The Operator

  Harmony eyed him as she picked up the short-job bag and jiggled the van’s keys. “I meant, do you think he’s going to kill Peri.”

  Jack glanced at her and away, taking a deep breath as his world shifted a hundred and eighty degrees. “No. She’s going to kill him first.”

  Hesitating, Harmony looked between the van and the interstate. “Where?” She turned back to Jack, eyes wide. “How? We’ve got to help her.”

  But Jack scuffed the pavement, head down. “How,” he said flatly. “I have no way of even finding out where she is. You know what she told me to do? Get you to a safe place.”

  “The little bitch,” Harmony swore, clearly frustrated. “I do not need saving!”

  “I know how you feel,” Jack said around a sigh. “But that’s Peri for you.” Opti had ingrained a need for her to put her anchor’s safety before her own, and seeing as Peri had been working with Harmony, the woman now fell into that category. But Jack knew this was more than Opti conditioning. It was just how Peri was.

  “I can’t sit and do nothing,” Harmony muttered. “What are we supposed to do?”

  Jack turned to the van and opened the door. “Watch the obituaries.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Her arm hurt where the cold metal of the fencing bit deep. Coat bunched up at her elbow, Peri forced her hand farther out through the chain link. Her fingers were losing their feeling from the cold or, more likely, from the lack of circulation as she angled the thin piece of metal into the lock. The “key” was a piece of the chain-link fence, wiggled off with metal fatigue and filed flat on the cement floor. It was only a matter of time before she got the lock picked. Time, though, wasn’t an asset she had.

  Worried, she glanced up at the ceiling grate, estimating it to be nearing five or six by the fading light. She had a few hours left before withdrawal became an issue, but she hadn’t heard anything in the last twelve hours or so since the camera Michael had left had run out of battery. No food, no water—she was cold and out of sorts. It was likely someone would come soon if only to taunt her. She almost had it, almost . . .

  But her fingers slipped, and the makeshift lock pick fell to the cement floor.

  “Damn it!” she hissed, drafting to fix her mistake.

  Blue sparkles hazed her vision, and she breathed them in, then out as time reset. Angling her fingers a different way, she maintained her grip on her key, and with a soft and certain click, the lock disengaged.

  “Yes!” she hissed as the draft ended, her two-second confusion so brief as to be nonexistent. The key dropped, pinging to the floor, but the lock was open. Adrenaline pulsed through her, and the fencing scraped her arm as she unwedged it. Pulse fast, she picked up the key, tugging her coat sleeve down when the bare-bulb light flicked on, warning Peri before the door screeched open.

  The sharp piece of metal went into her jeans pocket as a faint glow of sunlight from the silent manufacture floor spilled over her and Michael came in. He had a briefcase in his hand, his face showing a five o’clock shadow. He was clearly not in the best of moods; his steps were fast and his expression tight. This is so bad for my asthma, she thought, backing from the chain-link fence and praying he didn’t rattle the door to prove it was still locked.

  But Michael clearly had other things on his mind as he all but threw the briefcase atop the clutter before the bars. The open door behind him said more than the heavy silence and distant hoot of a train or boat that he was alone, and she stood, feeling the aches the hard floor had given her. She could smell gunpowder on him, and her thoughts went to Harmony.

  “There are quicker ways to kill me other than freezing me to death,” she said, finding hope in his bad mood. With some luck, Harmony was gone and safe. Jack, she didn’t care beyond wanting to kill him if he’d told Michael her instructions to get Harmony safe. It didn’t look as if he had. Michael was too pissed for that.

  “I’ve got a bullet if you prefer,” he said, and she moved farther from her unlocked door.

  “Did they get the accelerator?” she asked innocently.

  Michael frowned. Arms over his chest, he stood before her, his long face dark in anger. “Where did you tell Jack to leave it?”

  Yes! “I didn’t tell him to leave it anywhere. I told him to get Harmony the hell away from you.” And Jack had. Why? Because it got Jack the hell away from Michael, too? Or had it been more, perhaps?

  “You scrawny little nothing!” Michael hit the chain link, and Peri’s eyes flicked to the wiggling door. “You will die here, Reed. You will die in agony. I’ve seen the med wing, and they all died in agony. How long until your next shot? Hours?”

  But his fury only filled her with calm. She might die before the sun came up again, but it wasn’t going to be in this cruddy cage. “I told them to run because I already know where the accelerator is, and it isn’t at WEFT.”

  He turned his vehement expression to her, dress shoes scraping. “Lies don’t work anymore.”

  “Oh, get over yourself.” Peri sauntered closer, feeling powerful despite being in socks and having nothing in her pocket but a sharpened piece of metal. “I told you before, string bean. I don’t care if you get accelerated or not. But asking me to believe that you were going to let Harmony walk away after she made the drop was insulting. I bought her freedom with a few hours is all. I’ll take you there now.”

  Michael’s lip twitched. “Where is it?”

  Smiling, Peri brushed her coat off. “The same place it’s been for the last twenty-four hours. Get me to my car, and I’ll take you there.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Turning his back on her, he picked up the camera, dropping his briefcase in its place. The snap of the fasteners opening was loud, and she wasn’t surprised when he took out a pair of cuffs.

  “Put them on,” he said, throwing them to her. They hit the fencing and dropped.

  Peri stood unmoving. She’d caught a glimpse of a packaged syringe and a vial in there as well. Evocane. One more dose, and he’ll need it for the accelerator. None for me . . . A sliver of need rose and fell, but it was only a memory—so far.

  “Put them on . . . or you don’t get out,” Michael reiterated.

  She was going to get access to her car and, if she played it right, to Silas. And with that, she had another twenty-four hours to kill Michael and end this. There was no way in hell she was going to let him live.

  Peri rolled her shoulders, stretching them. With a single foot, she reached out and pushed the unlocked door open.

  Michael snarled, reaching behind his coat for his Glock. “Let me rephrase. Put them on, or you die. Right in the head.”

  Sighing, Peri went to the cuffs, leaning over to angle them in through the holes. “Chicken ass,” she grumbled, the need to get to her car an ache. The cool steel ratcheted about her wrists, the alien feel of them never becoming familiar.

  “Where is the accelerator?” Michael put his Glock away, and feeling as if she were still in a cage she stepped out, her feet cold on the bare cement.

  “I’ll take you there,” she said. “You still have my car, yes?” God help her, if he didn’t, this was going to be the lamest jailbreak ever. His eyes lit up, and she added, “You wanted the pass code. I’ll put you into the system myself.”

  A sly grin stole over him. “I’m driving,” he said as he snapped his briefcase shut and gestured for her to go first.

  Stocking feet silent on the grimy cement floor, Peri proudly walked through the defunct manufacturing plant, through the break room with its posted signs about employee rights five years out-of-date, past old offices with computers bigger than a microwave . . . all the way to the covered garage. She couldn’t help her smile at the sight of her car parked sideways to the lines, a power-saving white this far away from the sun, but a frown took its place at the marring scratch on the bumper. “You towed it?” she asked incredulously. “You towed my car?”

  Michael shoved her toward the passenger s
ide, and she stumbled to catch her balance. “I didn’t have a choice. Someone locked it down in their efforts to shut off the alarm system.”

  The car beeped a welcome as she put her cuffed hand to the driver’s-door handle and it read her thumbprint. “Don’t mess with my settings. It took me a week to get them perfect,” she warned as Michael pulled the door open wide, slipping his briefcase into the door’s panel pocket before manhandling her around the front of the car to the passenger’s side. Again he put her hand to the lock, shoving her into the front seat and slamming the door.

  “Good evening, Peri,” the car’s computer said when her weight hit the seat. “There have been several incidents since you have left. Would you like me to detail them?” Ding.

  Michael hustled back around to the driver’s side before she could stretch to close his door. “That’s going to change,” Michael said as he got in behind the wheel.

  “I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” the car said, and Peri grimaced.

  “Shut up for a moment,” she said, not liking Michael touching her car. “Reeves,” she said, affecting an accent. “Cancel incident report. Disengage audio. Accept new driver as all-access. Assign new driver the name Mr. Asshat.”

  The car dinged its acceptance and clicked off, and Michael stared at her. “Asshat?” he said, and the console lit up, recognizing him.

  “You can change it after I’m dead,” she said, pulse quickening.

  “Yeah? Well, my Aston will leave your girl car in the dirt,” Michael said, grabbing Peri’s wrist and angling her thumb to start it.

  Her eyes closed in bliss at the aggressive barummm of the warming engine. “Silly boy. Fast doesn’t impress a woman,” she said, yanking her hand back. “Only power. And you don’t need my thumb anymore. It recorded your print when you opened the door, Mr. Asshat.”

  “God, you are an insufferable bitch.” Michael adjusted the mirrors and fixed his settings as the primary driver. “Where are we going?”

  She stifled a quiver, a thrill of would-he, wouldn’t-he be that dumb. “You brought a syringe, right? You’re going to want to shoot up with Evocane first.”

  Michael thought about that for half a second, and then he smiled, getting it. “It’s here? In the car? They searched it.”

  “They searched the safe,” she said, reaching for the shift stick.

  “Hands off!” Michael exclaimed, and she jerked back before he could hit her.

  “It’s hidden in the shift stick,” she said. “Lighten up.”

  His hand came up fast, smacking her away again when she reached once more. “And engage your lame-ass emergency signal?” he said, and she sucked on her scratched knuckle.

  “Oh, if only it was an emergency signal,” she mocked. “You want it or not?”

  He studied her, then nodded. Adrenaline a sweet seep through her, Peri untwisted the knob, praying it was still in there. The knob came free, and she awkwardly reached two fingers in, angling like chopsticks, fishing. “Got it,” she said around a long exhale, then gasped when Michael snatched it from her.

  “This is it?” he breathed, eyeing the capped syringe of pink-tinted accelerator.

  She nodded, curling her fingers into a fist to hide their trembling. Hunger pinched at her, and withdrawal threatened, but right now, she was calm as she waited to see if everything lined up. She wasn’t going to let Michael kill himself before Silas was free. But the timing would have to be perfect.

  “You need to shoot up with the Evocane first,” Peri said, trying not to show her tension.

  “I know that.” Adjusting his seat back, Michael moved his briefcase onto his lap and opened it, setting the pink syringe of accelerant out of her reach in the door pocket. Her gut ached when she saw the single dose left in the Evocane vial, there among his pens and notepads. She wanted it, needed it, and, fingers trembling, she began to count the seconds.

  “I must remember to thank Bill next time I see him,” Michael said as he filled his syringe with the Evocane. “All that Opti conditioning makes you very compliant.”

  “Hey, how about topping me off here?” she asked, awkwardly shifting her coat sleeve up to expose her shoulder. “I scratched your back, you scratch mine.”

  “There’s only one dose,” he said as he rolled up his sleeve. “God, I can’t tell you the last time I shot up in someone’s car,” he said, almost laughing as he jammed it into his bicep. “I’ve got to wait two minutes before I can inject the accelerant, right?”

  Thank God for mistrusting fools. “Yeah, but in three seconds, it’s not going to matter.”

  Michael’s eyes widened, but it was too late, and she breathed in, willing the blue sparkles that filled her sight to move faster, spilling through the car and coating the underground garage and tainting the setting sunlight spilling in the open door.

  “No!” Michael howled, but with a smug certainty, she flung them back to the instant he had opened his briefcase to make his source of Evocane vulnerable.

  Michael froze, squandering a vital half second, torn between her and what he thought was her goal. Terrified he was going to lose what he’d worked so hard for, he scrambled for the accelerant in the door pocket, too late and too stupid to stop Peri as she lunged, cuffed fingers grasping for the vial of Evocane.

  Grinning, Peri showed him her cuffed hands, the Evocane tight in her grip. “You are such a dumb-ass,” she said, popping the soft plastic top and spilling it.

  “You little bitch!”

  A fist exploded against her face. Cowering, she hunched over the vial, breath held against the stars as she shook out every last drop, soaked up by the thick mats.

  “You stupid fucking bitch!”

  She gasped as he gripped the back of her neck and yanked her upright. Unable to focus, she bared her teeth in a grimace, her breath exploding out when he backhanded her middle with a heavy hand.

  “Take your accelerator now, Mr. Asshat,” she gasped, eyes watering. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t,” she said, throwing herself against the door as he swung at her again. His fist hit her cheek, and pain radiated all the way behind her eye. “Go ahead and kill me!” she raged. “You do that, and Silas will never give you any of his Evocane. Ever! I told you I wanted Silas.” She stared at him. “And I will have him.”

  Expression ugly, Michael let his hand drop. Peri’s heart raced, waiting for his next blow.

  Michael hit the dash instead, and the car flashed a warning. “Yeah, that’s right,” Peri said raggedly as she wiped the blood from her nose with her sleeve, her hands still cuffed. “You either take me to Silas and let him go in return for your Evocane, or you get nothing.” Frustrated, she took a breath. “You hear me!” she screamed, fed up with dealing with him. “Nothing!”

  But Michael was busy with his notepad, scribbling frantically before the fifteen seconds ended and they both forgot.

  “I will kill you someday for this,” he whispered, going still when the world shifted red and time caught up and meshed.

  Her eye hurt, but her gut was agony. Peri pulled herself out of her hunch, carefully touching her cheek to estimate the damage. She was still in cuffs and was missing the last fifteen seconds, but there was an empty vial at her feet. Michael’s confusion turned to virulent anger as he read a note, and she guessed that her idea to force him to take her to Silas for a new source of Evocane had worked. Please be close, she thought as the memory of withdrawal drifted through her.

  Michael ripped his note free from the pad and crumpled it. Expression stoic, he clicked the pen closed and dropped both it and the notepad into the briefcase beside the unused syringe. The capped syringe of accelerant went into a front shirt pocket, and he put his hands on the wheel. It had worked. Hadn’t it?

  “Well?” she said as they sat going nowhere, thinking that not remembering seemed like a small price to pay compared to her freedom. Her face and gut hurt from a beating she didn’t remember, but inside, she was singing. She’d forgotten, and it was like sweet water
on a hot day.

  Michael put the running car into drive, his hands gripping the wheel with a white-knuckled strength. “I get you to Silas. He gives me the Evocane. If you don’t run fast enough, I kill you both.”

  “That’s all I wanted in the first place,” she muttered, wincing when they drove out into the setting sun and her eye ached. Shit, it was going to purple up. She just knew it.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  There were at least three people at the fueling station that she could have signaled for help, but she sat meekly in her seat, pride and the shadows from the overhead light keeping her cuffs hidden. Michael slammed the quick-charge plug away, tapping his card to pay for it and striding back to the driver’s-side door with an air of excitement. The accumulated insults of alarms and security measures had left the batteries so low that the solar paint couldn’t keep up with the demand.

  The sun was down, but fortunately they were only a few miles from Helen’s research facility. Getting to Silas was her main goal. After that, she’d be going by feel.

  Michael opened the door. Peri turned to him, jumping when he shot her with a dart.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, plucking it out and throwing it at him. “Show a little class.”

  Grinning, he slipped in behind the wheel, starting the car with an obvious satisfaction. She pulled back in a huff, scrunching into the corner to sulk. One thing was certain in her nebulous plans. Michael wouldn’t survive them.

  “You were a good girl,” Michael said, tossing her a candy bar.

  It was an insult, but she said nothing, afraid he might take it away, and she was starving. Awkward from the cuffs, she tore the crackling cover off, the tingle of the antidrafting drug in the dart making the chocolate taste funny. The first hints of a headache had joined the faint tremor in her fingers. Withdrawal was coming. A few hours, maybe. That early dose yesterday had shifted her due time. She hadn’t been sure until just now.