How Spy I Am (11 page)

Sam grunted and leaned
closer to study the displays. “You’re right,” he muttered. “So what
was it?”

Jack’s face clouded.
“That’s the million-dollar question.” She swivelled to face me.
“Aydan, we need to have another look at your brainwaves. First I
need a baseline before you go into the network.”

She rose to re-attach
the electrodes to my forehead before consulting her instrumentation
again. “Just relax,” she instructed. “Think about your mountain
simulation for a few minutes.”

I leaned back on the
sofa and eased out a long breath, closing my eyes to visualize.

“That’s fine,” Jack
said a few moments later. “Nothing unusual here, wouldn’t you say,
Sam?”

Apparently she knew
how to handle a ruffled male ego. Sam’s piqued expression faded as
he leaned over the display, nodding sagely.

Jack turned wide blue
eyes on him. “What would you think about trying another short
session with Aydan in the network? We wouldn’t be able to analyze
the data the way we can in your lab, but we can monitor for a ghost
trace with my equipment. Do you think we should?”

I recognized her
tactic instantly. She knew exactly what she intended to do, but she
was making it look like his idea. I started to like her as Sam drew
himself up.

“I think we should
monitor a session with your equipment from here and see how it
looks,” he said.

I caught Jack’s eye
and she turned away quickly, but not before I saw the sparkle of
wicked humour in her eyes.

“It’s too dangerous,”
Spider protested. “What if it happens again?”

“It should be okay,” I
reassured him. “We’ll know what’s happening. You’ll see the ghost
trace, Mark will know right away if I zone out, and I won’t panic
because I’ll know everybody else is on top of it.”

“But what if the ghost
won’t let you go this time?” Spider’s voice quavered. “What
if-”

“Then you shut down
the network session externally and kick me out,” I overrode
him.

“Aydan,
no!
You’ll go through hell again…”

I shrugged, trying to
hide how much I dreaded the possibility. “So Mark can shoot me
again. That worked. This sweatshirt is toast now anyway.”

“No! Don’t make her!”
Spider appealed to Jack, his face drawn with distress.

She laid a comforting
hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Even if we have to shut
down the network, Aydan won’t suffer like that again. Mark will be
ready to shoot her immediately this time.”

“It’ll take a few
seconds for me to get out of the network,” Richardson argued.

“I’ll shoot her,”
Smith volunteered.

Yeah, that was more
like the Smith I knew.

“Don’t worry, Aydan,
everything will be fine,” Jack soothed. “Just go in and create your
mountain sim. If anything happens, we’ll get you out.”

I cursed the trembling
of my hand as I reached for the network key. Jeez, don’t be such a
chickenshit. What could possibly go wrong?

“Mark?” My voice came
out sounding thin and pleading, and I cleared my throat and tried
again. “Are you ready?”

“Ready.” At least he
sounded strong and confident. Then again, he was a spy. He had to
be a good actor.

I clenched my teeth on
fear and stepped into the white void.

Richardson popped into
existence beside me. “Aydan, are you okay?” he asked immediately,
the tense lines in his face belying his calm, firm voice.

I sucked in a deep
breath. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“Try your mountain
sim,” Jack encouraged from somewhere above the void.

“Okay…”

The mountaintop sprang
into being around me, the intense blue of the sky matching the
glittering lake a thousand feet below. The wind sang through the
trees and whipped my hair around my face, carrying the powerful
scent of spruce. Far above, a hawk circled, its distant screech
floating down on the crystal air.

“Wow.” Richardson’s
quiet voice made me twitch. “This is even more real than the real
thing.”

I sank down to sit on
the rough sun-warmed stone, stroking my fingertip over the rock
wall beside me. At my touch, velvety green moss bloomed into a
shady nook and a stream of sparkling water sprang out of the
crevice to fling itself joyously over the edge of the sheer
cliff.

“Yeah.” I took in the
super-saturated colours and the minute detail of spruce needles,
clearly visible even miles away. “Guess I’m over-compensating a
bit.”

“Wow.” He leaned
against the rock, gazing across the wide vista, and I waited in
silence for my still-pounding heart to regain its normal
rhythm.

A few minutes later,
Jack’s sultry voice purred out of the virtual sky. “Everything
seems fine. Do you want to try some decryptions?”

“Sure.” Feeling
slightly more confident, I dissolved the mountain sim and made my
way to the file repository.

Some tedious
decryptions calmed my pulse more effectively than the mountain sim,
and at last I looked up with a yawn. “Jack? What do you think?”

“So far, so good,” she
replied cautiously. “Do you want to try the external network?”

“Are you sure that’s a
good idea?” Spider chimed in worriedly. “Richardson can’t go in and
get you if anything happens outside our network. You could be in
trouble and we’d never know.”

I tamped down the
quivers in my stomach. “I’d like to give it a try.”

“But, Aydan…”

“How about if I plan
to go in for five minutes? If I’m not back in five, just kick me
out of the network.”

“But, Aydan,” Spider
tried again. “We don’t know what will happen if you’re off in some
other network and we shut down your session. What if your
consciousness can’t get back into your body?”

That had always been
one of my worries, too, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Don’t
end it, then, just poke me with a pin or something to give me
enough pain that I get pulled out.”

“That’s barbaric,”
Jack snapped.

“But it’ll work. And
hey, then Smith will get to shoot me. That should make him
happy.”

“Very funny,” Smith
sniffed from above the virtual ceiling.

I reached toward
Richardson. “Let’s do it.”

His hand closed around
mine, his eyes solemn. “Good luck,” he said.

I took a deep breath
and vanished into the data stream.

I quivered in the busy
flow of data for a few moments but nothing untoward happened, so I
tentatively began to sniff packets for information. Out in the
public data tunnels, I let off-colour email jokes and boring
interoffice memos soothe me, and my five minutes quickly
evaporated.

When I snapped back
into the Sirius network, Richardson’s dimpled smile of relief
warmed my heart.

I groaned my way out
of the network and gradually straightened, managing not to swear
too loudly. My stomach let out a growl as I rose, and Richardson’s
humorously raised eyebrow made me smile back at him.

“I’m heading over to
the Greenhorn Cafe,” I told him. “I’ll get lunch there and stay
until three to do their books, so you might as well take a
break.”

“Actually, take the
rest of the afternoon off,” Jack said. “I want more time to analyze
this data, and I don’t want Aydan using the network again until I’m
convinced it’s safe. I’m going to work on this for a while and then
take a late lunch, so we won’t need you before tomorrow
morning.”

“Sounds good,” he
agreed, and rose to follow me out.

Spider sprang up.
“Aydan, hang on a sec. Would you have time to take on a little web
design project for me?” He widened his eyes theatrically, and I
controlled my urge to cast a shifty gaze around the office. His
overacting went mercifully unnoticed by the others as they
straggled toward the door, and I strolled over to pull up a chair
beside him at the desk.

“Sure. Do you want to
look at it right now?”

“That would be
perfect. Here, I’ll let you scroll through it first.” I hoped
Spider’s stilted tones wouldn’t alert the analysts on the other end
of the bug as I carefully extracted it from my change purse and
laid it in front of him.

In moments, he had
electronic equipment spread across the desk while he fiddled and
probed, frowning. A short time later, he straightened with a
sigh.

“It’s okay, it’s not a
bug.”

The air whooshed out
of me. “What is it, then?”

“It’s a locator. It
showed up on the scanner because it’s transmitting, but it’s not
transmitting sound, just your location. Like a GPS.”

“Oh. So that’s how
Richardson found me so easily in Calgary.” I thought that over for
a few seconds. “So I’ll have to carry it with me, or they’ll know I
removed it. But at least I know nobody’s listening in on me.” I
frowned at Spider. “Did you know they were going to do that? Do you
know who did it?”

Spider shook his head.
“I assume it’s on Stemp’s orders, but I didn’t know about it. They
must have just inserted it under that burn on your arm while you
were unconscious. They must have thought you’d never notice.”

“Let’s hope they still
think that,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I picked up the tiny
capsule and dropped it back into my change purse. “I guess I’ll
take my little electronic leash and get going then.”

My appearance at the
Greenhorn was greeted with jubilant exclamations and hugs, and a
delicious lunch and a couple of hours of soothingly predictable
bookkeeping helped ease my taut nerves.

On my way back to
Sirius, the small park beckoned. I pulled into the parking lot and
slipped out of the truck, gratefully stretching my legs in a brisk
walk through its treed perimeter. I was emerging into the open area
when the sound of children’s happy voices made me glance toward the
playground.

I dodged back into the
concealment of the trees to stand dumbly, my heart stuttering in a
calypso rhythm while I watched gorgeous Honey Travers and her two
perfect children frolicking with Kane.

Both children were
blond like their mother. The little girl’s golden ringlets bounced
as she tugged at Kane’s jacket, her angelic face pleading. She
looked about four years old, and as I watched, Kane swept her up
onto his massive shoulder as if she was made of thistledown. She
squealed her delight, clinging to his supporting arm.

Her brother, maybe a
couple of years older, lowered his buzz-cut blond head and charged
Kane in a mock tackle. Kane scooped him up, tucking the child under
his free arm like a squirming football while they both whooped and
laughed.

The joy in Kane’s face
was unmistakeable, every line of his body easy and relaxed. He
turned to face Honey, still laughing, and I dropped my gaze to my
boots, feeling like a voyeur.

As I turned away, I
glimpsed Honey with her hand resting on Kane’s chest, her beautiful
face alight with tenderness.

Back at Sirius
Dynamics, I was shuffling down the hall trying not to replay the
scene from the park when Stemp emerged from his office. I braced
myself.

Stay calm. Stay civil.
Do not pull out your gun and shoot the sonuvabitch, no matter how
much he deserves it.

“Ms. Kelly.” He gave
me his usual expressionless stare. “I haven’t received your choice
of cars yet.”

“Oh. Right, I forgot
about that.” I swallowed the urge to rip a strip off him for the
fact that I had to choose another car at all.

“I left the list,
along with the Widdenback dossier, on your desk. Please make a
choice by end of day.” He continued down the hall, and I made for
my office, seething silently.

When I opened the
folder, I felt my shoulders relax. It was better than I’d dared
hope. There were several sedans and SUVs, each with a complete spec
sheet including torque, displacement, and 0-to-60 time trials. None
of them were the latest model year, but they were all-wheel drive,
and all of them were more modern and powerful than my old
Saturn.

I pushed away my faint
feeling of disloyalty and let myself get excited. A new car! A
powerful new car! I spread the spec sheets out, grinning.

At last, I settled on
a Subaru Legacy and tiptoed down the hall to Stemp’s office, my
heart in my mouth. Now that I’d gotten excited about it, would he
snatch it away from me? Tell me he’d changed his mind, or somehow
sabotage me?

I tapped at his open
door and at his ‘come-in’ gesture, I stepped inside to slide the
spec sheet for the Legacy onto his desk.

He scanned the paper
and nodded. “Good choice. I’ll have it delivered to your farm.”

“Thanks,” I muttered,
and hurried out before anything could go wrong.

I was sitting at my
desk reading the dossier on my sleazy new cover identity when
Spider stuck his head in the doorway.

“How’s it going?” he
inquired.

I groaned. “Could
Stemp possibly have come up with anything cheesier? I’m sure he’s
just torturing me for fun. How did he think up all this crap,
anyway?”

I looked up to see
Spider’s face flush scarlet. “Um,” he said. “Sorry. Um… that was
probably my fault. Sorry.”

“
You
thought
this up?”

“No!” His flush
deepened. “No, I’d never do that to you! No, what I meant was,
Stemp assigned me to dig up plausible details for a new cover for
you, and I thought the best way to do it would be to run a quick
facial recognition search on the web to see if there were any close
matches I could work with or get ideas from…”

“Which was smart,” I
interrupted. “Fuzzy Bunny is doing that, too. But their facial
recognition program doesn’t seem to be as good as yours.”

“No, mine is really
good,” he agreed. “But then it started popping up all those
videos.” He turned even redder and concentrated on his shoe as it
scuffed at the carpet.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“I… looked at the first one… before I realized what it was.
Sorry.”