The Operator

Steiner’s expression was placid, but mistrust had tightened the corners of his eyes. Behind him, Jack took his photo from the trash and propped it up on the coffee counter. Peri didn’t want to know the mental gymnastics going on in her head right now. The photo was still in the trash. She knew it. But there it was, in Jack’s hand as he carefully wiped off a smear of coffee from it. Maybe I’m not over him as much as I thought.

“Peri shot and left Jack for dead when she found out he and Bill were using her,” Allen said, indignant. “She’s not going to go back to him or Opti.”

“Yeah, that hurt, babe,” Jack said, carefully shifting the photo to catch the light.

“Sir, this is my team. We’ve worked together for over a year. I don’t want to add a new element,” Harmony protested. “Besides, her radioactive tag will give us away.”

“At this point, it takes four hours for enough radiation accumulation to ping a meter,” Steiner said, clearly not caring. “That’s deemed acceptable.”

Jack sipped his coffee, saying, “If Harmony goes alone, she’s dead and you know it.”

Why do I care? Peri thought, but it was obvious she did. Or maybe she just wanted to crush Harmony’s misplaced confidence. “You don’t have the ability or skills to bring in a drafter alone,” she said, and Harmony rounded on her.

“I brought you in.”

Peri inclined her head. “I was cooperating.”

Flushed, Harmony stood her ground. “How can you possibly know what I’m capable of?”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of, either,” Peri shot back. “You can’t go against a drafter. You can’t possibly.”

Harmony took a breath, expression dark and her anger obvious. Steiner cleared his throat, cutting off her next words. “Harmony, may I speak with you a moment?”

“No!” she blurted, then caught herself. “Sir. I mean, yes. Yes, of course.”

Eyebrows high, Steiner stood and gestured for her to step a few feet away.

Jack leaned over Peri’s shoulder, whispering, “I don’t think she likes you.”

Hand waving, Peri pushed the hallucination away, and Jack vanished. “Good Lord,” Peri muttered, glad he was gone. “What did I ever do to that woman?”

Allen chuckled as he sat beside her, and she shifted to keep from sliding into him. “You want the short list, or long one?”

From by the elevators, Harmony said loudly, “She is here until Denier figures out the Evocane, and then she will accelerate herself and run. Sir. She is a risk, not only a flight risk but to the safety of everyone on my team. She could draft and forget everything but being Bill’s girl.”

“Which is why I want you there,” Steiner said. “We need her to draw them in. Allen is there in case she drafts. Get over whatever issue you have and work with the woman. If she tests clean for the presence of the accelerator, she goes.”

“Sir.” It was flat this time, and Peri smiled an apology when the woman glared at Peri and walked into the open office areas.

“Don’t you love being the bait in the dumb-ass trap?” Clearly disenchanted, Allen stood as Steiner made his way back to them. Peri rose as well, uncomfortable that Harmony was right. The risk of being wiped was real. The chance she might chuck it all and run—even without the accelerator and Evocane—was real. She’d acquired new skills in eleven months, rubbed out the worst of the engineered mental blocks against being alone and the patterns of behavior that made her easy to find. But the chance that Silas could reverse-engineer Evocane and she could remember her drafts . . . that was real as well.

“Give Denier a blood sample before you leave the floor. We depart at eight p.m. tomorrow,” Steiner said, blue eyes hard. “Tell Harmony what you need.”

Her thoughts on Silas, Peri asked, “Is there any way we can go earlier?”

“Intel has Michael at the site at three a.m. We’ll have you in place by two.”

He turned away, and Peri cleared her throat. “An hour for recon?”

Steiner hesitated, his face expressionless. “Recon is there already. You can read the report on the plane. Harmony is in charge. No three-strike rule. You piss her off, and she kicks you back here. Understand?”

“Absolutely,” she said, but he was already walking away.

Allen sighed as he sat down again. “Congratulations?”

Focus distant, she took Jack’s picture out of the trash and blotted the coffee away. “If you say so.” They’d had some good times. Lots of them. That she couldn’t remember them was a small point. The emotion was still there. Am I making a mistake?

Anxiety rose, and she hid Jack’s photo under the rest. The unease that Steiner had left behind was growing, and her eyes strayed to the elevators. “I should run and just keep running.”

“Yeah, there’s a good idea.”

Eyes narrowing, she toyed with the idea of shoving his foot off his knee. “I’m not a child. I can make good decisions.”

Oblivious, he rubbed his ankle. “Yeah? How is running a good decision? You can’t make good decisions when you don’t remember everything.”

Her urge to shove his foot off his knee shifted to breaking his nose. But then she’d draft to fix it. Maybe if she had let Bill pump that crap into her, she might have the pleasure of remembering it. “Excuse me,” she said tightly. “I need to give Silas a blood sample.”