Virtually Hers (14 page)

“Five-One! Five-One! Calm down! Listen to my voice. Disengage. Change channel, disengage and return here. Do you hear me?”

Disengage. Change channel. Yes, yes, yes, disengage!
His monitor’s use of his trigger released the mass that was holding him captive.

“Disengage,” he whimpered, pushing with his hands, trying to crawl backwards from all that white noise, that invading thickness in his head. “Change channels.” Change all the fucking channels.

He opened his eyes. He was curled into a ball. He screamed when someone touched him.

“What’s wrong, Five-One? What happened there?” his monitor’s voice asked in the distance.

“He’s fucking losing it,” another voice said.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t explain to these morons about recording energies, that he was after their precious super spy’s sexual aura. He couldn’t explain what had just happened. He didn’t know what had caught hold of him and squeezed the life out of him like that. He had had every available channel open on record and he’d absorbed the running man’s energy as he went through him. Pain and shame. Amplified dozens of times.

He curled tighter into a ball. And wept.

***

“She can’t stand up properly,” Armando said.

After making sure no one was coming around both corners, Jed turned to look behind him. Armando was on his feet, trying to help Helen up. She looked pale.

Jed checked the corridors again and tapped at the intercom by the wall. “Eight Ball,” he said. “There was no warning of any intruders. Are you sure the micro-eyes haven’t been compromised?”

“Nothing’s compromised, dude. I saw everything. There were no hostiles involved except for Armando running toward you guys,” the computer reported back. “Checking all entranceways. Every known body one hundred percent accounted for. Nice leap, Bruce Lee-style, dude, with all that killer hair flying around.”

Jed relaxed just a little. If Eight Ball had seen what happened, then the signals hadn’t been switched. If so, then what was that all about? Just before it happened, Helen had felt something…but she wasn’t herself today. “Make copies of the whole incident for review,” he ordered.

“Done, dude.”

He turned back to Armando and Helen. She was leaning on Armando for support.

“I think I reinjured my leg when I fell,” she explained. “It’s just feeling a bit tender.”

Jed gave her a quick look-over. Other than her favoring one leg, she seemed okay. He wanted to know more about what preceded Armando charging them, but first things first.

“Why did you run toward Helen like that, Armando?” he asked quietly. The man had acted as if he knew Helen was in danger. “Were you looking for her?”

“I was chasing the Cheshire Cat,” Armando said solemnly, “and he led me here.”

“I don’t have time for puzzles right now, Chang,” Jed warned. He wasn’t chancing anything happening to Helen.

Armando shrugged. “I’m explaining it the only way that could be understood. I’m always after the Cheshire Cat. I see parts of something and I want to see the rest. This time, the Cat’s tail ran ahead and I felt danger, so I decided to chase him. And there you two were at the end of my tunnel.”

“But there was no danger,” Jed pointed out. Except Helen had said she felt danger…

“I felt something was wrong too,” Helen said, echoing his thoughts.

“That you could see,” Armando chimed in at the same time. He flicked his hair back and shrugged. “I don’t know any other analogy to explain what was happening to me.”

“So you two sensed danger and somehow crossed paths right here,” Jed said, eyeing both of them speculatively. Was it coincidental that these two, who had used the latest version of the serum, had sensed something that wasn’t there? “Simultaneously? Eight Ball, track back to the earliest shot of Armando in the hallway.”

“Program initiated,” Eight Ball replied. “Location?”

“Where were you exactly?” Jed asked.

Armando shrugged again in answer and hooked a thumb in his black leather belt, bracing his weight so Helen could lean on his arm. “I was having one of my weird blind attacks while I was walking on the floor above this one. I didn’t have far to run. What about you two? Why were you here at this time?”

“Just done with debriefing,” Jed replied, studying Armando closely. Blind attacks meant the younger man was in pain. “I thought the attacks were getting rarer.”

Armando ignored his comment, and instead cocked a dark eyebrow at Helen. “Debriefing with Hell? Fascinating.”

Jed said nothing, waiting for Eight Ball as well as Armando, staring intently at the younger man, looking for clues. Armando was in one of his moods. It was in the bored tone of his voice, the little furrow in his brow, which he knew appeared when the younger man had another migraine attack. When his own schedule was a little lighter, he was going to resume training him, but for now, it was up to Heath. Right at this moment, he just wanted to get to the bottom of what just happened. He watched as Armando took Helen’s hand in his, looking deeply into her eyes.

“How’s the chosen one’s hypothalamus doing?” Armando continued.

Most people paused, smiled politely, looked puzzled, or frowned whenever Armando asked one of his offbeat questions. But Helen wasn’t anyone. Jed had had many months of looking into those brown eyes on the screen and knew every nuance in their expression. He had seen that barely discernible calculating look entering those hazel eyes before, many times, while being tested during training. He blinked. She was in GEM mode.

“It’s functioning,” she said. “How’s yours?”

“Mine hasn’t been tricked by drugs lately,” Armando mocked. “My neuro-hormones haven’t been overproducing but all this sexy talk might start the process.”

“I’m beginning to realize that certain drugs have a habit of tricking the user for longer than they think, Armando,” Helen said, the careless casualness in her voice catching Jed’s attention. For two people who had just collided with the floor, these two were acting way too calmly. “Are you so sure there’s nothing wrong with your limbic system?”

She’d obviously paid attention to all the doctors and scientists at the group debriefings, Jed noted, slightly amused such mundane talk would include the hypothalamus and brain stem. During the ones he’d attended when the first version of the SYMBIOS serum was introduced, he’d sat through hours of lectures about how the drug could, would, and should affect the hypothalamus, the part of the brain in control of body temperature, hunger, thirst, emotions, and—he slid another glance at Helen—sexual activity.

Nothing new. Except he didn’t like the way those two were standing so closely together, as if they were having a private communication. He pushed away the sudden urge to interrupt. Something else was happening here and he wasn’t going to let his personal feelings come between him and finding the answer.

Jed looked at Armando again. Helen’s problem had been pinpointed.

Sort of. But what about Armando? The man admitted to migraines and periods of blindness that lasted up to an hour. None of the scientists and doctors had come up with an explanation. Almost the same drug, but different effect. What else wasn’t he telling them?

“Location confirmed, yo,” Eight Ball’s surfer lingo added another odd touch to the ongoing conversation. “Agent Chang’s location was exactly right above where you and Hell were standing four feet back from your current location. Using Agent Sullivan’s words, dudes, woo-woo simpatico shit.”

Armando looked surprised for a moment, then burst out laughing. Helen grinned.

“Thank you for your diagnosis, Eight Ball,” Jed said wryly. He needed to talk to the COMCEN supercomputer programmer one of these days about Eight Ball’s choice of persona…when he found a slot of free time. “Make two copies of both recordings and send one to my quarters and the other to Dr. Kirkland’s. Send a message to him that we need him at his office now.”

“Affirmative.”

“What if he isn’t there?” Helen asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be going to eat with the admiral?”

“You’re limping,” Jed pointed out, “and I thought we’d all compare our hypothalamuses and limbic systems at Dr. Kirkland’s office. I’ll just have to cancel my meeting with the admiral till later.”

“But I’m hungry,” Helen said.

“Brains for food. Yum,” Armando murmured. “I think I should carry her the rest of the way, Jed, what do you think?”

Jed looked at the younger man. The inscrutable Asian face was firmly on, revealing nothing, but a male challenge was universal. He could say no and therefore show his hand, that Helen was his weakness.

He looked at Helen. She was still too quiet. Either she was still processing what had happened or she was using NOPAIN to nettle him. It didn’t matter. There were other ways to win a pissing contest.

His gaze traveled lower on her body and he knew from the slight twitch of her leg that she was affected by it. His gaze slid back up leisurely to meet hers.

“By all means,” he said softly.

Chapter Nine

How bizarre, how bizarre.
That phrase from some long ago song popped into Helen’s head. That about summed up the last twenty-four hours.

The familiar tingle that always warned her of imminent danger had disappeared. She trusted that instinct in her; following it had saved her life before. However, this time, nothing had happened. Eight Ball had confirmed that there had been no intruder, nothing out of the ordinary.

The only strange thing linking it all was the man carrying her, Armando Chang. He’d sensed something was wrong, she was sure of it, and his strange explanation had caught her attention. He’d told them that he was chasing the Cheshire Cat, something she’d just used in her head in reference to Jed McNeil.

Which brought her thoughts back to the man walking a little ahead of her and Armando. Jed had a headset on, seemingly absorbed in a conversation with Admiral Madison, barely paying attention to the people who stared at them as they passed by their offices and desks.

That was an act, she realized it now. Jed McNeil was the master of multitasking. He seemed able to hold meetings, reschedule an appointment with an admiral, and make snap decisions about this operation or that operation, all while being interrupted by operatives at the same time. When one or two stopped him to ask questions, he’d pause and give her one of those looks that made her shiver inside.
And the man could still seduce without words.

“But can he chew gum and whistle?” Armando said softly into her ear.

Helen looked at the man carrying her. “Is mind-reading one of the many COS commando talents?” she asked teasingly.

“A combination of good timing and lucky guessing,” Armando told her, a small smile on his lips.

“Oh yeah, we must put all that good timing and lucky guessing to good use and play the lottery some time,” Helen said, watching as Jed walked a little further ahead of them with de Clerq, who had joined them.

“You’re only given a certain number of opportunities,” Armando said. “If I’d used my limbic talents on the numbers game, then it wouldn’t have directed me to you. So actually, you owe me a meal rather than with McNeil. We have so much more in common than you and he.”

“Is that right?” Helen asked, keeping her eyes on the man ahead, catching phrases here and there.

The dark smoothness of Jed’s voice was strangely soothing and at odds with the commotion that surrounded him. Armando didn’t seem to care that he could listen in if he chose to, even though he was talking to three or four people at the same time. “Yes, Miss Roston, we do,” he said, his hand under her giving her side a small squeeze. “Lost in a maze. Unfamiliar feelings. Stranger in a strange land. Speaking in tongues.”

Helen arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re the one speaking in tongues, Armando. Everyone can understand me fine.”

“Do you think blaming everything on the hypothalamus is a normal everyday topic?” he countered mockingly.

Helen conceded with a shake of her head. He had her there. Everyone was giving her scientific explanations and Armando was pointing out the obvious. No matter how they explained away the effect of the serum on her system, they couldn’t deny that there was something else happening, something that only she could feel. Her gaze caught Armando’s sardonic one. No, him too.

Dr. Kirkland and his assistant Derek, were looking at the recording Eight Ball had sent them when they arrived. Dr. Kirkland looked up, his eyes assessing, looking for injuries.

“How bad?” he asked.

“It’s just the same leg that was injured,” Helen told him. “I can’t put my weight on it right now, but I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

“It’s serious enough that you can’t walk on it,” Jed pointed out.

Armando put her down on the examining table. “My fault,” he said.

“No, really, I like being carried around by commandos,” Helen said airily. “Why, a few days ago, Flyboy carried me to the restroom. Then Heath carried my useless tranqued body up to Medic. When is it your turn, Jed?”

She swore the man had no sense of humor at all. Everyone else was grinning at her attempt at humor. Hadn’t he ever tried laughing when something serious was going on? Apparently not. The darn man just stood there like a block of ice.

“That leap was awesome!” Derek said to Armando, then flushed. “Ooops, sorry, Dr. Kirkland.”

Dr. Kirkland just shook his head and turned to Helen. “If nothing’s broken, we’ll examine the leg afterwards. Let’s talk about what happened. Pull the two monitors forward, Derek. Let’s rewatch.”

Everyone gathered closer around Helen as Derek positioned the screens. Helen sat up and watched curiously, eager to see whether the micro eyes captured anything out of the ordinary.

The replay was exactly how she remembered it. They were walking down the hallway from the debriefing room. Sitting at debriefing for so long and just watching and studying Jed had made her clothes uncomfortable again and she’d tried to distract herself by talking as she tried to ignore the odd tension in the pit of her stomach. It took a few seconds but she’d suddenly become aware that not all of that strange tingling was caused by Jed’s nearness.

In the video, she saw herself suddenly give a start, the way a body reacted to a sudden jab or needle prick. She pursed her lips as she watched Jed caress her lower lip with his thumb. No one said anything but oh, what she wouldn’t give to read their thoughts at that moment.

The screen divided into four at this point, showing footage from around the corners of the corridor. Nothing.

“Now watch this as a whole scene with the video of Armando upstairs,” Kirkland said, using the remote in his hand. “The clock at the corner of the screen is especially interesting.”

Helen watched, going back and forth on the side-by-side screens. She could feel Armando’s tension as he leaned closer to the screen. In the video, the microeye was directly above him as he walked past. He suddenly grabbed the back of his head and stumbled, one hand reaching out for the wall. Kirkland paused the feed, clicked a couple of buttons and the screen divided into half, one showing Helen’s location, the other, Armando’s.

Helen brought up the obvious. “The clock. On both videos, the point where I jerked and where Armando held his head was the same,” she said. She turned to Armando. “What did you feel?”

He paused, his hand rubbing the back of his head. “Pain,” he said. “Extreme pain.”

“Is it similar to the headaches you complain about?” Kirkland asked.

Armando shook his head. “No. This time I could see.” He turned to Helen. “When I get my headaches, I become blind. In this instance, I was knocked down by the suddenness of it and then I became angry and got up and just ran downstairs.”

“Angry?” Jed interrupted. He pointed at the screen. “You were down with pain and then you just got up and ran? Not just the clock. I think if we use a site map, we can confirm Eight Ball’s report that Armando was right above Helen and me. Unpause it, Dr. K.”

Dr. Kirkland clicked on the remote. The video showed Armando holding on to his head with both hands for a few seconds. His eyes opened. Even on film, Helen caught the anger in his dark eyes. And then he started running. The video blinked as the next micro eye took over, recording Armando disappearing through the exit door.

Both screen clocks mirrored each other on the screens as they showed the simultaneous actions of what happened next, first from Helen’s location, and then from Armando’s, splitting the screen when they were only divided by the corridor wall. One thing was screamingly obvious. There wasn’t anyone else shown, just Jed, Armando, and Helen.

When the video reached the part when Armando was leaping in the air toward her, Helen tapped Jed’s elbow, remembering something. “I thought I heard something right then,” she said softly, thoughtfully. “Not from Armando. I thought I heard a scream. It sounded strange, though, like an echo.”

“I didn’t hear anything. Did you?” Jed addressed Armando.

“No.”

“What about your headache? Do you have one now?”

“Disappeared. The moment I landed on Hell, in fact.” Armando snapped his fingers. “Like magic.”

Helen sat back against the pillow. “I give up. I have no idea what that was all about.” She waved at the screen. “Nothing was captured on video except Armando charging at me like he knew something bad was going to happen, and now he’s saying he just had a headache and decided to go for a run. Right to where Jed and I were standing, funny, that. Meanwhile Jed didn’t see or hear anything. I didn’t see anything. And the microeyes didn’t pick up anything. So, if it were just
m
y imagination, why did you decide to run downstairs to where I was?”

Everyone turned their attention on Armando, who shrugged. “I can’t explain the unexplainable. All I know is that I was very angry and I just ran in the direction of—” he paused, slowly finishing his sentence, as if it’d just occurred to him, “—the anger.”

“The anger?” Helen repeated, really puzzled now. “Well, that explains everything clearly.”

Armando shrugged at her sarcasm.

Jed walked to the glass window that looked out into the next room and lifted one of the plastic shutters with his finger, peering through it. “Everything’s all about feelings,” he said softly. “SYMBIOS 2. Synthetic biochemistry. Armando’s headaches. Pain. Elena has sexual sensitivity. Both experienced their problems at the same time. Armando rushed toward what he felt was anger. Elena walked toward what she felt was danger. Both collide. Headache gone. Sense of anger and pain gone.”

Armando nudged Helen. “Sexual sensitivity?” he murmured.

“Hey, you called it the ‘reckoning,’” Helen reminded him dryly. She really had to talk to the man about privacy. Talking about her
sexual sensitivity
in front of four other males, even though two of them were in some measure her doctors, was a little too much information.

A part of her, however, was busy admiring yet again how Jed McNeil could pull apart a complex situation. Right now, even as her mind was busy trying to put together what he’d broken down, he was already turning toward the screens, snatching the remote from Dr. Kirkland’s hands. He replayed the scene one more time, slowing down the film frame by frame. He paused at the one where Armando was in mid-air.

“There. Helen wasn’t looking at Armando. Her gaze was in this general direction.” He pointed at a spot in front of where he stood in the video, then clicked the remote. “Eight Ball, use the trajectory and pinpoint the exact spot Helen was looking.”

Geometrical lines aligned and separated on the screens as Eight Ball started his program. “Trajectory is ninety-eight percent accurate. The angle of Hell’s eyes falls right about a foot in front of Jed McNeil. The arc of sight goes from there to five feet beyond you to the wall, dude.”

“Something definitely caught your attention, scream or no,” Kirkland said as he studied the different angles the super computer had drawn on the stilled frame.

Jed turned from the screen and looked directly at Armando standing by her. His voice was calm. “Two things. You used a dose of the serum about the same time Helen did. I want to know why.” Then he turned to Helen, his eyes gleaming, “There was another presence on site.”

“Huh? How did you get to that conclusion? The microeyes are showing noth—oh.” Helen blinked. The experience in the stairwell in Frankfurt…

Jed nodded. “It seems that, for some reason, those who have taken SYMBIOS 2 have some kind of sense of another remote viewer.”

“I did think about that incident in similar lines yesterday morning,” Helen admitted, frowning, “that I crashed into the remote viewer. But Jed, it’s impossible to feel another remote viewer’s presence.”

“You were wearing the energy alarm ring,” Jed said. “Where is it?”

“T. took it back to the labs. Probably to test what happened at the stairwell.” When she was at the CIA, she’d been told about energy alarms, which agencies used to detect the presence of remote viewers in a small area. She’d never seen one till T. had given her a ring to wear when Helen had been about to go for the test set by the agencies. It seemed her chief had been suspicious herself. She rubbed her bare finger thoughtfully. “According to T., the energy alarm shouldn’t have affected me at all. It sets off a warning at the lab and I wouldn’t know till someone contacts me about it.”

“It didn’t happen that way. Something set it off and you knew because you reported that you almost fell down the stairs,” Dr. Kirkland said.

“Well, that still doesn’t explain why Armando feels it.”

“He took the serum,” Jed said, an icy edge to his voice again. “Didn’t you?”

Armando didn’t show any emotion. “Guilty.”

“Why?”

“I needed to stop the pain.”

“How?”

“When everyone had gone off to the dog-and-pony show with Hell. Kirkland and Derek left everything easily accessible.”

Helen remembered how everyone had been eager to start the test. Almost the whole Medic department had left so they could be on hand if the serum had a negative effect on her. Of course, the few personnel that were left wouldn’t question a COS commando walking into the clinic.

“We’re going to talk later,” Jed said. He turned to Helen, his eyes raking her up and down, as if he was considering whether she was up to it. Apparently he thought she was, because he added softly, “Get ready for a remote-view session.”

“But her leg—” Dr. Kirkland protested.

“A quick check-up, but we must hurry. If there really was a remote viewer here at COMCEN, I want to know where he is right now.”

“But she’s barely got the serum out of her system, Jed.”

“We aren’t using the serum,” Jed said, his eyes never leaving Helen. “She can handle it.”

Of course she could. She’d been trained to be pushed to the limits, and one limping leg wasn’t going to be a problem. However, the feminine part of her was just a tad miffed that he looked at her as only some kind of extension to his spy games. They had been planning to go have a meal with an admiral before the incident, for crying out loud. And then afterwards…he’d promised her afterwards… This supersoldier-spy thing was really getting in the way of her love life.