The Operator

Silas took his tray over and set it down. Eyeing the nearby vent, he grabbed the table and pulled it, scraping and screeching, to sit directly under it. The unit wasn’t running, but he could fix that. “Don’t even try,” he said as their babysitter hustled forward, Allen limping close behind.

“Steiner said watch us.” Allen pointed at a second table. “Watch from over there.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed, and Silas crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge. “Don’t,” he said, and after a tense moment, the guard took his tray and sat down twenty feet off and out of earshot.

“Dumb-ass,” Allen muttered, sighing heavily as he slumped onto the bench.

Silas took his phone from his pocket before he settled himself as well, using his pinky to handle the tiny icons as he logged into Opti’s climate control. Above them, the fans began to whirl. Cold air spilled down over them. The guard frowned, but he made no move to join them.

Silas resettled in a huff of satisfaction, but it faded when he looked from his bowl of oatmeal to Allen’s heaped tray of bacon, eggs, sweet pastry, and sausage. Resolved, he poured chocolate milk over his oats. “She’s going to go into withdrawal by midnight tomorrow.” He hesitated, his hand propping up his chin and milk dripping from the spoon to land on the brown sugar and melt it into the chocolate milk. “I’m not letting that happen.”

Allen snorted as he dug in, the steam rising from his eggs to mist his glasses. “She might be able to tough it out.”

“Maybe, but this stuff is ugly. It was bad forty years ago, and Bill has made it not just hard to quit but impossible.” Guilt swam up, and he hunched over his bowl, not hungry. “I’m weeks away from even knowing how it works, longer if they don’t give me a decent lab.” He couldn’t leave her to suffer withdrawal alone. Steiner had two vials now, and the accelerator.

“So what do you want to do?” Allen slumped deeper onto his bench. “I’m all escaped out,” he added, tapping his ankle bracelet against the table supports.

Silas’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t useless. That they thought him a lab geek had worked well for him so far. But there was a reason he hadn’t gone all the way to be a field agent. He was too big to be evasive. “I need to talk to Steiner,” he said, and Allen chuckled. “Maybe encourage him to free up a sample or two for me to work with, then slip out the front door.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Allen hunched over his food as if he were in prison. “They’re watching you a lot closer now since your little walkabout from Atlanta to Detroit.”

Uneasy, Silas tucked his phone back in his pocket.

“She’ll be okay,” Allen said. “I bet she’s planning her way back in right now to get her Evocane out of Steiner’s office. Frankly, I’m more worried about Jack.”

His chest clenched. “She isn’t going to stay with Jack,” Silas muttered, but she might—if she forgot who she wanted to be.

“He might wipe her,” Allen said, and Silas looked up, hating how easy that came out of Allen’s mouth. “He has before,” he muttered as he shoveled eggs and sausage into himself with an eerie focus.

Silas put his spoon down with a clatter. “You’re a real dick, you know that?”

As if only now hearing how he sounded, Allen looked up. “I gave her a phone,” he said, swallowing his latest mouthful. “She’ll call us if and when she needs us.”

Silas stared at him. “You really think she’s going to call you? I know where she’ll go. To catch her breath, anyway.” He had to get out of here, but it was going to take more than just him. He needed help. Allen, though, was in bad shape, half-starved and resources tapped out. He’d be good for a distraction, but not much else.

Silas jumped when Harmony stiff-armed one of the glass doors to the cafeteria open, hitting it so hard it nearly smacked into the wall. The woman stopped dead in her tracks when she saw them, the thought to turn around and walk back out obvious on her face. But with a slow intake of breath, her fire washed out of her. Slumping, she took a tray and pushed it along the silver bars.

“I don’t trust her,” Silas said, his lip twitching when Allen chuckled.

“Peri does.” Allen was smiling, seeming to enjoy Harmony’s bad mood. “She knew Peri was hooked on Evocane even before she left St. Louis and didn’t tell Steiner.”

She trusts Harmony . . . Pensive, he leaned across the table to Allen under the excuse of reaching for the salt, whispering, “Do you think she might help me get out of here?”

Allen’s eyes shifted to watch Harmony push her tray past the steaming sausage and bacon, taking nothing but a bowl of Jell-O and a yogurt. “Maybe,” he said. “Steiner is pissed at her if that ankle bracelet on her foot is any indication. She could chuck what’s left of her career to help you, or chuck you to Steiner to save what’s left of her career.”

That didn’t help at all, and Silas stiffened when Harmony plopped herself down across from him. Still silent, she put a spoon in her Jell-O, then pushed her tray to the center of the table and hid her head in the cradle her arms made. “I’m changing my name to Phillips, I’m so screwed,” she said, voice muffled. Her head came up, and she took in Silas and Allen, one in a lab coat, the other still in the down-filled WEFT coat he’d gotten in the van. “Good God. Why is the air on? It’s freezing in here.”