The Drafter (49 page)

“Here he comes,” Jack said as Silas approached, two ceramic mugs in his hands.

“Try this,” Silas said as he put the one with the cinnamon stick before her with a satisfied firmness. “I guarantee you'll like it.”

Silas began to sit, and she watched in amazement when Jack all but fell out of the chair, scrambling to get out of the way and swearing as he strove to maintain the illusion that he was real. Oblivious, Silas took his place, clearly eager for her to try the frothy, steamy drink.

It looked like it had too much milk, but she took a taste, turning it into a long draft when she found it creamy but not too rich, spicy without hiding the nutty flavor. Eyes closing, she held a swallow on her tongue, savoring it. “That's good,” she said, and Silas beamed, sipping his own straight-up black coffee. “You're an anchor, aren't you,” she said, and he hesitated. The all-too-familiar feeling of having said something stupid came over her. She should know that already.

“Sort of.” Silas drew his tablet back to himself. “How did you guess?”

Peri stared out at the commons, trying to let it go. “Trained anchors have a feel about them that's easy enough to pick up on. You've never worked in the field before, though.”

“You're not nearly smart enough,” Jack said snidely as he fingered a display of silk ties.

“You're not nearly careful enough,” she said, wishing Jack would shut up. Silas had said he was tied to her intuition. Apparently something about Silas bugged her. Smiling, Peri hoisted the coffee. “Thank you. This is good.”

“I saw your diary. When I was an unwilling guest at Opti,” Silas added at her sudden disquiet. “I'm sure half of it was invented to scare me, but they left enough of you in there to convince me it wasn't fake. It's something you said you liked last year, so . . .”

Not knowing if she should be flattered or creeped out, Peri watched their mules interact. “You figured I wouldn't remember it. No, I don't. Thank you. I appreciate you giving this back to me.”

“Blah, blah, blah.” Scraping his blond hair out of his eyes, Jack tried on a black tie. “You have an expiration date, babe. Cut to the chase.”

Silas was clearly pleased. “I thought it might make you feel more like yourself.”

“It does.” Peri leaned back, ankles crossed as she tried to relax, not liking that he knew more about her than she did. “How long until Howard gets here? I left Allen doped up, and if I'm not there when he wakes, they'll know I pulled the tracker.”

Head down, Silas looked through the coats, trying several on to make Peri's mule clap her hands. “He's on his way. How are you doing?”

Jack snorted, and, surprised, her head rose. “How am I doing? Seriously?”

Silas looked up. “Yes. How are you doing? I can't ask that?”

Peri darted a look at Jack, now on the stage with the other beautiful pretend people. “I'm pretty confused right now,” she said sarcastically. “Forgive me, but I've got this memory of you shoving Allen through a window—”

“That's fake,” he interrupted.

“We know that, dumbass,” Jack said loudly, and Peri set her mug down hard.

“I know that.” She hadn't meant it to sound nasty, but that's how it came out, and she touched his hand to convince him she wasn't mad. “It would take more than the weight of one man to break the window. It's supposed to be bulletproof.” She furrowed her brow, angry at herself for having trusted so blindly.

“Do you want me to fragment these fake memories?” Silas said, and she shook her head. It was all she had, false or not. “You don't trust me yet,” Silas said. “That's okay.”

Annoyed, she shifted her mug around. “It's not about trust. It's about me needing to make the right responses, and if you take them away, I won't. You were an Opti psychologist, weren't you? Until Opti fired you?”

He stiffened. “I
quit
Opti. They didn't fire me.”

Peri took a deep breath, ready to broach what had been on her mind since last night. “Silas, that picture you gave me triggered a memory knot of Jack and me.”

Silas's expression blanked. “Are you okay? Have any more snarled up?”

“No. And I don't know why except that the knot was of a real memory, not twin timelines,” she said, wanting him to say it would be okay.
How could something that beautiful be bad?
“Even if Jack was lying to me, even if he was a bastard and used me, I felt centered that night. Beautiful. Safe.” Silas followed her gaze to the simulations, not seeing Jack standing beside her and Silas's mules like a jealous boyfriend.

“Mmmm.” Silas's sudden worry was obvious. “He's here now, right?”

She nodded and Jack blew a sarcastic kiss at them. “Here comes the psychobabble BS,” Jack said. “Ignore it, babe. He doesn't have a clue what's going on.”

“I wouldn't worry about the memory knot,” Silas said. “As long as they aren't centered around twin timelines, they're just your way to remember artificially destroyed memories.”

Artificially destroyed . . . They can do that?

“But what about Jack?” she asked, setting her outrage aside for the moment. Opti had lied to her about everything else, why not the missing time associated with a draft, too?

Silas shrugged. “Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't broken up. But if he's still there, then the twin timelines I left in you are still there, too.”

“You left twin timelines in me?” she whispered hotly, lowering her voice when the man cleaning Silas's coat intruded to hang it up on the purchase rack near her chair. Warm, Peri leaned over the table. “What kind of an anchor are you?”

“A damn good one. You're still sane, aren't you?” he said tightly, eyes on the man as he went into the back room. That was debatable,
and he shifted under her accusing stare. “The proof that Opti is corrupt is in your mind. I couldn't fragment either line without destroying the truth,” he finally admitted. “I tied three years of latent memories of Jack to your intuition so the inevitable hallucinations would distract you from tearing your mind apart. Peri, I'd take you in to the alliance myself and defrag them, but without something to prove your loyalty to them, they'll scrub you themselves.”

Scrub as in artificially destroy
. Peri slumped in the seat and stared at him, her trust in Opti falling utterly apart. “I'm just a big Etch A Sketch, huh? Don't like what you see? Give me a good shake, and write what you want.” It was getting easier to say, but the bitterness was chiseled deeper with every new realization.

“That's not true. Peri, you're in control of your own destiny.”

“Bull,” she said calmly, angry as she turned off her mule so she wouldn't have to look at it up there with Silas and Jack. “My actions stem from what I remember, and my memories are a made-up mix of lies and falsehoods. And now you tell me the years I've lost are
artificial
?” she said, voice rising. “I trusted my anchor to tell me what decision to make until I remembered everything—and he betrayed me.
Don't
tell me I'm in control of my destiny until you've lived without knowing what's real and what's not.”

Her soul hurt, and she didn't want to talk about it anymore. On the stage, Silas's mule became sad, straightening his tie and tugging his coat as if finding his courage to start again.

“I want asylum, Silas. Can you give it to me or not?”

Silas rubbed the back of his neck and turned his simulation off as well. With a snort, Jack wandered away, heading for the half-dressed mules in the front window. Peri hoped he'd leave. “If that's the chip we want? Probably,” Silas said. “Let me see it.”

She pulled her purse up and onto her lap. “God help me,” she said as she took out her keys and wedged the bell off the key ring. Damn it, she was going to trust him, and she watched herself, unbelieving when she just gave it to him.

The bell looked tiny in his hand, and he squinted at the chip. “Huh,”
he said softly. “How lucky is it that he put it on the one thing that made it out of your apartment.”

She nodded. The collar had dagazes all over it, but only she or Jack would know that made it important. “That cat is the only thing that feels real to me. Apart from my car and a bag of yarn,” she said.

Silas tucked the bell away. “If Howard says it's the list, I'll call you.”

Her head snapped up. “Call! I want to go now,” she complained, and Kelly, coming to check on them, turned and went back into the back room.

Mistrust flared when he shook his head. “Opti doesn't know you broke the memory implants, do they?” Silas said. “You should be okay for a day or two. Once we get it uncoded, the alliance will grant you asylum.”

“This sucks,” she said bitterly. Maybe she wasn't as nice as she thought. She had killed her own anchor, after all—and she'd
loved
him. “Please don't betray me. If you do, I'll have to kill you.” Angry at herself for having trusted him, she stood. “I'll probably have to kill you anyway, but I'd rather do it because I was told to, not because you lied to me.”

“Peri . . .” In a rush, Silas stood. Breath held, she waited, making a fist around her note to herself, hiding it. “Peri, about Jack.” He hesitated until she looked up. “If you have an issue with Jack not suppressing the twin lines, any at all, forget Opti and find me. Try not to draft in the meantime. Even in the best case, Jack will be able to repress the twin timelines only so long, and then you will—”

“Yes, I know, MEP,” she finished, the threat so constant it had lost a lot of its bite. “Don't call me. I'll call you. Tomorrow. If I run, don't follow me. Got it?”

She turned and walked out. Hunched into her coat, she hustled back to the elevated, feeling Silas's eyes on her every step of the way. Her heart pounded as she took the stairs, her world seeming to shift and realign to something new and far more dangerous.

“Jack?” she whispered, and he was suddenly beside her on the stair.

“Yes, Peri?”

She halted on the platform, the wind in her hair fresher as she
looked straight up into the camera, not caring if it recognized her. All she had was this instant. To try to remember her past would drive her insane. But for the first time, she found strength in it, not fear.

“Don't leave me yet,” she said. She'd seen what happened when drafters fell into memory-eclipsed paranoia. Unable to trust anyone, they usually killed themselves to make the confusion stop.

“Never,” he said, and somehow, she thought that even more dangerous.

P
eri halted outside Allen's apartment door, her hand falling when she saw that the fortune cookie slip she'd left between the door and frame was gone.
Great
. “I'm going to go nucking futs,” she breathed, glancing up and down the empty hallway.

She could walk away, find Silas, and hope to God that chip was Jack's list.

She could pretend she'd drafted and lost her memory of the entire morning, which would result in Opti rehab and ultimately another scrub.

She could admit that she'd taken out the tracker and be the pissed, angry drafter. She could let her temper go. She could demand some answers. Make a reckoning.

The choice was obvious, and squaring her shoulders, she tried the knob to find the door was unlocked. Tucking Allen's key in her purse, she walked into an empty, silent room. There was a small strip of medical tape on the kitchen counter, the tracking bug still stuck to it.

So it's going to be like that, then
. “A-A-A-Allen!” she exclaimed, eyes narrowing at the small noise from the bedroom. “Get your ass out here. I've got some questions for you.” She faced away from the bedroom door as she took off her coat, watching her back through the dim reflection of the closed fireplace doors. But she turned in surprise when it
was not Allen but Bill who walked out, dressed in his usual suit and tie, his office shoes gleaming and his hair combed to perfection—a soothing, utterly convincing smile on him.

Peri, you work with actors
, she thought as she finished folding her coat and let it fall on the couch.
And not lame ones, either
, she added as Allen shuffled out behind Bill in his pajama bottoms and a white shirt, still rumpled and stubbly from sleep but very much awake.

“Peri,” he said darkly, rubbing his arm where she'd injected him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“My question exactly,” she said with a bold confidence she wasn't sure she could back up. Maybe the medical office had called Bill, since he was the one who had set up the original appointment. “Should I be pissed at Allen or you about the butt bug?”

Bill's smile widened as if it was a big joke. “Me. It was for your safety.”

“Bullshit.” Arms crossed, she sucked on her teeth, eyes flicking from one to the other as the men exchanged a silent look that screamed volumes. They were both in on it. She hadn't been sure until just now. “Bill, can I have a private word?”

“Ah, hey . . .” Allen lurched forward only to be jerked to a halt by Bill's raised hand.

“I think that is an excellent idea. Allen, make some coffee.”

“And keep the drugs out of it,” Peri added as she crossed the living room to the den, standing outside it as she pushed the door open with one arm and waited for Bill.

Clearing his throat, Bill rocked into motion. Peri's eye twitched as he passed within inches of her, smelling of cologne and his breakfast. Pulse fast, she followed him, shutting the door and leaning back against it. Bill was standing with his rump resting on the edge of the desk. Reaching a foot out, Peri closed the lid to the laptop to prevent any easy eavesdropping.