The Operator

  Peri fell into place beside Harmony, thinking they should’ve left the car unlocked so the thieves wouldn’t have to break a window to get in. “You don’t have another set of keys, do you?” she asked as they cut across the parking lot, their path obvious in the snow.

  “No. Why?”

  They slowed as they hit the shadows, waiting for their eyes to adjust. “I, ah, usually have a set,” she said, sorry now she’d brought it up. “Never mind.”

  “No, I should have thought of it,” Harmony said. “Sorry. You want to carry them?”

  “Good God, no,” Peri rushed, glad the darkness hid her face. Their twined voices echoed off the empty shop fronts, reminding her of the women in Africa who walk unafraid through lion-infested brush, talking loudly to warn the huge carnivores away. It worked only because the cats had been conditioned to be afraid. Here, though, she thought as they passed the broken windows, the lions aren’t afraid.

  “You’ve done something like this before,” Peri said, making it more of a statement.

  “Something like it.”

  Her voice had become distant. Clearly Harmony didn’t want to talk about it. But the sound of their boots in the unplowed street was giving Peri the creeps. She kept scanning the rooftops for silhouettes, but nothing broke the cold sterility except solar arrays and outdated satellite dishes. “That was impressive how you got us out of the St. Louis facility. But why spend that much effort on being stealthy when you’re so good at offense?”

  Harmony’s teeth caught the light as she smiled. “The best offense is not being there to take the hit.” Her smile faded. “And I don’t have a golden parachute to get me around one.”

  The woman’s annoyance was obvious, and Peri frowned. “Why are you mad at me about that? It would be like me being angry because you’re black and can dance better than me.”

  “Excuse me?” Harmony blurted.

  “Sorry,” Peri said immediately. “That was supposed to be funny.”

  Mollified, Harmony resumed her pace. “I can, you know,” Harmony said softly.

  “Can what?”

  “Dance better than you.”

  Peri smiled, her feeling of kinship growing, but she jerked when a sharp clang echoed. The sound stiffened her spine, but neither woman altered her pace. It had been a signal, a warning, and they kept moving forward—ignoring it.

  “You should have brought bigger guns,” Peri whispered as she unzipped her belt pack.

  “You think?” Harmony frowned. “We can’t sit and wait. If Michael isn’t at the mall, we keep walking. Okay?”

  “No problem.” Peri slipped the Glock into her coat pocket. Her phone was cold against her fingertips and she took it out, quickly turning the glow down when it threatened to ruin her night vision. Scrolling to Allen’s number, she hit send. The connection went through, and faint in the nearby distance, a phone began to ring. They weren’t anywhere near the mall. Son of a bitch.

  Exhaling, Harmony stopped right in the middle of the street. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing.”

  “Allen?” Peri called loudly, ending the call and tucking the phone away.

  But it wasn’t Allen who scuffed out from the shadows. It wasn’t Michael, either.

  “Hello, ladies,” a heavy man in a ragged coat said, sauntering confidently from between two buildings with five of his thugs behind him, each one looking more thin and disheveled than the last. Casino trash. Great. “Where are you two fine crotch-riders going tonight? Lookin’ for something? Me and my boys got more than enough.”

  Laughing, his buddies grabbed their privates suggestively as they circled them. Peri focused on the one who hadn’t. He was shorter than all of them, Asian, and his clothes, while just as mismatched and tatty, were clean. His coat was leather, and his fingers weren’t stained from drugs or nic caps. A lit phone glowed from his pocket. Boss, she realized, thinking he was smart to have the big man do the talking. He was also the only one who didn’t have a pistol jammed into his waistband.

  Harmony shifted to put her back to Peri’s. “We aren’t looking for anything you got. Back off. Let us by, and no one gets hurt.”

  That got the expected chuckle, but safeties were clicking off. It was the phone Peri was interested in. “That’s my friend’s phone,” Peri said when the light on it went out. “Where is he?”

  Surprise flickered over the big man’s face, but the short guy smiled, his thin lips pressed together as he took in Peri’s swollen cheek. “It’s mine now,” he said, and Peri readjusted her opinion from Asian to American Indian. “Did he do that to you?”

  He was looking at her bruise, and Peri grimaced. “No, she did,” she said, nodding to Harmony, and the man’s eyebrows rose in question.

  “LB,” the big man protested when the smaller man pushed his way to the front, smacking the larger man in the chest to be quiet. The light hit LB, showing the stylized tattoos of bears, eagles, and little fish decorating his neck. Peri was betting they continued over his chest and back. His confidence was absolute as he stood before them with his arms crossed, more men slipping out of the shadows with clinks and sliding thumps to circle them. Soon as they had enough, they’d try for the guns. And then whatever else they wanted, probably.

  “You give us the guns, we might let you walk out of here,” LB said as his men sniggered.

  Doubtful. Fingers shifting, Peri popped the clip out and threw the weapon at him. The men surrounding them reacted slow, falling back and swearing, but LB caught it. “Have it.”

  “What are you doing!” Harmony hissed, appalled as her aim shifted from man to man.

  “What?” Peri complained as she dropped the clip into her coat pocket. “I want my hands free. Besides, he can’t shoot it without bullets.”

  The men laughed as LB took out a clip from his pocket and snapped it in.

  “Unless he carries his own,” Peri grumbled, shifting to find her balance. Her knife was a half second from her hand, another half second from the neck of whoever touched her first. She didn’t like buying respect that way, but they weren’t listening.

  The circle was closing, moving around the smaller man like water moves around a rock. Peri’s pulse quickened, her eyes never leaving him. He was small to have commanded this much control over them, and she wanted to know why.

  Harmony eased closer, the scent of sweat growing strong. “You see that Ford truck?” she said, chin shifting to point it out. “I’m going right.”

  Yeah, we should probably try to escape. “I’ll go left,” Peri said, finding her balance. Six men circled them. One looked stoned, another just bored. Three firearms, two pipes. Say . . . ten people watching from the shadows, with maybe two willing to shoot? One that might actually be good at it? The odds were better than at first glance.

  “Gun?” the big man said, face ugly as he grinned. “Give it to me now, Cornrows!”

  Harmony started, her tension tinged with anger. “Did you just call me Cornrows?”

  Peri eyed the dark, broken windows above them. She’d have five seconds until surprise wore off and they began shooting. Fat Man would be her shield.

  “Drop it!” Fat Man bellowed, and Harmony shook her head, jaw clenched.

  “You can have my gun—”

  “When I pry it out of your cold, dead hand,” LB said in a tired tone. “That gets so old.”

  “No,” Harmony said grimly. “After I shove it up your ass!” Screaming, Harmony darted to the right, planting her foot into the gut of the man in her way. He doubled over, but she was already gone, sprinting for the dubious protection of the abandoned vehicle.

  Peri jumped at the pop of a gun, darting left to catch one man and dislocate his arm as she swung him. He shrieked in pain, then bellowed when a bullet hit his beefy shoulder. Grunting, Peri pushed him into the rest and ran for the truck. He’d be fine.

  Three, two, one . . . she counted down as the man screamed, “Pop it out! Oh, God! Someone, pop my shoulder back out!” She shifted to
the left, almost falling on ice when a spray of concrete peppered her legs. More weapons fired until LB shouted for them to knock it off. The gunfire might bring the cops, but not until sunup.

  “It’s me!” she called, hoping the dark shadow by the car was Harmony.

  “You hit?” Harmony asked as she skidded to a crouched halt. Peri looked at the empty windows. It would take time to get up there, but not forever. She and Harmony would have to be gone by then. Finding Allen or Michael was looking slim. “I said, are you okay!”

  Peri brought her gaze back down and inched closer to the truck. “Sorry. Yes,” she said as LB barked orders. He was pretty good. He’d have to be either really smart or have good drug connections to keep a leash on these bad boys.

  “Do you think they have Allen and Michael?” Harmony asked, and Peri snorted, not believing the woman was still wanting a play for them.

  “Maybe.” Tugging Harmony’s elbow, she began to inch her way backward and tuck into the deeper shadows. “They don’t strike me as having been hammered on already tonight. I’m betting Michael gave them Allen’s phone and arranged for them to take care of us for him.” Damn it. Where am I going to get more Evocane?

  The pop-ping of a bullet made Harmony jump. “The profiler said Michael would be here. He wants you dead, and he’s got a deep-seated urge to do it himself.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell me that?” Irate, she watched the empty street. “Can I borrow your weapon?” Peri asked, grabbing it when Harmony stared blankly.

  “Hey!” the woman exclaimed, but Peri had stood, rattling a battery of bullets into one of the empty buildings.

  “Move!” Peri shouted, tossing the pistol back and jogging up the street, deeper into the arena. They couldn’t go back. The only way out was through. Besides, Michael might be up there somewhere, gloating as he watched through night binoculars.

  Harmony’s footsteps were loud as she came even, and they picked up the pace, dodging piles of snow and stumbling on hidden potholes. “You had to be a smart-ass and give him your gun,” she complained.

  Peri gasped, instinct jerking her back as the pavement sprayed up right in front of her. “Harmony, no!” she cried, but the woman had darted into an alley. Teeth clenched, Peri stood firm as another bullet went ping-whap into the pavement. They were driving them into a tighter trap, and Harmony had fallen for it. “Harmony!” she shouted, torn.

  Shouts and gunfire rang out from the black mouth of the alley, and swearing, Peri ran into the dark after her.

  Knife to a gunfight, she thought, pounding along until skidding to a halt at the edge of the light. Two men were getting up off the filthy, slush-coated pavement between the buildings, but Harmony was caught in the grip of a third, his bearded face nasty as it pressed up against hers, her head thrown back with his arm tight around her neck and a small handgun shoved into her side. The glare from a flashlight made sharp, ugly shadows.

  “Let her go,” Peri demanded, then slumped when the cold feel of a pistol muzzle pressed the back of her neck. Sighing, she realized it was the one she’d given LB.

  “Hello again,” he said softly. “Don’t move, or your girlfriend will get it.”

  Lip curled, she stiffened as he amateurishly frisked her, taking everything from the wadded-up napkin from that afternoon to her clip, pen pendant, and knife. “This is a mistake,” she said when he tossed her belt pack to one of the arriving men, panting and out of breath.

  “Yeah?” LB said, the pistol firmly against her skull. “I’m about to make the same mistake twice. I don’t care who you are. You shouldn’t be here. That’s Detroit’s first rule. Stay where you belong, little girl.”

  Peri’s eyes darted to Harmony, almost on tiptoe with that big man’s arm around her neck. Same mistake twice? “You’ve got Allen and Michael?”

  Silent, LB jammed the muzzle harder to get her to shut up. “What’s she carrying?”

  There were three men now clustered about her stuff, and Peri stiffened when one depressed the plunger of one of the spent injection pens and sniffed the tiny drop. He tasted it and shrugged. “Same stuff, maybe,” he said. “It’s not recreational. Sedative, maybe?”

  “It’s mine,” Peri said, pulse quickening. They had Michael, or at least run into him.

  “And it appears to be addictive,” LB mused aloud, mistaking her anger for fear. “This is one fucking crazy night. Take them to the pit and shoot them. Did anyone bring a zip-strip?”

  Shoot them? Hooking her foot behind his, Peri jerked, her elbow going back into the man’s solar plexus at the same time. The gun went off, deafening her, but it shot wild. Men scattered, and, ears ringing, Peri spun, following LB down and flipping him face-first to the snowy pavement. Kneeling on his back, she wrenched his arm up, putting pressure on his wrist until he dropped the gun. No blood in the snow this time. Keep it clean, Peri.

  “Holy shit!” someone exclaimed. “She downed LB!”

  It hadn’t been hard, making Peri think it had to be money or drugs that kept him on top of the shit heap.

  “Nice try,” LB wheezed, almost laughing as she pulled his wrist higher, forcing obedience. “But they don’t call me Lucky Bastard because the girls like me.”

  “Yeah?” Peri said, pulling higher to make him grunt, but she gasped when the thin light from the dropped flashlight went blue. Her mind hiccuped, and the world turned inside out. Vertigo spilled through her, and her muscles went slack as an indigo flood pushed through her thoughts, blanking her vision. He was drafting. It wasn’t her. The little prick was drafting!

  And then the world flicked back on, and she was standing with her own gun pointed at her head.

  Her pulse pounded as the disconnection ricocheted through her memories of a time that hadn’t happened yet. We’re in a rewrite, she thought, the shock firming through her. I still have my knife, she realized a half second later, and she smiled. LB didn’t know he was doing it. If he had, he wouldn’t have taken them back this far to where she still had a weapon.

  “That explains a few things,” Peri said as he took a breath to tell her to stay still. Her foot went back behind his again, and she took him down. This time, her knife went to his throat and, her knee on his back, she pulled his head up by his scalp. That fast, it was over.

  Men shouted and weapons pointed at her, but she had a blade at his neck, and they were afraid. “Everyone back!” she demanded, pulling his head up so they could see his fear and that he was unhurt—so far. “If you shoot me or my partner, I’ll slit his throat. Got it?”

  To them, the knife was a more of a danger than a bullet, and as they retreated, she put her face right next to LB’s. “Hi, sugar. We need to talk. Too bad we’re both going to forget this conversation in about fifteen seconds.”

  “H-how . . .” LB stammered, confused. “How do you know I black out?”

  Peri flicked a glance at Harmony, still caught and on tiptoe in some thug’s grip.

  “I can redraft time, too.” Her gaze darted back to Harmony. “I said back off, or he’s breathing through another hole!” Pulse fast, she whispered, “You are a god, LB, and you don’t even know it. I can tell you how to work it. Give Harmony a trust word.”

  “Let him go! Get off him, bitch!” echoed between the buildings, and she wrenched LB’s head up until he grunted in pain.

  “Give it to her!” Peri demanded, running out of time. “I know you all have them. We’re both going to forget in about six seconds, you little shit. Give me a safe word, and I’ll tell you everything!”

  “My mother’s name was Rose.” LB gasped, and they both shuddered as time caught up and meshed.

  Peri’s breath came in a quick heave. She was kneeling on LB, her knife at his throat and her fingers twined in his dark, dark hair. She had drafted—jumped and forgotten.

  “Let him go!” the men bellowed, guns pointed. “Now!”

  “Peri, let him up!” Harmony shouted, her eyes wide as the man holding her had her almost on tiptoe in his grip
. “You promised you’d let him go!”

  The man under her shuddered, almost as confused as she was. She’d promised to let him up? Was she nuts? Damn it, she needed an anchor, and her grip on her knife tightened. Something bad must have happened or she never would have drafted.

  “He’s like you,” Harmony said. “You said he was going to forget. You promised to let him go and tell him what’s going on. His mother’s name is Rose, damn it! Let him go!”

  He can draft?

  Shocked, she let go of LB. Peri lurched to her feet, dropping her knife and backing away with her hands up. A sudden pulse of agony cascaded through her, buckling her knees, and she caught herself when someone yanked her up. Pain flashed, but she’d had worse.

  “You said you’d help him!” Harmony was shouting, even as they muscled her down into the cold, wet pavement. “He agreed to it. You all heard him!”

  “Babe,” Jack said, and she spun, her hand reaching for her fallen knife.

  “Get her fucking knife!” Fat Man bellowed, and she hit the pavement hard, spitting the hair out of her eyes as she tried not to lose sight of Jack. Jack shifted and danced, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. No one looked at him.

  “Are you real?” she wheezed, and the hallucination shook his head, grinning.

  “Sit her up,” LB was saying, and someone yanked her upright, guns pointed at her head from all angles. She watched him, familiar with his confusion, anger, and frustration. Fat Man was at his shoulder, whispering something that made LB grimace. The man had drafted, but it was growing more obvious that he didn’t know he was doing it, and she was calm as they frisked her again. Nearby, Harmony spat curses and threats.

  “Want to know why you blacked out?” she said, then reeled when a man smacked her in the head. Stumbling, her knee went into the filthy snow—and then someone yanked her up again.

  “Babe, don’t do it,” Jack warned her. Damn it, she could even smell his aftershave. “You can’t tell him. They won’t believe you.”

  But he’d have a chance, at least. “I’ve got the same thing you do,” she said, ignoring Jack and the man pinching her shoulder. “I can help. I know how to work it, give you ways to cope. Hide it.”