’s his research that will attract her. With the right lab and access to the proper tools—”

“You think he might try to pick the Evocane apart?” Bill interrupted. “Not likely. It took Helen’s tech rats five years to put it together.”

Jack nodded, setting a leg upon his knee. “She doesn’t know that, and until that hope is eliminated, she won’t come in. Tracking her down will be iffy, but we don’t have to. Silas will need a substantial lab to even look at it. There are maybe a handful in the U.S. with the resources he’s going to want. We find the lab, we find Silas, and then we find Peri.”

Bill was nodding, leaving Michael almost choking in disbelief. Why were they even trying to get her back? She was uncooperative, impulsive, and not a team player. She’d been gone a year, and her ghost was still better thought of than him. “And then what?” Michael said, hiding his bitterness. “Wipe her back to nothing and start again?”

Jack leaned forward, his enthusiasm laughable. “Bill, she doesn’t need to be wiped. She wants to come home. You know it. That’s why you chose her for the live trial. She just needs to realize what you’re offering her.”

“I chose her because Helen insisted I use my best drafter, and Peri is that plus expendable,” Bill said, glancing at Michael as he slipped his bulk from the desk, but the lie was obvious to Michael. Taking the heavy bottle back to the drawer, Bill shoved it closed with his foot. “That, and the woman has been without an anchor for almost a year. She has the skills to work independently despite our efforts to prevent it. The only thing she’s scared of is herself.”

“I can work independently,” Michael said, his gut tightening when Bill gave him a weary glance and sat down behind his desk and tapped his laptop awake. Son of a bitch. Cowardly old men who couldn’t think past what worked before. He didn’t even want an anchor.

“As it stands, she has both Evocane and the accelerator.” Bill’s brow furrowed as he scanned the screen. “And you say she won’t self-administer. I can’t wait the months it might take for Denier to realize how complex it is.”

“You can always just dart her with it, can’t you?” Jack said.

Bill shook his head, eyes still on the screen. “The accelerator has to be given intravenously, and only when there’s Evocane already in her system to buffer it.”

Good to know, Michael thought, resolving to go down and quiz the nurses in the med wing. A little wine, a little food, a little sedative . . .