Wired (12 page)

“Yeah. Fastest way to travel. Set the preset, punch, boom.” He followed his words with three quick motions to illustrate, and I just about burst out laughing. It wasn't that I didn't believe him; it was that I did. And I had so many more questions for him, I didn't even know where to start.

“Leo made a move. He triggered your involvement as a Major in the case, and you went from hiatus—where you've been for years—to red-light status. There are people who keep track of these things. The minute he made that move, we both knew it.”

“And you both tried to get to me first. But why? If I haven't done what it is you two are so interested in, why does it matter right now?”

“Once a Major gets established on a wire, whoever gets possession controls the game.”

I just sighed. I was like a jump ball in a basketball match. Then I remembered the strange sense I'd had
that the two men had been in the shadows in the street for some time, waiting for me. “Why did I go to the 7-Eleven in the first place? I can't even remember what I went to buy.” Somehow it seemed important.

“I don't know,” Mason said.

“But if you've been watching me for so long, wouldn't you have some idea what I was up to?”

“I wasn't there before you got there, Rox. I don't know what was on your mind. I wasn't around.”

I wasn't sure I believed him.

“I was on the case trying to make my own move to negate his.”

“Leo's? What is Leonardo Kaysar trying to do?”

“He's a very powerful man, Rox. He owns a major corporation. It's the modern-day incarnation of a business that has been in his family for centuries. He wants the code you've worked on for one of his projects. He wants to profit off you.”

My head was swimming. I couldn't take in any more. “Prove this, Mason. You'll have to prove it. I just can't . . .”

“I know. It's okay.” He went silent, weighing things, I guess. I would have given just about anything in that moment to see him angry or at least trading verbal zingers. It's the silence that always kills you.

Finally he looked up at me and said, “Okay, there's something we've really got to take care of. Believe me, if I've told you this much already, the rest is not that big of a leap. It's just . . .” He glanced at his reader, then looked up at me and went silent for so long I thought maybe all that pummeling from Leonardo was starting to kick in.

Finally he cocked his head and said, “There's a party. Would you . . . do you have a party dress?”

“A party?” I echoed in disbelief. One, he'd just given me the most insane explanation possible for my situation, and the shift in gears kind of threw me. Two . . .

“A party dress?” I blurted in horror. “You want to take me to a party?”

“After I check something out. It would be stupid to come all the way back to change.”

“What are we doing first?”

“Do you remember when I said that Leo thought you'd written that code and that's why he stole your stuff? To look for it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, now he's trying something else. And we're going to try to slip a move in to stop him.”

We stood there looking at each other. But if I wanted any answers, Mason was right about what he'd said a couple of days ago: I needed to open my mind.

“Okay,” I said. “Party on.” I headed upstairs, wondering if any clothing I owned was appropriate garb for matters of future and fate.

I still owned only one dress: the black-and-red number. And I still owned only one pair of dress shoes, which threw any potential nail-biting decision right out the window. I pulled the plastic off the dress and laid the garment on the bed. I pulled the shoes out of the shoe box, ignored the gun and bullets, and rummaged around in my bureau drawer for other appropriate accoutrements.

Holding up a black bra, garter belt, and stockings, I limited myself to five seconds to wonder if this
combination was appropriate—or even me. The saleswoman's voice came into my head, a very distinct warning about the hazards of panty lines. Well, just like the lingerie I'd started wearing to bed, maybe this was a new me. I kind of liked it.

Getting dressed took about fifteen minutes, getting the rest of me arranged somewhat longer. Of course, I had enough makeup and hair products to fill an entire showcase of the Home Shopping Network, so it wasn't like I was wanting for anything. I just wished I knew how to use it all.

I paused at the top of the stairs. From my vantage point, I could see Mason pacing in and out of the living room. I pulled my foot back before my stiletto heel had time to strike the stair. Mason was muttering to himself, pulling at his collar, running his fingers through his hair. He looked like a nervous high school prom date. He looked like he was nervous . . . for me.

He turned and caught me watching. I immediately started down, gripping the banister for dear life. He moved to the bottom of the stairs and watched me descend. I swallowed hard as our eyes locked. Leo's green eyes were so much flash, it was hard to tell what, if anything was behind them. Mason's eyes weren't as good at hiding secrets; not from me. The intensity there burned like hot ice, sending a delicious shiver down my spine.

I paused, took a breath, then continued to the landing. Mason stared at me the whole way, a host of emotions crossing his face. Then, something seemed to click with him. It was as if he'd finally processed I was the same girl, and that slow, steamy smile of his unfurled just for me.

I moved in on him fast before he could get a good look at my flaming cheeks. Fussing with his tie just like they did in the movies, I said, “All things considered, Mason, you don't look half bad.” He must have heard the quiver in my voice.

He slid two fingers under my chin and raised my face to his. “Not as good as you.”

I shifted my focus right back down to his tie, which was already perfectly straight, then lost all concentration when I felt his gaze drop to the low-cut neck of my dress. I froze, my hands still on his collar.

“You afraid to look at me?” he asked.

“No,” I managed to say. Heart pounding, I slowly looked up.

“I missed you all this time,” he said, something inscrutable flickering in his eyes.

I missed you, too
. I don't think I even realized until then just how much I'd wanted this.

He leaned in a little closer, so delicate with me, like he was afraid to scare me away. Our eyes half-closed, his lips nearly touching mine—I almost died when his fucking smartie clattered on the table in vibrate mode.

Mason broke away immediately to check it. After a moment, he shook his head in exasperation, pushed one of the buttons on the gadget and said, “We need to get going.”

I stared at him, hurt by his brusque, all-business treatment, and questioning whether I'd read the whole thing wrong or not. All I could do was shrug as if I couldn't care less about what had just happened.

He opened the door for me; I stepped into the hall.
As Mason fiddled with the key in the lock, I suddenly remembered him wearing a similar suit with Louise standing next to him in a fabulous blue satin dress. A blinding flash showed him kissing the side of her face while she looked down, laughing. I guess I'd taken the pictures that night. I hated that I remembered something like that; it made me jealous and it made me question Mason's so-called justification for dating her instead of me if he ever really had any feelings for me then.

Mason headed for the car, turning when I didn't follow. “Rox? I—”

“Yeah. Sorry. I'm coming.”

“No, it's just . . .”

I waited for him to finish his thought, my heart beating madly. I didn't know exactly what I was hoping he'd say; something to bring back the magic.

He held up his reader. “It's just, please don't touch this again.”

I didn't know what I was hoping he'd say, but that certainly wasn't it.

The office building's security guard looked up from his newspaper and smiled. “Hey, Zaborovksy. Looking good.” Then he buzzed open the security door and went back to his article.

I looked at Mason in wonder. He just shrugged and pulled me through the gate. “I don't know him,” I said—but even as I said it, I thought,
Except I guess I do. Sort of. Now. Fuck. Mind overload
.

The eeriness of all of this changing reality was getting to me. I wanted the people I thought I knew to know me, and I didn't want to be reminded of my awkward place in this situation by all the people I didn't realize I knew who now seemed to know me. They were wandering around the various floors of the building in party gear.

I had no idea where we were going, but Mason seemed to know the floor plan like the back of his hand; we took an elevator to the sixth floor, then he walked us farther and farther into the guts of the building, eventually winding us through a cubicle farm. The farther along he dragged me, the stranger
I began to feel. I might not have remembered the security guard, but he had certainly seemed to know me—and that probably had something to do with why I imagined or remembered flashes of things as we moved along.

“Where are we going?” I mumbled to Mason as we walked. I stumbled, my eyes fixed on the office art lining the hallway. It was rather distinctive stuff, not the sort of works you order in bulk and have printed up for all of your satellite offices. Before, it had been the unfamiliarity that got to me; now it was the familiarity that had my skin crawling.

My hand slipped from Mason's grasp, and just as I had on the first night he came back into my life, on the next step I smoothly swiveled around and started walking back the way we'd come. Fear rippled through me.

“Roxanne—whoa, there.” Mason grabbed my hand and wheeled me back around, pulling me up so sharply I fell against his chest. I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Why am I so scared?”

“We're near a sweet spot,” he said. “And we have a big opportunity here.”

“Wire crossing, red-lighted, layers, sweet spots . . . you've got to give me something more,” I said, my frustration audible in my voice.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment and tried to find the words to explain. “Every time Leo makes a move, we make one to cover it. But time is still going forward, no matter which part of your life you're living in. Eventually, Leo's moves and my covers will be so close in time . . . it can't go on forever.”

“Thank God,” I muttered.

“There's always a final move, Rox. When both parties know exactly what they want and the two sides are opposing, we've got ourselves a final step, which means there's a winner and a loser. You know, in a game of chess, where the true expert can look at a move and see that it sets the stage for a checkmate so many turns ahead? Sometimes the other player can get out of it. But sometimes the expert is right. Sometimes he knows many moves prior that what he has just done has locked in the fate of his opponent.”

“Sometimes you can make a move that doesn't end the game but that makes the outcome inevitable,” I repeated. “Then it becomes less about if and more about how.”

Mason nodded. “This isn't the end of the game, but we're near a point where we can lock things in. That's a sweet spot.”

“That doesn't explain why I feel so . . . bad.”

He looked at me, and I saw about a hundred different things in his eyes, I couldn't make sense out of any of them. Did he pity me? Because that was just intolerable. Was there sympathy? Envy? Respect? I couldn't tell. So far, he'd simply made me a pawn, and I'd spent most of our time together being dragged behind him.

“Let's get this over with.” He pulled me to another cubicle farm, turned, and then suddenly wheeled, blocking me from entering the workstation ahead of where we stood. “Rox . . .”

I waited.

“Brace yourself.”

Excuse me?
I stared at him. He stepped aside, and I slowly entered the work area. My shoes were killing me, but I would have taken a seat anyway; my knees went weak.

I knew without Mason having to say it that this was my office—if you could call a space this small and out in the open such a thing.

“Oh,” I said. It was the only sound I could manufacture. Everything I had thought was missing from my home office after the computer theft had never been in my house at all; it had been in this building where I worked. In this version of reality, anyway.

It was nongeneric stuff. Job-specific stuff. But almost more convincing than that, it was personal stuff. I sat down in the task chair and looked around. There was a photo of a bunch of college pals, me and Kitty goofing off in the middle. A collage of cool pictures cut from magazines and pinned to the cubicle wall. A fun collection of small toys maybe I got from cereal boxes and fast food restaurant promotions. Wait a minute! Cereal companies and fast food restaurants didn't give away rubber rats. I scanned the assortment of windup toys and plastic action figures, and in the back of my mind—

“Aw, Rox. You still have him.” Mason leaned over and picked up the rat by its tail.

I just stared at the toys; some of them seemed particularly familiar. Just like the ones Mason used to stick in my bed or slip into my bookbag. Oh my
god
. I was suddenly certain they were the same ones. How absolutely mortifying he'd caught me with them now. “They're toys. They're fun. Why wouldn't I
keep them?” I mumbled. I pushed away the rat Mason was swinging in my face and tried to focus on the big picture.

There was a life here, a life I couldn't really connect to my brain but that seemed a lot more positive than I remembered. Of course, it didn't mean that what I was looking at was the real thing. Maybe this was just a reality relic, as it were, something that was still in my brain but that had no meaning for the long haul.