Never Say Spy (14 page)

I groaned my way out of bed at six o’clock the next morning.  Germain’s search of the garage had turned into a gabfest about my cars, and it had been a late night.  At two A.M., I’d woken to the sound of car doors slamming as Wheeler traded shifts with Germain.

While I waited for my toast, I peeked out the window.  Wheeler crossed the yard, on his way to my shed.  As I watched, Germain drove up and joined him, their breath rising in clouds of vapour.  The temperature had dropped overnight, and I didn’t envy them their chilly task.

Breakfast finished, I took a stab at organizing the mess until 9:45, when I stood in front of my closet for a long moment, scowling at my business clothes.

I hate dressing up.

I shrugged and decided to skip it.  Eddy was so delighted to have a bookkeeper, he wouldn’t care if I showed up naked and covered in mud with a bone in my nose.

I snorted amusement.  Hell, he was male, who was I kidding?  I could probably charge extra if I showed up naked and covered in mud.  I compromised with a pair of girly jeans and a nice sweater.  March weather isn’t compatible with nudity.

When I stepped out onto the porch, Germain and Wheeler emerged from the shed empty-handed, looking grey and tired in the morning light.

I called across the yard, “I need to go into town.  Is it okay if I arm the alarm system?”

“No problem, we’re done here anyway,” Wheeler responded.

“So I’m in the clear?”

“Looks like it so far,” Germain said.  “Have a good day.”

They got in their car and drove off, and I went out to my truck, shivering in the biting north wind.

In town, I drove directly to the tiny computer and electronics store that doubled as the local outlet for telephone and satellite services.  I left the store with a disposable cell phone, and tested it by dialling Kane’s number.

“Kane.”  His deep, husky voice tickled my eardrum.

“Hi, it’s Aydan Kelly.  Did I wake you again?”

“No.  I just had a late night and an early morning.  I haven’t had enough coffee yet.”

“I’m calling to let you know I picked up a disposable phone.  I wanted to give you the number because I’m going to be seeing clients today and I won’t be at home.”

“Good.  We may need you to come over to Sirius again this afternoon.  I’ll be in touch.”

Oh, lucky me.

I drove over to Blue Eddy’s and parked in the empty lot.  The doors were locked, but I went around to the back and knocked as we’d agreed the previous night.  Eddy let me in with a jubilant smile and led me into a cramped office, where I eyed the ledger book, folders, and shoeboxes full of receipts with trepidation.

“I’ll need a few minutes to look this over, and then we can talk and figure out what you need done,” I told him.

“Take your time.”  He left the office with obvious relief.  A few minutes later, I heard someone playing a boogie-woogie piece on the piano.  The rollicking bass line made me grin, swaying my body and tapping my toes.  When I peeked out the door, Eddy glanced up and stopped playing.  “Sorry, is this bothering you?”

I beamed my delight at him.  “If you keep playing like that, I’ll have to pay you for the privilege of doing your books.”

“Well, in that case, let me run up your bill,” he chuckled, turning back to the keyboard.

I went through the books and discovered his previous bookkeeper had been accurate and efficient.  Everything was in order until three months ago.  After that, chaos reigned.  I went to the door again.  “Okay, I think I’ve got the big picture.  Let’s work out what you need me to do here.”

After hashing out a plan and agreeing on a fee, Eddy left me to sift through his paperwork and decide what to take with me to begin his conversion to a computerized system.

When he returned about fifteen minutes later, he set a plate down in front of me with a flourish.  The aroma of the big burger and home-cut fries made my stomach roar its eagerness.

“It’s lunch time, and I’ve seen you eat, Hungry Aydan,” he said.  “On the house.  Thanks for saving my butt.”

I grinned.  “You want to be careful, Eddy.  You know what happens when you feed a stray cat.  She keeps coming back looking for more.”

He laughed.  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

My cell phone rang, making me jump.  When I answered, Kane’s voice dragged me back to reality.  For the past couple of hours, I’d been happily immersed in normalcy, and it was an unpleasant jolt to remember I was still in trouble with the law.

“Aydan, can you come down to Sirius?” he asked.  “Smith has been tweaking the security, and he needs you to test it.”

I blew out a long breath.  “I’m just finishing up with a client, and I need to eat lunch.  I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Check in at the security desk on the main floor, and they’ll call me to come and get you from the lobby.”

I hung up with trembling hands.  What if I couldn’t convince Kane of my innocence?  I’d lose my delightful new client, my new farm, my new life.

“Is everything okay?” Eddy asked.

“Fine.  I’ve just been a little sleep-deprived lately, and I guess it’s catching up with me.”  I secretly crossed my fingers to dilute the lie.  “And my next client is pretty demanding.”

Eddy shot me a smug look.  “Glad I snapped you up early.  You’re busy already.”

I summoned up a smile.  “Nice to be a hot commodity.”

My feet dragged as I approached Sirius’s bland stucco facade.  I could think of a number of things I’d rather do than go back inside that building.  Things like dropping a bowling ball repeatedly on my toes.

I squared my shoulders and went in.  At the security cage I requested Kane, then sat in one of the lobby chairs and tried to concentrate on staying in the present reality.  I wasn’t feeling hopeful about Smith’s security tweaks.

Kane appeared to collect me within minutes, apparently not trusting me to stay out of the network any more than I trusted myself.

When we arrived at the meeting room, Smith and Spider were waiting.  Smith was still wearing the same shirt, although I detected some fresh food stains.  If possible, he smelled even worse than the previous day.

“What took you?” Smith demanded.  “Don’t you realize how critical this issue is?”

“Sorry.”  I attempted to sound regretful.  “I got tied up with a client.”

“Well, don’t just sit there.  See if you can get in.”

As before, I looked to Kane for confirmation.  “Go ahead, Aydan,” he encouraged.

I rubbed the frown lines between my eyebrows, procrastinating.  The three men eyed me expectantly.

Smith straightened, smiling.  “You couldn’t get in, could you?”

“I haven’t tried yet.”

His face fell.  “Well, hurry up!”

I sighed again.  I wanted to be anywhere but here.  I wanted to be home…

I stood on the hill above my house, looking out over the rolling land.  A chilly wind sifted fine snow over me and I shivered, pulling a warm jacket out of nothingness and putting it on.  Seconds later, Smith and Kane materialized behind me.

“Dammit,” Smith snapped.  “How are you doing that?”

“I wish I knew.”

Another man popped into existence beside us, staring incredulously around him.  “What the…?” he demanded, and then shivered.  “What the hell are you doing creating a construct in the portal?”

Smith stared him down.  “We are performing network security tests,” he said haughtily.  “You might as well go right back out, because I’m going to close all network sessions in fifteen minutes anyway.”

“How am I supposed to get anything done?  You’ve been locking us out every half hour all day,” the man grumbled, but he turned and vanished through the portal.

Smith turned to me.  “Will you turn off the damn snow?”

“Sorry.”  I waved a hand to dissolve my simulation.

Construct, the man had called it.  And apparently it was a no-no to create a construct in the portal.  In my corridor simulation yesterday, the hallways had been lined with doors.  Maybe that’s what they were for.

Smith interrupted my speculations by speaking in a loud, firm voice.  His voice seemed to surround us as he announced, “Attention.  All network sessions will be terminated in fifteen minutes.  Please conclude your work and exit the network immediately.  Thank you.”

Seconds later, my corridor simulation reappeared, but I didn’t think I’d been the one to create it.  Several people emerged from the doors that lined the virtual hallway and straggled toward us, griping.  They all gave Smith hostile looks as they went through the portal, which I could now see as a doorway marked ‘Exit’.  Guess I wouldn’t need the holodeck simulation any more.

Smith turned to Kane and me.  “You might as well go out, too.  I’m going to give a five-minute warning, and then I’ll come out and shut the whole thing down.  Again.”

“All right,” Kane agreed.  He turned to me.  “Let’s go.”

I gritted my teeth and stepped through the door.  Sure enough, the pain hit me instantaneously.  Resigned, I swore as quietly as possible.

When I pried my eyes open, Spider was looking disappointed.  “Not your finest work.”

“It’s been a long day,” I growled.  “Next time somebody shoves your brain through a cheese grater, remind me to critique your vocabulary.”

I rubbed my temples while we waited for Smith to come out of his trance.  This was the first time I’d been able to observe someone at close range while they accessed the network, and I watched him curiously.  He sat immobile in his chair, staring straight ahead.  The thousand-yard stare, Connor had called it.

“What if there’s a fire alarm or something?” I asked.  “Does his body retain any consciousness or physical sensation at all?”

“Oh, yes,” Spider responded.  “Any touch or sudden sound in the physical reality will bring people back out of the network.  It’s just like waking up someone who’s sleeping.”

“So here’s another question.  What would happen if I created a construct in the network, let’s say, a cliff, and then I fell off the cliff in my simulation.  And I believed it was really happening to me, so I fell to my death.  In the simulation, I mean.  What would happen to my real physical body?”

“Unless you had a heart condition and you gave yourself a heart attack out of sheer terror, you’d probably just wake up back in reality,” Spider said.  “Just like a nightmare.”

“But I never actually die in my nightmares,” I argued.  “I always wake up right before I die.”

“That would probably happen in the simulation, too.”

“Let’s hope so.  It’d be a little tricky to explain to the Workers’ Compensation Board otherwise.”

Smith blinked and straightened.  “Okay,” he said.  “In five minutes, I’m going to bring down the entire network.  Then I’m going to lock it down so it accepts only my login and excludes everybody else, even those with administrator privileges.  I’ll block everything but my own biometric ID.  We’ll see if that keeps you out.”

“I’m sure it will,” I said hopefully.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced.  “We’ll see.”

Ten minutes later, Smith looked up from his laptop.  “Try it now.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  And stood back on my hilltop, shivering.

Smith popped into existence.  “Dammit, this is impossible!” he yelled, waving his arms.  “This can’t be happening!  You aren’t me!  Our biometric information is completely incompatible!”  He seized me by the shoulders and shook me violently.  “How are you doing it?  How?  Tell me!”

I twisted free and backed away.  “I told you, I don’t know!”

He churned his hands in his lank, greasy hair.  “You must have a fob.  A skeleton key.  Something that totally overrides all security protocols.  Where is it?  Where have you hidden it?”

“I don’t have anything.  Kane searched me himself yesterday.”

“Kane searched you.  I think I need to search you.”  He made another grab for me, but I darted away and dove through the portal.

Brilliant agony slashed me while the world looped end over end.  The sound of my own screams was deafening.  My body thrashed and jerked beyond my control, mindlessly struggling to escape the torment.  A tumult of noise slowly resolved itself into a voice shouting, “Aydan!  Aydan, hold still!  It’s Kane, you’re safe, hold still!  Aydan!”

I went limp, still keening while waves of pain hammered my head.  Black splotches began to overtake my blindness.  The splotches lightened and I glimpsed Kane’s face above me, shot through with brilliant flashes of colour.

His voice was quieter now.  “Aydan, stay with me.  You fell, but you’re going to be all right.  Just stay with me.”

I blinked furiously, willing the spinning colours to subside.  Gradually, the pain receded and the meeting room swam into focus.  I lay on the floor.  Kane was on his knees, supporting my head and shoulders while Spider and Smith hovered on each side of me, white-faced.

“Ow,” I croaked.  “Fuck.”  Something tickled my nose, and I pawed at it clumsily, generating fresh pain.  “Ow,” I repeated.

“That seems a little inadequate,” Spider quavered.

I squinted up at him.  “Always with the criticism.”  My voice shook with the tremors that still vibrated my body.  I swiped at my nose again, a little more carefully this time.  My hand came back smeared with red.

“You hit your face when you fell, but I don’t think your nose is broken,” Kane reassured me.

His arms felt so good I had to resist an inappropriate urge to snuggle a little closer.  I reminded myself that ‘blood and snot’ probably wasn’t an alluring look for me, and the momentary desire trickled away into embarrassment.

“I’m okay now,” I mumbled.  “Other than I probably need to wash my face.”  I struggled upright, and Kane helped me into a chair.

“What happened?” he asked.  “Was it the beefed-up security that caused such a bad reaction?”

I scrounged a tissue out of my waist pouch and dabbed at my nose with a shaking hand.  “Hard to say.  It could have been that, or it could have been that I hit the portal at a full run.”

“Why were you running?”

I jabbed my chin toward Smith.  “He attacked me.”

Kane turned to Smith, frowning.

“She’s lying,” Smith snapped.  “I caught her trying to access the restricted files, and I chased her out.”

I erupted from my chair, fists clenched.  “You filthy lying shitbag-”  I bit off the incipient stream of abuse and jerked my scowl over to Spider instead.  “Show the data record!”

“The portal monitoring was disabled for the test,” Smith said smoothly.

I took a step toward him, rage swelling inside me.  “How very convenient for you,” I whispered, not trusting my voice.  Kane’s large hand wrapped around my arm.  I shook him off.  “I’m going to wash my face,” I hissed, and stalked out of the room.

Kane was right behind me.  “Aydan, you know I can’t-”

“Can’t let me out of your sight, I know.  You can come into the ladies, or I’ll go into the men’s, I don’t care.  I’m just going to wash my face.  Your choice.”

“Men’s,” he decided, stepping into the room ahead of me and scanning it briefly for occupants.  “Come in.”

I went straight to one of the sinks and started running the water.  In the mirror, I saw Kane prop the door open with the garbage can.  “Yeah, maybe you should get Spider to chaperone,” I snarled.  “You wouldn’t want me to falsely accuse you.”

He met my eyes in the mirror.  “I don’t believe you’d do that.”

I regarded him for a moment.  “Thanks.”

I splashed water on my face, cleaning away the smeared blood.  Kane handed me a paper towel, and I patted my face dry, checking the mirror to make sure I’d got it all.  My nose was red and puffy.

I plucked at the smears of blood on my good sweater and growled frustration.  “I’m never going to dress up again.”

Kane leaned on the counter beside me.  “Aydan.”  I met his serious grey eyes.  “Were you hurt in the simulation?”

“No.  Smith was upset that I’d gotten in, and he got a little physical.  Then he decided I hadn’t been adequately searched, and tried to take matters into his own hands.  So to speak.  That’s when I left.”

Kane’s face darkened, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.  “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.  Let’s finish this.”  I turned and left, and he followed me back to the meeting room.

I took my seat.  “Okay, we need to find out whether it was the extra security or the speed of the exit that caused the problem for me.”  I glared at Smith.  “Shall we step into the network and find out?”

“No,” Kane said.  “This time I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t,” Spider countered.

“Yes, I can.  Set it up.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Spider explained.  “In order to properly test this, all the parameters have to remain the same except the way Aydan exits the portal.  If we change anything, it could change the outcome.  We’d never know whether it was a valid result or not.”

I nodded agreement.

“Aydan, you don’t have to do this,” Kane said.  “I can’t ask you to put yourself through that again.”

I summoned up some bravado.  “Yes, I do have to do this.  I want this resolved.  It would be nice to avoid another faceplant, though, so if you could prop me up in my chair, I’d appreciate it.  I’ll go into the network first.  Smith can follow me.  If I don’t come out within fifteen seconds of him going in, wake me from here.”  I gave Smith a hard look.  “Let’s go, Smith.”

Smith fiddled with his collar, his gaze sliding away from mine.  “This really isn’t necessary.  We’ve established that she can bypass the security.  That’s all I needed to know.”

“That’s not all I need to know,” I growled.  “Come on.”  This time I willed myself into a white void, not bothering with a simulation.

A few seconds’ delay made me think Smith wouldn’t come.  When he finally popped into existence, he was looking fearful.  Rightly so.  My fist was already on its way to his face.

Pain shot through my knuckles as his nose squished sideways under them.  I followed up with a solid kick to his nuts and watched while he folded.  Then I turned back to the portal, taking a deep breath.

The memory of the devastating agony was so fresh I hesitated for a long moment, swallowing the tightness in my throat.  Smith’s strangled groans reminded me I couldn’t afford to stick around until he recovered.  I clenched my teeth and stepped through.