Sideswiped (2 page)

CHAPTER

TWO

E
lectronic dance music thumped through the walls. It made the swelling on Silas's head throb as he sat in the club's cramped security office. The outdated wood paneling and metal furniture from the '90s made him loath to touch anything, and he twitched his new Dolce & Gabbana suit coat clear of the cigarette burns and chip crumbs.

“Skinny-man models,” he muttered as his thick fingers skated competently across his tablet. You had four, maybe six years of lanky adolescence, and then it was gone. Why were all the models, and therefore all the suits, stuck there? Real men had shoulders and arms.

Thinking he was talking about the meat market/dance club visible through the club's grainy monitors, Professor Milo's secondary assistant chuckled. “Me, I like eating,” the man said, casting envious glances at Silas's state-of-the-art glass tablet spilling data in a crystalline, unending stream. Silas had justified getting it because of his work, but the truth of it was he just liked having the best.

The semitransparent data phased out, and Silas thunked the tablet against the desk to phase it back in.
Even if it doesn't work all the time.

Behind them, Professor Milo cleared his throat, and Silas focused on the biofeedback data rather than the screens. Per tradition, the anchor/drafter finals were not on Opti's training floor but in a real-life situation involving people oblivious to the fact. The electronic dance club was loud, noisy, and rife with distractions: the perfect microcosm of reality.

By rights, he shouldn't be here, seeing as he was close to two of the participants; Allen and he had been friends for years, and he and Summer had been living together for nearly as long. But it was still an exercise, meaning they had light pistols and slick-suits under their clubbing attire. Since he had designed both the suits and the basics behind the light pistols, he was the logical choice to be in the cramped back room monitoring them.
A room far too small for someone to have eaten garlic bread at dinner
, he thought, wincing.

Allen's and Summer's goal was a four-piece ribbon-tied box of chocolates sitting at a distant table, already in the possession of the first team on site, but Silas was tempted to text Allen to bring back a handful of mints from behind the bar instead. Possessing the chocolates was one thing; getting out with them was another.

The dish of rusted paperclips on the desk before him rattled in time with the music, and Silas moved it to a stained coaster. Satisfied with the data coming in from the four students' slick-suits, Silas shifted his weight on the rolling office chair to reach for his gum. The plastic crackled as he punched a square out, then he handed it around in a show of friendly impartiality. Professor Milo brusquely waved him off, but his assistant took one with a sheepish, knowing smile.

“Thanks,” the assistant whispered as he scooted closer, his eyes on the club's grainy monitors. “You don't know who the blonde is, do you? Damn, she looks good.”

Silas smirked, his fingers adroitly flashing over his tablet to log in the incoming data. Summer looked more than good in the flowing slitted skirt and blouse, the slick-suit a glistening hint under it from her neck to wrists to ankles, her hair cut to a short, safe length. She was an Amazon goddess in the spinning lights, sipping her orange juice and flirting as she waited for Allen to get into position before making a play for the box of chocolates. “That's my girlfriend.”

The technician jerked in surprise. “Oh,” he said, eyes flicking over Silas's iron-pumping physique. “Lucky you.”

“You got that right.” Contentment pulled him straighter as he checked his tablet. Allen's pulse was up, but Summer was an even metro­nome. Karen and Heidi across the dance floor were elevated as well, but that was not unexpected, seeing as they had the chocolate and were on the defensive.

He settled back, not liking the way the walls were rattling. He'd be getting no data for his thesis tonight. No one was going to draft—not with two teams on site. The chance someone might draft within a draft was too great. Double-drafting wasn't fatal, but it hurt. No, tonight would be decided by wits and the light pistols they all had, each shooting a harmless stream of particles that immobilized the section of slick-suit it impacted. It mimicked a gunshot, and Silas didn't like that Opti had taken his synaptic isolation technology and turned it into a gun.

A slow chime of warning from his tablet drew him forward. One of the resistors on Allen's suit wasn't reading right. After adjusting it, Silas leaned back again, his thick arms crossed over his chest as he tried to hide his concern that Professor Milo lurked behind him. It made him feel as if he were on trial as well.

No one liked his theory that drafting time wasn't moving back as much as it was sideways. He'd had to invent most of the instruments to gather his data, and the idea that Professor Milo might cut his funding before he had the chance to prove his theory was a real possibility. He'd been at it for six years and had nothing to show but a handful of gadgets. If not for the versatility of the slick-suits and light pistols, his funding would have been cut years ago.

The sensor on his tablet began pulsating again. Frowning, Silas toggled it back into normal range.

At the bar, Allen squinted through his thick black plastic safety glasses at one of the club's cameras, his long face tight with irritation as he hit a button on his phone. Silas's tablet dinged, and he thumbed the connection open. “What's the deal?” Allen said, the music half a second off from what was thumping through the walls.

Silas fitted an earpiece and took his tablet off speaker. “I'm reading excessive feedback. You're not feeling it?” he said softly.

Allen pushed the sleeve of his brightly patterned shirt up to show the phasing fabric of his slick-suit. Lanky and thin, he didn't need to get his suits specially tailored—apart from shortening the hems an inch or two.
But he doesn't look as good in them, either
, Silas thought smugly. Allen was too casual and scar-marked from countless BMX accidents to fit Opti's old image of the polished, sophisticated agent, especially when next to his partner, Summer, who did. But that was probably why they'd fast-tracked him.
And why they keep me in the labs
, Silas thought, his mood tarnishing.

“Knock it off,” Allen complained, his knobby hands pushing his sleeve back down. “You keep phasing it up like that, you're going to put my arm to sleep.”

Summer's throaty voice eased from the tiny speaker as she slipped behind Allen and tousled his short black hair. “You mind getting off the air, Silas? We're working here.”

“Hey, you called me.” Silas smiled as the connection ended, watching her through the monitor as she made her way to the dance floor, people moving either to get out of her way or to intercept her, depending upon what they thought their chances were. At the table across the room, Heidi and Karen finished their drinks fast. First on the scene did not translate into getting out with the take.

But Silas's brow furrowed when he spotted another drafter/anchor team ease past the thick-armed bouncers and half-stoned coat-check girls. His gaze flicked to Professor Milo, and then he hit the icon for Summer's phone. Almost instantly she answered, her dancing never faltering. “Summer. It's a gang bang.”

Still slowly making her way to Karen and Heidi's table, she scanned the club, finding Allen at the bar and nodding him closer. “Shit. Who?”

Silas studied the compact woman coming in and the dark man with the tightly trimmed beard beside her. “Beth and Ethan.”
Three drafters on site?
What are they thinking?

Professor Milo cleared his throat. Silas's neck reddened, and he muttered, “What? I'm allowed. I'm their backup.”

The professor leaned forward, his tall, gaunt form looming over him. “Drafters and anchors don't have backup,” he said as he jabbed Silas's connection closed. “And you are not their handler. Interfere again, and they fail.”

Chances were good they were going to fail anyway. There were three teams, and only one would walk out with that box of chocolate and the highest grade. Peeved, Silas pushed himself back into the chair, ignoring the six sets of slick-suit data now coming in. Summer touched her ear to show him she'd lost contact before tucking her phone away and laughing at something the man dancing with her had said.

Allen finally reached her, and Summer pointed out Beth and Ethan with a head toss. Silas could tell the instant their eyes met when Allen's lips curled. Beth and Ethan played without regard to convention or loyalty to any but themselves. The perfect agents.

Heidi and Karen's biodata were elevated, and as Ethan and Beth began to force their way from the door and through the crowd, Karen grabbed the chocolate, shoving it down her front as Heidi pushed her to the back. All they had to do was get out and it was over. But Opti would never make it that easy.

Summer and Allen had split up, and Silas pushed closer to the monitors. He'd lost Beth and Ethan.

“Everyone down!” he heard faintly through the pulsating walls, and then a scream overshadowed the music.

“There!” Milo's assistant pointed, and Silas watched through the monitor as Beth shot at the disco ball, sending the light beam ricocheting everywhere with a blinding flash.

Summer dropped. Heart in his throat, Silas looked at her slick-suit data. She was fine—simply getting out of the line of fire. Curling into a ball, she dodged the first flush of panicked, fleeing people as the music thundered. Ethan shoved people aside, trying for a clean shot, shouting in anger when Allen made a good hit and Ethan's slick-suit flashed white. The tall man dropped, out of the game, paralyzed.

Livid, Beth grabbed her partner's light pistol before diving out of the way, using a screaming woman as a shield as she made her way across the bar to the back, where a handful of people hammered on the locked back door, Heidi and Karen among them.

“This just got interesting,” Milo said, and Silas grimaced at his tablet. Twelve 911 calls had just gone out, not one of the agents-in-training on site thinking to block them. Even as he watched, three more flashed up. They had five, maybe six minutes. Going to jail would get them a failing grade as well.

“Give me the box and we all get out of here!” Beth shouted, and Karen pushed out from the cowering people. Heidi had reached the door and was working on the lock. She was small and clever, and Silas began to wonder if the all-woman team would make it out.

“As if,” Karen snarled, and then more screaming as she shot at Beth from across the dance floor, scoring on her legs. Beth dropped, paralyzed from the knees down.

The music cut off, and then Allen was on Karen, knocking her out with a front kick. “You
kicked
her?” Heidi exclaimed, outraged as Allen's hand rose with the chocolate.

“Summer!” he shouted, throwing it as Heidi slammed a roundhouse into his arm. The chocolate went spinning, and Beth, still somewhat functioning in her half-paralyzed slick-suit, crawled across the dance floor after it, groaning when Summer reached it first.

“Circle out, Allen!” Summer called, but Allen was down, having taken a light beam right to the chest. Pissed, she pointed at Heidi, then at Karen. Ripping open the box of chocolate, she jammed the four pieces in her mouth as she went to help Allen.

Outraged and red-faced, Karen began firing. Summer dove for the protection of the tables, her slick-suit on her right leg going white as she was nicked by a beam. “That's not fair!” Karen shouted, and Silas rose, his hands spread wide in helplessness as he stood before the monitors, not believing the chaos.

But the thunderous boom of a rifle in close quarters brought Karen up short.

Silas froze, scanning the monitors. A bouncer had gotten to the gun cabinet, a smoking rifle in his hand and bits of ceiling still falling down at his feet.

“No one move!” echoed through the walls, the sound of someone crying suddenly obvious.

“Shit.” Swallowing his gum, Silas bolted to the door, only to be yanked back by Milo's hand encircling his bicep.

“Sit down.”

“That's a real gun!” Silas pointed into the club, and Milo flicked his coat aside.

“So is this one,” he said, showing a Glock. “Sit,” he said again. “They should've planned for this. Let it play. If they can't get out of this, they deserve to fail.”

“Fail! What about dying?”

But Milo shook his head in warning, his thin lips pulled back in a sneer. “Sit. Down.”

The dangerous gleam in the professor's eye was a grim reminder that every one of their instructors had once been an active agent. Silas sat, his big hands clenched. Milo's assistant was wide-eyed but useless. Summer was out there, her leg paralyzed by his technology. His eyes shifted to his tablet.

The sudden wail of sirens pulled Professor Milo's attention away, and Silas lunged, toggling the slick-suits' paralyzation off in one swipe.

“You stupid man!” Milo shouted, and then Silas reeled, his ears ringing when Milo smacked him.

“This isn't a game!” Silas roared, and he rose in fear when another shot rang out, then another. Beth screamed in pain, then Ethan in anger. Both their data streams spiked.

“Summer!” Silas went for the door, but was brought down as Milo grabbed him about the knees. Silas hit the floor hard, stunned, when another shot rang out. Summer's cry of outrage cut through him, stopping his heart. Someone else had been shot. Allen or Summer?

“No one shoots my partner!” Summer shouted.

It's not her.

And then his tablet came alive when someone grabbed ahold of time and yanked it firmly backward.

Silas breathed in blue sparkles, watching the incoming data flow across the screen as it gathered information about the shifting localized gravity, Doppler particles, and the minute shift of light that defined a drafter's reach. Ethan could draft more than a minute into the past, but he could only physically affect a circular block. Heidi had never exceeded ten seconds, but her reach was a breathtaking mile across. This one had the tight wavelength of Summer, and he suddenly found himself back at the desk instead of flat on the floor.